Reviving an Icon, David Arena Brings Back Horn & Hardart, Part I | Episode 146

I like a beer to taste like beer. Give me the beer that tastes like beer. I'm ordering a beer. I'm ordering a beer because I want to drink a beer that tastes like a beer.

Not uh mango.

No. Just beer.

No pumpkin or anything. No. Just beer.

But I'm a very uh simple guy. Like my coffee, like black, black, like 100% of the time black. But I always say that.

You're a cold brew guy, so you like it a little bit smoother. Keep it smooth. I feel like cold brew is a little.

How did I not bring you some of our new cold brew?

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Right here, guys, reach out to John Stacks and his team at Property Management Redefine. Take good care of you. I'm Tim Garrety. And I'm Sean Mooney. Today, Sean, we have a local guy, local entrepreneur business owner. He's got a really cool background, but today we're talking to Dave Arena, the CEO of Horn and Hardart. How are you doing today, Dave? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. So Dave's an entrepreneur who's passionate about revitalizing iconic brands. And if you're from or in and around the Philadelphia market, you might remember the name Horn and Hard Art. He currently serves as the CEO of the company, the iconic 135-year-old brand known for pioneering automated restaurants, also known as Automats. So H H pioneered the Automat style of dining way back, which served generations of customers across Philadelphia and New York. But today, Dave is focused on reviving the historic company, executing on rebranding, and building it for long-term success in the 21st century. Alright. So here's my first question. Why horn and hard art?

That's a good question. Um so I uh have no connection to the brand. I didn't have parents that went there. Um I never knew the brand. But I met a guy who uh was very involved. So when the company went bankrupt in 91, um a couple of entrepreneurs here in Philly actually purchased the company out of bankruptcy. And they had an idea to like sell some of the really popular menu items in grocery stores, and I think they were pretty successful. Oh wow. Um, but it eventually fell fell apart after a couple years. They opened up cafes uh and you know, that had nothing to do with Hornhardt, just like coffee shops, and they threw the name on. There were a lot of attempts over a 30-year period to revive this brand. Um and so I met one of these guys, his name's Al Mazone, in 2016 or 17. Uh, I was uh busy with my last company, and I joined uh a veteran entrepreneur group that kind of met up once a month, and there were speakers, and they really sort of were all about just helping entrepreneurs, uh veteran entrepreneurs um, you know, grow their businesses, things like that. So that's actually where I met him. So I kind of just fell in love with the brand. Uh I remember remember meeting him and thinking, like, oh man, that's the company I want a shot at, you know, a ch a chance at running. And the people he had um working at the time, I didn't think were doing a very good job. So I thought, like, I think there's a good chance I'm gonna get to, you know, maybe have a shot at this brand someday. So that was my dream six years before it happened. Wow. Oh wow, you were really thinking about it. So yeah, as I think as all um entrepreneurs do, I was thinking about my own career and I knew um I would eventually my last company I ran for eight years, um, and knew that I wasn't gonna probably do it forever and I was gonna move on to do something else, and this is really what I wanted to do. So when I sold that company in twenty two, um I called Al up. I hadn't talked to him in a few years, and I said, like, hey, what's going on with Horn and Hard Art? And he said, Nothing. You know, their last attempt was to try and sell coffee online, it was an e-commerce thing. And he said, It's it's pretty much dead. And I said, Give me a chance to run it. And we worked out a deal, and um he said, you know, go for it, I won't bother you. Like, see what you can do with it. So uh we officially launched in 23, so we're um a little over three years now with uh my version of the revival, and I think one that um is actually doing well and I think uh does the the founders proud. So that's kind of my goal with it.

What was the appeal six years prior? Like I think of like a lot of iconic brands, especially in and around Philly, like like Woolworths. Yeah.

But I don't know if they were like Philly company. I'm thinking like Hekinger's oh yeah, yeah. Like you're talking Philly Philly companies. Just like you know, Philly, old school.

So like what was it at that time that you were like, oh, this this concept or this brand or or this idea, like what was it just is snagged you in the initial uh conversations?

I I think um I I probably would feel this way about any like old American brand. I just sort of you know, like Sears, I worked for Sears hardware back in the day. Um like if somebody said, like, hey, here's Sears, you know, dude, see what you can do, I'd I I would probably have the same sort of passion. I just what drew me to it was like Yeah, but you didn't have that connection. You worked at Sears, so like there might be Well yeah, I just I sort of think like I probably feel this way about Woolworths. I I think that there are I think when we lose some of these companies, we lose a little bit of our history. And this is a brand that when I looked into it meant so much to so many people. Yeah. And it has such a positive history for people and such an optimistic view of entrepreneurship and business and what you can do with it to sort of better our society. And like there was these really sort of deep things that I just got drawn to with the brand. Um, so I love old stuff, I'm also a history nerd. I'm I'm really into coffee, and I just sort of thought like, you know, the more I looked into it, like this this brand shouldn't have gone away. And um so I think it was, you know, this was the opportunity that I had and that I was really excited about, and um, so I just dove right in. So it was it was sort of a history thing, I guess. Cool.

I think what's awesome is like so like 135 years, and you think about Horn and Hard Art was very big in Philly and New York. So like similar cities, like one's bigger than the other, but like similar cities, like dense cities, you know, blue collar to start, manufacturing, now they're both like finance and legal and healthcare and tech. Like they're all they're very similar cities and they're only two hours apart.

I'll throw in and say that I don't think there's any similarity between New York and Philly. That's just me.

Yeah. May maybe how they ate. Maybe. Maybe they're dietary. They do like pizza and sandwiches like we do. So uh am I am I good? You're good. All right, cool. Percy. Um so you got this old like nostalgic thing going on that hundreds of thousands, millions of people like ate at these places when they were like starting their careers in like you know, the twenties or the forties or the sixties, or and it's like what connected us was LinkedIn, and when I saw Horn and Hard art, I knew what it was because my parents have talked about it. And I think I even remember being young and my grandparents talking about it and be like, those places were great, or they had the best pie, or they had great coffee, like it was an experience. So, like, was it when you were at this entrepreneurs meeting, this guy's saying, I'm involved in Horner Hard art, there's like if you're from around here, there's a very nostalgic feeling with that. And then were you like just like from your historic perspective, you're like, wouldn't it be so cool to like bring that back, not just bring it back like they did, but execute on bringing it back? Like, would did that thought go through your mind?

Yeah, I mean that was sort of my pitch to Al at the time was um, and and it was like we were also still, I think, in 2022, very COVID focused. And yeah, um, when I was thinking about how to bring this back, you know, an automated sort of contactless restaurant made a lot of sense at that time too. So I think my brain started kind of going, um, you know, does this concept work today? Because it's also been tried a couple of times um, you know, in the United States throughout the years, and none of them have really worked. And there's obviously some limitations on the concept itself of what we were talking about, which is like there's food already in the machines. How do you know when someone's coming in? You don't want to waste food, how do you plan for this? Um, you don't want food sitting in there for a long time. But they were all sort of challenges that could be overcome in my mind. And the things that the concept did offer in today's world uh made a lot of sense to me. So, you know, tapping to pay is now extremely convenient. So being able to walk up to an automat window, uh, tap to pay, grab your food, no tipping, no waiting. Um, there's a lot of these, this sort of tactile experience which we're losing today. Yeah. Um, everything seems to be staring at a screen and tapping on a screen. Um, so I just thought that the concept worked today. So that was sort of my my initial pitch for the actual automat concept.

Well, here's the thing though, you don't have an automat, right? No. But you still started with the brand and you started with coffee. So, like, why like you're saying 2022, you're like, COVID, why don't I start one of these things? Like, it makes sense, especially with what was going on. Why did you back off of that and say, maybe I should start a little bit smaller and maybe call it a branding exercise? Let's start with coffee. Why, why that?

So the reality of uh life uh you know hit me pretty hard because I didn't have the money to just open up an automatic. So I had to get creative.

Um Center City, Philadelphia.

Yeah. Even a small one, you know, like to open, you know, we did not start this with a million, two million dollars, you know, it started uh with me funding the initial small bit of inventory that we had. So when I looked at um and as you kind of alluded to, it just it made more sense actually to sort of as a branding exercise see if this brand is is still relevant and um can be brought back. So uh when we looked at kind of what we could do, my initial thought was if Horn and Hard Art had never gone out of business, what would they be doing today? You know, they would obviously have their automated restaurants, they would, they had retail shops where they were sort of selling food, pre-made dinners, they'd probably be competing with like HelloFresh today, you know, because they had all these pre-made meals. They every company has some sort of online component, so they'd be shipping something to someone somewhere. And when we looked at all those things, I want to do all of them, uh, but the online component was the obvious choice for lowest risk, lowest amount of capital, best learning experience to get the brand back and branding back, and to sort of start relationships with uh manufacturers and things like that. So that's the route we took. Um, so we put up a website, got um a relationship with a coffee roaster here in Philly, a really uh big one, another old brand. And um, so they were able to run our first run of coffee and um we started from there. So that was uh right now we're focused on just that direct-to-consumer fulfillment model, and then before we get into uh the retail.

Did you ever have any other brands prior to this where you're like, man, that's a cool brand. I would like to like bring that back from the grade. Something like that.

Sears would probably be the one that comes to my mind all the time of and I think the brand is still back, sort of, or something.

I think it is as an online only.

I mean, it sounds crazy, and I understand there's like local regulations and stuff, but you guys are real estate, you know. Like they were selling houses. I mean, can we not get uh can I not why can't I buy a house off of Sears.com and have it shipped to me, right? Like well uh you could back in the day. Right. The Craftsman, D'Amico. So and you know, I think um that's a brand that could have innovated and and was very innovative. And I'm I'm sort of sad we we lost it because it's again another really cool American brand.

I think that they would probably sever off Sears homes and we could start a business doing just Sears homes. And I was reading an article the other day about New Jersey and the real estate problems in New Jersey and how there's a term for it, you know it, the in-law mini home on the back of the property an ADU, an accessory dwelling unit. So we take Sears home as the brand to offer ADUs and we ship them out of the box to the consumer.

Well, just just so everyone knows, Amazon is already doing this.

Then then there's a marketplace and there's a proven genius.

Well, it's interesting. All right, so not to get like too off track. So simple. But on that, um, so let's talk about why did even Sears do it back in the day. Uh my guess is real estate got too expensive for the average person. The average person wanted to own a house and to stick build it costs this. They're like, we'll just make it in a factory, we'll ship it out. They won't they don't have to stick build it, they just gotta like assemble it. And if they can assemble it, the cost is gonna go down by like 40%. I'm just throwing numbers out there. Kind of what we're doing today, anyway.

Kind of.

I mean the amount of pre-made trusses I see going out to homes, it's you know, so it's like, and this also brings in like modular building, which is a completely different animal. But so they're doing this back in the day. Actually, the house that we lived in in Roxborough, a lot of people thought it was an American Foursquare, which was a Sears model. I found out that Sears modeled their American Foursquare off of existing American Foursquares, so ours, I think, was an original, but that when they started selling them like a house in a box and we'll just ship it to you, they modeled one of their homes off of that architecture style. But yeah, so Amazon is doing this now where they're literally you can buy, I don't know, let's call it like a $20,000 house and you know, uh a she shed or a man cave, whatever you want to call it, put it in your backyard, you can work out of there, you can exercise, you can meditate, you can have a guest, you can Airbnb it. And there's and there's a need for that now because the the land is what's valuable, but in order to stick build even like a small in-law suite, like an ADU, it's gonna cost much more than if you just buy it from Amazon or Sears. Dave. Or Dave. Dave. We get Sears.

Well, I'm a little preoccupied, but I love this idea. All right.

Horn and hard are months, 12 months. No, I want Sears. I want Sears homes as the brand to be severed.

So you kind of know what I mean. Like you want the brand. Yeah. You want Sears to come back because of what it stood for and its place in our culture and our history, and that is important. There's a lot of people.

Well, it's like Americana, right? So like it's a it's a part of the fabric of who we are and what our parents and our grandparents did. Um just like your brand, right? Yeah, it it's it's way it it stinks to see a brand go away that had such impact and touched so many lives that it is worth resurrecting.

Absolutely.

Well, and we just did an episode on this. I know Dave, we're like new to knowing each other um and you're new to the show, but we did an episode of brands versus logos. And I was like, look, there's lots of companies with these logos, and you're like, okay, the example was Hyatt. Okay, what is the experience like at a Hyatt? I I don't know. I did a bed and a bathroom, and I probably go to my business meeting or go to Disney World or whatever I'm doing. But then we said the brand of Nike. What is the brand of Nike? Well, it's superstar athletes, it's expensive shoes, it's Olympics, you know, it's uh stadiums or like college teams or whatever. Status. Yeah, it's a brand. Like it is a legit, you get a feeling when you see the swoosh or someone says Nike to you. And I think there were all these classic American brands, Sears being one of them, Horn and Hard Art being one locally, where if you just say the name, let's let's take the brand that you own or that you're working with, Horn and Hard Art. Everyone around here kind of like knows what that is in some way. And then they're if they don't, they're like, why does that sound familiar? And then they Google it, they're like, Oh. And then the Wikipedia page is there, oh, okay, yeah, I think my grandparents ate there, or or maybe my parents ate there when they were kids. And when I got acquainted with you on LinkedIn, I looked at your website and I saw the coffee. I was like, man, that coffee looks good. Like, I I just want to like try it. So let's talk about the coffee. You're a coffee guy. How, like, how did you figure out the coffee with the brand? Did you kind of were you able to go back and get a sense of what it was like before, or was it your job to recreate the coffee flavor, but to pair it with the brand?

So it's um talking about branding, yeah. One of the most important things with Horn and Hard Art that we identified was quality. So their tagline, even here in Philly specifically, too, was the public appreciates quality. So that was on every single annual report, that was on every single truck, every single logo. So that was sort of the thing that we said, okay, this is the most important thing about the brand is quality. So we don't have the buying power to compete with bigger brands. Um, we can't compete on price, we're a small business. Um, so that was out, you know, what we weren't gonna be the cheapest, which sometimes people say, like, well, Horn and Hard Art, you know, you used to be able to get lunch for five cents, and so they were all about cheap food. Um, but we can't really compete on that today. And I and I don't even think it was really about that. I think it was about quality food and trust. So trust, right. So that was kind of the number one thing. We said, okay, we've got to have a quality product and a quality experience too. So the packaging, the way we ship, everything has to be the best we can do, and we try our best to do that. Um so when we looked at the coffee, Al had sort of recreated the coffee from what he remembered. So we had something close. Uh, we looked up old shipping documents and figured out where the beans came from. Oh wow, you're really dove deep. We did our best, and then we landed on, you know, a blend that was what we thought represented the brand and was close to what was served in the automats and what was not offensive to anyone, you know, and that was just a very high quality cup of coffee. I'm not a coffee snob, so like to me, I just wanted the best diner coffee I could ever have. And that's kind of what we came up with, and I think that was sort of what Horn and Heart Heart was.

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The uh Den's wedding uh forget. Was that Horn and Hard Heart? No, it wasn't. Should have been. Should have should have been a rager at H and H. I remember being at the wedding and maybe it was the night before or something, and I remember getting a cup of coffee out of like, you know, a big drum of whatever. And I'm like, Oh my god, what is this coffee?

And I remember it Like you knew like right away for your palate, you knew that you were like this.

But it wasn't like I went to Starbucks to get them to give me a glass of coffee. It was like, you know, a a big vat.

And I'm like, this is like do people drink glasses of coffee or cups of coffee? Cups of coffee.

Um and but I remember like tackling one of the waitresses or someone in the restaurant being like, Who is this coffee? Right. Where do I get this? Yeah. And so it like you know when you stumble upon and it was unexpected because I'm gonna wedding like they probably who would buy like really nice coffee. It was like foil packs from Cisco. Right? But I think they because it was like a little inn that was hosting the wedding, and they probably have these very specific, like higher-end little touches that make a big difference.

Did you ever figure out what the coffee was?

I did. I can't remember off the top of my head We're gonna have to go back to that one. Yes, I need to taste it. I can get it because I think I either ordered it at a time, um, but I did find out who it was.

Well, here's a question too. Did your own personal preferences step in a little bit for this is the type of coffee I want to sell? Like, are you a medium roast guy? Are you a dark roast guy? Like, how do you enjoy coffee?

Uh so I'm a sort of medium roast, I'm like in the middle of the road through and through. Like, so it's not that my personal preferences stepped in, but I did make the decision of like how we want this to taste to the average person. Um and I think we've done a really good job. Again, my exact words were like, I want this to be the least offensive coffee you've ever had. I don't want it to be super dark.

You know, a lot of these I'm gonna make a branding um thing here that that should not be your tagline.

That is not yeah, that is not the tagline. But it's like a lot of the I think people um there's a lot of craft coffee out there and they they're very dark. People are like, yeah, yeah, it's their that's not my thing. So it's just not I don't think it's a lot of people's thing. I think the normal person just kind of wants a good cup of coffee. Um and so it was let's create a medium roast that is smooth, that is the best cup of, you know, is the best diner coffee you've ever had in your life.

It's like smooth, like easy to drink. Like here's you know, I hate to make the comparison. This isn't a comparison, but it's like everyone knows the names like Folter's and Maxwell House. Like you know those names. Why do you know those names? One, you could buy it in the supermarket, so everyone kind of had it in their house. Two, it was probably like relatively affordable. But three, it was just easy to drink. Like it smelled good, it tastes good, you know. Most people are fixing up their coffee with something, you know. There's plenty of people who drink it black. I I go both ways. I'd I'll drink it black or put cream in it.

Uh but it's probably four, it was uh lightly offensive.

That's true. That is true. So like having people know those names and those brands survive because I think like the vast majority of people could like drink it and be like, this tastes good. Uh it's not too bitter, but it's not too light, you know, it's got flavor. It's like right in the middle. Like you said, it's like medium roast, like right in the middle. What what is like what do eighty, ninety percent of people want to drink? Uh uh. And it's just like in beer. Who do who this to all the IPA people out there, because I don't like IPAs. I'm gonna agree with you. They are just unbelievably intense. Like, I've had a good IPA here and there. I don't drink it because it's way too much. It's too much alcohol, it's too much flavor, it's it tastes like I'm freaking drinking a Christmas tree. Yeah. And it's like way too much. But I think like a lager or a light beer or something like that, it's like some people are like, oh, I don't drink that. It's like, yeah, but like a lot of people drink that because it's easy to drink, it's smooth, like you're still getting flavor. So I find it interesting that like when you were like coming up with this, and especially probably automats back in the day, they're like, all these people are coming in. We can't have this coffee that's too intense or too light. It should be like right here. And people probably remember that. Like, I have two, three cups of coffee, and I'm like, not too much caffeine, not too much flavor. Do you know what my world famous quote is?

I don't know, but I'd love to hear it. I like a beer to taste like beer. Just give me the beer that tastes like beer. I'm pineapple. I'm ordering a beer because I want to drink a beer that tastes like a beer.

Not uh mango.

No, just beer.

No pumpkin or anything.

No, just beer. But I'm a very uh simple guy. Like my coffee, like black, black, like 100% of the time black.

But I always say that you're a cold brew guy, so you like it a little bit smoother. I feel like cold brew is a little how did I not bring you some of our new cold brew?

Oh my gosh.

Oh boy. This is all right. I I made a mistake today, and it was not bringing you our newest product, which is cold brew.

Oh my god, we can slip in a vi we'll just tuck the video back in. I single-handedly keep um one of the local cold brew brewers in business because I buy like a truckload every week. Do you do like ready to drink? Pour it out of the jug. Okay.

But it's like a ready to drink, refrigerated cold brew. Okay.

So we have a new job. Not a powder, not a not a nothing. It's ready to drink.

We have a new concentrate, which probably makes more sense for you. Yeah, if you're buying in bulk. Because all you you a little 32-ounce bottle. Yep. You can make like eight to ten drinks out of it, pour it in, pour water in.

I don't claim to be a a coffee snob, and and I I uh I like one brand, but I always try the others because we'll leave them out of this conversation, folks. I I like to see, you know, where my my taste buds are at. So I've I've tried them all, and I keep coming back to this one cold brew that I just can't get. I I'm like I'm a witness to this.

He's always got it when we're here. He's been drinking it since we've been shooting.

I I supply the the video I used to bring jugs in for the I'm gonna ship you guys a ton of coffee and then just like next video.

I'm a huge coffee guy too, but I'm you can have a medium roast, brew it. I'm a drip coffee guy. I brew it myself every day, but I'm medium roast.

Listen, if you're trying to expand into cold brew and you need someone to like. I have a wholesale agreement with the Moonies. I mean, uh literally, I buy a do I get a dozen jugs delivered to my house. Like, Mike, a dozen? Yeah. That's a lot.

I know. I drink a lot of coffee. Drinks a lot of coffee. He doesn't drink water like I do. He drinks coffee. That's his liquid.

End state side of orange.

All right, cool. I'm gonna I'm gonna just pivot real quick. We're gonna come back to this. So before, so I'm gonna bring people back to the Dave entrepreneurial journey. Before H H, we were just talking about this when you were coming up. You started and owned a company called Alcove Media, and you were a media company for residential real estate agents for their listings, like their photography, their videos. So, and you also said, which I didn't know, you were an agent before that. So take us back a little bit. Wow. You start as an agent, which is very entrepreneurial. Then you get into alcove. Like take us back to that time.

Yeah. So uh the the through line in my life is uh I'm very curious. Uh I love learning, so I love soaking up all the information I can, uh, but I do not stick in one particular category, which is good and bad. Uh so I just I love um I there's just so much to learn and so much to do. So I yeah, on the entrepreneurial uh world sort of works for me because I'm able to, you know, do very different things. Um I love business, so that's sort of the through line, but um there's just so many interesting things out there. So that's my background is very different. Yeah. So I started my um, you know, when I was in my early mid-20s, uh, you know, I I got the uh desire to sort of become a business owner, run my own business, be an entrepreneur. And um the way to do that at the time uh was become a real estate agent. Uh it seemed to me like, you know, I can be self-employed, I can be an entrepreneur, but I'm not uh opening up a store, I'm not spending money on, you know, that kind of stuff. So it was a very um, you know, easy way to be an entrepreneur. And uh I did it for about a year and I just uh did not like it. So I was not having a good time, and I realized like wasn't for you, was not for me. I'm not like Tim. And uh no. And uh at the at the time we were trying to, this was about um it was like 2013, 14, sometime around there. Um I did identify like boy, there's a huge gap for, you know, everybody's trying to sell real estate agents things. Yep. Um somebody really smart told me if you want to make money in real estate, sell stuff to real estate agents. We're one of the biggest targets for small business marketing like in the US, guaranteed. Yep. So the base gap at the time was uh professional photography. So I do not have a photography background. Um my wife laughed at me when I told her my grand idea. She was like, People go to college for photography. Like you need to why why do we have a big camera on our kitchen table? Yeah, that comes. So I borrowed a friend's camera and I just uh reached out to all my friends who were agents and said, like, do you have empty listings? Wow. And I was just photographing, and they looked photos are terrible, so it looked really bad. But um, I did this for like maybe six months of just anyone who had a listing, I was like, please let me take photos.

Were you charging or were you just trying to learn the you were getting the reps in?

I was just doing it for free, trying to figure out like smart. This was also kind of before um there wasn't even there weren't even YouTube videos. Now, if you like, how do I photograph a house? You'll find a million videos on how to do it. But yeah, they didn't exist at the time. Yeah. So I was trying to learn all I could about photography, but translating that to houses was very difficult. Um so it it took me a couple a couple months, it was almost about six months until I started charging people for it. And I think I charged like fifty bucks because they were still not very good. Yeah. Wow.

Um better than better than what you're gonna do. So I'm not gonna charge you a lot, but yes, you know, enough.

And I think the the pitch to my wife at the time, I was like, because we were younger and um, you know, my pitch was like, if I photograph two houses a day for 50 bucks a piece, that that's five hundred dollars a week. Like we're gonna be on easy street with five hundred dollars a week. Like this is we're gonna be rolling in it. And um geez. And when I actually did like go out there and start, um, you know, I would go to real estate offices and drop off flyers, I would talk at their team meetings, and when I actually like started doing the you know the circuit, um, I think my like second or third month, I was I was photographing like 20, 30 homes a week. Wow.

Um Wow better than what you pitched here.

And then very quickly, um, you know, I started increasing my prices steadily, but like very quickly I was doing you know, 100, 150 homes a month just kind of by myself, and it was getting to be a lot because they were all over the place. Yeah, I was putting 20 minutes. All different times, like maybe it'd be like two slow days, and then all of a sudden you get like 10 listings. Yes, and it became really difficult because I would wake up in the morning at like five-ish, five thirty, yeah, edit the photos from the previous day from like six to eight, then I would head out for you know from nine to six. I added videos onto this too, which I also didn't know how to do. So I was editing the videos at night then from like seven to ten, and I go to sleep, and I so I would I was doing that. Um it got really crazy. Um was it good money at the time though? It was great. Uh it was amazing. I didn't, you know, so no complaints. I was loving the grind, um, but I just couldn't keep it going. So uh I've been talking a lot. I don't want to if you have questions, please interrupt me.

We want to hear the story. So how did how did it start to turn into a media company?

It turned into a business because I had read um I was a Keller Williams agent, so I had read Gary Keller's um The Millionaire Real Estate Agent book. I own the book. The original. I've never read the whole thing. Okay, great book. Um recommend reading it. Uh but his sort of model on how to build a real estate team made a lot of sense for how to build a real estate photography team and business. So, you know, his one thing was if you're a real estate agent, don't just go hire another real estate agent because then you're doing the paperwork for that other real estate agent and yourself. You have to hire an admin person. So I was sort of looking at my life thinking like, okay, I I don't need to hire another photographer.

Editor.

Right. I need well, it was actually like scheduling. I was like, someone because throughout the day, people were calling, texting. I didn't have a website to handle these. So I was on the road scheduling, and that was like the worst. So I'd become really good friends with um another real estate agent uh who um was actually here in the Manionc area. And um she was called me up one day and was like, Hey, how's things going? And I said, like, great, but I can't really talk. Like, do you need a photography shoot or what? Because like I gotta go. I'm in a property right now. Like, this is my life is crazy. And she was like, Well, I'll help you out if you want. Like, you know, I kind of love like the admin work. Um, if you need help, just let me know. So I said, Great, took her up on the offer and she started doing my scheduling for me. Her name's Colleen. Um, and so she started helping me out. And then within a couple months, I was like, Hey, do you want to do this full time? Like, I we were getting busier and busier and busier, and she still she'd been doing real estate for 10 years, so she still kind of had a real estate business, but it sort of worked out. I was like, I don't care when you work, you can edit photos at one in the morning if you want. I don't really care. Yeah, like we just need editing and scheduling to get done, and then I've got to go hire another photographer. So she was like, Great, I'm game. So I sort of laid out this plan of like we're gonna build this, and she said, Okay. Wow. And so that was my first uh hire, and it was the best hire I could have made because she really made building the company possible. So I went out and got another photographer, and then another and another, and eventually we did the same sort of thing that when we would get maxed out with photographers, we'd hire an editor, and then keep going, hire more photographers, hire an editor. Um, and we did that, uh, I did that for eight years uh before putting the company up for sale. I I kind of realized it was ready for me to move on. Um I kind of realized somebody else could do it better and I wanted to do something else. And um, so we put the business we had done very well through COVID as well, too. So we went this was all through COVID. Um, we survived and um, you know, we were doing uh a lot of business. We had probably um 15 to 20 people, but you know, 10 to 12 photographers that were doing five to ten homes a day, every day, five days a week. Yeah. Um we were doing thousands of homes like that. We were in the millions um in in revenue. So that was a big um big big moment for us because what happened during COVID was our average um job was 120 bucks, 130 bucks. Like that was our average order value. Um, but then COVID happened and all of a sudden people were doing 3D tours. Um, we had become you guys know Matterport, the 3D tours. We had become like their person in this region that they used actually to fulfill those. So if they got business, we started doing a lot of commercial real estate. Uh through COVID, I was doing 100,000 square foot offices that were empty that they needed to sell. And so it was a pretty crazy like time for commercial real estate during those couple years. And I mean, we were in six figures just from like revenue from that. Um, but our average order went from like yeah, that 120, 130 range to like 700. Yeah. Yeah, because all the additional stuff that people needed. So we very quickly like our revenue doubled uh over from 2019 to 2020, even though we were closed for like two months that year, too. Holy stuff. Um and then it just it didn't go away. So we kept going up from there. So when I put the business up for sale, um I had talked to Colleen about it and said, like, and I had um my my pitch to her was like, Hey, I don't have any money to really pay you a lot, like I'll pay you something, but it's not gonna be what you're worth. Right. Um, but I can give you some ownership too. So throughout the years, she had been collecting uh shares of the company as well. So she owned 25% at the time. Oh, nice. And um that is all it was very cool. Um, you know, uh she really was critical to the business too. So and it was cool for me to just like we we didn't really there was very low turnover. Um the employees were really happy. I think we did like just a good job. It was a great culture, great company. So that part really felt really good. And then um I kind of hated the selling process because you know, Colleen was kind of like, okay, like if you're out, you're out, you know, nothing I can do about it. But had kind of halfway through the process, we were having conversations with people that were interested in the company, and she said, like, I think I actually like I want to do this for the rest of my life, but I don't want to work for somebody else. Like, I loved working with you, but you know, I think I want to buy the business now. And so after months of sort of like talking to people and having the business up for sale, and it was kind of stressful from my end. Yeah, um sure. We ended up um I ended up selling my shares to her and she bought me out. So that's um so she owns the company 100% now, and the company's still growing and they're doing awesome stuff. Like it's it was no, I know them.

I I don't I don't personally work with them, but um, I know who they are. I see their work out there. I know people who work for them. Um, a couple things you said there, Dave, that I thought are are very beneficial. We always say in our episodes, like try and get one or two nuggets out of an episode. One, I think your approach to the whole thing was spot on for a serious entrepreneur. I don't know how to take pictures, but I'm gonna borrow a camera and I'm gonna go learn how to do it for free. Like you literally took six months, shot all these houses, got good at it, didn't have any mentor, any YouTube, anything. And then when you got good about it, you're like, how's 50 bucks sound? Which probably still would have been a really good deal back then. Someone paid $50, someone else shoot their listing photos, it's hundreds of dollars. From a time perspective. Yeah. So it's like, so that was very smart. But I think the really one of the smartest things that you just shared with us was really in someone coming to you saying, I'm interested in working with you. So there's a need that she's she's interested. And you being smart enough to just say, like, look, here's what I need. I need scheduling. Again, pretty simple thing for someone to do, but it's gonna save you a ton of time. It's gonna allow you to get more orders. And as the more orders came in, that's that's really where it started to kind of catch fire and grow. So I think those two things, very, very smart, starting for free and getting good at it so that you had value. And then also someone came to you and said, Hey, can I help you? And you're like, sure. But you know, let's let's go low risk. Let's let's do something that's gonna that takes twenty percent of my day or forty percent of my days getting back to all these people and booking times. You do all that, and I'll fill the void with more business.

And then it just Well, the other thing the other key component of it is to sell Colleen on listen, I can't pay you trading by trading income for equity. I can give you some a piece of the business and having that grow over time keeps her engaged in the business, keeps her wanting to grow the business, like that vested interest in the business.

Exactly.

Um, and then ultimately, you know, she's taken off with it. It's yep. Business 101 here.

Yeah, I will say I didn't um like make money for the first three years because I was just putting it all back into the business. So it was not um as clean and easy, but that was yeah, I think the first three years I made like maybe 30 grand a year each one of those years. Um, I had photographers making like 60, 70, 80, and I was like getting paid the least. Yeah, but you were building the company. But that was the point.

Yeah, was and the most important part in all was being able to convince your wife that this was worth.

I forgot to go back to that nugget.

Like, oh, this is this is my business plan. Partner or your spouse has to be on board. That's a lesson. Lose money for three years, but but like four year four would like be really good shape. Herbia. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Amen. Great story. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.