Lauren Gibson, and I am a Foreign Service Officer here at the U.S. Department of State. Thank you for joining us. I will be your moderator for today's global innovation through science and technology, or just TechConnect conversation on bootstrapping your business, tips and tricks. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, bootstrapping, it's the process of cost-effectively building a business with limited funding while maximizing available resources such as your network. That's just a broad definition. We'll explore the concept further throughout this discussion. Remember, you can join the conversation by sending us your questions and comments through the chat space next to the video player or through Twitter at hashtag just TechConnect. Let me begin by welcoming our panel of experts. I am joined by Lisa K. Garcia, a consultant and instructor in business development for tech entrepreneurs. I am also joined by Helder Sebastio, innovation strategist and lean launch specialist. And joining us in the chat space to help answer your questions and share links to resources is Christina Tamar, a program officer at VentureWell, managing an investment readiness program. Thank you all for joining me today. As we wait for viewers to send us their questions, I'd like to kick off the discussion by asking you to explain the value and purpose of bootstrapping. Helder, let's start with you. Sure. Thank you, Lauren. So first thing I'd like to make a point about is that bootstrapping, it's a conscious strategic choice. It's about how you build, manage, and grow your business. It should not be your last option. In other words, you shouldn't default to bootstrapping because you couldn't raise funding because it's more than about money. It's really about managing control and managing your risk.  And so it forces you to prove the business model. Bootstrapping is really about saving your resources until you're really ready to grow and build your business. And you don't want to waste time chasing funding. Bootstrapping is really about achieving the quickest path to revenue as opposed to a plan for funding. So that's what bootstrapping means to me. Thank you, Helder. Lisa, can you share your thoughts with us? Absolutely, Lauren. Thank you. Bootstrapping by its very nature and the things that Helder just outlined puts you closer to your customer. And by being closer to your customer and understanding that person or that entity's challenges and obstacles, you're going to better be able to focus your resources and develop a customer base and validate your hypothesis about your business model before you go out to others asking for money. I think that's one of the greatest benefits of bootstrapping. Thank you, Lisa. Still ahead? We'll ask our panel of experts to share the ways startups can do more with less when launching their venture. Now let's dig into the poll question we asked on social media and the days leading up to this program. We asked, what aspect of bootstrapping are you most interested in hearing about? You can see the results on the screen. The top answer was strategies for getting the most out of limited funding, followed by tips for maximizing your network as a resources, then bootstrapping versus angel VC investment. Helder and Lisa, what are your reactions to the poll? Lisa, perhaps we can start with you. Thank you, Lauren. I think the fact that people are interested in maximizing their network is key. Business is all about building those relationships and connections in an international setting, even more so today, right? So being able to maximize your network, making sure that this is a numbers game, absolutely. And people focus on the dollars and the numbers there, but focus on the number of people that you're connected to. Like it said in the video earlier, focus on making those connections through LinkedIn, having those conversations. You may have 100 conversations before you find the information that validates your hypothesis, before you get enough information to move to the next step. You need to have as many of those conversations and connections to leverage your network and build it out. Thank you. From my standpoint, I'm happy to see that getting the most out of your limited funding is at the top because that's really what bootstrapping is about. It's a discipline and it's a strategic mindset that, by the way, doesn't just end when you're done bootstrapping, when you've moved on to other funding. It's a discipline that will serve you well because it's profit oriented. It's revenue generating sales, revenue oriented. It's about running a tight and lean ship in terms of your business operations. So I'm happy to see that that's something that's at the top of people's minds because it really is a mindset that you don't just do at the beginning of a startup, but throughout the development and growth of your business. Now, we have a live poll question for our viewers. What component of your business would you apply bootstrapping principles to? Product development, networking, marketing, overhead costs, or staffing? Please answer the poll that should be on the screen now and we'll read your answers off later in the program. Now let's take some questions from our online viewers. Didi from Cote d'Ivoire asks, what is a good first step when looking to bootstrap a startup? I think the first step, and I'll take Lisa's lead here a little bit, is to really do an inventory of your resources and not just your financial resources, but your network resources. Who do I know who can help me in terms of building this business, moving this venture forward? Also, what is the bare minimum that I can use to launch this business? And there's an area of entrepreneurial thought and action where we talk about being means driven. So with the limited means that I have, how can I quickly get my first customer? So that should be sort of the first thing you're thinking about as you're bootstrapping. What do I have at my disposal right now? And how can I get to that first customer as quickly as possible? And Lisa, what do you think? Thank you, Helder. I think Helder's exactly right. And to be careful during that process that you don't cut corners at aspects of building your business that are important. So if there is a first step that you need to take, start scoping out the professionals that you might want to hire down the road, attorneys or accountants. Those people are going to be critical. You might even start those conversations with people that have already have the startup that you want to have or have the business you want to have. Have some prototype conversations. We talk about having prototypes to show people of your product or your service. Have a prototype conversation with somebody who's already living the life that you want to live in the entrepreneurial environment that you're in. Thank you. So the next question, Victor from Nigeria asks, what role does bootstrapping have in helping create small businesses that can help a country like Nigeria emerge from a recession? Lisa, I would be happy to take that. I had seen his question earlier there online and thinking about all of the pressures and the challenges that you have in your country. What you have and advantages that bootstrapping is about being pretty scrappy. It's about being tenacious and persevering. And in a culture that has inherently bred that kind of environment where you have to be persevering, you have to try again and again to accomplish things, you've got an incredible resource in the people there and the environment. People are going to work hard. So, I think the environment there presents an ideal, in some ways, an ideal environment for people to have the right expectations on what it takes to launch a startup. Thank you. And what I would add to that is, again, I think whether it's in Nigeria or other countries that have resource limitations, you're actually perfectly suited for bootstrapping. You're perfectly suited for being, you've learned to be creative, you've learned to stretch the resources that you have. So, that's actually an advantage. And also that if you are a network of bootstrapers that to, again, kind of leases theme about networking, you ought to be networking with other entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping as well and leveraging each other's assets to help strengthen the resources that you have available and build on the resources you have together as a community. And how there's a build on that, we have a question for you. Rain Zirinon asks if there are ways to use bootstrapping to scale small businesses. Absolutely. So, the idea here is that you're using your customers as your, once you get past friends and family, your own funding and what you can get from friends and family, really your next level of funding is your customer. And raising, and you're really raising money, you think of making sales as a way of, and profits as a way of raising funding for your business. So that's the first level of scaling. And once you have developed a track record and once you have a solid customer base, you can then start looking at other means of financing. Say a year or two down the road, if you're in a country where there's a reasonable banking system, you can look at potentially traditional, conventional bank financing. But really customers are where you build your initial cash flow from a bootstrapping standpoint. Thank you. Now our next question, we have a viewer who asks, how do crowdfunding sites figure into a bootstrapping model? Lisa, would you start us off? Absolutely. Crowdfunding sites have, present a wonderful opportunity for B to C type opportunity, something where the average person can relate to the need just last night. I was looking into some of the startups at a variety of the countries where folks are listening right now. In Nicaragua, there's a project going on where there's a cooperative helping coffee bean farmers skip several of the middlemen and roast the beans and deliver them direct to customers. This kind of idea and this innovation, typically there's 17 different entities that would touch a coffee bean before it gets to my house here in the United States. This cuts out a lot of that. That idea is put up on Kickstarter and it appeals to a lot of people in different countries to be able to help the farmer streamline the process, brings in a lot of different people to the table to fund it. That's where I think crowdfunding can be really leveraged. Yeah, I think there's, to me, there's two really strong advantages to crowdfunding. Number one is the customer is paying for their own product development, right? You're taking money upfront and then you will be delivering, if it's a reward-based crowdfunding program, which is where you actually give someone some product for having contributed to the campaign, that's the most common form of crowdfunding. But more important is these new customers, these first customers become your evangelists. They are people who are invested in your success and so you want to, you just built your network by adding, by opening up your company to these new customers via a crowdfunding campaign. That's great. Now, we have another question from the American Center in Tirana, Albania and they want to know how they can get the most out of in-kind donations or help. Again, part of it is looking at what's available and then also sort of matching that up against what you're looking for, but whatever free assistance that you can get, whether it's advice on how to sort of manage your finances or whatever you can get assistance from, sort of take advantage of that, whatever free resources are available, leverage to as best as you can. Thank you. And Lisa, what are some ideas of those free resources that people can leverage? Well, social media of course is a powerful tool. Going to people that are, again, already have had some success with entrepreneurial pursuits, online accelerators, there are a few of those. Make sure you go, you can do a quick Google search and find free tips and tools for starting a startup, but I would say social media is a place where you can leverage all sorts of, again, connections, resources, learning and find customers to spread the word and become those early evangelists like Helder mentioned. That's great. Now, the next question, Lisa, I'll turn it over to you, is if you have been tapping your personal networks for funding and support, when is it a good time to transition away from that towards more conventional financing? That's a great question. I would say that if you can to stretch it out as long as you can before you get venture capital and that kind of thing, because you're gonna maintain more control and ownership of your company, a way to do that would be to offer your development as a service to a company that has the problem that you're seeking to solve, give them a discount while you build the product. Again, you're closer to your customer and I would say if you could stretch that out farther before you go out and make that decision to reach out for outside funding, that's the best avenue. Maybe Helder can address this more fully. I think I'll reiterate something I said earlier. I think after your friends and family, it's really, if you're bootstrapping, it's customer financing. So whether that's through crowdfunding or whether that's through just direct sales, that would be the next avenue. And then once you've built a solid base of customers, you feel like you have a solid business model, that's when you can start looking for potential growth capital, whether that's investors or again, sort of conventional financing. But to me, the next level after that, after friends and family would be customer financing, some form of customer financing. Yeah, now that makes perfect sense. And you've talked a little bit throughout the program about networks. What kind of incentives makes sense to offer when tapping personal networks for support? I would love to answer this question and I'm not sure if Lisa and I are gonna agree or disagree, but this would be fine. I am of the opinion that friends and family should never be given a percentage of the business early on. And the reason I say this is because you don't know how valuable your company is at the beginning. You're bootstrapping, you are probably underestimating the eventual value of your company. So wherever possible, when friends or family are involved, first of all, if they give it as a gift, accept it, thank them, bless them for having their faith in you. That's why they're really investing with you early on. It's about you, not so much the idea that you have. If you want to compensate them, do it in the form of a loan because this gives you the flexibility to not lose any liquidity, not lose any ownership. And you have, this gives you control and greater options when you do try to go outside. If and when you do go outside to get outside investment. So I'm not a big fan of giving friends and family and ownership stake in the business. I certainly wish to compensate them appropriately. So that's my take on it. And Lisa, what's your take? Yeah, well, I absolutely agree with Helder. You want to keep that at bay as much as you possibly can. And you'd be surprised. There are a lot of reasons and a lot of types of recognition that you can give somebody an individual or a company that they'd be more than happy to have instead of a percentage of the equity in the company. I would say be creative. It may be bartering, it may be some sort of endorsement of that nature, but you want to maintain that control as long as you can because you don't know what you have at that point.  Yeah, free product and services. That's a good way to go. Makes perfect sense. Now we've talked a little bit about networks, but how do incubators and accelerators figure into the bootstrapping model? Helder, can we go to you? Sure, I've been involved with both. And to me, the way I define, the way I delineate between an incubator and accelerator is an incubator is a relatively very early stage company that has some sense of where it's headed but needs some assistance in sort of building out its business model. An accelerator is a company that is already has a little bit of traction, has made some sales, has a sense of what its business model is and is looking to scale. So I would assume that for most of the audience here, they fall into the other category, which is relatively new companies. And so an incubator can be a great place. Someone talked about free resource, asked a question about free resources earlier. Incubators provide space. They provide, they can provide clerical assistance and support. Most importantly, incubators are a great place to get mentoring from professionals who volunteer their time. So in terms of from a bootstrapping standpoint, incubators are probably make more sense, but beware that some incubators, the way their business model is operated is they want to take a percentage of ownership in your company. So if that's not appealing to you, you'll have to look at other resources. Okay, and Lisa? Yeah, absolutely. I think that incubators and accelerators have their place and keep in mind that their business is in a sense too and they have challenges and obstacles that they need to overcome. So go have those conversations with the people running the incubators, running the business accelerators. Find out what their challenges are. What kinds of companies are they trying to bring in? What ways can you help them solve those problems? What kinds of things are they trying to fund? That's gonna help you leverage that opportunity to the best that you can. So make sure you understand their business model like Helder said, you wanna know what you're getting into. Typically you're gonna find a lot of resources there and if they're not there, those people are gonna be able to tell you where to go and who to talk to and they're more than happening most times to make warm introductions for you, which is gold.  So if anybody there can help you reach out and find more contacts, you're gonna wanna do that as much as you possibly can. That's great advice. Thank you. Now for those of you just joining us, you're watching the JIS TechConnect conversation on bootstrapping your business. I'm joined by a panel of experts, Helder Sebastio and Lisa K. Garcia. We are taking live questions from viewers. You can submit your questions through the chat space next to this video or on Twitter using hashtag JIS TechConnect. For our viewers, remember to submit your response to our online poll. We will reveal the results later in the program. Now, Lisa, I have a question for you. What would you say are the top three benefits of bootstrapping your business? Well, thank you. I would say that the top three benefits are, you're able to answer the tough questions. When you bootstrapping, you're being able to know the business from the inside out. You're not paying somebody else to be involved from that start position. You know every aspect. And so when somebody comes in, a potential leader, customer or a potential investor, you can answer every question they have. And if you can't answer it, you know where to go. And again, we talked about this with a lot of the countries that are listening in today. You're gonna be scrappier and more resourceful being able to figure out where to go and how to do something because you already had, you had to learn it. You had to do it yourself. That's incredibly valuable, especially when you get to the point when you have enough money and enough sales where you can hire somebody to do that, you know what kind of person and what kind of skills they need to have. And I would say, lastly, that creative freedom, this gives you the opportunity to, as you learn your customer and what their challenges and obstacles are, you have the opportunity to pivot your business as you need to to adjust because, and you can do that quickly. When you have full creative freedom and control, you get to manage that and the speed with which you're agile and able to respond. Thank you, Lisa. Now we're gonna go back to some questions from our online participants. And Constance asks, can you use crowdfunding for a digital business as opposed to a real product? Helder, perhaps we can start with you. Sure. Yeah, the tricky part is the, if you're using a rewards-based crowdfunding platform, what are you sort of providing or giving away? But if you have a product that you have, that is a revenue where you are charging for that particular product, giving away access to that product or giving away access to sort of the premium level of that product is a very legitimate reward that you could use on crowdfunding. So the BNC viewing group in Nicaragua asks, what is the hardest thing about self-financing? Lisa, do you mind answering this question? Oh, that's a great question. Cool. I would say, let's be honest about it. It's all challenging. It's all difficult. And I'm gonna be the first one to tell you that I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, that it's difficult to not have enough resources. And I think probably the biggest challenge is gonna be mental. You can be your own worst enemy if you're constantly telling yourself, I can't do this because I don't have X. I don't have the enough money. I don't have enough connections. I don't have enough resources. You have to turn that on its head and make sure you have a full inventory and accounting of all the things you do have at your disposal and leverage those like crazy. That's what you have to do. I would just reinforce that point that I think the biggest challenge that bootstrapping entrepreneurs can be their own worst enemy because they focus on what they don't have, which is money and fail to really and underestimate what they do have, which is networks and resources and connections that they've developed over time. So I would agree. It's you're your own worst enemy in boots. That's your biggest challenge is yourself. You know, your own mindset as to how you approach bootstrapping. Now, we've talked quite a bit about what individuals can do, but the viewing group at Embassy Monrovia has a question about government. They want to know how can government policy support bootstrapping to promote small businesses? Heldar, would you like to start us off? Sure. And in the U.S., I've been involved with small business administration programs and several other government programs. So this speaks to my heart in terms of trying to develop ecosystems. I think part of it is governments can, the best job that governments can do is to try to remove barriers. So if there are barriers in the way of allowing people to work out of their home, for example, because that's a big bootstrapping tool is instead of leasing office space, you work out of your home. If there are barriers about, you know, onerous licensing requirements or things of that nature that prevent people from going ahead and launching their own business. Healthcare is an issue that's near and dear here in the United States and perhaps is an issue in other countries where employer-funded healthcare versus a program where people who are self-employed can find affordable and reasonable healthcare. So there are the ways that government can assist bootstrapping entrepreneurs is by reducing a lot of the barriers that make it hard for people to bootstrap, that make it hard for them to stretch the resources that they have. Thank you. Lisa, do you want to chime in? Yeah, absolutely. I think that if the attitude of the government can be that the small businesses and startups are economic drivers for the entire country, that can shape policy, much like what Helder shared as examples here in the United States. A startups and small companies in the United States are the biggest new job creators we have. So every, you know, I'm all in favor of anything we can do to support those groups and make sure that it's as easy as possible and financially possible for people to start a business. You want that environment to be as friendly as it possibly can be and support it financially as well if you can. If you don't want people working in their homes, provide some co-working space. Something of that nature can be super helpful and provide cooperative resources like Helder was talking about earlier. If several startups are in the same space, they could share resources and the government could fund that kind of thing too as well. Now we have a viewing group in Guatemala that asks, what are best practices to bootstrap the development of a profitable product? Helder, would you like to start us off at this time? Sure. Number one is do not, if you're developing a product, don't wait till it's perfect. The whole point of bootstrapping and the whole point of entrepreneurial thinking and acting as you put out a good enough product with the idea that you're one going to get feedback from customers that is going to improve the product, two, you're generating revenue, and three, these customers become your evangelists that help multiply your business. I think the other thing to keep in mind as you're developing a new product is to understand with each successive iteration of that product, where can we cut costs? Where can we improve efficiencies in how we produce and deliver that product? Thank you, Helder. And to build on that, Lisa, perhaps you can answer the next question. How can you maintain the bootstrapping philosophy as your startup scales? Absolutely. You want to make sure that you're, you're again, you're customer centric and that whatever you're doing is evidence-based. You want to make sure that you're building something people care about. So that bootstrapping mentality, make sure that you don't lose what the benefits are in the beginning of being close to your customers, of understanding what they want and getting that feedback. So, you know, I have been working with a very successful businessman who's had several businesses, very large companies. He makes it a point every single day to have a call with a potential customer to learn something different about his business. He never stops on that front. And you can't stop having that attitude that there's always somebody there who's ready to build a better product or service in your same space. So you've got to keep, you've got to keep abreast of what's important with your customers. Absolutely. What I would add to that is that you can take too much money too early. And so what a bootstrapping mindset, you only take money when you absolutely, positively need it to grow your business. Cause when you take money too early, you're taking it from someone who's expecting a certain trajectory and now you put yourself on that trajectory and it may fail. So bootstrapping is a great way to sort of keep yourself disciplined on how and where you plan to grow. Now we've talked about growth, we've talked about scaling your business, but perhaps we can take it back to the business plan. We have an online viewer, Sally Matacone from Cote d'Ivoire who wants to know about tips for developing a good business plan that incorporates bootstrapping. Lisa, would you start us off? Absolutely. I would say that it's important for you to have a big picture that you can look at that touches all aspects of that. Helder's familiar with this as well that the business model canvas which you can find online is a good way to look at your business in different aspects of it. And if you can answer questions about each part of the business model canvas, you'll be able to have a plan, a basic plan and know where you need to put resources and know where you need to build that out more. Helder, would you? Absolutely. Yeah, Lisa and I are of like mind on this. To me, a business plan in the traditional sense of what we think a business plan to be is writing science fiction because you're talking about something that hasn't happened yet. A business plan is a useful document once you understand to Lisa's point what your business model is and then are looking to scale and grow your business. I think in the early stages you really wanna use the business model canvas framework and the authors of that book are Oscar Walder and Pignur and it's called Business Model Generation. If you Google that, you'll easily find that book. I would use that framework as opposed to a traditional business plan to build my bootstrap business because built into that is placing small incremental bets on the development of your overall canvas.  And so once you've gone through that whole process and you've got a business model that is successful in the market, then you should be thinking about writing a business plan to grow and scale that particular business. Now you all both talked about resources. We have a viewer who asks what kind of non-university organizations could we go to to find more resources about entrepreneurship and bootstrapping? Do you all have additional suggestions? Helder and Lisa? Sure. Well, again, it depends on the nation but first are there networks of either formal or informal networks of entrepreneurs and probably the first place to start is online to see what kinds of groups are being formed, networking groups are formed online to share their experiences and challenges and starting a business. Then local business communities, are there local business associations or organizations? Are there international associations or organizations that you could tap into that are in your particular area whether it's software or other types of technology? So those are some of the places that come immediately to mind to me. Thank you. And Lisa? Yeah, he hit a lot of the high points that I would touch on. I'd say professional organizations, they often have a facet of their programming where they're trying to reach out and help mentor others in the field. Retirees, people that have already reached their goals and still have a lot to offer but they don't need to work as much full-time, they're willing to share their skill set. If you call the folks up and talk to them about the fact that they're experts and just wanna hear their story, you'd be amazed what kinds of things you can learn there. And again, Helder mentioned business associations, get, you know, do a Google search on the market that you're interested in and or the part, again, going back to the business model canvas, maybe you're looking for something that has to do with marketing which you know nothing about. There are lots of people online, virtual mentoring groups there that people that will help you there as well. So I would say that professional organizations, retirees, business associations, online groups, there are professional groups on LinkedIn, leverage those as well. There's just some great resources, thanks to you both. Now we have a few more online questions but we wanna remind our viewers to respond to the live poll on your screen. All right, so let's get back to the questions. An online viewer asks, when opening an online business, how should we prioritize investing available money to maximize bootstrapping? Lisa, do you mind answering that question? Sure, I would say make sure to spend money for an online organization on the things that you are not good at. I mean, security is gonna be a big issue for an online activity. Make sure that you hire the people you need to that you have that locked in really well and that you look professional. This is gonna, your whole branding and presence, first impressions matter when people see you online. So make sure that your website looks professional and that it's done well. The bottom line is you should be spending your money on acquiring customers and making sure when they're there, they have a great experience. Fantastic. Now we have another question and Helder, I'll turn this to you. The viewer would like to know how he or she can present the startup in front of potential investors to convince them to provide funding. Well, so it depends on when you're presenting. If you're presenting and in the spirit of today's topic on bootstrapping, if you have bootstrapped your business and you now have customers, you have a viable business model and you're going to talk about funding for growth, you focus on, first of all, that you bootstrapped. And by the way, that really resonates with investors. They respect the fact that you have built this from your own pocket. You had your own investment. You started with your own investment because they're tired of people coming to them asking for them for money to prove their business, someone asking an investor to prove their business versus having proofed it. So you prove your business and so you focus on growth potential in that kind of presentation. The other type of presentation to an investor if you haven't bootstrapped and you haven't proved your model is a much tougher conversation frankly because now you're dealing in hypotheticals of what you think the market potential is, why you think your particular idea is a great idea and you're going to get a lot of tough questions and you're going to have a, in my opinion, in my experience, you're going to have a harder time, you're going to spend more time talking to a lot more people than you will if you've already have a viable business model and you have built this business through Bootstrap. And actually, Helder, we have a question that's kind of related to that. Our online viewer, Didi, asked if it's possible to get early funding when you're still at the idea stage with your startup. You've kind of touched on that, but do you have any suggestions for Didi? It depends, you know, there are certain government and different kinds of programs that might be available in your country, your region that might support certain types of development where you might get grants or, you know, a small loan. But again, the intention there is to give, for those of you that saw the video loop before the program started, to give you seed capital, something to help you bridge you to the point where you can then develop your business model and go for more conventional growth financing. But initially, there's not a lot of investment for relatively small businesses that are looking for money to sort of figure out what they should be doing in terms of their business. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. We have a viewer, Ann Constance Bardu, who asks if there is any place in Bootstrapping for a free start offer. What this person means is, can you ever give your product away for free or do you always need your customers to pay for it? Lisa, would you address this question? Absolutely. I think there is a time and place to offer free versions. You see this all the time with software. In fact, some companies hit big growth spurts by going from a fully paid model to a freemium. MailChimp is one of those companies that had a product that was a great product. It was basically an e-newsletter company that was moving along, but it wasn't growing the way the founders wanted it to. So they created a version that was free, increased the user experience for a whole lot of people, got access, and then you pay for the next step up features and products. So you see that all the time with software. I think that's an instance where giving away something free to get people interested and familiar with the product and loyal as customers and to get feedback that you need and to know what people need in the product, that's a great way to move forward. So then, Helter, I'll turn this question over to you. We have the viewing group at Embassy Monrovia, and they want to know, does bootstrapping follow the user-centered design thinking of desirability, viability, and feasibility? Absolutely. And so does the process, that the lean launch process that Lisa was talking about, and we talk about the business model canvas, that's exactly what you're doing. The first round in your bootstrap startup is to figure out, do I have customer product fit? Is there a customer out there who has a pain, compelling pain, that they would buy something today if I had the right solution to pay for? And then the next step is, can I actually execute this? And what's it gonna take for me to execute this with the resources that I have available? And then finally, can I make money doing this? So it kind of ties to the prior question about do I give it away for free? And if I give it away for free, how do I make revenue down the line? So bootstrapping is very much hand in hand with this concept of placing small incremental bets to prove the desirability, feasibility, and viability of your business. Thank you, Helder. Now, Lisa, we have a question from an online viewer for you. This viewer asks, what type of business organizations do you suggest partnering with during the early startup phases? And you touched on this a little bit earlier, but if you could expand upon it a bit. Absolutely. I would say it's important to somebody earlier asked whether this would be outside the university setting. Yes, and do make use of those alumni networks. So go to folks, again, use LinkedIn to figure out who's connected to whom. If there's somebody that you want to meet, do everything you can to get a warm introduction. So if I wanted to meet Helder, for instance, we hadn't met before this chat, I would go online on LinkedIn and I'd see who he's connected to. He's connected to 15 people I know. I go to those folks and I say, hey, can you introduce me to Helder? One of those 15 is gonna say yes. So then you get that introduction and then Helder can tell you about professional groups in his field.  So you wanna be in the right spaces at the right times. He can tell you what conferences to go to. He's a subject matter expert in his field. So you wanna find those people who are thought leaders and they can direct you to some of the organizations, the professional groups, the... And there's one for every organization, right? There's safety organizations. There's professional groups for every little niche and there's just literally tens of thousands of them. So it's a gold mine out there to be mine. You just have to get in touch with the right people who are already connected to those groups. Yeah, and I would just add that Lisa makes a great point here that regardless of where you are in the world, you are not geographically limited by tapping into expertise due to platforms like LinkedIn. And if you have more Facebook contacts, then you have LinkedIn contacts. I suggest it's time to start focusing on LinkedIn a little bit more. That's really great advice. That's a good point. Yeah, absolutely. We have a viewing group in Guatemala that asks, what are bootstrapping strategies for customer retention? Heldar, do you mind starting us off? Sure. Well, I think the biggest customer retention strategy early on is to make sure that once you sell your first generation of your product or service to this customer, you do not wait for them to tell you whether or not they're going to be a repeat customer. You do not wait for them to tell you whether or not they were happy with the product. You proactively engage that customer. You make them feel like they're part of your team, that their feedback and their input is incredibly important to developing the process. Because these people, again, these first customers become your ambassadors. You can't afford a full-fledged sales force. So use your first customers as your sales force. And in order to do that, you've got to make sure they're incredibly happy and they feel invested in your success because you are investing in their success. So how can you encourage them after you reach out to them to ask them to support your product or your business? It should come somewhat organically, but again, you know, step one is soliciting feedback. Step two, you might want to offer some incentive. So, you know, if you have something that could be a subscription-based service, you offer someone an incredibly good deal. They've had a taste of the product that kind of leads to an earlier question about free and freemium. One of the responses that Lisa gave. So is there a way for you to incent someone to continue to do business with you? So part of it is just reaching out and acknowledging this first customer is really important. These first customers are very important. The other is then you can provide some sort of incentive to continue them because you need cash flow early on, especially when you're bootstrapping. So if you can convert someone from a one-time purchase to more of a regular repeat purchase, that benefits your bottom line in terms of continually bringing a stream of cash into your business. Right. So now we have a question for Lisa. The viewing group at Embassy of Monrovia wants to know how can a bootstrapping entrepreneur increase productivity in a low-income environment? Really good question. This is a good question. I would say that this kind of a setting is going to develop, you're gonna develop habits and discipline based on your limited resources. So you're gonna become more productive as you learn to do something.  So your productivity is gonna be directly in alignment with the nature and the attitude that you're growing in your business. And I would say having an authentic curiosity about and trying to find out from your customers, trying to learn things you don't wanna hear, trying to find out what those pain points are so that you can tackle that right away, that's gonna increase your productivity and do that within your organization as well. That's gonna help. Thank you. Now the Binational Center in Nicaragua asks, what type of financing is required to open a business focused on services and not on a specific product? Helder, do you mind starting us off? Yes, I think it depends on the service. It depends on the complexity of the service, but to me, product or service, bootstrapping is still where you start, friends and family, and then moving on to customers and then moving on to growth. There's not sort of a separate sort of category for services financing, but again, depends on in your particular area where those opportunities are in terms of financing sources, but there's no sort of specific bucket for services. Understood, thank you. Now let's check out the results of the poll question we shared with you earlier. We asked, what component of your business would you apply bootstrapping principles to? You can see the results on the screen. Helder and Lisa, what are your reactions to the poll? My question is, why didn't we have an all of the above? Yeah. Because, yeah, I'm surprised to see zero on product development and marketing. I'll speak to product development and Lisa, I think you speak to the marketing part. You can apply bootstrapping to everything. Now, you don't wanna cut corners in product development, but it's how you think about product development. If you think I'm not going to release my product until everything is perfect, that's the wrong use of bootstrapping principles. So I'm gonna keep as much money as possible for product development. If you should be using the bootstrapping mindset and saying, I'm gonna play small incremental bets in my product development till I get the product right. So I still think bootstrapping applies in that context. And I'll turn it over to Lisa about marketing. Yeah, absolutely. I think that bootstrapping is, as we said earlier, an attitude and you're building a mental model, right?  Again, you don't wanna cut corners where it's gonna hurt your business in the long run, but you do wanna be able to have the right attitude that you can streamline your efforts and that there are things that you can do with very limited resources. If you guys are entrepreneurs, you're about making opportunities and taking advantage of chaos. So know that you can do that and you're gonna be able to succeed. Excellent advice, thank you. Now, it looks like we have time for a few more questions from our viewing audience. Again, NBC Monrovia Liberia asks, what are the major disadvantages of bootstrapping? Lisa, would you mind starting us off? Maybe I'm not the best person to answer this because I love bootstrapping. This is my favorite area to work with technologists and industry people. But I guess the major disadvantages to bootstrapping is I mean, you're not gonna be able to undercut an enormous multi-billion dollar corporation necessarily and having the resources to file enough patents to protect your intellectual property. That might be something that's difficult in a bootstrapping situation. Helder, what would you say? I would say two things. One is you will grow more slowly. So if you're going to choose bootstrapping to understand that you're in for the longer duration than the typical company that goes for funding and is spun out in five to 10 years. So bootstrapping is a long-term play. And if you're not interested or willing to wait that long and you're not really trying to build a legacy for your company, your family, your community or your country, then maybe bootstrapping may not be the right approach for you. The other is there is a limitation in the kinds of businesses. If you're in a business that's very extremely capital-intensive, for example, biotechnology, you almost have to at some point, very early on, go for outside funding just because of the magnitude of the dollars that are involved and the length of time it takes to take a product to market. So if you find yourself in that kind of market environment, then bootstrapping may not work for you. Good to know. Now, we have a question from Angel Lopez from Venezuela who asks, can you recommend strategies or ideas for bootstrapping in a volatile economic environment? Liso, would you address this question, please? Wow, that's, as I sit here in the United States with the many advantages we have here in some of the government programs that held or referenced, which I've worked with several companies that have taken advantage of those, it's very difficult for me to answer this question. I don't understand, and I'm not an expert in the particular challenges you have in that country. I imagine that if I were in that situation, what I would like to do is to reach out to more stable environments and see if those resources can be infused into the environment where I was today. So that's potentially a possibility. It does, it's an advantage for another country like ours to help surrounding countries to make sure that they're economically stable. So I think there are some pipelines for resources and funding and expertise from our country to others around the world. And I think the rules of thumb that are particularly acute in a situation such as the person who posed the question is living and working in, is that you really have to rely on your creativity in terms of bartering, borrowing and seeing what you can get for free. So in these kinds of environments, you see a very strong, for lack of a better term, black market and people will barter, because at least that's something they control and they can control how much of a particular service they will provide in exchange for someone else providing a product or a service. So I would rely, I'd get very creative and I'd have to rely on my skills in terms of bartering, borrowing whenever I can, free space, here in the US, people will use, if they're developing a food product, they'll borrow a kitchen from two in the morning until a five in the morning when the kitchen is not operating during regular business hours and use that time to make their own product. So you just have to get extremely creative regardless of where you are, but when you're in a situation like the questioner's situation, you just have to really become extremely good at the bartering and borrowing kind of approach. Yes, that's excellent advice. Thank you both. We talked, we touched on marketing a little bit earlier, but what are the best ways to market your venture that costs little or no money? I'd like to address that. I think if you can get people interested, get your product or service in front of the people that are referred to as thought leaders or experts in the field, and if they like it, you're golden. They can share that information, that technology or product with others who were influencers and who can be on the leading edge. And if you can get them to be early adopters to tout your product on social media so you get news, columns written, any of those types of things, those are all free. And or if you can be seen or somebody at your company can be seen as a subject matter expert, then the opportunity to present about your technology at a conference or to others, industry people or professional organizations, that's a great way to get free marketing. Fantastic. We have finally reached our final question. It's from a viewer who asks, what are some ways to navigate existing debt while bootstrapping a business? Helder, would you respond to this question, please? Absolutely. Negotiate, I guess, is the first thing. Try to work down that debt. And I guess it depends on the severity of the debt. If you have so much debt that you really don't have any resources that you can apply to your venture, it's gonna be difficult. And then you have to be looking at friends and family either to help get you out of the debt that you're in or to help fund the venture that you hope to pursue. So even if you didn't bootstrap, you would be a difficult risk. You'd be a bit of a risk depending again on the amount of debt you already have if you went and looked for conventional financing. So you have to think of yourself as a banker or an investor. Would you invest in someone who's got as much debt as I have? And how can I restructure or get out of this debt? And maybe translate some of that debt into a stake in the company. I don't know, but that's a good question. But it's ultimately about sort of cleaning up your personal balance sheet before you move on to your business. That was a good question and a good response. Thank you, Helder. Now it looks like we're almost out of time, but before we conclude, I would like to ask each of our panelists, what would you say is the most important takeaway for our viewers? Lisa, could we start with you, please? Absolutely. I think the most important takeaway from today is that you have more resources than maybe you thought when you started today. And keep that kind of mindset. Feel richer and more connected today than you did when you started, because you are. Just look around you, the people in the room, go online if you're watching from home or your office and look at your networks and start really looking at those places and those people as resources or connections to money, information, expertise. You have a lot of resources. You just have to go out and ask people to help and it's really gonna be, it's gonna work. You're gonna be able to do this. Fantastic, Helder. Don't embrace bootstrapping as a last resort. Embrace bootstrapping as a strategic choice about how you're going to build, manage, and grow your business.  When you seek outside funding, you seed control of your business. You seed control of the future of your business. You seed control of how your business is going to grow. Also, bootstrapping is about risk management. You are your own venture capitalist, even though it's a very small amount of money you're working with, because you're placing like a venture capitalist does, you're placing small bets along the way and increasing your chances of success because of it. Thank you both. Thanks so much for joining us today and a special thanks to everyone viewing today, especially to the hosts of the viewing groups around the globe for maximizing and mobilizing your entrepreneurial communities. We had audiences at the American Corner, Tirana, Albania, American Spaces, CCNN, Managua, Nicaragua, IHCI, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, IGA, Guatemala City, Mark Twain Library in San Jose, Costa Rica, Colombo Americano in Medellín, Colombia, U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Embassy, Monrovia, Liberia, Youth Network for Reform, American Center in Winhoek, Namibia, American Center Abijan, Cote d'Ivoire, American Corner, Yamosucro, Cote d'Ivoire, GIST's I-Hubs at El Spaz in Tunisia, Oasis 500 in Jordan, and UTEC Ventures in Peru. Before we end, I would like to tell you about the GIST's Tech Eye Competition, an annual competition for science and tech entrepreneurs from around the world. Aspiring innovators have submitted their ideas and you get to decide who will move on to the Tech Eye Finals at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Istanbul. Make sure to go to gistnetwork.org to vote for your favorite semifinalists. You can vote once per day, so check back often. Please continue to send in questions in the chat and on Twitter at hashtag gisttechconnect as our panelists will stick around for a few more minutes to answer those questions. I hope you enjoyed our discussion today and thanks again for joining us. Goodbye.


Medical experts have called on the Nigerian government to draft a legislation specifically to address all forms of assault on medical personnel in the country. The experts would decry the increased rate of attacks on healthcare workers made the call at the 48th annual scientific conference of the Association of Resident Doctors of the University of Eloring Teaching Hospital. The health experts, while calling for legislation to punish individuals who assault medical personnel, however, noted that different factors drive certain people to attack healthcare givers in the course of discharging their legitimate role in society. Policies should be put in place to address workplace violence and the policies should be made as a requirement for all place healthcare facilities to follow. Workplace violence need to be comprehensively addressed more comprehensively and it will involve the government taking steps to put in legislation. However, there is need for government to legislate and punish any assault of healthcare petitioners. This will go a long way to reduce and prevent these menace. These increases in the rate of assault for healthcare workers present the critical challenge to healthcare system worldwide. Government intervention will play a pivotal role in mitigating and preventing social incidents. The experts, therefore, advocated a multidisciplinary bio-psychological, psychosocial, a beg your pardon, and individualistic approach as effective tools to dealing with workplace violence. There is a connection between workplace bullying, burnout, and some of these assaults that were assigned. That's why managing assaults should be something multidimensional, because there are also factors of doctor of the patient, of the management and the patient, of the system. Sometimes we are concerned more about the services, rather than also the system. At the level of administration and the management, now what's our expectations? We expect that we implement workplace violence response and zero-tolerance policies. And a non-governmental organization, the Unis Nachi Women Advocacy Foundation, has embarked on a 16-day campaign against physical, mental, and sexual violence in secondary schools in BIOSA states, urging the government and well-meaning individuals to invest their time and money in preventing violence against women and girls. CEO of N-Wealth Lady Unis Nachi would describe the rate of gender-based violence in the states in the past 11 months as alarming, said their aim is to create a society where every individual, regardless of gender, can live freely without fear of violence and admonish the students to shun acts capable of hotting one another. The day has been marked out for this celebration, so we are here to make our own impact, not to talk to them about the gender-based violence and the needs to stop any form of gender-based violence. So that they have joined, their awareness has been created, and they will go to go back home and look at not just for themselves as girls, but the boys will also look out for the girls. To arrange the world in the school and to create awareness, and this awareness has helped them because they now know what it says, sitting days of activism, and at the same time, they are also joining the world to celebrate.


So, I can also talk about some of the ongoing changes around this and beyond our state basics. So, I think that's the way that we're going to continue to use the music that values in the day that we're going to use. But we still don't know if it's confined to the day that we're going to use it. But the class that we're talking about, it's not known if it's haven't been a very old music, it's not a very old music. So, we just don't know if it's lost, but we don't know if it's value when it can be checked. In fact, how is that going to evolve into a new career product and services? And do other services to begin to live in the new, what it is that I'm not used to think about? The ways and the ways that technology makes it stand out, not talk about the new values or aims, to make it successful in the things it does, so that anything that we can do in the new, with the fact that it has any values about the aims that the private media can see in this environment? The working condition of the lack of transparency, the ecosystem of the company private media, is it being changed in terms of the company's values, differences of value in government funds? So, how did increased number of each notifications to the wicked and all of the services in the component that's given to them? We've seen a reason about some of them, we've seen a new situation in them. So, it's important to realize that when you look at the paid industrialized countries of the world, when you look at these countries, I'm showing this as an incident that we're starting to see in the New York, New York, South Carolina, Washington, where we don't want that to happen. And what for? If you take this as a story, the organization is really important to do that. How does the new system on the one side, the difficult to manage the new social organizations, that's having a really good impact on the gene care and also the basics, in order to do the budget service, give them confidence about the cost of the products. So, moving on, about more decisions, we need to see our relationship for deep to the real organization. The game is not about to use as a survival strategy, but we need to realize that if you have consequences that may be related to that that is that you can align with this game. So, also, we try to make sure that we don't use this as a strategy, with the product funds, we don't think that we can manage the data side ourselves. This is important to keep the game back to the way it's going to be, we think that we can


We're here with Pedro Vela from the Rev Institute in Naples, Florida. Pedro, can you talk about the Institute itself? Yeah, the station that was built in 2008. How many cars do you have in the museum? So the collection give or take consists of about 100 cars. I wasn't hearing anybody go. I just landed at the Boston invitation that would have sent a video where you can tell the track is going somewhere. You go somewhere in a spot. Into the woods. This is where this part won. So, yeah, so, talking about the Dan Durney 1 in 1977, Dan Jr. was here. And he got in the car, got to sit in there a little bit. He was the first time he had ever sit in his father's car. And I believe Alex was definitely in it today. So, he had taken care of it. Yeah, there's lots. And kind of, there are emotions standing next to the car that the father raised. Okay, in Naples, Florida, it's open to the public three days a week. You just have to go online, make a reservation at transitspeed.org. And, yeah, like I said, if you're doing any type of automotive restoration or research, you know, we're open to the public for that. We have endless amounts of workshop manuals, technical specifications, any kind of information or like that. Phil Gunford from Indianapolis, he brought his 1969 Olsenite Eagle by Dan Durney. Can you tell us about the car? The car didn't raise. He didn't have a fourth-driver boot. There was seven, one, two, three, and four. And one, Durney 22nd at Indian 69. The other three, I think, was driven by Joe Leonard. And it was four, I think, with Danny Hume. So, they were all very exceptional drivers. And as I say, I'm not sure where the other car is going to. I've owned this car for, I think, about 10 years. We've gone through the car and it's a great running car. It's the right level one of the Ford, the Shark Block or Shark Stock. It's ultimately all original. It's all mainly over original. After Indy, they had a conversation with Bill Simpson before he passed away a few years back. And he indicated, he thought he had driven this car and owned it. But I can't assess for me the 5,000 for several years. And it was based in California, as a matter of fact. The car went, somebody indicated with the Georgia. From Georgia, a gentleman by the name of Bob Tom, who had a hell of a collection of cars. And this was one of the cars that was in his collection. And actually, I tried to buy this car twice. First time I didn't get it done. And the second time I bought it, it was in an auction monorail. It was in an auction monorail. So, it boxed me 10 years ago. And we've run it quite a few times. Granted, it indeed, on the Opel. We've run it, say, most several times on the Opel. It's a great driving bar, a great running bar. It's very correct. And all the decals and everything are like they were. It's a great reason to buy it. So, a gathering here at Royal American Volley is American Eagles. What does that mean to you? It's outstanding that we can get this many cars in one place. And Dan Gurney had a great day of reunion for Dan in about seven or eight years ago at the Speedway.  And I got to run this with him. He was a very gracious gentleman. It's just super nice. This is another reunion of these cars. And he was an innovator and certainly a hell of a driver. And this is really, really a nice gentleman. It's great to have these cars. All these fans come out today. It's too bad that we got the cars this morning. But I'll clear off and we'll get to run the car. The answer by 18 miles an hour. Which is the largest jump ever. And it's never been equal. The Thanksgiving body, the cars go off and have their engine putting out about 1,300 horsepower into roughly 1,500 pound wet lake car. It's a 1973 Eagle, also most of the night Eagle. Number 48, it was driven by Jerry Grant. He was a house driver, a 1972 Eagle that was driven by Mike Mosley. And it was a liter parked car owned by the Wilkie family out of Milwaukee. They won the Indy 500 twice with Roger Ward once with Bobby Unster. And Bob and Ralph Wilkie, father and son, fielded Indy cars for years in Indianapolis and have quite a history there. Bringing these type of cars here for this reunion of the old America, what does that mean to you? It means a lot to me. I knew Dan Gurney and his son Danny and Justin are friends of mine. And I was a former Indy car mechanic. That means I was part of the Jones and STP Patrick racing. And at Patrick, I worked on a lot of Eagles including that second car because after the Indy 500, Dan sold that car to Patrick to replace Sweet Savage's car. I was on Gordon Johncox's car that year and Gurney ran that car in every race in 73 after. And we won Phoenix and Trenton with that car. We were on a couple homes with that car. Started the front row of the California 500 at Ontario Motor Speedway with P. Revston and Jerry Grant and another old San Diego. So this means a lot to me. Of all the cars I worked on in my lifetime, Eagles were my favorite car. Dan Gurney was a personal hero of mine going back to childhood and definitely my teen years. So it's an extreme privilege to be around these cars, to have spent time with them. We've gone to Victory Circle with them 50 years ago and then to be here at Road America. I'm hitting goosebumps right now just talking to you because there's 30 incredible cars here that's in the gamut of AAR. It's great for the public to see these cars. It's fabulous for the public to see these cars and they homage to Dan Gurney who was, in my opinion, an American Motorsports icon, an American icon. And behind us over here we've got the Spa winning 67 and Dolphin drop three car and the 75 Indy winner. We've got a lot of race-winning Eagles in here. We've got the Pepsi Challenger down there which won the poll. We've got Indianapolis for 50 E.R. and Dan Gurney and it's been driven by Mike Mosley and so forth and so on. So the history that's concentrated under this tent today is absolutely phenomenal and we can share this with the public. That's what Dan Gurney is deserving the knowledge of the history for future generations. All the collection and the collection that we collect DGF, DGF Standing Board, Dan Gurney Ford went to the car in the mid 80s here on American's deed. It was black and gold in Colorado for 48. It then went back to California it was raced by Bob Watt, 2009. We were started for about a year and a half and then started racing it in SEC a competition on slicks. Very sticky slick tires which was a no-no as I found out because I wanted to crash in the car at the 2011 Goods Brins when the front suspension failed. Since 2015 we've raced the car in vintage and I've been the lucky recipient with this car we won the night of the 2017 and the 2021 Watt of Worcester Cup Championship we've come to the Ford category the Ford meeting, the Ford middle of the Ford ranging from 1973 to 1981. The greatest speed we've had in the car was at the 2019 Monterey Reunion. We were one of 58 cars in the field and we were one of five drivers not from Cup 57 and fought my way back from a pre-final in September 49th to 20th and we were the recipients of the Rolex Award of Excellence at that race. It's a club racer it never ran anything far bigger far greater far I mean too all American racers eagle purchased by Roger Pesky in Pesky Racing in April of 1973 for driver Mark Donahue and Team Pesky went to India in April of 1973 for a tire test for Goodyear tires and found they were seven miles an hour off the pace of the factory eagle. Now Dan wasn't going to sell them a 73 eagle so he sold them a 72 he sold all the customers 72s up until after Indy. Mark qualified at 113 miles an hour and he failed to finish he blew a piston on lap 92 of the 133 lap race. This was Mark Donahue's final Indy car. Later it was raced by Gary Bettenhausen it was raced by Bill Simpson and Simpson was the man who put a young color by the name of Rick Mears in this car in the September 1976 Cal 500 this was basically Rick Mears' rookie car. It only ever made one Indy 500 but it did sort of Mark Donahue who was then the reigning champion and this was Mark Slath and Rick first who made significant investments restored back to the way it qualified at Indy in 73. On race day the yellow on the nose went down to Sonoco and the blue actually encompassed the number so we thought it looked cool in the way it qualified so that's how you see it today. Finally another 72 eagle this is chassis 72-28 this car was delivered in September of 1973 after the commander racing team wrecked their 72-24 eagle present here today at the Cal 500 basically flat wall on the side of the chassis after a tire blow up so this car went to the team with Dr. Lloyd Ruby and Rue Brandt throughout the 73 season and then throughout the 74 season he was running third at Indy it was 20 to go and they ran it out of fuel in 74 they also raced at the Ontario Motor Speedo in the road course and he blew a turbo in 75 this car and its sister car went to the baddest enterprises group and had the number 93 car that year Steve Chrysler-Brandt in 1976 and 77 in 1978 the car was narrowed in a very wet-like shape like it's in truth today and it tried to make Indy with ala cloths tried to make it at Indy but it failed to do so but he got his sister car in the field in 1980 for the Copa, Mexico city when Carlos Delonos drove the car and the final race at Ontario Chipmene drove this car until the first fuel stop when his brother put in the fuel nozzle and fuel spilled everywhere there was a pit fire and that was the car's last race it was actually here at Road America 1982 for the first Provincial 200 Rick DeLordo from Illinois had had the car at the Stockbox Chevy and failed to make the grid so the car was restored to the way it was first run in September 1973 at the Michigan race so these are the three running eagles that KMPR will have here this weekend myself and some of my good friends who are shocked that they're going to be driving these they're going to be driving these during the demonstration session and the 46th car that eagle it will be in group 4 where we will try to win the Formula 4 race so thank you


Our first caller is Debra from Texas. Hey Debra, how can we help you? Hi guys. Before I start, I want to say I'm super excited to be talking to you. You're the closest things to celebrities that I follow. And you have really, your content has changed my life and more than just the fitness aspect. I think I've made a lot of mindset progress from following your podcast. Thanks for what you guys do. Okay, so I live in Central Texas and I'm wondering how I might best change my lifting programming just a little bit this summer to get through some of the extreme heat and humidity. To give a little background, I started, I got back into lifting about 18 months ago or a little bit less. I worked out primarily from home, but as I've gotten a little bit more towards the intermediate level of lifts, I joined a gym. It's kind of an old school bodybuilding gym. It has an indoor air conditioned area, but it's usually pretty packed and there's a lot of machines in there. I prefer to use barbells and dumbbells and kettlebells when I can. So I use the outdoor functional space most of the time and that's great for nine months out of the year. But these summer months, it's already starting to get very hot out there and I'm just wondering, I feel myself a lot of days getting really weak pretty early on in my lifts. So I'm wondering what I might be able to do to still maintain a good strength protocol while being safe. Okay. Well, I noticed in your notes that you said you're supplementing with element while you're doing your workouts. Is that correct? Yes. The element salts have helped quite a lot and I've started taking cordyceps as well at your suggestion and I have noticed a difference there too. I'm trying not to be a wimp about the heat. I mean, I know there's people that work in this heat all day, all summer long. So I know I can withstand it for a couple of days a week, but it's really a killer. My work schedule does not allow me to get into the gym any time other than like 3.30 to 5 in the afternoon, which is the absolute worst time to do it, but it's when I have the opportunity. So I got to go with it. That's what I was going to ask. I was hoping that you had a way that you could work out earlier in the morning or later at night. Maybe just... I mean, this is a really fun and interesting question. I don't think I've ever had a question just like this. But you have the least heat tolerance out there. You might have some good suggestions. Right away, you know, it comes to mind for me, but I would probably do it because you're right. I don't like that at all. I might run up because obviously there's only... There's going to be a short period of time. We're talking about a month or two months where it's going to be like it's just intolerable, right? It's not like the whole year is like this. It's just you probably are talking about a month or two, right? So I mean, this is actually where I... And I don't know if you have this flexibility to extend the workout to be longer, but I would probably do these like really long rest periods. You would find me being like, you know, powerlifter Adam at this time. I would be doing the three minute breaks. Yeah, no, I totally... I would be doing the three minute breaks running a five by five type of a routine or like an anabolic phase one.  Your heart's just racing a little bit. Yeah, I think that, I mean, that's... Because you're already doing the stuff on supplements. I mean, I see you drink a gallon of water. So you're drinking the water. You're doing the sodium intake. You're doing the cordyceps. So I think you're doing all the right things that way. Justin already hit the easy one, which is, you know, can we train at a colder time in the day? So if you're stuck in the middle of the heat, then I guess what I would do, my programming would look like these long rest periods, you know, longer than what I normally would do. And you're not going to get... It's not going to hurt your progress by doing that. So that's what I would... That's the first thing that comes to mind. What do you think, Sal? Yeah, I would say... There's a drawback to that too, because then you're exposed to the heat a little longer. I think people underestimate the amount of sodium that they would need to tolerate a lot of heat. So you may be... I don't know how many packets of element you're drinking during your workout, but I would do... Yeah, right now it's one full pack. Yeah, I would try one full pack before your workout. So maybe a half hour to an hour before you work out. Maybe one midway or half. And then one while you're working out, because you want to get that in your system before you start the... Otherwise, you start to play kind of catch-up. And aside from that, you're just going to have to listen to your body while you're trained. So it might mean you don't lift as heavy. It might mean you're not doing as much volume, but that's totally fine. The heat actually adds another element to the adaptation process. And we do tend to acclimate to the workouts as we practice them, but it's nothing to worry about unless you're finding yourself getting dizzy, nauseous, or getting like these massive headaches. But yeah, don't underestimate the sodium. I would go a packet before...  I'm not working out in the heat. You're doing like two or three packets. But I'll do a packet before a workout and a packet during. If I was out in the sun, it might even be a little bit more. So I would try a packet before and then a packet during, and then listen to your body and see how you feel and modify the workouts accordingly. But it's not going to take away from your results, if anything, because it's different. It might actually improve some of the results that you get. Yeah, I'm hoping... I actually just recently moved into a carnivore-style way of eating just to try to break a really bad sugar addiction that I have. And so I'm hoping the extra sweat will help me get rid of some of those toxins as well. So trying to look at it as a positive situation, it really... It's kind of sucked already a couple of days this year. But I have been leaning towards what Adam said to kind of go with a 5x5 or less with the longer rest periods because it really does take a lot out of you pretty quick. I have mad respect for the guys that go to Afghanistan and work out while they're there. That's crazy. So yeah, this is super helpful. Awesome. Thanks so much, guys. Well, one more thing real quick before you hang up, Debra. Now that I know you're also going carnivore... Even more reason to do more elements. Yeah, your body's getting rid of sodium like crazy. So unless you have high blood pressure or your doctors advise you to watch your sodium, I would go a packet before, a packet during, and throughout the day probably drink a couple more and then see how you feel. I've been doing, even on non-workout days, I drink usually a pack to a pack and a half. Plus I've been salting my food pretty heavily. So I do try to stay on top of that, the salt for sure. Yeah, but you would be surprised again, just because you're salting your food, especially now that she's eliminating carbs too, because that changes that, right? So if you eliminate carbs and if you're eating whole foods, you're eating clean, then like Sal said, I think you could easily get away with two or three packets every day. I mean, I salt my food too.  And I have probably... And I'm very low carb right now. He carries salt in his purse. And I have three to four packets of element a day, usually around three. Okay, awesome. Okay, that's awesome. Thanks so much, guys. No problem. God, I would hate to work out. I'm such a baby. It's the worst. I was going to bring up, dude.  I actually started to put really cold towels in between sets on my neck and just to try and get my body temperature down a little bit to then go back and have something, but I was always just zapped. I love extreme weather workouts. Really cold, really hot. I don't know, it adds an element of... It really puts me in the zone when I'm doing it, but you cannot...  It toughens you up. It's different. When it's really hot, I'll get better pumps. Obviously, the sweat feels good. When it's really cold, I just feel like I'm more aggro into the workout. But the sodium thing is a big one, man. It's huge. And it's different from person to person. Of course, if you're advised to reduce your sodium, then you don't want to do this. But it makes a huge difference with people. I had runners that I would train that would only lift weights with me or train with me once a week, but they train so often with running. And I would have them add Himalayan salt to their water and they noticed tremendous improvement in there. We've been just sold for so long that sodium is so bad that it feels bad to add more. But again, if you're healthy and you're not eating a lot of processed food, go ahead and experiment and see how you feel with more of it.


David Cohen, Yankees, legends, yes or broadcast, are you ready to check out your feed? Let's do this, yes. The feed is brought to you by Untucket. Shirts designed to be worn untucked. Visit untucket.com. We're gonna switch it up a little bit. We're gonna do Twitter and Instagram because I know you post on Volt. Yeah, do I need my glasses to read here? I might need to flip my glasses on. All right, so the first one. Yes. This is a photo while you're broadcasting out in Kansas City and you saw a fan wearing one of your shirts and that looks like Yankees. Yeah, he really thought about that outfit, didn't he?  Yeah, I was just shocked because you don't see too many of those around and I was like, what's this guy thinking? So yeah, I thought it was kind of funny. It was early too, he's the only one there. And for you, what's that mean to still go to not just Yankee Stadium, but to other ball parks and see people rocking your jersey? That's why I posted it because you don't see it too often. So I was like, I better get this one, better get it down and get it posted because certainly it's not something you see very often in Yankee games. Next photo, you got a chance to broadcast, Dave Bowells, what was that like for you? Because you guys are best buds. It was, you know, it's a combination of excitement and fear at the same time because you just don't know where he's gonna come from. The guy's lived his whole life with no filter. So in a broadcast booth, that's a little scary at times but it's got a big personality, a big heart. It was a lot of fun, that's for sure. You asked your followers right here if your tie was straight. Looks pretty good. Yeah. I think you did it. Yeah, the tie was pretty straight. His wasn't. Next, your book, Full Count with Jack Currie. Awesome book, you got a chance to tell a lot of stories and what's even cooler about it is the fact that about how many people are reading it and talking about it and right here you have Alex Rodriguez who did a post for you. Hey guys, Dave home here on Friday night and look what I picked up today. David Cohn, Full Count. The education of a picture by David Cohn and by Jack Currie. That was fantastic. It was a great surprise for us. He's obviously got a huge following and the fact that he took the time and posted that and the video for him too, the format was just a gift for me. We're so appreciative. I know Jack Currie was as well but we were kind of floored by that and it's much thanks to Alex for that. One of the best photos floating around or videos with your book, something that you signed with Yes Network Researcher, Jeff Quagliata. What you wrote to him, the personalization was great and you read it. Yes, to Quag, great researcher. He helped us with the book. Thanks so much for all your help and sorry I beat your braves three times in the book series. So I couldn't help it. Quag's such a huge braves fan. I couldn't help but take a dig at him. So he took it well, I'll give him that. Next one, yourself and a young Adam Adovino who during a ride-along told me that he was so excited to get this photo and he turned around making sure that his dad had the shot because you're one of his favorite players growing up. Special moment. Yeah, that's amazing. It really is. You know, kids are Brooklyn kids or Trudy York or playing for the Yankees. I can't imagine what that's like. I was interested hearing his upbringing in Brooklyn too and the strong baseball background where his neighborhood had a bunch of baseball fields around where he grew up and Park Slope over at least in that general area in Brooklyn. Just amazing. The sweater game, I don't know, a little off with my sweater game there but that's the way it was back then. In this photo, you're like Adam with Joe DiMaggio. Almost, almost. That was my rookie year with the Mets and I got a chance to meet Joe DiMaggio. He was so classy and you can just tell by the way we're dressed. I was almost embarrassed. I had like a t-shirt and a raiding bunch of belt working a high belt and like almost a 70s look I was rocking right there. Joe was the epitome of class. Perfect tie. He was always dressed with a sport coat and tie and that was something I'll never forget. Joe DiMaggio, he said to me, he said, I've seen you pitch. He said, sometimes you look unhittable. He said, sometimes you look kinda hittable and it was the most passive, aggressive, greatest thing anybody's ever told me was Joe DiMaggio told me that. It was almost as if at the end he goes, for me you're pretty hittable. You kinda got that vibe a little bit. I'm sure he's right. I'm sure he's right too. Wow. And this one, you wanna talk about facial expressions. This one's great, the Memphis Chicks.  One of those things that happens every now and then, you know, that guy right there, that's why I posted that. That's the guy that pooped his pants on the mound. That's the guy. Wait, is this? That is the guy, that guy right there. Amazing. That is definitely the look that I'm sure that you mean.  Here you go, another throwback. Yes, that's the family. That's Joan Cohn, the mother. You know, I was a huge influence in my life too. She was the first cyber-matrician I ever met. She understood regression to the mean. She was so level, philosophy. Never as good as you think you are when you're going good and you're never as bad as you think you are when you're going bad. That's it. I mean, I was the youngest of four. My sister is the eldest, Crystal. It's Crystal, Christopher, Danny, and that's me, the little knucklehead in front. Got the cover of Sports Illustrated. This picture is awesome.  You know, when I signed as a free agent back in 93 with the Royals, that was a big deal back then. I was a hometown kid. The Royals originally traded me to the bats and then the late owner, Joan Cohn, wanted to bring me back and they gave me a huge contract to come back home and that was my homecoming. To be able to get on the cover of Sports Illustrated. That's pretty sweet. I hope it's on your wall to win. Yeah, we got it. It is. Of course, we've got to bring this one up. This is an awesome moment for you on Saturday Night Live. Classic. I'm so thankful for that. I mean, how many guys can say they've actually been in a skit on Saturday Night Live? Derek Jeter did a great job hosting that week. One of the best athletes, I think, of all the athletes that have hosted SNL, Jeter's been right at the top, I think. I hate madding, had a good appearance there as well. This was kind of a last minute deal.  We want to surprise Jeter. Jeter didn't know we were coming out in drag. So you can tell by the look on his face in that picture. He's like, wow, you had it. Yeah, nobody told him we were coming out. So we played groupies. That's amazing. I still have that miniskirt. I stole that miniskirt out of Wardrobe. We're not supposed to. But I kind of, you know, kind of snuck it in my coat and left. All right, so one Halloween, you got to do a Halloween post and you could actually reenact it. I could break that back out. That would be the perfect time to do it. And again, here you go. Now this is with Ben Stiller. You know, that was just kind of a cameo the players had during the opening monologue Ben Stiller was hosting that night. Once again, SNL has been great to us. Lorne Michaels, a friend of us, a friend of the Yankees, season ticket holder. Anytime Yankees players doing it, you in the World Series, you're going to represent on SNL. You can guarantee that. So yeah, definitely thankful. I mean, anytime you could be on SNL, any which way, it's just a tremendous experience. To be able to, and that theater too, where they film SNL is just incredible. So much history there. The walls, if the walls could talk, Belushi, Farley, I mean, there's so much, Dan Aykroyd, all the way through to the current actors. Instagram and social media wasn't around back then when you were playing. After experiencing it now, do you wish that it was? I'd have mixed feelings on it. I mean, there's always a double-edged sword there. Obviously, social media is tremendous, connecting people, people keep a track of family members, and everything that goes with it on the good side. On the other side of it, yeah, I think the players are a little more defensive nowadays, you've got to feel like you're a target. So, I don't like that feeling. We felt pretty free when we played, where we could go out to a restaurant or a bar, have a couple beers and relax, and get to know each other. Nowadays, I kind of feel like these guys are inhibited that way. It's tough. I feel for the guys nowadays. It does add a whole other different element that wasn't around. Yeah, it does. I mean, I love social media, I'm on it. You know, it's a tremendous resource for players to build their brands without a doubt, but it's also, you have to be careful. So, for you, what's your favorite part about Instagram then? Instagram is so different than Twitter. You know, I got my start on Twitter. Instagram, I'm really interested in the artistic value of it and the original content that you can post. So, now I'm starting to think about pictures I can post or some sort of scenario that pops up that is interesting, more from an artistic standpoint that they could share in that way, as opposed to Twitter, which is more information, you know, real-time information. Yeah, it's cool to see how you pretty much master everything that you do. So, like, baseball mastery, broadcasting masters. And now that breakdown that you just came up, and you're speaking to these platforms, that was pretty good. Well, yeah, obviously started from scratch. Instagram is interesting, though, I really, I think there's a lot of things you can do. Now's the time for the plug. Watch as somebody follow you, and what do you have to offer? Original content, humor. I'm always looking for the funny side of things. You know, whether it's a one-liner on Twitter or if there's a funny picture to post, whether it's me and Drag with Boomer or a funny shot with Boomer, you know, somewhere, or anybody that I work with, or Neil, you're gonna get original content with a touch of humor. Cool. All right, well, keep an eye out for him, make sure you throw him a follow. And yeah, we're looking forward to these Instagram posts, man. Keep on building. Absolutely.


This is JSATV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals. I'm Dean Perine and welcome to JSATV. We are coming at you on location from beautiful Miami, Florida at Metro Connect 2019. And I am here with my new best friend, Mr. Ben Edmund. Ben is the CEO and founder of Connected to Fiber. Ben, welcome to JSATV. Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the time, Dean.  Now, so like a lot of folks here, you are in the business of solving problems. Yeah, yeah. So tell our viewers a little bit about some of the problems that Connected to Fiber solves. Absolutely. Well, we solved three primary problems in the industry. One, centers around growth. How to grow effectively in a competitive, large industry that connectivity is, you know, constantly trying to drive for the next evolution of growth is a challenge. Where to allocate sales and marketing resources. How to find and retain those next customers. And that's really what we built our organization around. We also solve for location. One of the key ingredients that we find in the growth formula is really understanding your total addressable market. How to get authority around it. Share it with an ecosystem that is connectivity from the carriers to the channel partners to the cloud platforms and really drive that next step with location intelligence. And the last one that we solve for is how to price. You know, how do you use pricing as a strategic lever inside of a business to elevate your growth strategy, increase your win rates and be more effective. Outstanding. So you're solving problems, but you're also in the business of seeing trends. Realizing what those trends are and how to use those to better serve your customers. Things like SD-WAN, 5G, the Edge. We're hearing a ton about the Edge right now. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the trends that you folks are seeing and how you expect to deploy some of those new technologies. Sure, absolutely. Some of the trends that we see, you know, that you just mentioned, this whole transition of the network to SD-WAN enabled ecosystem is a really important trend going on. Legacy MPLS networks are being replaced with this software defined ecosystem. And what that's doing is it's allowing the enterprise customers, the business customers that are making the spend decisions to select the best network from the last mile perspective and then enable these new next generation applications right over the network. And while it was theory a couple of years ago, it's practice today. And along the same lines, we're seeing this really big push to the Edge. You know, a lot of understanding that needs to go into making that a reality. But ultimately what we're seeing is the mobile eyeballs and the cloud users want to come together with the cable go eyeballs. And that's all happening in this next generation architecture out at the last mile. Outstanding. So why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about your specific platform, the connected to fiber platform. So we've built what we call the connected world. It is a industry cloud application built for the connectivity world. Very location centric platform that's aligned to our core goals of helping our customers grow, helping them use intelligence in a big data way to make decisions around where to target, who the best partners are, how to execute that next build or process, and really drive that go-to-market process within the connectivity industry. So customers, I know that you like them. We do. Why don't you talk a little bit about your customers? Who are they? Sure. So we have a pretty wide range of customers that are all representative. I care about the connectivity industry. So think about the MSOs, which are represented here at the conference. We have eight out of the top 10 as customers, over 45 Lexus customers, the competitive fiber industry building out this next generation fiber ecosystem. We've done very well in this space. And then people that care about connectivity, cloud and application providers that are reliant on this, data center operators that their ecosystems are dependent have come into our platform to get value. Very good. Very good. And just real quick, I'm going off script really quick. Is that okay? The show has only just started. Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about how the show is going for you? That's fantastic. It's one of our favorite conferences of the year. It's been great to sit down, to learn. I was on a panel yesterday with Microsoft and Hunter and VExchange, and great dialogue and discussion. Yeah, it's important. But how people communicate, increase transparency, and really use data and automation to take the industry to the next step. And we're right in the middle of that conversation. I love it. How can our viewers learn a little bit more about connected to fiber? Well, please come to our website, www connected to the digit to fiber.com. We'd love to have demos, discussions. Feel free to reach out. And we look forward to the next conversation. Very cool. Ben, thank you for being with us today. We appreciate it. You bet it. And thank you viewers for watching JSA TV. We'll see you soon.


Can you believe this? Many claim that the churches die, that nobody is any longer interested in the things of God. That's a lie. The Holy Spirit's movement is growing. Revival is not then and there. Revival is here and now. As we've traveled across cities in America, we've witnessed spiritual hunger firsthand. And it's only the beginning. The people aren't gathering for a famous preacher or music group. There's no special effects or lineup of popular faces. The people are gathering simply for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and heaven is responding. Many are being saved, healed, delivered and empowered. So people of God be encouraged. Now is not the time to hold back. The harvest is ready. Step out in faith with what God has called you to do. The time is now.