In The Thick of It

I can say I wouldn't inspire or recommend to

anyone to go down my path in any sense.

I think the main thing for me that's highlighted my

childhood all the way through my career is persistence.

You have a goal, you gotta stick with it.

Whether you fall down or not.

You have to get back up and

you have to keep going towards it.

Welcome to In The Thick of It.

I'm your host, Scott Holrah.

On this episode of In the Thick of

It, we're joined by Marcus Jeffrey, co-founder

of FreeFuse, an interactive video platform focused on

creating immersive content experiences online.

Marcus shares stories of his upbringing

and recounts early ventures into his

entrepreneurial journey, including starting a catering

business and a vending management company.

After realizing the need for a formal education,

Marcus obtained his GED and attended Lone Star

College, later transferring to Texas A and M.

With the help of a mentor, Marcus gained

acceptance into the industrial distribution program, which opened

the doors for his future career.

Marcus emphasizes the importance of persistence

and highlights the unexpected opportunities and

connections that shape our career paths.

Through his journey, Marcus has come to appreciate

the value of learning, tenacity and the impact

of meeting the right people along the way.

Joining me today, virtually is Marcus

Jeffrey, co-founder of FreeFuse.

Marcus, thanks so much for being on

in the thick of it today. Likewise.

Thank you so much for the invite.

Yeah, well, we got a chance to learn a little

bit more about each other a few weeks ago, but,

man, the way we like to, to start these things

off is to start kind of in the early days.

So where did you grow up?

What was life like as a kid?

Yeah, family, school.

Talk us through that.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And I had, I'll say an interesting childhood.

A fantastic childhood, but also interesting.

You know, I grew up non traditional,

but somewhat nowadays traditional american household.

My parents were split.

I lived with my mom and my sister for about 13 years.

That was amazing and crazy in its own.

So growing up with two women is crazy.

There's a lot that comes with it, you know, trying

to learn how to work around, you know, schedules, using

the bathroom, things like that when you need to.

It was always enjoyable, but at the

end of the day, I loved. Where did you grow up?

You were in the Houston area of memory serves?

Yeah, yeah, it was in the Houston area, so

right outside of Houston and smallish town called Cyprus.

Good deal. Yeah.

So we lived there.

You know, my mom, my mom raised us for

quite some time in her household, but at the

same time, my dad was always around.

He was always there, though. They were split.

And interestingly enough, I had some good perspective from

my current career, from both of my parents.

That's really where I got the

inspiration for what I do now.

My mom, being a single mom,

she worked her butt off completely.

She was probably the hardest worker that

I've ever known in my life.

And day in, day out, I saw her, you

know, going to work four, five, six in the

morning, coming back five, six at night, and really

just working to put food on our plates.

But at the same time, you know,

my dad was the same inspiration.

He was a salesperson.

So my first career, before I became

a co founder, was in sales.

And my inspiration truly came from him,

his hard work, his dedication, and the

success that I've seen him have.

And honestly, to this day, he's one of the

best salespeople that I've ever gotten to learn from.

So I really enjoyed having that opportunity there.

Real quick, I just want to double

down on something you said there.

And it's funny, I actually had this

conversation with somebody earlier this week.

I look at our life.

My wife and I, we've got three

kids, been married for 20 years.

When we had our first child, she.

She decided to stay home, and she has a

full time job taking care of our family.

And honestly, her job is way harder than mine.

I would not want to trade, but I look at

our life and how crazy it is, how busy it

is, and I don't know how we get everything done.

Like, there are times I'm like, this is just too much.

It's too busy.

But when I think about the families that have

both parents working, or I think about that single

mom, that single parent family, I just.

I have a ton of respect for those parents. Like, I just.

I don't know how they get it done.

So kudos to your mom and to your dad for amen.

Giving you guys what you needed and

doing it solo, that's just crazy.

Absolutely.

So you talked about the hard work.

You mentioned your dad was in sales.

What kind of sales did he do?

And what line of work was your mom in? Yeah, yeah.

So my dad was in oil and gas, so he

actually got his start with a real small company.

Funny enough, had his own bout with entrepreneurship.

Didn't end up going down that line long

term, but he started with a real small

company in the oil and gas manufacturing space.

Real, real small.

And over, I think, 13 to 15 years,

they grew into a large, large company.

Huge, huge numbers in revenue that was acquired by

a now listed company on the stock market.

So huge huge growth there.

And that success was something that really inspired

me to be able to grow a company

with, whether it's my company or whether it

was the companies that I worked with before.

It was the inspiration that made me want

to learn how to sell, how to properly

solve and provide solutions and so on.

My mom, her in, she was, interestingly

enough, a completely self built it person.

You know, she didn't have a career in it whatsoever.

She went to school for architecture and

funny enough, she didn't even complete her

degree because of me and my sister.

So that was what ended up happening.

You know, she ended up having two kids.

She was married and didn't complete her degree.

But once the divorce happened, she, I will say, I

don't know how she pulled it off, but she went

from very literally, you know, answering calls, doing inside sales

work all the way to it, and actually learning how

to write code and be a developer.

So that was an amazing feat in my eyes as well.

Yeah, that's a, that's a heck of a journey.

I mean, going from pursuing architecture

to writing code and everything in

between, that's, that's pretty crazy. Exactly.

And even being in the tech industry now,

even co owning a SaaS company, I still

know very minimal about how to code.

Ditto.

Yep, absolutely.

But that was, you know, my childhood

was amazing in its own right. Different.

You know, my parents were split,

but I had a great childhood.

My dad was there day in, day out.

He would come to lunches at school

even though he lived 2 hours away.

You know, I, I had the split family,

but I had everything I needed there.

And me and my sister were as close as we could be.

I lost her when we were in.

Well, when I was in middle school, that was a difficulty

in its own, but at the same time, the time I

had with her was the best I could ask for.

Wow, I can't imagine losing a sibling.

Yeah, it was very difficult, and I'll say it's inspired me

in a lot, in a lot of different ways, but it

also, I can say, caused a lot of challenges in itself.

You know, I, being a child, I was 13 when

she passed away and I was going right into high

school right then I was just ready to go into

high school and it, it made it difficult.

You know, I was an all a student, and once I

got into high school, I can say I didn't graduate.

I dropped out my senior year with less

than a 1.5 gpA, which was disappointing in

itself, but it was my own doing.

You know, I had my own struggles that

I wasn't dealing with in the right way.

I maybe got into trouble here and there.

And at the end of the day, I made my choices how I did.

But what I'll say is, you know,

after that, I learned my ways.

I got my GED, I tightened myself up,

and I got into a community college.

I went there, got a 40, finally got into a and m

and did what I always wanted to do, what my dad always

wanted me to do because he was an aggie as well.

So where challenges come, there's also successes. Yeah.

So going through high school, it sounds like,

you know, times were obviously tough, but, like,

what were the things that you enjoyed doing?

Like, was, was there excitement and joy and activity

and things like that in that difficult time? Absolutely.

You know, before my sister passed away, I was in

football a lot, and I loved football from, you know,

elementary school all the way to middle school.

But I don't know what it was.

There was something about team activities that I think

were a little much for me at the time.

You know, I didn't want to be around too

many people, so I actually picked up wrestling.

And believe it or not, wrestling was awesome.

It was fun, it was enjoyable.

It was a ton of work.

It got me into great shape.

But I also met some amazing people along the way.

You know, it's not necessarily a team sport.

It's something that really promotes you to learn

how to support yourself and how to solve

problems and deal with challenges on your own.

But at the same time, with the support of

your team behind you, they might not be there

doing it in the trenches, on the pad, actually

wrestling, but at the same time, they're there yelling

at you, telling you tips, tricks.

They're there to console you if you lose.

They're there to tell you what you could

do better next time and so on.

And at the end of the day, some of

my best friends I've still got from wrestling.

And at the end of the day, whether it was from

wrestling, whether it was from, let's say, being a hooligan in

high school and getting in trouble here and there, I made

amazing friends that I still have to this day.

And thankfully, we're not hooligans, and we don't do.

We don't do anything anymore that gets us in

trouble, like drinking and, you know, so on.

But at the end of the day, we had amazing times.

High school was great.

And where I did learn a lot, it was more

so learning to grow as an individual and learn to.

I'll say, get a.

Get past some things that were

giving me challenges and so on.

And while I didn't do great in high school, and

I can say I wouldn't inspire or recommend to anyone

to go down my path in any sense, I think

the main thing for me that's highlighted my childhood all

the way through my career is persistence.

You have a goal, you got to stick with it.

Whether you fall down or not.

You have to get back up, and

you have to keep going towards it.

Yeah, man.

Talking about wrestling for a second, that's not

an activity that I was in growing up,

but my oldest son is 14.

He's finishing up middle school

and going into high school.

And the high school wrestling coach started a program

for middle schooler so that they could start getting,

finding their way into the sport and developing that

skill at a little bit younger age.

And it's really interesting research they've done on

the state programs here and schools that have

actual middle school wrestling programs in the school.

Those are the kids that go on to win the championship.

And so I applaud what they're doing.

They haven't actually got it in the school

yet, but he's in this program a couple

days a week, and that's awesome.

There's a tournament this weekend,

and, man, the discipline, the.

Not just physical toughness, but the mental

toughness that I see that gets developed

through that sport is, is incredible.

And it's also a really neat community of people because

I've yet to come across anybody that's just kind of

like, I wrestle like they are all in.

We've got a friend in the, the, the work

ecosystem that we're in whose son is, uh, one

of the top kids in the state.

And we ran at each other at a

conference recently, and he's like, all right, man,

I gotta get my wrestling fix.

What's your son doing about this? And how's he.

And, and, like, he's just, he is all in on it.

So I think it's a, it's a fantastic sport.

It's a fantastic community, and I'm excited to

see my, my kid come up through this. That's awesome.

I love hearing that, first off, because wrestling is

oftentimes not something you see in middle schools.

I didn't have it in middle school.

I didn't even know about wrestling being something

past WWE, which might stepbrother at the time

had loved, and, of course, had the little

toys for and a ring and so on.

So it was fun things.

It wasn't necessarily a sport that I thought of.

So when I saw it in high school, and, you know, I knew

it was more of something that you could do on your own.

You didn't have to be face to

face with individuals at all times. I loved it.

And at the end of the day, what came of

that was helping me get to the point where I

was like, but I also love the people around me,

and I think it's also very funny you mention it.

I found out last week that I'm

actually having a son, our first.

And I'm very excited for that. Thank you.

And just like you, I'm hoping that

my kid can get into some sports,

whether football, whether it's soccer, but wrestling.

I'm really hoping they at least give it a

try, you know, because it's an amazing sport.

It does teach discipline.

And myself, it got me into great shape.

Funny enough, I was probably about 260

pounds in freshman year of high school.

I was out of shape.

I was not not in great shape, that's for sure.

And by my sophomore year, I was, like, 172.

I dropped all that weight within about

a year and a half, just by. Wow. Yeah.

And it was amazing, and I loved it.

It brought me back, you know, that's.

That's incredible.

Athletics are.

They're so important for many reasons.

I've said this on.

On the podcast many times before, but two of

our best hires are former college athletes, and there's

just something about the discipline and the.

For them, they were both in team sports,

and so they're some of the best members

of the team because they've just.

They've just had that ingrained in them for.

For so long.

So anytime I see an athlete come through, uh, or

recruiting, like, they get some extra looks, for sure.

I respect that, as well.

And that's something that I've seen in.

In our hiring processes as well, is.

I mean, we love seeing anybody.

You know, we have team members that have absolutely

no experience, no college degree, no military history, no

sports history, and they're some of our best employees.

But at the same time, I've seen some insane dedication

from people who have gone through sports programs, who have

been in the military, of course, and other, you know,

certain fields where they've really been able to excel in,

you know, honing in those certain capabilities.

So, yeah, complete agreement. All right.

You drop out in your senior year of high school,

but as you said, you eventually found your way back

to getting your GED and going on to college.

Between dropping out and getting your

GED, how long was that period?

And what were you doing in that time?

That's a good question.

And that was an interesting period where I was still

trying to get myself in a good place where I

understood what my goals were at the time. You know, I.

I had all of these goals growing up.

I wanted to be an aggie.

That was something that I knew I

wanted to do for the longest time.

My dad was an aggie.

My dad was an aggie.

My grandpa literally worked in the boiler rooms at

a and m, back in the forties or fifties.

So, like, it's ingrained in our blood, and

I was disappointed in myself at the time.

So while it was still in my mind as a

goal, it wasn't necessarily something I was working towards.

So I actually had my first, let's say, bouts

with entrepreneurship at that time, where I started a

few companies, I tried to start a few others,

and let's say there were a couple successes and

a couple not so much successes.

What were you doing?

So, interestingly enough, the first

couple were around food.

I actually love cooking.

It's something that's, that's always

been ingrained in my life.

My granny used to teach me how to cook on the

weekends and the summers when I would go to their houses.

My mom is an amazing cook and

always gave me tips and tricks.

And then, funny enough, I also just loved watching

Gordon Ramsay on YouTube back in the day.

So all kinds of different things, and my first

bouts were actually from the ability to kind of

do catering, where I actually did succeed in doing

catering with barbecue and different types of foods.

I tried to start a food truck.

I did not succeed with the food truck.

Within that same kind of bout there, I

was thinking, well, how about a restaurant?

And also didn't succeed in doing that.

End of the day, the one that did, let's say,

go in the right direction was a vending management company.

That was an interesting one.

I was about 19 years old, and I struck

an interesting deal with a manufacturer in Canada who

built these vending machines for protein shakes.

But they were like blended protein shakes.

You could pick different flavors.

And they basically offered me up, uh,

exclusivity within the Texas and surrounding states.

And that was what I was

essentially almost like a franchise. Like, exactly.

So almost like a franchise was what I was looking at.

They weren't released yet, so that's

what I was looking at doing.

And then they went under, completely out of business, and

offered me the opportunity to buy the ip, but at

a steep price that I didn't have the money for.

So all of those different bouts in entrepreneurship

where I had inspirations, aspirations, and I put

a lot of work towards many of them.

But I will say many of them

and most of them didn't work out.

In the end, catering, I will say, was fine, but

that I won't say is a huge entrepreneurship venture.

It was more so just something that I did in my spare

time that led me to the realization of, you know what?

Maybe I do need to go back and get my

GED and then go to college and try something else.

So cooking, you said, is still

something that you're really passionate about.

What are you cooking this weekend?

What's going on in your kitchen? Oof.

So this weekend, I'm not going to worry about, but what

I am very excited for is a few weekends out.

I have been in Colorado.

I moved to Colorado about a year ago just

as an adventure with me and my fiance.

We've always wanted to live here, but finding out

that we have a kid coming and now knowing

that it's coming very soon, we've realized that getting

back to family is going to be important.

So we've actually just, you know, signed on a house,

renting a house in the Houston area right next to

all of our family, which is going to be great.

But what comes with that, to answer your

actual question, is that I love barbecue.

I'm from Texas.

I have an offset smoker, a log burner, and I will

throw a brisket, a pork butt, some ribs, some beef ribs,

whatever we've got on that smoker the weekend I'm back, so

that's what I'm looking forward to over here.

I'll cook anything from pork chops to, you know,

pulled pork in a crock pot and so on.

But being in an apartment, I don't have

the ability to have that offset smoker.

Yeah, man.

Well, you're making me hungry.

I, too, love, love smoking meat.

And I will say I make a darn good brisket.

I'd put it up there with, with

some of the, some of the best.

So maybe one of these days, we'll,

we'll get together and we'll like that.

We'll do a little side by side.

That sounds fantastic.

All right, so you dabbled in a few

entrepreneurial ventures with this vending machine thing.

Did you lose money on that, or was

that just like an investment of time that

just ended up amounting to nothing?

It was a heavy investment on time.

And ill say I didnt lose money, but I

did have to return money, in a sense.

So I spent a lot of time

putting together business plan, putting together different

model models alongside actual presentations.

And what I did was actually kind of offset the cost.

I didnt actually take on any of that cost.

What I decided to do was, okay, I have a

manufacturer whos selling these vending machines, and I have, let's

say, a surrounding area with tons of gyms and let's

say, an entire school, Texas A and M, who could

take on some of these vending machines.

So what I did was I spent hours and hours,

days, weeks, going out and actually doing cold calls.

I would walk into different businesses, ask

them what their current setup is.

I'd see their vending machines say, hey, you know,

I see you have this and that in there,

but what do you think about having this?

Would this be beneficial?

And then I set some deals up where we actually

had closed a few different conversations that, you know, they

had passed on some revenue or more so revenue for

my business to pass on to the manufacturer.

And then once everything went down,

I did have returned funds.

I took a bit of a hit on

that from, let's say, payment, processing fees, but

I can't say that that was that significant. Yeah.

So they were giving you like,

a deposit, something like that, essentially. Okay.

Absolutely.

Well, the fact that you werent afraid to put

yourself out there and go cold call, thats huge.

And thats the sort of thing that

will serve you well as an entrepreneur. Jeff.

Absolutely.

So how much time before you decided to go get the GED?

There was, lets say, about four years when

I dropped out of high school, and then

I finally went to get that GED.

So maybe three and a half, four years.

I decide its about time.

You know, I'm doing all these different things.

And while I'm enjoying myself in certain ways, I

love the venture side of things, you know, just

the entrepreneurial ideas and trying to act on them.

But at the end of the day, when I

realized, hey, these aren't going where I want, and

they're not the scale that I want to see.

You know, a catering company, a vending machine company,

a restaurant, while there are amazing representations of scale,

like, let's say, Gordon Ramsay, it's far and few

between or few and far between.

So all to say, I realized that it probably wasn't

going to get me where I wanted to go.

And that told me, you know, maybe I do

need to go back to the drawing board.

The obvious choice was the GED, which I'll

say was interesting in its own right, because

I didn't do any of the studying.

I didn't do any of the prep.

I just signed up for a GED one day

and said, I'll walk in and go take that.

And while it went fine, I passed the test.

It was a little more interesting than I

expected because it was something like an eight

hour test, so didn't set aside 8 hours.

Also didn't tell my job that I was going to be gone

for 8 hours, but at the same time it was enjoyable.

I got it done and at the end of the day,

I had my ged within like two days of that.

So that was amazing.

And then from there, the real question

was just, what do I do now?

I technically had the high school experience and

where did I want to go with it?

I had no clue.

It wasn't free fuse.

I had no idea what freefuse was or where we

were going to go with that at the time.

And I didn't even know my co founders at the time.

So what I decided was I need

to go do some type of college.

And if you're familiar with it, in the Texas

area, we have lone star, lone star college, amazing

college, some of my best classes, amazing professors there.

And at the end of the day, I had a great time.

You know, I went and I showed up

my first day and college was for me.

I actually really enjoyed it.

You had control of your schedule.

I could work when I needed to work, and I had no

issues like I saw in high school with feeling so boxed in.

And that's honestly something else that I love

about the entrepreneurship side is you don't feel

boxed into a daily activity or schedule.

So that's where I started.

Went through lone star, funny enough, with one

of my best friends, Cole, from high school.

We just kind of went through at the same time.

Classes were amazing.

And at the end of the day, I got through

there with something like a three nine, a 40.

I had like one beat through all my classes.

And that I can say should have helped

me get into a and M, but didn't.

So a and M was an interesting step there.

I thought I was going to go into a and

m with a 40, be able to apply to Mays

business school and just get accepted right away, no problem.

But at the end of the day, I didn't

realize that a high school education and not having

a GED made it a lot easier.

So I applied to a and m something

like five times before I finally got accepted.

Five different semesters where I had the grades,

I had all the credits that I needed.

I just could not get in.

And funny enough, I was

applying to Mays business school.

I wanted to go into marketing.

That was where my dad went.

I wanted to be in sales.

But what I didn't realize is

there's other ways to do that.

So one day I had a random

conversation, and somebody mentioned industrial distribution.

And I was like, okay, that's very interesting.

So I did what I do, and I went

and cold called on the head of the department.

I gave him a phone call, and I just

said, hey, I'm trying to get into this department.

I left him a message.

I sent him an email, and he forwarded my

email to the guy who actually handles that.

And he was like, hey, Marcus, thank

you very much for reaching out.

I love the initiative, but this

is nowhere near what I handle.

So I'm going to hand you over to Evan Vestal. Great guy.

So I had a couple conversations with Evan.

Evan was kind of the leader

of recruitment within the organization.

And he basically told me the GED is difficult.

You know, they look at all kind, all kinds

of things, but what they look at is persistence.

And at the end of the day,

a GED shows, in a sense, quitting.

And I can admit that I did, and that's

something that you have to get back up from.

So he said, why don't you?

And albeit I was an hour and a half from him

at this time, but he said, why don't you, you know,

weekly, if not every other week, come meet with me.

Come sit down.

We'll have a conversation and we'll connect.

And as long as, you know, things are

going well for you, what you're doing.

And I can identify, let's say, or not identify.

I can build a relationship where I

feel comfortable making a recommendation for you.

I'll try and help you get into the program.

So I did that.

So, real quick. Yes.

This guy owes you nothing.

This guy is part of a university that

I don't know what timeframe you were there.

2010s.

Something somewhere in there.

Oh, no, this was 2019. I started.

Okay, so at this point, like, the undergrad population at

a and M is probably about 60 plus thousand.

And he's probably got I don't know how many

thousands of kids in the industrial distribution program.

This guy's willing to give you an hour every week.

Every other week.

That's incredible, man.

It was huge.

And that meant a lot as well to me, especially with

the challenges that I was having with the other program.

So that was an immediate.

Yes, I want to do that.

And industrial distribution is where I want to be.

And I didn't realize it at the time, but

it was where I needed to be as well.

Real quick, not to take you off topic, but like

that right there again, the tenacity, the willingness to, to,

to go cold, call and knock on doors of businesses

that you've got no affiliation with, the.

The grit to just reach out to the head

of the industrial distribution department and just to keep

going, man, there's so much to be said for

that and the willingness to put yourself out there.

There's so much to be said for that.

And it's amazing to see where things go.

We had a founder that we interviewed some time

ago who he was going down the path of,

of creating a franchise, and he reached out to

the founder of Cold Stone, their ice cream franchise.

Ice cream shops are all over the country, and

asked this guy who built a very large, successful

business, you know, would you meet with me?

And he did.

And that meeting completely changed

the trajectory of his organization.

And so, love that you're going to get a lot of no's.

But, man, sometimes that one yes

makes all the nos worth it. Absolutely.

And I think what you said, even

at the beginning, really aligns with me.

You mentioned, you never know where things are going

to go, or you may have said it in

different words, but I think about that every day.

You know, where things are going is one thing,

but where things will end or where they will

end up is totally different than you expect.

Because when I look back, I think, and I told

my mom this the other day, and she laughed with

me, you know, if I wouldn't have gone through my

struggles in high school, if I wouldn't have dropped out

of high school and not taken four years to come

back to school and get my GED, gone to Lone

Star, and then finally got into a and m after

deciding, how about I go to industrial distribution?

I would have never met my co founder.

And my co founder is literally the reason

that I am where I am today.

You know, he started and

thought of the company himself.

I was brought in after the idea, but very

soon after, I'll say, but at the end of

the day, where things end up is totally different

than where you ever expect them to be.

I expected to be in a sales role, likely working for

a company, and now I get to do what I love.

I am, in a sense, working in sales,

but I also get to work more.

So partnerships and strategic partnerships at that, where

I get to work with other businesses, I

get to reach out to those leaders and

make a difference in our organization.

So I totally agree.

That's something that I think about day in, day out, is,

if all of the bad things wouldn't have happened to me,

I wouldn't have the good things that I have now. Yeah.

I want to jump back to the GED for just a second.

Was there, like, a moment?

Was there an event?

Was there an epiphany that made you go, okay,

I need to do this, or was it kind

of a slow buildup process and just finally war

on you enough to go do something about it?

I'll say it's a combination of both, because within

all of those entrepreneursial, entrepreneurial ventures and the ideas

that I wanted to embark on, I realized quickly

that with the experience I had, I would need

to get real experience inside a business.

I was 19 at the time.

I was trying to start a bunch of businesses as

a 19 year old with no experience running a business.

So I didn't really know what I was doing.

So what I decided I wanted to do was go get

a sales job, grow within a company, learn from some leaders,

and actually be able to branch out on my own.

But where.

Let's say the combination of both your.

Your points come in is the fact that I couldn't.

I had no way of getting one, because at the

end of the day, even when I would go in

and try and get cold calling positions just inside sales

or answering phones, they wanted a high school diploma.

They didn't hire people with not even a GED.

So that was really the turning point when I

realized, okay, so if I was brilliant enough to

just start a perfect running business, then I'm good.

But in any other case, I can't get

a job that I would actually enjoy.

And that's really what I wanted.

I wanted to learn.

I wanted to become a better

salesperson and couldn't do that.

So what I had to do was find a way to do so.

And the GED was the first step.

Yeah, well, all right.

Persistence, tenacity pays off.

This guy in the industrial distribution department

says, come meet with me regularly.

How did the rest of that play out?

Yeah, so, interestingly enough, the rest played out.

I'll say, somewhat as I expected,

but a little bit differently.

I had applied at that time to Mays

business school about three times, so, like I

mentioned, I didn't get in about five times.

So there was two more times, even after I

was meeting with Evan, where it didn't work, you

know, he couldn't just say, oh, I'm going to

check this off and push it through.

That's not how it works.

What he can do is analyze it and make

recommendations to the people who actually make the decisions.

So at the end of the day, for about six months,

I would come in bi weekly, if not monthly, and just

talk with them, share what's going down, how things are going.

And at the end of the day, I had applied two times.

I didn't get it.

I was a little disappointed at that time.

I was getting disconcerted.

I was disheartened, in a sense.

And at the end of the day, I think I even asked him.

I was like, hey, is this even going to work? You know?

Is this actually going to work?

I'm getting a little nervous that I'm

putting a lot of time in here.

It's been three years of school.

You know, it was 2019.

By that time, I had gone through three years of

college already, and he was like, you know what?

You know, you just need persistence.

You know, you need to keep trying.

It might not work right away.

You have a different experience than everybody.

You're not coming in with a great

SAT score, an amazing high school diploma.

It's different.

So my recommendation is persistence.

That's what he told me, and

that's what I decided to do.

I was still disappointed, but I did it one more time.

And I remember it was April 7, 2019, and it was

like, first thing in the morning, I decided to check my

email, and I definitely screamed like a little girl.

I was very, very excited when I finally got that.

We're excited to inform you, email.

Super, super excited.

So after about five times, at least two and

a half years of applying, I finally got it.

Man, I can't imagine.

I remember getting my acceptance letter to Texas A and

M, and I actually called my dad at work, and

he was in a meeting, and they actually, they went

and got my dad out of the meeting.

I was so excited to tell him and share that with him.

And we're excited versus we regret the first

couple words of that letter, you know, must

have been just an incredible feeling.

Absolutely. It was. It was huge. It was amazing.

And I definitely told everybody I knew.

But for my mom and my dad and my step

parents, I wanted to do something very specific because it

had been so long, so not huge, but I invited

them both to lunch, separately, of course, and I got

shirts from Aggieland outfitters, if you've ever heard of it,

and they said, you're an aggie dad.

You're an Aggie mom.

And I.

I will say my dad broke out into tears inside

that restaurant, which was amazing, because, you know, as a

dad, you want the same for your son.

You want them to succeed.

So he was so excited, and that made me extremely happy.

That's awesome.

So that was the spring of 19.

I'm guessing you started classes in the fall of 19.

I believe so.

Now, I'm going to get a little fuzzy, but I

think it was fall of 19 because I did about

two years at Texas A and M, so it would

be 19 to 2021 when I actually finished my degree. Okay.

What was that first semester like? Was it overwhelming?

Was it exciting?

Was it all of the above something else? Jeff?

It was awesome.

It was fantastic.

I still have a picture of myself on my first day

with my little backpack as, like, a 23 year old, my

little backpack on, ready to go to the literal bus, the

A and M bus, if you're familiar with it.

It was great.

But at the end of the day, it

was fantastic for a couple of reasons.

The classes were awesome.

You know, Evan Vestal, the one who helped me get

into the program, my first class, was with him.

So that was absolutely awesome.

He was great.

Huge mentor, and he's actually one of the people,

one of the three people that I went to

ask if they thought that I should take the

venture on free fuse and actually quit my job.

So, like, he's still a mentor to this

day, somebody I look up to immensely.

But that first semester, I'll say, was also made

even better, which I think that answers your question,

because it was a football season, so I actually

got to go to all of the games.

I got my sports pass, so I could go

to every game, albeit I was at the very,

very top nosebleed section because I was a freshman.

But, man, it was fantastic.

And I was also.

I don't think it was that semester, but

I think it was the next season.

I was actually at school when we got the 7472 LSU win.

So that was absolutely wonderful.

That's a night I will never forget.

I don't want to spend too much time on

this, but we have this outdoor living area at

our house, and my kids were in bed.

My brother in law had come over, and

my wife and I were all out there.

And when we finally won that game, we

are all literally jumping up and down, arms,

you know, embracing each other, jumping up and

down with excitement, screaming and yelling.

And I remembered the next day, we've

got ring cameras all over the house.

And I went and I saved that video and screenshotted it.

And anyway, that's just such a special moment.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

I'll say I was way too high up to actually get

to storm the field, but it was amazing being there.

And let's say, I think we were

in our 6th or 7th overtime.

It was like seven overtime in the morning or something.

It was ridiculous.

We had been playing them for seven

years and we had not beat them.

And it took seven overtimes in that game.

And there was a call that went in our favor

that probably shouldn't have, that kept the game going.

But you know what?

Oh, I don't even remember that.

Maybe I was too into it. Oh, man.

Still, wonderful experience there.

And I'll say that semester was just awesome.

Both semesters, when I had the football seasons, my

last semester, I did have a football season, but

I already had a full time job at the

time, and I was way too busy.

But I can say it wasn't a great season for

us anyway, so I got the best of the best. Yeah.

All right.

Were you working while you were in school? At A and M.

Absolutely.

So I was working a couple of

different jobs, depending on the time.

So once I got into A and M and

I was in the industrial distribution program, I actually

used that, let's say experience or more so status

to finally get myself the position that I wanted.

I actually used the fact that I was in

a program focused on sales, taking these classes, learning

these things, to actually get a job.

Doing door to door sales, it wasn't cold

calling like I wanted, but I was actually

doing door to door sales, and I was

selling windows for a company that's no longer

incorporated, but literally selling windows door to door.

And it was an interesting system where, you know, you'd

go cold call on a specific house that looks very

nice, one that's more prominent in the area, offer them

a very, very steep discount if they'd let you install

windows on their house and put up a sign that

says, hey, we purchased from this company, and then any

surrounding neighbor that comes in and decides to purchase that

I would cold call on, I can reference.

Hey, did you see how amazing their windows are?

And so on.

Obviously, that was a nice commission sale.

So it was an amazing position where I actually

got to go do cold calling, door to door

sales, actually got to start earning commission.

And through that, that kind of

boosted my career from there.

You know, in college, I did a couple internships.

I got a job with Summit Electric.

That was my first bout in,

let's say, the more industrial space.

I did an internship and got a full time position there.

While I was in college.

And then I started with the company that

I worked for after college, which was drink

water products, so they're more oil and gas.

But at the end of the day, that's kind of how

I got my career path jumping how I wanted it to. Yeah.

As far as the classwork goes, how

long did it take you to finish?

So I did five years in school total.

I think I did three years in community college, one semester

at Blinn, and then two years at Texas A and M. Okay.

And apart from that LSU win,

which we'll be talking about for.

For years and years to come, even though I don't

think we may beat them once since then, probably not.

We'll still live on it. We will. We will.

Just like Johnny football beating

Alabama, uh, in Tuscaloosa.

But what were some other, like,

real, just seminal moments of.

Of your college experience?

Honestly, my favorite times, and this might

be different than other people's experience.

I was a little older.

I didn't go through college.

I didn't go to parties.

I don't think I went to one single party in college.

I was there to go to school, to finish my degree.

But at the end of the day, I

also met some amazing people along the way.

And I got to do some really cool things.

I'll say my favorite things were

actually some of my classes.

I got to do some really, really

cool lectures like materials sciences, power transmission,

and different industrial distribution related classes.

And those are always things that I enjoyed.

I'm an engineer at heart now.

I'm a literally engineer, and I love that.

But at the end of the day,

I got to learn how things work.

I got to take things apart.

I'll say my least favorite parts of those were

the research papers and writing 30, 40 page synopses.

But at the end of the day, those classes

were really enjoyable because getting your hands on going

to labs where you actually get to use machinery

and equipment, that's my type of thing, and that's

what inspires me to go out there and work

on my jeep on the weekends and so on.

It's also very literally where I met my co founder.

He was my Ta.

He was finishing his PhD, and he was

actually my TA in that material science class.

So, very interesting happenstance.

But at the end of the day, those were my

favorite encounters, whether it's in class actually learning, because I

really enjoyed what I was learning at the time or

meeting the friends that I still have to this day.

My neighbor Jake, who very literally is one of

the best grill masters that I've ever known.

You know, we used to throw down every weekend.

He'd come over for brisket or

I'd go over there for ribs.

And those were the experiences that I had.

Rather than, let's say, going to parties and doing those types

of things, it was the people that I got to meet

and what I actually got to very literally learn. Yeah.

Two things to interject.

One, for those that aren't familiar

with industrial distribution, it's kind of

a hybrid of engineering and business.

Is that a fair description?

Hundred percent oversimplified, but.

And we actually had another guest recently who was

also an industrial distribution major at a and m.

So for those not familiar,

hybrid business and engineering.

But, man, something else that you said

that really sticks out to me.

And I, and I think about this from time to time.

When I went to college, I mean, I

went to learn, but, like, I went because

that's just kind of what, what you did.

And I think that for somebody in a

situation like yours, where you went later in

life, and it was very intentional.

I think that the learning means a lot more, and

I think that you learn a lot more when you're

there in the time of life that you were there

and the experiences that you'd had leading up to that.

It's very true.

And that's something that I actually noticed, which is probably why

I didn't end up at many parties and so on.

It's not because I didn't want to.

I also wasn't invited to them.

It's because I didn't group with people that

were focused on those types of things.

And I found a very interesting group when I went to a and

m, like I said, I was 22, 23 once I finally got in.

And, you know, there was a group

around the same age as me.

Not currently a group, but just people that I would

meet that were the same age, had the same aspirations.

They were there to learn.

They were there to get things done.

And we had amazing study sessions, to be honest,

where we could really do that, get things done.

Rather than sitting down conversing, you know, having small

talk, we would go, we would sit down, get

our work done, and then move on with our

lives because we all had jobs and so on.

So a lot of different things came of that.

But at the end of the day, for me,

it really was something that was very intentional because

I got my time to goof off.

I dropped out of high school.

That was goofing off.

And even after that, it still took

me time to shape myself up.

So once I had, I wasn't trying to goof off.

I wasn't trying to put myself in any

kinds of situations where I could get in

trouble or anything of the sort, especially knowing

at college there's underage drinking.

I'm not going to be the person above age

in that area, giving any alcohol to anybody else.

So many reasons that I won't

put myself in those situations.

Past wanting to learn, but also making sure that I keep

myself on the right track for what I want to achieve.

Yeah. All right.

You finished the degree at A and M.

And what came next?

Something on oil and gas to do with water.

I forget what you. What the name of the company

was, but walk us through that. How'd you.

How'd you find that job? Yeah. Yeah.

So I worked for a company called Drinkwater Products.

And funny enough, they're actually a company

that was affiliated with the company that

my dad worked for for 15 years.

So that's how I knew of them.

And David Drinkwater, who used to own the

company, was a close friend of my dad.

So at the end of the

day, he wasn't affiliated there anymore.

My dad didn't work for that company anymore,

but there was still a relationship there.

And I kind of reached out and just said,

hey, is there a job to actually be had?

Is there any kind of position that

I can begin while I'm in college?

And that's actually how I started,

was just as an intern.

I reached out to the current owners, who

were the son in laws of David Drinkwater.

And at the end of the day, they

said, yeah, we could benefit from cold calling.

We have a huge pipeline that could be called

on, and if you could get some of them

into conversations or moving forward, that'd be amazing.

So that went from just a summer job that

I was using as a way to get more

experience on my resume to something that turned into

a full time position once I left college.

And I stayed there until I actually left them for free.

Fuse now.

And so when you were interning, you were.

You were cold calling?

You were helping them build a pipeline.

Were you continuing that kind

of work after you graduated? Yeah.

So after I graduated, it was more

addressing the pipeline rather than just kind

of facilitating the growth within it.

So I was working with areas from Texas

all the way up to Wyoming, just trying

to introduce our products to new customers, which,

if you're familiar, which you're likely not.

We were in the oil and gas space, so

what we sold were pipeline pigs and flange isolation.

Kits.

Two really, really fun things.

One is a gasket, literally, that goes in between

two pipelines, and the other is a pig.

It's a literal foam cylinder that runs

through a pipeline to clean it.

So that's what we did.

But interestingly enough, it was

a very lucrative space.

There was a need for it because maintenance in

the pipeline industry is a necessity, per se.

So that's really what my focus was, was

getting those two product lines into the hands

of the clients that we already had more

effectively and opening us up into new markets,

like up north into the Colorado, Wyoming areas. Yeah.

Another just quick little observation on that.

There are a lot of industries where there's the.

There's the core product, there's the thing that they

output themselves, but theres all of these other supporting

industries that go into these kinds of things.

And I heard somebody talk about this recently where

if you think about the California gold rush, there

were some people that made money on actually finding

gold, but the people that actually made money were

the people that were selling the picks and the

shovels and the Levi Strauss and their denim rough,

tough pants and things like that.

Those were the people that made a ton of money.

Now, oil and gas, obviously, there's a ton of money to

be made in the actual oil and gas product itself.

But as people are evaluating different spaces to

go into, I think it's worth considering.

What are the industries that support this industry?

What are the things that support this industry?

What are those picks and shovels for this space?

Absolutely.

There's a lot of business to be had doing that, too.

Absolutely.

And one of the most important things for me

was finding a company that had a lucrative product,

something that wasn't necessarily on shelves in every Walmart,

but something that was needed in every area, every

single area in the United States and outside has

pipelines somewhere big, small.

They might not be running.

Maybe they're natural gas,

maybe they're liquid nitrogen.

You never know what's going through this pipeline, but at

the end of the day, they need to maintain them.

And that was one of the biggest factors for me,

was knowing that there was a need for the product.

Not just a desire for the product,

but at the same time to.

For me, I'll say what was the biggest factor

and what took me away from other companies that

I had offers from leaving college was that I

didn't want to work for a large company.

While I love the idea of working for a large company,

I saw my dad's trajectory, and it really inspired me.

He started with a very small company that maybe

had five to ten people within it and very

minimal revenue numbers, I think, and don't quote me,

but I think he probably 200 to 300 x'ed

their numbers over 15 years, which is huge.

Obviously, year after year.

It's a little small of a number, but

amazing numbers to the point where they were

able to be acquired by a listed company.

So all to say that was my aspiration is I wanted

to find a company that had growth for, or had room

for growth, but also a company who hadn't seen all of

that growth quite yet, so that I could be essentially, in

my eyes, one of the facilitators of that growth.

Yeah, well, so how long were you there with.

With drink water? Yeah.

Adding in my time in college and out, I was there

for about a year and a half to two years. Okay.

And were you, once you got out of school, were

you traveling at all, or was everything over the phone?

Minimally.

There was a good bit of travel at certain

points, but I'll say, especially once, let's say free

fuse was something that we were beginning to grow.

I definitely took more of an inside position where

I would do a lot more calling and addressing

customers in the local area, which was something that

my superiors were totally on the same page, so

was not going behind their backs in that sense.

But they, in a sense, knew that I had another venture.

At the time, it was just a venture.

It was something that we were trying to grow.

And eventually I told them that it

was growing into something else, so they

kind of knew where things were going.

All right, well, let's drill down on freefuse.

So let's start with what is free fuse?

That's a fantastic question.

And just to give a very brief idea, it actually

started as a choose your own adventure video platform.

It was never built as a b

two b tool or an education tool.

It grew into all of those things

based on necessity in the spaces.

It was intended to be entertainment.

It was intended to be entertainment. Absolutely.

There was the intention.

Funny enough, the name freefuse doesn't

even come from the platform itself.

It's actually originally Mike and John, my two co

founders, had a production company that they were doing

literal production work in the video space and realized

that there was a need for something better, in

the sense, something that was more engaging.

Very literally, choose your own adventure.

So that's where the idea, and a slight bit of

where the idea came from is just the idea of

transforming the ways that people are consuming media in general.

And, man, I think back as a kid, I had some

of those choose your own adventure books, and you read a

couple of pages, and then it would say, if you want

this, turn to page 57, and if you want that, go

to page 42, and you get to the end of that

page and it just takes you on a completely different path

through the story, and it totally changes the idea.

So I think that as a, b, two c

entertainment play, I think that sounds fascinating, but absolutely.

Why did they pivot so, interestingly enough,

it wasn't even a intentional pivot. I'll say.

The platform was built as a choose your

own adventure video platform that anybody could use.

Sign on anytime, and utilize it to do

whatever you wanted to do with it.

But once the pandemic hit, and this is where I

had actually finally came in, about a year after they

had developed the production company, and now a couple months

after the real idea for this had come up, we

were actually just trying to get the tool out there.

We were trying to figure out who could

use it and how we could get it

into the hands of, you know, more individuals.

And at the end of the day, the pandemic hit.

So we realized that the education space, which is

where Mike and I met, he was my ta.

So we had just finished our degree, we still

had a lot of connections there, and we were

like, you know, there's so many recordings, there's so

many pieces of content that are there, but they're

not very effective to get back to.

So what if there was a way to break

those down into a more dynamic and visual structure

that someone could choose their own adventure through?

So that was the intention.

But I'll say there was kind of a

stalemate, because at the end of the day,

educational institutions don't have the ability to take

their video recordings and break them down manually.

They don't have the time.

There's nobody to do that, and a

professor is definitely not going to do.

So what we actually had to do is take a back step.

We had built this choose your own adventure platform.

The ideas were more focused around

and entertainment when it was built.

But what we realized was that in the education

space, that there might be something that we need

to do to help facilitate their use.

So that actually brought us to building an AI.

So now we have a proprietary AI.

Over the past two, three years, it's been

taken out of beta and it's now live.

But what it's focused on

is capturing that existing content.

If there's lectures in the education space, TED talks, webinars,

maybe even lunch and learns in the b two B

space and transforming it, literally uploading it, raw video content

from Zoom or wherever you have it, and it'll chunk

it into micro content, micro content that's shareable on social,

so it can even be marketing related.

But then it's even going to go further to

position all of those pieces of content onto a

tree structure that now can be traversed in that

interactive way, that can be used as a visual

representation for someone to navigate through.

And that became a huge value.

And that was immediately where we started to take off.

Within about a semester, we were finally in

one course, and by the end of that

semester, we were in about 15 different courses.

By the end of the next semester,

we were in multiple different universities.

So we were growing extremely fast.

And from there, if you can imagine the idea

of education, engagement, and even interactivity, it very easily

transitioned into the b two B space. Yeah.

Forgive me if you already said this, but did

this come out of class work that your ta

was working on in his master's program?

That's a good question.

So, no, but it came out of

struggles that he saw within the classroom.

So he was a ta, and he was doing a lot of

labs, and what he saw was that there was not even.

Oftentimes, almost every single time something was taught, people

would come back and ask the same exact question,

hey, I know you said something about this.

Could you tell me what you said,

or could you provide this resource?

And he was giving the same lecture, the same

answers, the same resources, again and again and again.

So what he realized was that there was

probably a more effective way to structure that

in a choose your own adventure way.

The inspiration, like you even mentioned,

did come from originally, the idea

of choose your own adventure books.

But that idea of choosing your own

adventure, in our minds, was very easy

to transfer into, let's say, identifying needs.

So asking very simple questions, letting them choose

their answers, and navigating their way through to

resources or answers and information that they need.

So that was the original inspiration, was actually

building a platform to support that struggle that

he was seeing, or more so, not building

the platform, but addressing the need and fitting

the platform to that need and addressing it.

I love stories like that where somebody didn't just set

out to create a business, they had a problem that

they were experiencing themselves, and they want to solve this

for themselves, and then they see this market opportunity to

go and do something with it. I think that's just.

That's just so cool. Absolutely.

And that's, I'll say, been kind of our inspiration

through everything is, you know, where can it fit

now and where can we go with it?

Because just because we can get into a

certain market now doesn't mean it's going to

be the best market for us.

And exploring those different markets, you know,

education was great for us, coaching and

consulting was great for us.

But direct, b, two b, where we're

focused on, you know, internal education, external

engagement, even community building, those are huge.

There's even ways many of our clients

are using it as a marketing tool,

way to create no touch sales processes.

So at the end of the day, it's been really

interesting exploring past where we started and just seeing where

the tool can take us and seeing where, let's say,

even our clients expand on it, what they do with

it, with the inspiration that they have. Yeah.

All right.

There's three total co founders.

You've talked about one, how did your

other co founder come into the mix? Absolutely.

And John is, I'll say one of our more fun co founders.

He's one of my great friends as well.

But at the end of the day,

he, well, is our creative master.

He's the inspiration behind everything that happens.

Let's say not behind the scenes in the tech

sense, but everything that happens in the creative sense.

The inspiration behind how the platform

actually works and how it functions.

So he's a creative at heart.

He's a producer, a director, a videographer.

So he had a ton of experience in the video space.

And alongside Mike, they had that production company

where they were actually working on just producing

content in general before the platform even existed.

And at the end of the day, that is where

he came in, is the idea of his knowledge in

the space regarding video, his ability to support our clients.

And at the end of the day now, he ends up

being a huge value to them, where maybe I'm bringing the

clients in, or our team are actually closing deals and bringing

clients in that have inspiration, but he's one of the ones

that takes that inspiration and runs with it.

He's able to give them ideas that they

can actually create, rather than just ideas that

they can theorize and so on.

So that's been one of our integral, I'll

say, integral growth factors is the fact that

we have a huge support mechanism behind us.

We're not just selling a solution and a

platform that someone can go use freely.

We actually support them all the way through the

implementation, giving them the ideas to actually achieve what

they want to a heavy side of do.

Where John comes in, it sounds like

this all just came together so organically.

It got birthed out of this problem that they

wanted to solve, and there were people around that

could help kind of make this all come together,

but you were doing something else.

You had a full time job.

What was that moment that you said, okay,

I'm going to join these guys on this

adventure and go take this big risk? Absolutely.

And at that time, you know, Mike and

John were both in it full time.

You know, they were, they didn't have other jobs.

They were putting all of their time in, and

they still are amazing, amazing, amazing, dedicated individuals.

But at the end of the day, I was split.

You know, I was only able to put so much time

in, and I felt like I wasn't putting enough in.

At the end of the day, you know, I wanted

to earn my share of the company, not just have

it, because I was there from the beginning.

So my decision came from my own inspiration.

I saw what the platform had turned into.

I saw the clients that we were working with, and

we were only in the education space at that time.

And from that, I realized we need a

push into the B two B space.

We need to go push rather than just

be pulled in by referrals and so on.

So that was my decision.

I talked to my co founder, Mike,

and I said, hey, he's our CEO.

So I talked directly to him and I said,

hey, I'm thinking I want to do this.

I'm obviously a little nervous about it because I wasn't

taking a salary from previews at the time and didn't

even for a little while after that, just because we

wanted to grow the platform, you know, so it was,

it was a nerve wracking scenario.

But at the end of the day, you know, I had his support.

He told me that I had his support in

regards to whatever I needed to get things rolling,

whether it was getting marketing going with, you know,

freelancers and so on, different things, like a VA

to support me in my time and so on.

So I had the support that I needed 100%.

And at the end of the day, once I realized we do

have a space to drop into the B two B space is

for us, and we can do something, I just made the decision.

It was difficult because, of course, I had a very

comfortable position where I was doing fine for myself.

I could afford my lifestyle at the time, and

I had to take a step back from that.

I had to cut expenses significantly.

I had to change the way I was living.

I actually moved back to college Station because

rent would be half of where I was

paying, half of where I was at.

So a lot of different things I did to make that move.

But at the end of the day, once I did, I

didn't look back because I've enjoyed every moment of it.

Maybe I can't say every moment, there's been some

crazy ones, but at the end of the day,

I enjoy it all because it's a learning experience.

And I've grown immensely as a leader, as a

salesperson, but also I've learned, like I always wanted

to, how to run a business, in a sense,

and all of these different things that have been,

you know, aspirations for my whole life.

So while I think I'm getting off track, off of

your question, there were a lot of different things within

that experience that were very beneficial to me.

How much of your decision to make the leap

and join them was fueled by your belief in

the idea versus your belief in the people?

That's a really good question, actually.

So my belief in the idea is immense.

You know, where I still see a ton of

value in different spaces, like, even hitting that entertainment

market and opening the platform back up rather than

having it as a b two b focused solution.

A huge factor was actually my belief in the

team, because while, you know, I've talked about our

co founders, one of the smartest people I've ever

met is Wendy, our tech lead.

She is our tech lead who has essentially

built the entire platform from the ground up.

Now, she has a team behind her,

but at the time, she did not.

And she is absolutely amazing when it comes to

fixes, anything that comes up, you know, if I

ask her, hey, there's a struggle right here.

A client's having trouble or something happened, boom, within

24 hours, things are fixed, if not an hour.

So that support is immense.

But at the same time, you know, my

co founder, Mike, and John, my co founder,

Mike, and the other co founder, John, apologies.

They're some of the hardest workers that I've ever met.

You know, Mike is very much so.

A day in, day out, dedicated person.

He does not stop.

I don't know how he does

it sometimes, to be completely honest.

And that's why I will follow him as my CEO.

He is my CEO, and I respect him for that, because

I know at the end of the day, even if I

put in my hundred percent, he's probably put in 10% more.

So that is huge for me.

John, the creative inspiration is immense, being, especially

in a video based solution, a company surrounding

that creative space, knowing that we have somebody

on the team who has creative experience, who

knows the space, who has worked on projects

that were very intensive and professional.

So on, let's say professional productions.

Having that and knowing that you have the support behind

you on both ends, not just running the company, but

also being able to give the inspiration is huge.

Because if you can imagine, there's a lot of clients that

you can sell on an idea and a solution, but having

them be able to pull it off is another thing completely,

especially when there's a creative aspect to it.

So to answer your question, it's both the tool itself.

I am a huge, huge movie buff.

I also love video games.

So the idea of gamifying movies, that was my original

thought when we looked at it, I was dumbfounded.

That was what Mike and I were originally

talking about, was literally, just choose your own

adventure video when the idea came to light.

But what it's grown into has been amazing.

And then the people behind us really just sealed the

deal for me to know that, hey, not only do

we have an amazing solution, an amazing tool that has

tons of different ways to grow, but we also have

the team behind it to actually support.

You mentioned moving back to College

Station from, I presume, Houston.

You went from College Station to

Houston back to College Station.

I assume that your co founders were in

college Station and I guess maybe still are.

So that's a good question.

So, funny enough, Mike was finishing his PhD

in college Station, but he's actually from LA,

and John is actually from LA as well,

so they're actually out in California.

I met Mike in funny enough, that two, three

semester time period where he was actually at A

and M, and then he moved back to LA,

and that's where they are still residing now.

I'm the only one of us over here in Houston.

That's a lie.

We now have a couple team members around the

Texas area, but at the end of the day,

we're kind of a split team and we're completely

remote, so there's no specific location where we lie.

And now we have employees and

even, let's say, foreign countries.

You know, we work with employees that are, you

know, out in Mexico, we work with some employees

that are in the european countries and so on.

So it's been an interesting thing growing the

team and seeing how working in all those

different time zones and with all the different,

you know, individuals and their cultures has been.

Yeah, I got to imagine, especially in the early

days, you know, when you get to scale, I

think it changes things and it brings different challenges.

But in the early days, I would think proximity

and the ability to sit in the same room

is really valuable in getting that initial momentum.

But it sounds like you guys have made it work.

Even being distributed, what do

you attribute that success to?

Ill say its effective communication.

Thats something thats been very important with us

is since almost three, four years ago, weve

done at least a weekly sync with all

three co founders every single week.

You know, we have not missed one

except by very, very severe, exigent circumstances.

But that has been important for us because while,

you know, when we step into that meeting, we

don't necessarily have a huge agenda every single time.

We don't have all of these different

things that need to be hit.

There's always something that pops up from conversations that

have been had, from difficulties, struggles that have been

seen throughout the week and so on.

And being able to actually address those things in

a live setting and knowing that you have time

every week to do so is very important.

So I'll say that that's been one of the biggest things.

And on the same kind of front, actually having

co founders that are open to opinion, you know,

that's something that's very important with us, is we've

definitely gotten into some heated debates.

We've definitely gotten into some, I wouldn't say

arguments, but stalemates and decisions because we disagree

on what we want to do.

And knowing that we can disagree is very important to

me because, you know, while I do follow Mike, he's

my CEO, it's important to me to be able to

have an opinion and that he respects it.

It means a lot to me.

So on all fronts, that's important.

I'll say that the communication

is very important for us. Yeah.

When you guys do get into those

disagreements about approach or whatever, what is

the decision making process like?

Yeah, and we've only had to actually embark

on this a couple of times, but we

actually go through a voting system.

We very much so give each other one vote, and at the

end of the day, we don't just immediately vote on things.

We'll actually share each other's opinions.

We'll listen, we'll have a little bit of a

debate where we go back and forth and share

why we disagree with the opinion, rather than just

saying, no, I disagree and I vote now, but

that's been very important, is having an open communication

where we're able to have that debate and then

very literally, just finally putting it to a vote.

I'll say I've won a couple of those and I've

definitely lost a couple of those, and sometimes it stings,

but sometimes the sting actually ended up being the right

direction to go, and I was wrong the whole time.

So all to say, I think it ends up

being a very good and effective method for us.

Yeah, I own the company, and at the end

of the day, I have the final say.

And we definitely have, as one of our guys

calls it, robust dialogue from time to time.

And I think it's pretty rare that I've ever

just said, nope, this is what we're doing.

Suck it up and go, man.

There's probably been a couple of those.

I can also think back about a handful of things that

I was pretty adamant that we do it a different way.

And I can think about a handful of

those things and go, you know what?

It's a good thing I didn't do what I wanted to

do, because this turned out better than it would have.

And so surrounding yourself with people that have

different opinions, different ideas, different approaches, it makes

you better at the end of the day,

and doesn't mean you get everyone right, but

you improve your chances, I think, by looking

at things from a lot of different angles.

I love that you mentioned that.

And that's something that I probably say too often, is

I'm only as good of a salesperson or as good

of a business person as the perspective that I have.

So the more and more that I keep

learning, the better I'm going to be.

I know I'm not the best that I'm going to be.

I'll be better five minutes from now, hopefully.

But at the end of the day, everything that I've

learned in my career has been from other salespeople.

I don't come up with my own ideas.

I combine ideas.

I combine theories and, you

know, strategies and tactics.

And of course, I can say that the final, the end

point is mine, and it's what I came up with.

But at the end of the day, everything's been done but

going and learning from those people who have done it, reading

the books that tell you how to do it.

And actually, for me, I love reading, and

I think that there's a huge value.

But for me, the best experience I've ever gotten

was from doing, from being hands on, being in

front of somebody, showing me how they actually solve

a problem for a customer, showing me how they

would actually address an objection from a customer.

Those are the things that have really made me who I am.

And just like you said,

that perspective is extremely important.

It's what actually teaches you when you're right or

when you're wrong, rather than just when you think

you're right or when you think you're wrong.

You've kind of touched on this in some different ways,

but I want to drill a little bit deeper.

There's three of you.

How do you guys divide your, your responsibilities?

Or are your lanes all very, very clear, or do you

guys just kind of morph and go back and forth?

And how do you divide up the business?

Yeah, that's a really good question.

And it's been an evolution in itself.

We very much so started out just jumping into

it and saying, well, I know how to do

this, I know how to do this.

Well, let's focus on that. Awesome.

And we kind of split up tasks in a

sense, but at the end of the day, that

doesn't always end up where things are best suited.

So Mike, he's the CEO.

He oversees most operations, pays the

bills, does things like that.

But he also has a heavy hand in conversations,

especially when we're talking with larger clients and we

were talking with Infinity USA and GE medical.

I bring him into those conversations.

Generally, I'm going to lead up or

head up most sales operations alongside the

few salespeople that I have behind me.

And that's really where I focus

is the sales and marketing space.

A lot more on, on the direct sales and

then theorizing and providing inspiration for the marketing to

the marketing team that we outsource to John.

He's kind of after the fact, you know, John is really

going to come in after we've closed deals, and now he's

going to come in and actually provide the value to that

client and say, hey, you have a tool.

You have all of these different things you can do.

Now let's see what we want to do

and how we're going to actually achieve it.

So that's how we've tried to set up an end to

end process where I can start conversations all day long.

We can start conversations with the sales team and

they can get on the phone, get in front

of clients and actually bring them to the table.

But me stepping in and actually adding value

as being a co founder, bringing some extra

inspiration to the table has been huge.

When it's larger clients and bringing Mike

in, that's been even more important.

Having a CEO on the call is powerful.

Having somebody who can actually sit down and talk business

with the leaders, even though, of course I can as

a co founder, but it's important to have those steps

where they feel that they're actually able to talk to

somebody higher than who they're currently doing. So.

So that's always what we're trying to do,

is add value throughout the process, whether it's

in the conversation before a sale or after

the sale, adding value with John and his

team actually supporting them through their use.

You mentioned bringing in the CEO to sit on a call.

I've found that most of the time, the value in that

is not actually what that person says or does, it's just

the presence of a person in that senior level.

Sometimes I might get on a call, I might say,

I might talk for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, but the

person on the other end feels better knowing that there's

somebody at that level that's involved and invested.

Exactly.

Even if I don't add value in the conversation.

100% agree.

And that's one of the most important things is especially

when I have my salespeople going out there and starting

conversations, every single one of them, anybody that's ever worked

for us, even not in sales, they know that they

can call us into a meeting anytime they need.

Obviously, that might not be as easy as we

continue to grow and it's gotten harder even now.

But if they're able to work around my schedule,

I will be in any meeting I need to.

And oftentimes I've even cut meetings short with

current clients to be able to do so.

Of course, making sure John's there to continue them.

But all to say, that's a huge thing, just showing

them that, hey, you are supported not just by a

salesperson who's going to sell you a solution, but you

have the email of a co founder.

You have the email with a phone number in

the signature from the CEO of the company. That's huge.

And that does, it just shows them that, hey, if

I need something, I don't just have this one customer

support email that I can reach out to or that

little portal that I can drop something in, I can

reach out to a real person, I can have that

support in real time anytime I need it.

And you're totally right, that ends up being a huge value,

even if there's not a ton set in that conversation.

Yeah.

So how big is the team today?

So we're sitting at about, I'll

say, full time, part time split.

We're in between 18 to 20, so we've got

just about 20 that we're running with right now,

not including the developer team who's outsourced there.

So those are going to be anything from, you

know, us three co founders, our tech team that's

on or more so near shore or onshore, alongside

our support staff and our sales team.

So that's going to be about 18 to 20 at this moment.

A minute ago, you mentioned some pretty big names.

That sounds like you guys are

potentially going to be working with.

As a fairly young startup with a relatively

small group of people, how are you guys

getting an audience with Fortune 500 companies?

That's pretty incredible.

Yeah, that's an interesting one.

And it's really been a lot of work in

the sense of actually working our way up there.

When we started two, three years ago, actually

getting our solution out, even into the eyes

and ears of these individuals, we started at

the bottom of the food chain.

We started from education all the way

to consultants and coaches who we thought

would be great referral partners.

And while they have been, at the end of the

day, it's always better to get to the decision maker.

So we worked with businesses working our

way up in the decision making flagpole.

At the end of the day now, it's very much so.

A lot of just cold calling when I try

and get those larger names in, sometimes it's going

to be a cold outreach via email, sometimes it's

going to be straight from LinkedIn.

And I do a ton of LinkedIn outreach where

I just, you know, co founder to CEO, co

founder to vp, whoever it might be.

I just reach out and I level with them.

I like to just say, hey, this is what we're doing.

Would you be open to checking this out?

And if they're not fantastic, that's totally cool.

And if they are, then I absolutely love

to share with them what we have.

And then from that, if an

actual conversation comes, then that's fantastic.

But all to say, you know, with those larger names, it's

been a lot of just cold calling in the sense of

either just cold outreach email wise, or phone calls in a

sense, and trying to identify those decision makers.

Because never once in my life have I just called somebody

and they said, oh yeah, I make decisions on that.

No problem, I'll call somebody.

I'll try and identify an individual, a decision maker.

I'll get them into a meeting quick, 2030 minutes networking call,

show them a brief idea of what we have and then

see if they're willing to help us work our way up.

Once we identify a champion that is

willing to, it becomes so much easier.

And from there, you know, once we've gotten into some

of these larger organizations and once we've gotten even into

some of the medium to small businesses, there's a lot

of referrals that also come from it.

You know, once we show our clients, hey, you

can educate your internal employees, your external clients, engage

them, you can create no touch sales processes.

They're like, whoa, that's crazy.

I also know this guy over here who runs

this business, that's our partner, who could use that.

And then we start getting those referrals with it.

But I'll just say, just depending on what

it is, whether it's the in person efforts,

making calls and sending emails or getting those

referrals, it's really just a combination of efforts.

And oftentimes, especially with those larger conversations, I

have to go down many of those, those

routes to even open a conversation there.

Yeah, makes, makes sense.

And again, I think that that speaks

to that tenacity that, uh, that you've

shown over and over throughout your life.

Really, what are some things that have not

worked out like you expected them to?

So a big thing for us has really

been understanding, you know, how we're actually doing

business and how we're closing our deals.

Um, in the early days, you know, a lot of,

uh, our, um, let's say, talking points were theorized.

It wasn't necessarily, hey, this is

what this current client is doing.

So many of those situations, we had to work with that

client to take friction off the table in those deals.

And within that, many of those certain

situations were saying, hey, you don't have

to sign an entire year contract.

We'll just go month by month and at the end

of the day, while that worked well for us, once

it comes around, or maybe let's say we work with

schools or larger organizations that decide to pay a full

year but not sign a contract.

Coming back the next year and trying to

get them to actually pay the next invoice

is a difficult process because you have to

essentially go through that entire food chain again.

So what we very quickly learned was the fact

that, you know, while it is friction within the

process, oftentimes when you're working with clients who need

heavier support, who need the implementation, it's going to

be very important to actually get those contracts in

place so that the next year you don't have

to worry about going through that entire process again.

So that's been a huge thing that we learned.

That's something we learned last year.

Last year we learned that when end of year

came and we had to lap some of these

contracts and some that didn't have contracts.

Thankfully, we were able to capture everything.

But at the end of the day, it took a lot more

effort than it would have if we had contracts in place.

Trey, what are some of the pleasant surprises

that you all have experienced along the way?

I'll say, for me, the most pleasant surprises, and

I'll say it happens fairly often, are when I

get into a conversation and people genuinely just love

what I have to show them because there's so

many different ways that the tool can be used.

You know, my conversations can vary from a

marketing leader to a CEO to a learning

and development professional and so on.

But at the end of the day, for me, something

that's been an aspiration very, very important to my role

in our company in general, is developing a demo that

supports what we're actually doing, being able to knowledgeably and

effectively show someone not only what our tool is, but

how it relates to them.

So when I make a good connection with somebody and

I sit down and they're interested in just learning a

little more about the tool, I'll do a bit of

discovery and I get to personalize that experience to them

when they come back and they give me great feedback.

They enjoyed what they saw, they love the

tool, and they obviously want to use it.

Those are the things that

are the most pleasant surprises.

Because at the end of the day, free fuse is my baby.

It's something that I've built from the

ground up alongside my co founders.

And when somebody likes it, when somebody says, wow,

that's amazing, or I can't believe that's even possible,

those things just make me smile genuinely because it's

just talking up what we've actually been able to

build out of the system.

Trey, I think you touched on this earlier, but

how much different does your day to day look

today than it looked two, three years ago?

Very different in a sense, but also similar.

Two, three years ago.

Let's say after I quit my job, there was a

lot of just, what am I going to do here?

That was funny because it was March 1, 2022,

when I decided to fully quit my job.

And I went full time and I actually sat

down and I looked at myself and I was

like, well, what am I actually doing today?

What is my actual goal?

Because I know I set forth all of these goals.

I quit my job, I did all of this.

But at the end of the day, what steps

am I about to take to get there?

I actually had to start from day one, very

literally putting together a metrics list for myself so

I could understand how to track how I'm doing.

I put together a list of daily activities that

I wanted myself to make sure that I completed,

like sending a certain amount of connection invites and

messages on LinkedIn, replying to all my emails, making

a certain amount of phone calls to people in

my network and outside and so on.

But really the first month was just figuring out

what can I do here and how are people

going to most effectively respond to what I'm doing.

Cold calling, cold emailing ended

up not being the route.

So what I realized was LinkedIn

is really our space to be.

So I started building up my presence there.

And nowadays my day is significantly easier because

I have all of those processes in place.

I know all of the different things that I need to do.

And oftentimes we've built out a team

behind us to do many of them.

Aside from my own LinkedIn outreach, working on my LinkedIn

things like taking care of customer service calls or getting

people into demos, most of those things are already done

once clients come to my end of the table.

And now I get to have those

fun conversations and I get to actually

dive into the theorizing and providing solutions.

So that's really how it's changed, is to be honest,

two and a half years ago, I had no idea

what I was going to be doing, and I just

stepped into it, deciding, hey, I'm going to do it.

And finally, I think we've decided and, and found

some really, really great and effective ways to actually

achieve what we wanted to back then.

You know, as you described that, that very early

time, it can be both exciting and intimidating when

you have this blank canvas to work with and

it's like, okay, what am I going to do?

How do I define, like, what are the important things?

What are those metrics that tell me

if I'm winning or if I'm behind?

And yeah, and, you know, I know that

for us in our firm, it changes.

And things that we were really tracking years ago, we

may not be tracking today, and things that we're tracking

today, we may not be tracking in years to come.

Some of that too, I think, comes from

you get to a certain point in the

business and then some dynamic changes.

That metric that was important isn't as important

to get to that next tier, that next

level, then it takes something different.

You've got to be constantly refining and, you

know, evaluating what that next tier looks like.

What are the most important metrics for y'all today?

Absolutely.

And it depends on how we're looking at it, because

of course, we have different metrics across the board.

But right now, a lot of

our metrics are surrounded by conversations.

You know, how many conversations do we have open?

How many conversations are we closing and so on.

And of course that close can either be

a good close or a bad close.

In that conversation, are we having a close in

the sense that the conversation is just done and

they're not moving forward, or are we having a

close in the sense that they're moving forward either

to the next step or to actually purchase it?

So all to say those are our biggest metrics,

and even tacking on to where our metrics started,

the biggest thing was conversations back then, and that's

how we like to look at it.

Because where we started was not just getting

into cold calls and trying to sell people.

My first month at least was literally just reaching out

to people saying, hey, would you check this out?

I'd love to hear your opinion.

Could you give us your perspective and maybe tell us what

isn't there, what you would like to see and so on.

And that gave us the not only ability to tack on

those extra features and needs that those clients all needed to

seem, but also really expand our process to being, hey, we're

open to feedback, but we'd also love to show you where

the tool could benefit you and so on.

So a lot of those conversations now

end up going one of two ways.

Either, like I said, they're going in a great

way where they're either closing, they're either going to

be partners, they're either going to be, you know,

part of our affiliate program, maybe they're going to

be customers, or a conversation may close to where,

hey, this isn't for them right now.

But at the end of the day,

I always like to leave that open.

And something my dad always told me is

a no is not necessarily a no.

It just means I can't say yes

with the information I have right now.

So while you want to give people a break,

you don't want to reach out to them another

week later when they say, hey, no.

But reaching out to them in six months and

just touching base and saying, hey, this is how

it's expanded, this is how it's being used now.

And maybe it would be beneficial for a conversation

to be sparked up at this point in time.

It's always open.

So those things are important to

us is how we're continuing those

conversations and really where they're going.

What are the parts of your day that you enjoy the most?

Absolutely.

So I'll say it depends on the day very significantly

and how I'm feeling, but I do enjoy conversing.

That's one of the things about

sales that I really did enjoy.

So having these conversations and being

able to jump into meetings where

I'm showcasing our tool, it's fantastic.

But I'll say for me, it's not necessarily an

everyday thing, but for me, my favorite part of

a day is when I actually get to find

a solution that truly solve someone's challenge.

When someone comes to me and, you

know, in our discovery, I discover, oh,

well, we're having this struggle right here.

And I have that moment where I'm like, fantastic.

That is something that I know I can help you with.

That's amazing.

And once I'm able to properly convey

that and they reciprocate and they say,

that actually does solve my problem.

That's the perfect part of my day.

I mean, obviously that might be coming from a

salesperson at heart, but being able to truly provide

solutions rather than sell someone on something that doesn't

necessarily provide a solution is very important to me.

I don't want to be a salesperson.

I want to be a solutions provider.

So that's a big thing for me.

Before we really got into the interview, you and I were

chatting, and we talked about how there's a lot of great

stuff, but there's also a lot of tough times, and sometimes

we have to do things that we don't enjoy doing.

We talked about what you enjoy the most.

What do you enjoy the least? Oof.

What I enjoy the least is when

things aren't going how they should.

You know, I can imagine you've experienced this a

couple of times, and I'll say even more specifically,

it's when things aren't going how you expect with

employees, because being a business owner, that's something that

I've really, really had to get used to, is

that not all employees are going to work out.

And that's okay.

It's not meant to be be.

For every single employee, my goal is to make sure

I do everything I can to help them work out.

But at the end of the day, you know, we've had

certain situations where we did have to let an employee go.

And that's very difficult for me because

I don't like being a confrontational person.

I don't want to ruin someone's career or their livelihood

because I know I've never personally lost my job in

that sense, but I know what it's like to not

have a job, you know, so it's very nerve wracking.

That's been one of the most difficult things

for me, especially as a salesperson, is sales

is a very results driven space.

And if you don't perform and you don't

show results within a certain amount of time,

there's things that need to be addressed.

And if after those things are addressed, there's

still no change, then sometimes you have to

do certain things, like letting salespeople go.

And that, I will say, is my least favorite thing.

I don't enjoy it.

I don't want to do it.

But I have learned that sometimes it's better for the business

to be able to let someone go rather than try to

hold onto them and let them be a detriment.

What you just said echoes with me so much.

And in fact, I talked recently about

this on another episode and I'm like

you, I hate confrontation, absolutely hate confrontation.

And I want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I want to give people the chance to turn

things around, but sometimes it just isnt a fit.

And I had a conversation with another

business owner in the last year and

its really helped my mentality around this.

And they basically said, look, if theyre not

thriving here to try to keep them here,

im actually doing them a disservice.

As somebody who cares about people, I should be willing

to free them to go do something that they can

thrive at rather than try to fit a square peg

into a round hole and in a sales position.

Some people just, they're not good salespeople,

but some people are going to be

better at selling this than they are.

That and helping people see that, helping people figure

that out so that they can go and thrive

someplace else, it's a major mentality shift.

But if you can get yourself there, it

makes those conversations not easy, but easier.

And thinking about it in terms of I'm actually

helping them, I'm freeing them, I'm not hurting them.

I think you make a really good point there.

And actually that's something that I personally do, is I don't,

if I've let someone go in the past, I don't just

cut ties, I like to follow where they go.

I'm always willing to write a recommendation.

Aside from, let's say, one situation where maybe

there was a different reason to let someone

go, but all to say, writing recommendations, I

also like to follow their career trajectory.

I've seen one of our salespeople that he

didn't work out with us, and we had

a conversation very similar to what you're mentioning.

Sales might be for you, but it

might just not be this space.

Some people sell physical products better.

And I'll say physical products are

easier to sell sometimes, too. But at the end of the

day, I've seen him actually succeed.

Now he has a job that he's happy in, and that's great.

So those are the things that I really do hope

for is, rather than it being an end to a

career, that it's a realization point where you realize, hey,

I need to go do something else.

Just like, you know, I had to realize at a different

point in my life, but sometimes, you know, that's needed.

So I totally agree with you there. Yeah.

Looking back over these years, is there

anything that you would do different?

You know, that ties back to our question earlier.

Like I mentioned earlier, you know, one of the things

about my life is I look back so often and

I realize that those small things that I did wrong

or where I made a choice that I maybe regretted

at that time, if I wouldn't have made that choice,

I would be nowhere near where I am right now.

If I wouldn't have dropped out of high school, if I

wouldn't have gotten into the hooligan trouble that I decided to

when I was in high school and not go to class

every once in a while, and I wouldn't have dropped out.

I would have likely just gone straight to college.

I would have gotten my degree, I would have gotten

a job, and that's what I'd be doing now.

And at the end of the day, there would have very

likely been no possibility of me meeting my co founder.

So while there are certain things that I regret, my mindset

is I can't look back at those, because if I took

back a single one of those, it might change where I'm

at now, and I really don't want that.

Trey, your answer to this question may be the same as

kind of what you just described, but is there any advice

or encouragement you would go back and give to your younger

self, whether your younger self is just two years ago or

whether your younger self is ten years ago?

What would you say to yourself, Jeff, dont get discouraged,

because I will say not even just with freefuse, every

single sales position ive ever had in my career, theres

been a point where I got massively discouraged.

Oftentimes it was in the cold calling process.

Maybe it was the internship.

That was all I was doing, and I went three days

making hundreds of calls and didn't get a single answer.

Those times are difficult.

Those are times where I have looked at myself

and said, do I really want to do this?

Every day for the rest of my life.

And what I had to realize is that that's not

what every day for the rest of your life is.

That's the stepping stone.

So what I would say is

don't get discouraged, but be persistent.

My biggest motto is be persistent.

And when you get discouraged, as long as your next thought

is to get back up and continue, then thats fine.

But if your thought is ever, no, I need to quit.

You just need to know what youre quitting, too,

because just like you mentioned, if you leave your

current position and youre going completely all the way

back to your very beginning steps, thats a huge,

huge back step compared to just falling down where

you are and getting back up.

So thats my biggest thing is dont get discouraged.

Especially if youre in a sales position, a customer

support position, any kind of position where theres a

lot of stress or heavy tasks on your plate,

getting discouraged is going to happen.

And if you let it get to you, it

can be a detriment to your entire career.

Youve overcome a lot, starting with a

very personal loss at a young age.

You navigated some trying times in your

adolescence and didnt take the traditional path,

but youve overcome a lot.

And man, hearing describing kind of what your high school

and post high school years were to where you are

now, I think it's just an incredible, incredible story.

What's next?

Oh, man, that's the good question.

Next, obviously, is embarking into parenthood.

Apparently.

So that's the big thing that's coming from me and

trying to traverse the idea of still being a business

owner and trying to grow a business that's not done.

You know, it's not anywhere near done and still being there for

my child because that's going to be a very important thing for

me, is I am over the moon excited to have my kid

now that I know it's a sun even more.

But all to say, it's going to be a challenge.

I know it's going to be a challenge.

And I've had this conversation with

both of my co founders.

They know what I'm going through.

They know what's coming, and they know that I'm

going to work my butt off to make sure

that I make things happen, even with that.

Because at the end of the day, my goal isn't

just to support myself or my minor family now.

It's to support my entire family now.

So that's next.

Is now trying to juggle parenthood alongside all of

these entrepreneurship ventures and free fuse and what I'm

trying to really build out of it, which I

think I've got a handle on, but I'm still,

you know, a little nervous for.

Is there anything that we didn't get into

that you would, you would want people to

know that you would want to share?

Ooh, that's a good question.

I'll say what I would say is

just kind of a final remark.

And what's really driven me in my, you know, entire career

and my past is to set goals and stick to them.

You know, where I was five years old and I set a

goal to be an Aggie graduate, I definitely fell and I definitely

strayed from that path, but I got back to it.

And while it's not a necessity to meet and stick with

every goal, I think it's really important to actually set goals,

whether it's in a personal setting, whether it's goals that I

have for free, fuses growth or wherever it is that's been

the most important thing for us is making sure that we

have goals and we're at least trying to get there whether

we fall down or not.

But I think we've hit everything that I needed to.

Marcus, thanks for coming on and sharing your story.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

And me, it's been a pleasure.

That was Marcus Jeffrey, Co-Founder &

Vice President of expansion at FreeFuse.

To learn more, visit freefuse.com

If you or a founder, you know, would like to be a

guest on In the Thick of It, email us at intro@founderstory.us