In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – Jon Tilley - Co-Founder and CEO of ZonGuru will talk about Amazon Sellers Building Software Tools For Sellers, also more information about his life's journey. #jontilley #zonguru
About Jon Tilley of ZonGuru - ZonGuru’s core value is summed up in one word: freedom. They believe the power to escape the 9-to-5 grind and make as much money as you want - wherever you want - is out there. Our team of seasoned Amazon sellers want to help you live life on your terms with an industry-leading suite of powerful Amazon FBA seller tools designed from the ground up with one focus: get you the most money possible while working outside the confines of a traditional job. All backed by the most up-to-date, accurate data to help you make the best decisions. With ZonGuru, the power to pursue your passion is in your hands.
Yoni Mazor 00:06
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of prime talk today. Today I am having a special guest. I'm having John Tilly, right?
Jon Tilley 00:12
That's right. You got it.
Yoni Mazor 00:14
All right. Very good. So John is the co-founder and CEO of ZONGURU, which is an all-in-one toolset for Amazon prime-level sellers. He's gonna expand more about it in the episode, but John, welcome to the show.
Jon Tilley 00:26
Yeah, Yoni is super cool to be here. And you know, anybody in the space has heard about you. And, and one of the common themes that always comes out is what a nice guy you are. And you'd always kind of go out of your way to show interest and curiosity and to connect with all of us. So you know when I saw that I was gonna be coming on through our team, I was excited to meet you. So thanks for everything you do for, everyone in this space. I think it's super cool.
Yoni Mazor 00:55
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. I didn't expect that. So it's much appreciated and I am privileged to be a part of this and to serve. But enough about me, let's talk about you. This episode is gonna be the story of John Tilley, you're gonna share with us. Who are you? where are you from? Where were you born? Where'd you grow up? How'd you bring in your professional career station to station until we reach where you are today with the world of e-commerce. So I guess without further ado let’s jump right into it.
Jon Tilley 01:23
Yeah. Thanks, man. Yeah, a little bit of my history. I was born in Johannesburg South Africa a few years ago now and I lived there all of my life. Was a great childhood and I was there through my first job. So, I studied in Johannesburg and lived there and worked in Johannesburg.
Yoni Mazor 01:44
And Johannesburg is more the business capital of South Africa where Cape town is more leisure. Is, is that correct?
Jon Tilley 01:49
That's right. If you got it. Cape Town is probably one of the prettiest cities in the world. It has got like a massive mountain right in the middle of the city on the coastline and I lived there for a few years. Those are some funny stories. Maybe I don't think I'll dive into those, but I'll dive you into a couple of those but you know, I grew up there and I was privileged enough to be there as we transformed into a democratic nation. And we had Nelson Mandela as president, the inspirational Nelson Mandela. I was lucky enough to meet him at one stage because I was a student and I was, I was catering. And anyway…
Yoni Mazor 02:28
You were catering like, the food you mean?
Jon Tilley 02:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Actually…
Yoni Mazor 02:31
Just hold on. Tell me about that a little bit. You know just to give some perspective here. This is like early to mid-nineties. Nelson Mandela was rising. He was released after many years in prison basically to kind of get rid of apartheid and make it a real democracy or equal rights for everybody. And you were trying to make a few extra dollars or some pennies and then you will go to work you know, doing catering and you meet Nelson Mandela. Tell us all about it.
Jon Tilley 02:56
Yeah, I was just catering at an event that was for helping him and he was speaking and it was a relatively small group. I forget what it was for, but, when he came up on stage, he was looking for water and I had a water bottle with me. So in those days, I guess there wasn't secret service security. So I just walked up and gave him the water and he said, thank you.
Yoni Mazor 03:21
And this was you and he was already a president, correct?
Jon Tilley 03:22
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Yoni Mazor 03:23
Interesting.
Jon Tilley 03:24
So yeah I've done many of those crazy jobs as a student. You know, I actually, even though I catered actually on Martha’s Vineyard party. This was later on when I lived in the states for a little bit in 2000, I cater for a party for Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, a very small party and I got to meet them and their daughter as well. I remember spending some time talking to her in the kitchen. So you know, I think through all of these kinds of catering jobs and stuff, you get to meet some really interesting people. And that was a great experience you know, hearing Bill Clinton talk and Hillary at that time. So I think…
Yoni Mazor 04:03
When you were doing catering, you were in college already or this was high school?
Jon Tilley: 04:06
This is after. This is the year after college. I traveled the states for a year.
Yoni Mazor 04:11
No, no, I'm saying when Nelson Mandela, when you served him in South Africa.
Jon Tilley: 04:14
Yeah, this was just when I'd finished high school and I was starting college.
Yoni Mazor 04:20
Yeah got it. Went to school also in Johannesburg yeah.
Jon Tilley 04:24
Went to school. Yeah. went to school in Johannesburg, studied college there. And then, you know, pretty quickly after that I finished college, it's a lot of us, you know, in South Africa and other countries take a year and travel the world. So you know, I left there and traveled the states for a year. I went over and started as a waiter at a breakfast spot in Montana at big sky, which is a ski resort and I snowboarded for a season. And then actually after that, I traveled with playing rugby for a lot of the clubs around the states, at the time was a good way to travel around. I think I went to 39 states in my travels for that year.
Yoni Mazor: 05:09
Hold on, let me get this straight. Let me get this straight. You graduated out of your university or college just in a nutshell, what did you study? What did you graduate with?
Jon Tilley 05:16
I did a postgraduate in business and marketing. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 05:20
Got it. So business and marketing. You take a year off. In the year off, you travel all around but coz you also played sports, you played rugby or you're like a professional player or what's your status on that?
Jon Tilley 05:28
I mean I was a wannabe professional player at the time, but no, it was just a good, easy, you know, what's great about team sports is that if you can go to the city and you can connect with the club, you immediately have 40 friends and you can play these games and you know, get a little side job and travel around. So I, I did that for a while and lived in LA for the first time back then in 2000 and eventually ended up driving down to Mississippi and down through the south and Pensacola and then up to Martha’s Vineyard, where I lived on for the summer on Martha’s Vineyard. And then I left there in 2000 and funny enough I left on September 13th, 2001. So, no, no September 9th two days before September…
Yoni Mazor 06:17
Okay. So your year off was between 2000 to 2001 and well, two days, you know when you left, it was two days before the 9/11 disaster, right? The twin towers attack. Okay. So in that year, once again you were traveling around what playing rugby for, for pay or teams or just for your culture, for your fun or what was the framework was a league or Just a…
Jon Tilley 06:38
yeah, there was a league and there still is one in the US. And, and at the time, there was a semi-professional league with teams all around there. There's one in New York, there was one in Belmont shore, which is the one I played for in Los Angeles. And I played for a few other ones. I lived in Cincinnati for a while, Cincinnati Wolfhounds. So it was a way ready to extend my travel beyond the ski season that I did and, and just experience the United States. So, you know, travel, traveled all around,
Yoni Mazor 07:06
Which is, which is great. Just to clarify my ignorance. Rugby is the game where it's like baseball, but…
Jon Tilley 07:13
No, that's cricket.
Yoni Mazor 07:14
Yeah. Cricket. Right, So Rugby's like American football with no shoes, no helmets.
Jon Tilley 07:18
Exactly. You got it.
Yoni Mazor 07:21
Yeah. Then, all that you know, all the insurance companies reject if they can ensure you, you go, go play rugby. So it's, you know, do it at your own risk with no defense, no helmets, no, no gear. Okay. All right. Very cool. So wow.
Jon Tilley 07:35
Amazing experiences. But I think I ended up having 12, 12 concussions over my, my rugby career. So, you know, back then there wasn't as much seriousness put to your concussion. So if you could stand up and keep running, you, you just kept playing, you know, it was pretty funny.
Yoni Mazor 07:51
That's funny. Got it, Okay. So you leave September 9th, 2001, two days before 9/11. And you went back to South Africa. Where'd you go? What was your next station?
Jon Tilley: 07:58
Yeah, actually after that I did a little bit of a trip living in Costa Rica and, and surfing and Mets that's where my fondness for Tel Aviv popped up because I met a lot of Israelis who were, who were traveling and surfing and they always talked about Tel Aviv as, as an awesome city.
Yoni Mazor: 08:15
Hold on. So you met Israelis who loved to surf in Costa Rica and that's how you discovered Tel Aviv.
Jon Tilley: 08:20
Yeah. Yeah. And I had never been, but it's just me, you know, it's been on my list to visit just meeting those guys there. Yeah. So I did that for a while and then I moved to the UK for a little bit, and then went back to South Africa and, and started my career which was advertising. So, you know, I, I got my first job at an advertising agency, one of these blue-chip advertising agencies with big clients like Gillette
Yoni Mazor: 08:44
And Blue Chip, Blue Chip United States, or Blue Chip South Africa?
Jon Tilley: 08:48
Blue-chip, South Africa at the time. Yeah. So but you know, global brands, like Gillette was one, Cadbury Chocolate was another one that I worked on SAB breweries, which, you know they have a steak middle Miller light. So yeah, a really interesting way and a great career very entrepreneurial and less corporate. So, you know, you advertising how you see and I thrived at that.
Yoni Mazor: 09:15
So you started to advertising in 2001, you say,
Jon Tilley: 09:18
Yeah, This was,
Yoni Mazor: 09:20
On advertising for how many years?
Jon Tilley: 09:22
Man, you, this, this is gonna be a long podcast. There there are many years to go through here.
Yoni Mazor: 09:26
yeah, we gonna stay in the station to understand what builds, you know, John Tilley here. And Tim Stanley gives us, give context to your, your capabilities today with ecommerce. That's kind of the ambition here, but okay. So 2001, until how many years did you stand that position or advertising? What were? what was yours?
Jon Tilley: 09:42
I was actually in that position at this agency called Barrows in, in Durban, in South Africa for, three years you know, working on these big clients. And it was a lot of like at the time it was more below the line advertising. So a lot of like the point of sale retail-focused advertising that I was involved in. But you know, I was never the, what I call entrepreneurial FOMO was already starting at that time, you know, like I was always wanting to start my job and start my gig and, and just kind of pursue that.
Yoni Mazor: 10:18
So, you're saying, you're working for a corporate job advertising you're for more, your fear missing out. Is, is it rubbing on you? I guess the entrepreneurial bug is yeah. Switching you and then okay. Well, what happened with that?
Jon Tilley: 10:28
Yeah, so I ended up leaving that, that gig and moving back to Johannesburg with this vision, of starting my bar and nightclub with a bunch of friends. So, you know, we, my idea was to go back, you know, forget the corporate gig. I went back and started as a bartender at a bar you know, with the idea of learning the trade and just understanding how bars were run. So I went and, and kind of work at the, of a bar, which was pretty wild at the time. You know, it was dancing on the bars, body shots, you know, all, all of that kind of fun things in, in a cool spot in Johannesburg. And the idea there was to learn the trade and then open up a bar with four friends, that we had targeted. Anyway, we got, we got pretty far down that road and, and we didn't pull the trigger. We, we decided not to, and I think I think the parents' influence of saying, Hey, you've had this great education and you guys need to go on your way to, to your, your great corporate careers were a big influence to a lot of my friends.
Yoni Mazor: 11:33
Yeah, imagine your parents come and tell you, I think you got one concussion, too many with the rugby. You, you got a whole education, whole thing, opening a bar. You can do it later after, you know, you wanna retire, you want some, do something, you know, for a living or have a lifestyle, but yeah, you gotta, you gotta do some professional stuff or something more with a global scope in a way. Okay. So you guys backed off and what was your next station?
Jon Tilley: 11:55
so then I moved to so yeah, I backed off there and I said like, what do I wanna do? So I decided I wanted to move to Cape Town which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and get involved, in films. So this idea of producing and I always thought like the creative side of, of film-making was amazing. And Cape town at the time still today is one of them, it's one of like the great production centers for, for film-making, because you have you know, you have a whole array of climates and a very talented production crew that, that is based there.
Yoni Mazor: 12:30
But this is more for domestic production for South Africa, you know, or international?
Jon Tilley: 12:35
Yeah. International films. And so a big location for advertising commercial shooting, as well as for films, you know a whole bunch of international films. So I went there and I got a job. I wanted to understand, you know, what it was like to produce, to kind of interact with people at the highest level. So I got a job as a minute, what is it called again? It's alike, you know you looked after the producers and the directors and the actors just made sure that you know, they, they were looked after and their daily things, so they wanted to go, you know, out and book all those restaurants,
Yoni Mazor: 13:15
you know they wanted liaison, you would liaison or some sort exactly…
Jon Tilley: 13:20
I don’t know why I'm forgetting the name right now, but anyway, it'll come back to me. So, yeah, that was my job. And what was great about it is, you know, when I was looking at the directors or producers or actors, I was always in the think of exactly the planning and the creation of the film so was amazing to see. And probably the funniest part was at the time you know, Colin Farrell was the bad boy of Hollywood. And you know, he was coming over to South Africa to do a film. And in that group, they're all like, cool, who the hell's gonna look after this guy. Cause he's just a…. and I was like, I was like, I'll do it. So you know, I ended up, you know, looking after him on a film that he was shooting then. So
Yoni Mazor: 13:59
What was it like in a nutshell, what was he like? What was the experience like for you?
Jon Tilley: 14:03
Yeah, he was an awesome guy. We became pretty good friends at the time and yeah. You know, it was around
Yoni Mazor: 14:10
Took him on a ride, took him to the club, took him shopping. I just took him for free time
Jon Tilley: 14:14
Pretty much, pretty much every, every party that we could get to, we would do so it, it was tiring, but it was a lot of fun.
Yani Mazor 14:22
Wow, you did a big job.
Jon Tilley: 14:24
Yeah. we got up to a lot of fun.
Yoni Mazor: 14:25
You got Nelson Mandela, you got Hollywood stars, I wonder what’s next? Yeah.
Jon Tilley: 14:28
And then actually I ended up staying at his house on the island at one stage, cause I was looking at it, you know, in my head, I was starting to think of moving overseas and, and experiencing some time. Then I got the opportunity to go and work at an agency on the island actually at the end of that shoot. So I went over and stayed in his space in Ireland and you know you had a lot of fun over there, so good times, you know, and yeah, so at the end of that, I moved to the UK, so I moved to London.
Yoni Mazor: 14:55
So what year was that? So you started 2004, right. You know, in cape town and then until which year did you switch To the UK?
Jon Tilley: 15:02
So it was 2003, I think. And then 2004, 2005, I moved to London.
Yoni Mazor: 15:10
Got, so 2000 to 2003 you were basically with advertising, a little bit of stint of bartending and then you know, production and then film rather than again, 2003 or four you headed into the UK. Well, for a brand new career at a brand new path.
Jon Tilley: 15:24
You know, I've got an older brother who's two and a half years older than me. And he had moved to London and we've always been close and you know, he was talking to me about the opportunity over there and I thought, why not this go, live in one of the best cities in the world?
Yoni Mazor: 15:39
And what is he doing here? What was his?
Jon Tilley: 15:41
He was actually, and still today. He's ahead product designer for that company that I started with my first job called Barrows. It's a global agency with a lot of big clients and the head product designer at retail, you know, it's a retail solution ad agency that he heads up there.
Yoni Mazor: 16:00
So do you feel comfortable going to the UK because he was there, but it is not necessarily to a job he kind of, arranged for you or anything like that back with Barrows? Yeah,
Jon Tilley: 16:06
No, no. I just went over there and lived on the couch and you know, was looking to get into the film in the UK. I think what was, what I loved about film again, was just the creation. I mean, people would come in and take something that wasn't there. And in a week like Build a city, you know, it was so creative and it's amazing to see how people can work together and create these amazing sets and production things. So I went over there trying to get a job in film and didn't have the experience yet. You know, I've only been, you know, working for a few, a year or two there. So I ended up going back into advertising the work for another agency right in the heart of London and Holborn Covent garden one of these top agencies and burger king was my main account that I was working on and helping at that time, helping them not only on the retail you know, point of sale and the designs of the inside of these burger king restaurants but also moving, transition them onto a kind of digital marketing so that my digital advertising, that was kinda my first shift over to digital advertising.
Jon Tilley: 17:17
And so yeah, those were, those were good years, you know, living in, in London you know, working at an amazing agency, you know, getting exposed to some of these big brands, how they work, you know going to the corporate offices, knowing for well that I never wanted to be corporate in that sense. And just, you know, we had a lot of friends move over from South Africa at the time. So you had your best friends in one of the best cities in the world at a time where you know, it was young and a lot of fun. So yeah, really good times. And still that entrepreneurial FOMO was there. And we started, you know, going back to the club, nightclub kind of bad thing. We started an underground kind of nightclub that we used to run under the London bridge.
Jon Tilley: 18:06
You know just to get some DJs together and a whole bunch of people and throw these pretty big parties. And we did a few of those and they were getting pretty successful at the time. So, you know, I always kept that in my mind. And, you know, as much as I enjoyed advertising, I still had that, you know, I, I wanted to make this leap into entrepreneurship. So yeah, that was it. And I was loving London and kind of going back to you know, my days of living in the US you know, I had a summer romance in us at the time and then ended up meeting up with that same girl, later on, you know, five, six years later. And then we started dating between LA and London, and that's what eventually got me to be to Los Angeles is to go there.
Yoni Mazor: 18:52
So you kept your, you know, from 2004 until when you made the switch?
Jon Tilley: 18:57
2000 and 2007.
Yoni Mazor: 19:01
Los to three years, you're in London, you were advertising, you were, you're doing a production of this time instead of movies and film, it's parties and nightlife production. That's interesting. Are you able to tie that to together your entrepreneurial bug, your, you know, field production?
Jon Tilley 19:11
sure, sure.
Yoni Mazor 19:12
Ability, but also your bar attending or, you know, opening a bar element. You tied up altogether to make parties under the London bridge. That's pretty wild. And then nevertheless, a trip that you had in us and you met somebody, a lady that brought you back in 2007, and I brought you back to us, but basically, your life and move to Los Angeles. Yeah,
Jon Tilley: 19:33
Yeah. That was it, man. And so I kept going waste and ended up in Los Angeles and you know, I came over and that was, you know, just restarting, you know, completely from scratch.
Yoni Mazor: 19:43
You quit your job in advertising or there, whatever you're doing there, all the productions of the party, you say, Hey, love, you know, conquer all distance is not an issue. You come all the way there and you strike roots IN the city of angels.
Jon Tilley: 19:54
Absolutely. Yeah. And, and that was a, you know, that was a pretty big and tough challenge to overcome. You know, I think you don't realize the shock until you put yourself into that. There's a straw of obviously you know, new relationships and new cities and all these amazing things of immigrating to a new city, but you live behind your network and your connections and your family and your friends, you know? So that was a big challenge to overcome is like I was coming to LA with zero connections, history, or anything real reset. Starting from scratch, you know, so you know, I, I started all, and I started working for a travel company you know, kind of doing the digital marketing at the time.
Jon Tilley: 20:40
And, and, you know, they were based in a different city. It was almost like working virtually like we do a lot today. And I was doing that, but you know, I wasn't getting roots and, and my kind of network within the city of Los Angeles. So I eventually went back into advertising and, and started with another agency, in LA. And I was with them from 2007 or two…. Yeah 2000, no, sorry, 2008. Through 2013 which is you know, a pretty extensive career with this agency.
Yoni Mazor: 21:13
Are any special accounts worth mentioning?
Jon Tilley: 21:16
Yeah, I mean, you know, it was blue-chip again, I think the big one that I worked on, which is kind of what got me into software was public storage, which is, you know, a pretty it's on the S and P 500. They're a storage company, a personal storage company you know, well, over 2 billion in sales a year the biggest storage company in the world. And, you know, we were doing all of the digital advertising. I was a digital strategist you know and kind of can't lead for them. And through that, we saw an opportunity to get it. We were owning their websites and their reservation system from a customer experience, but they wanted to redo their internal enterprise-level reservation system and booking system. And so you know, we put together a software team and pitch for that, and then won that piece of business. And so slowly we kind of moved from a customer-facing website, into their internal enterprise-level booking system and, and developing that. So
Yoni Mazor: 22:13
That's interesting. Cause I never thought about these public storage companies, you know, these big at least here in the United States people get a lot of stuff, right. So yeah, big houses and big cars are not enough. You're gonna get a storage unit and these big companies, they buy these facilities and you know, it's pretty much just selling air. They're selling space for you to you know, pay monthly usually, or you prepay for a year and then you store you belong is there. So you're saying internally it works basically like a hotel. You need a whole booking system. It's also regional because each location has it, you know, different mathematics and different capacity and different frameworks and pricing. So you're involved in building all that and packaging it towards marketing facing out. So it's a whole funnel. It's a pretty complicated funnel coz it's all regionalized.
Jon Tilley: 22:55
Absolutely. Yeah. So they, and that's what drove their business, right? It's the booking and the money, the money collection system. Right?
Yoni Mazor 22:59
So the efficiency,
Jon Tilley 23:00
This was a huge project. It took us three years I think. And we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. But you know, they trusted us and you know, when you have the connection on the strategy and the vision and you can build a team around you, you can deliver. So we did that for many years, not in the marketing, but that internal software application. And yeah, that was, you know, it was a very successful career in advertising at a very high-performance level, very demanding. And again, you know, there was always that like, dad, you know, how do I start my own thing?
Jon Tilley: 23:40
And, and that FOMO where you're never like really happy with what you have because you feel like something is drawing you in a different direction. But you know, I think at the same time moving to a brand new city and a brand new culture with, with zero connections you know, taking that, that kind of five to seven years to, to re-establish myself you know, into a community and a career was important. So I was very grateful for that advertising job. And you know, I was part of a lot of these you know, again, that the whole idea of, of keeping some of these events or these ways of connecting with your community alive. I always for probably the last four years in the, at the time I was running a breakfast meet up. So once a week, I'd get all the guys together, we'd meet up for breakfast. And that just expanded. We started with two people and, you know, by the end of that, we had like 50 people coming for breakfast once a weekend. This is, what's a discussion
Yoni Mazor: 24:40
Like politics, business, sports, everything that goes, or what was the agenda?
Jon Tilley: 24:45
Yeah. Everything, I mean, you know, in the beginning, it was more just a basic conversation. It was called the fella’s breakfast. It was a guy's kind of group. We used to connect and it was called the fella’s breakfast. And you know, it was just a time to connect and in the mornings before the day starts and just,
Yoni Mazor 25:03
was it always the same diner by the way?
Jon Tilley 25:04
No, I started running outer places to take guys, but we used to change it up just to expand. So we did a lot of hotels. It was funny enough something before eight o'clock and Los Angeles is never open, you know, so, it's different,
Yoni Mazor 25:30
I've heard it very little back. I've never been.
Jon Tilley: 25:24
I'm like, dude, seven 30 in the morning. You can't find many open places. So we did that and you know, that grew to, beyond 50 people that would meet up. And by that stage, we had to kind of move out of the kind of like you know, conversational way of interacting and have someone get up and speak. And there was kind of a speaker who got up, there'd be someone in the group just talking about their business or you know, something that's inspiring to them or their projects or whatever and have that chance to speak. So I started to get quite sophisticated and took a lot of work to do, but it was a great way of keeping everyone connected. So I always did a lot of those. And through that, I met my co-founding business partner, a guy called Adam Hudson.
Jon Tilley: 26:05
He runs an Amazon education business all over Australia. So he had moved over to LA you know, one of the super entrepreneurs, just one who got, since he was 18 years old, he's just been, executing and opening businesses and doing incredibly well, just has an amazing ability to kind of understand trends where they're going and what to create around that to create a business. And you know, we had connected as friends and through that, he was like, Hey, you know, like I'm thinking of launching this product in retail. And you know, just obviously came across all of these, you know, obstacles of trying to get a product into retail. And then through that, you know, got exposed to this idea of Amazon. And he was like, Hey, I'm gonna go to this conference. I think it was one of the first amazing conferences back in the day in Las Vegas,
Yoni Mazor: 26:56
The Amazon side, I believe it was called back in the day today. It's already branded amazing. Yeah,
Jon Tilley: 27:01
Yeah, yeah. So it was back in those days, this is 20, 2011, or 2012. And
Yoni Mazor: 27:07
That's on Adams's side, are you already involved and connected with Adam? And he was kind of getting at it coz he is tried as far as I understand, he was trying to break into brick and mortar with doing, you know, with retail, but then ASM, the Amazon selling machine was popping in 2011, maybe 2012. You already had a relationship with Adam and you of kind of use.
Jon Tilley: 27:25
Yeah, Adam had done the same thing he had moved on from an amazingly successful career and business that he had in Australia and wanted to restart and just kind of try something new so he had come in fresh, we met and I was like, I'll show you the round, the ropes and you know, exposed to all our friends and the parties of LA. And you know, in reverse, he kind of helped inspire me around this idea of becoming an entrepreneur because he was just so good at it. And you know, so that was a great friendship that started brewing, but it was, you know, just a friendship and he was looking outside of, he had an animation business at the time and you know, he was looking at products in retail and, you know, got this access to ASM and he said, why don't you come along? So I came along with him.
Yoni Mazor: 28:12
And remember the year been in chance?
Jon Tilley: 28:13
I think it was 2011 or 2012.
Yoni Mazor: 28:17
Got it. And this is, so it sounds like it's alongside your regular job in advertising. So you laying out more tracks as you have a professional corporate job because you had that formal, that entrepreneur bug scratching you.
Jon Tilley: 28:27
That's it. Yeah. So I said, why not stumbled into that? And you know, that was the light bulb moment for me, this idea of moving from advertising, which is what I was in of selling your time, right and services. And how do your kind of scale that as a model, which, you know, isn't that scalable as a business? I am moving into selling products though are completely scalable selling all the time. You know the story. And I was like, okay, this is something that I can do. Like I can use all my creativity you know, that I have around created a brand and a product. I can partner with my brother who I was very close to. Who's living in London and like, Hey, we can launch a product together. And just keep connected on that. He can do all the design, cause he's a product designer I can do. You know, the creative side of it.
Yoni Mazor: 29:15
So you tell me when Amazon came knocking on your door, it light, you know, sparking you the creativity, the ability to scale connect with your brother, you know, connect with Adam. And basically the, you know tie up the entrepreneurial bug that was you know a paradigm shift for you.
Jon Tilley: 29:30
That was it. Yeah. So you know, I threw myself into that and you know, there were a lot of things going on in my personal life. You know, separating from that girlfriend and you know, just kind of getting my mojo back and you know, doing a lot of work on personal development which is key. And just thinking about what it is that I wanted, you know, I'd been in the country for seven years in advertising and I wanted to kind of plot my path and just kind of get back to a lot of the things that I.
Jon Tilley 30:00
Always wanted to do. And one of them was sliding my own business. So, you know, I dove in, on Amazon and started building my business. And, just
Yoni Mazor 30:12
So, where Did you launch? what moment did you launch? when did you see the job or I'm trying to connect the dots where you launch a business and then you detached from your regular day job? I'm trying to find out.
Jon Tilley 30:19
Yeah, so, I did of them, in parallel. So, you know, this was defining successful moment for me was figuring out how to, you know, give enough time to Amazon so that I would consistently build that business on the side. Right. Because, you know, when you're so busy with your current day-to-day job, you can't just, you know, dedicate, you know, two hours here and then a week later, another two hours and then a week later, nothing. And then, you know, you're never gonna launch that business. You have to have a very clear plan and you have to kind of break down the obstacles so that you just keep working on that business every day and just be consistent with it. So it took me, I think it was six months to find my idea and launch it. And you know, within a pretty quickly after that, within a year, I was doing $50,000 a month in revenue, you know, at the typical 30%.
Yoni Mazor 31:15
So, what year did you launch in 2012 or 2013?
Jon Tilley 31:17
I launched, I think 2013, end of 2013 when I launched.
Yoni Mazor 31:23
Yeah, I know, from all the interviews that I do and being around the industry 2013 was the explosive year, many players broke into the league. And it seems like you're one of them that's so congrats on that. Myself has included 2013, I jumped in full gear into Amazon. I was doing eBay other e-commerce stuff, but 2013 was like, Amazon was just, I don't know, something released, you know, the hood and the cabin. It was a whole volcanic eruption, but okay. So 2012, you take the course probably within a year, you launch you're in business and within a year you're already doing, you know, almost seven figures or probably even beyond. Let's, dive into those stations into the Amazon realm.
Jon Tilley 32:02
Yeah. So, you know, I, had drawn launched my first product and gone through all of those same obstacles that we all have, like, which products should I launch? Is this gonna be the one that's gonna, you know, get me to seven figures? You know, anyway, I launched the first one pretty quickly launched my second one and it was on the second one that my revenue started taking off. And I was like, okay, I can exit the agency, you know, so I was like, I'm gonna go all on this product on Amazon. And, and, you know, with that, there was already the evolving idea of starting a software business in discussions with Adam, you know, we were like, Hey, this Amazon thing is not going away.
Jon Tilley
There's a big, you know, kind of third-party services industry. That's gonna just latch onto the back of Amazon's growth and what can we do in this space? So we had already started thinking about that. And so, you know, that was the moment for me. I remember very clearly like packing my cardboard box with my stuff from my desk, you know, that typical corporate firing moment. And I fired myself from the agency and walked out, you know, with a smile on my face and was just like, okay, like, let's go and do this now. And, you know, I had this whole kind of new, personal you know, the energy that I was just like, ready to kind of really moving into.
Yoni Mazor 33:22
And what year did you detach 2013 to 2014?
Jon Tilley 33:27
2013 Yeah. 2013? 2014. I think it was 2014.
Yoni Mazor 33:29
Got it. So you started around 2008 till 2014 is about six years later.
Jon Tilley 33:34
No, well, no. I only started in 2012 on Amazon.
Yoni Mazor 33:38
Yeah. I'm saying when you did the, basically fired yourself from advertising, you started there about 2008 until 2014, about six, seven years, then you take your box. All right. So it's like the jam quiet moment, right? The jam GU moment. And you screaming or singing in the car, you know, free-falling, right. Remember that song?
Jon Tilley 33:56
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh, yes. I know that well. And, yeah, so, you know, I left and you know, continued with the Amazon businesses. And then, you know, Adam, you know, was getting to the point where he was getting ready to go back to Australia. And I think a lot of what he saw at ASM at the time.
Yoni Mazor 34:15
Then, just to, with Adam, you were with him, you were in partnership with Adam on the retail side of things on Amazon.
Jon Tilley 34:20
No, He had his own Amazon business and that was blowing up and he was doing incredibly well with that. And I had my own, so we were completely separate on that, but we started talking about like, you know, he's got a big education, you know, talent, I would say he's an amazing educator. And I think it's a passion of his and he had done a few businesses in Australia that had that. But, you know, he just said, you know, this is my opportunity to go back to Australia and to teach people how to create an amazing, successful sustainable, business, creating private level products on the world's fostering marketplace, Amazon. Right. So and to do it in the right way, and he's got by then, he's so seasoned as a businessman.
Jon Tilley
You know, the trick about Amazon is not like, this is the easiest, quickest, you know, a hack of how to launch something and create cash. It's more about, like, if you follow these true business, you know, strategies, and you apply the proper business strategies to this business. You can truly create a brand that can start on Amazon, grow beyond Amazon, and can get you to exit and change your life. You know, it is, we're right there in your hands that you can do it. So you know, he wanted to go and follow that passion and do that. And at the same time, he was like, well, how do we, you know, service that from a data perspective? And, you know, back then, you know the tools were just starting. It was massive holes and indiscretions in the data. And I, from my background, obviously being in the internal software space on the agency side, I was like, I can do this. I can create the product and I can create the team around it. So that was what we did in addition to the Amazon businesses was, you know, by then I'd scale those businesses, they were doing pretty well. And I could focus my time on building the software.
Yoni Mazor 36:12
so yeah, that sounds like the early Genesis of ZONGURU, right? Realizing, you know, this explosive marketplace, so much data is available. So data-driven, you need the right tools to aggregate all that and set up in a way where it's, you know, action can be taken and measured. so sellers can achieve growth over time. So that being said, what was the first launch of the software product its first solution, or the first tool?
Jon Tilley 36:34
Yeah, I mean, it was you know, gone and started the education side. And there was an MVP that we were developing with an India-based team and MVP.
Yoni Mazor 36:43
MVP, market viable, minimal viable product, just, put content on it. Yeah,
Jon Tilley 36: 50
Go ahead. Yeah. And so, the idea then was like, you know, there are three or four different tools out there. It just put them all together in one package and charges one subscription rate. So, you know, we took, you know, sales tracking tools and estimate tools, and then, we integrated email automation and a review collection. And, we had put a dashboard in there. I think that was our starting and a keyword tracking tool. So we kind of put those all together.
Yoni Mazor (37:18):
After getting you to call ZONGURU, or what was it what'd you dub it?
Jon Tilley (37:20):
Yeah, I was called ZONGURU. This is, you know, back in those days, we were the first Zone in the space, and now there's like a hundred of them, you know, so
Yoni Mazor (37:29):
Is it a hand for Amazon, I would assume? Right, exactly ZONGURU, but, what was the kind, I guess, the official launch or the whole launch for you guys to be, at the market for the, you know, openly for the sellers?
Jon Tilley (37:39):
Yeah, this was, this was the end of 2015 was the soft launch early 2016 was our actual launch. Yeah. Right. And you know, the focus then was like, you know, we would bootstrapping this, you know, all the money that we had. We kind of put into, you know, Adam went and built reliability education. And my goal at the beginning was, as those customers came in, is can we serve them with data?
Yoni Mazor
Hold on. So reliable education is the name of the, you know, educational institution that he built on Australia for, you know, for selling on Amazon building businesses on Amazon. So it seems like he's, he laid three tracks, reliable education, retail, and Zanguru. And, but you you're in Zonguru and tell Correct.
Jon Tilley 38:21
That's it. Yeah, exactly. and you know, it was a, you know, you get like developing software, bootstrap without like an ingrained team. We had just brought in a team from India. And that was hell, you know, that was like just trying to build a product that could truly meet the needs and quality level of what we needed and a team that truly understood Amazon sellers. And what they're trying to create was incredibly difficult and you know, I always had this image in my head of advertising saying called GGO garbage in garbage arts and that, you know, anything that you do, if you get garbage in, you're gonna get garbage arts. And I was just like, I need to make sure that, you know, the data and the tools that we provide, you know, are relevant, accurate, timely, and visualize in a way that can answer the business questions that is that truly understand what is the problem you're trying to solve at this stage of your business? How can we give you the best data as quickly as possible in the most relevant way? So you can, you can make the right decision from your business. So that, that was kind of my vision of what I wanted to own.
Yoni Mazor (39:24):
So, that was burning in you that, to accomplish that, you know, the suite of tools that will be, you know, functional for the sellers, but you know exactly on the pin where that, how it's supposed to, you know, feel and look and behave like because you're a seller yourself.
Jon Tilley (39:37):
Yeah. And you know, a lot of the tools that at the time were just built by, you know, software people, and they didn't truly understand this idea of like what it is to be a seller. And most importantly, from a business perspective, how should this be formulated or visualized in a way that can help you. You know, and so, that was my focus is like, I wanted to make it most impactful and efficient when you use the tools, automate things you can you know, you can make the right decisions, so you can be successful as an owner of an Amazon business. Right. So that was kind of like the drive and, you know, I was succeeding in a lot of ways, but I was also failing miserably in a lot of ways because, the team developers that I had was just, you know, this team, an agency out of India at a cheap price that just wasn't working, you know, and we were just fixing bugs rather than building the tools that we needed to build.
Jon Tilley (40:27):
Right. We couldn't scale and in the meantime, Adam had just gone crazy, you know, like, I mean, Adam was such an amazing entrepreneur with his partner, Joe. they took this idea of a sustainable, you know, long-term business education program to Australia and beyond. and it was just the perfect timing with Amazon growing and they were doing incredibly well just changing people's lives and getting these people live on Amazon. So we had, luckily enough, I had this feed of people coming in and I could focus on developing the product. So, you know, that was the way that we started Zonguru, you know, a couple of years after that.
Yoni Mazor (41:08):
So, well, let me get this straight because Adam's the partner also Zonguru, and he had a whole school greenhouse of upcoming sellers. And as they grow, you attach to the tools so they can use them to grow and, you know, succeed on Amazon. And it becomes a refinery process. They use it, you probably get their feedback, you improve it, you build another layer you know, competency and everything. That was that kind of the, you know, dynamic over the years,
Jon Tilley 41:33
Those were our starting points. You know Adam is, has grown, Adam and Joe have grown reliable beyond Australia. They're probably one of the biggest education platforms for sellers today, courses and they do incredibly well and that was our first start but Zonguru has also grown massively.
Yoni Mazor 41:52
Yeah, sure. That that was a cornerstone that it helped you, besides your mindset, besides your experience, you get, you know, the valuable experience of the whole school, a whole line-up of, you know, of other sellers. I think that kind of an experience inability, early on it's valuable to set up the right foundations. Right. As you roll along. Okay. So 2015 until today we're of 2021, you know, six years, five, six years to the mix, take us to the main kind of milestones for Zonguru in terms of growth, expansion, new tools, experience ups, and downs takes us a little bit deeper.
Jon Tilley 42:25
Yeah. A few stations. Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges in ups and downs was that first part with that MVP and trying to build Zonguru and move at the pace that this industry was moving. You know, at the time, you know, jungle scout was one of the first players in the space with their research tool. but they also it wasn't just a software business, right. They were a marketing business. They went crazy on the marketing side with their educational course is like the jungle sticks ones and the SEO play and their partnerships play.
Jon Tilley 42:57
And they just were, they truly got their rights at the beginning. And you know, I very quickly realized that you know, the space that we're in, it's not just about software. You have to deliver on that, but you have to move at a pace where you can market your product in the right way. Do you know? So, one of the biggest milestones for me was finding what was, what kept frustrating me at the time was that you know, you can get amazing developers, but if they don't have the curiosity and product people, they don't have the curiosity to truly understand your target audience and the business. they can never develop, you know, remember that thing garbage and got it to garbage out, right. If they're not getting the right kind of information and connecting with the people at the front, they're not gonna develop the right kind of products.
Jon Tilley 43:42
And that was happening a lot with us. So I was determined to try and find people who knew our industry and who are sellers, who are developers, you know, and you know, I made my partner now and CTO Stephan Rachel, who's based in Eastern Europe and Bulgaria. He lived in Canada for many years, but he's based over in Sophia. And we admit actually through an API that he was providing and we needed because we just couldn't deliver on it with our team. and so we started that conversation and then, you know, we quickly developed a close relationship and said, why aren't you join UE and help us build our product? And so he came on board as a seven-figure seller himself who had started his business and still does incredibly well on Amazon. but also, you know, developing tools and data that he could use just from his curiosity. And that was kind of the, like the start of the new evolution of Zonguru. you know, we built a team as part of Zonguru in Sophia and Bulgaria on the developer side.
Yoni Mazor 44:46
So where was that when you merge into the mix?
Jon Tilley 44:49
this was 20......? I would say 2018. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 44:53
Got it. So already two, three years into the mix, basically be another milestone. So you add a more, you know, formidable muscle in terms of development and technical development. Somebody with not always, not only talented with it also they're seller, seven-figure seller. So, they have the built-in crew curiosity or the built-in passion to make this all make sense and powerful, so to speak.
Jon Tilley 45:15
Yeah. And, you know, by then I was seasoned enough to understand what I wanted to build from a culture and a team perspective. You know, I think like a CEO and founder, I think you get me, you get a lot of joy out of the product you create and the customers you can help and connect with, but you also get a lot of joy from creating your team, you know and this place where people who live their daily lives dedicate time to you and their life to, and how can you help evolve them as people to meet their own goals, whether their business or personal goals and have them enjoy their time that they kind of dedicate your company. Right. So, for me these ideas of the values of curiosity, I think is my number one value of people who are curious, and are interested in exploring and improving their business pro as their expertise within Zonguru and beyond and having a full fulfilled life, you know, kind of building those things and having a platform within Zonguru to allow that growth was really important to me.
and it just made complete sense to me at the time to incentivize people to be on the team, to launch their own Amazon business. Right. So, I came up with a program. This was probably just before Stephan joined, of just saying, Hey, anybody who joins Zue, you will, we will loan you up to, I think it's $10,000 now, but up to $10,000 for your first order of products that you're gonna sell on Amazon. Wow. That's pretty well. Yeah. And you know, it's a zero loan that you have to pay back within the first year with the caveats of it has to be, you have to be successful enough to pay back if you're not, then you don't pay it back. So, you know, it's not good, it's not a good deal for me, but it's great, you know,
Yoni Mazor 47:06
why? Yeah. I just Joking super unique. Yeah. Super unique and bold. And I like it. I think it's a really smart, strong approach to be committed to, you know, have that member on the entire team, to who's the end-user, the sellers, who are they, you know, where there's the value to whom that it does, it need to be delivered and you took it to the extreme, which I appreciate.
Jon Tilley 47:23
So that's pretty cool. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of behind our slogan for, you know, and a few gold users now, but we use it from the start, which is four sellers Byers is kind of what we trying own, but we do own, you know, and we have, now we have over, I think it's over 50% of people are either launching or launched with their Amazon business across our whole team, product marketing, you know, developer, you know, so they truly understand, you know, and that's why it's a win for me is like one, you can run an Amazon business as a side hustle while you're doing your main core job. Right. That's great. Number two, you know, if you get that right, it can truly be an asset that is scalable and can change your financial freedom beyond just your day-to-day job, where you gonna paid for your services.
Jon Tilley 48:11
Right? So I wanted people who are part of Zonguru to have that opportunity because man if they can scale and take care of their financial freedom with the Amazon business and then also work for us and make money there, but kind of grow with us. And it's an amazing opportunity and why not. And then obviously numbers three is there they're learning and becoming our target audience and understanding what problems to solve and everything just connects. So it just created this beautiful, environment of people who truly understand our industry and solve problems for our customers and, you know, solving problems that they have that they want answers on. So that's kind of the evolution of Zonguru and that was a big milestone and a chance for us, which, you know, has happened in the last few years and we truly have an amazing product, that is unique in a lot of ways.
Jon Tilley 49:03
It delivers on that original idea of being, you know, relevant, timely, and accurate across all of our tools to help you to be so successful with your business. very efficient in a lot of the ways that they can use the tools and yeah, you know, at that stage, the next milestone was probably, you know, actually a few months ago this year, you know, we had been boots strapped and you know, been successful and profitable over those years since 2016, just growing and hustling and building this team in partnership with reliable education growing beyond, and focusing on that. But, you know, with the evolution of the Amazon industry and the third party site, you know, and just the amount of money that's coming in and you know, the funding that has gone, you know, into these software companies, as well as aggregators and everything, it was very clear to us that we needed to take on some VC funding to have the capital exposure to build our marketing and our buzz day partnerships and you know, our team and just truly help to ignite what we have and just procure on that fire end grow.
Jon Tilley 50:09
So we started looking around at, the beginning of this year and closed with our VC partners, back in May. So, we have a VC partner, awesome guys who are true, inspiring, and dedicated to helping to grow Zonguru, and, yeah, that's kind of the next step for us is how do we take this investment and grow. And, we are starting to see a lot of focus going into their partnerships and our brand awareness and exposing the best cap secrets of Zonguru, you know, which just was the evolution of being a bootstrap and where we focus reliably. But I think any of the big sellers who used our software, they were like, the best thing you can do for us is not telling anyone else about Google, because they were getting so much, value out of it.
Jon Tilley 50:59
And we just, we are not the biggest in the space. Right. so, you know, that's a problem I want to change. and we're excited about the next steps for Zonguru and, yeah, that's kind of where we are today and, big things to come, you know, right now we're focused on, you know, continuing to evolve our core sets of tools, but building our marketing and our buzz dev, around that. And then, you know, integrating with Amazon's progress. Right. And that's just, what's so cool and exciting for me right now is like, Amazon is this machine that has its amazing blueprint of converting people from traditional retail into, e-commerce not only businesses but people and they do that through prime and through their distribution network and how they make it so easy.
Jon Tilley 51:53
and that's an evolving challenge that they're taking throughout the world. You know, they did it on dot com. They made people millions and millions of dollars. They've obviously made themselves coz millions of dollars and that's a truly integrated part of our daily life, you know, buying stuff on Amazon and it's happened in Europe lot and that's evolving, but you know, Amazon Australia is now the fastest-growing marketplace in the world, but Amazon marketplace in the world and they've you know, they've gone there. India is only at 3%, you know, online retail that's gonna change massively. The pandemic is helping that they wanna have 10 million sellers on Amazon, India by 2025. Um, so, so that's a new marketplace and these, these they're taking the blueprint of what they've done so well, and they're just applying it to some of these marketplaces and they're just absolutely, you know, on that next train of growth.
Jon Tilley 52:44
and you know, we are jumping on that. Like we are now the first-ever toolset to be fully integrated with north America, Europe, Australia, and India as well, India being the latest one and we're just trying to help sellers there, you know, to get a start on Amazon and, you know, there are many ways you can grow products based business, in the e-commerce world beyond Amazon, right? There's, obviously a whole bunch of other channels. You have to understand what sells on Amazon, how to do it, and that most importantly should be your start. You know it's an amazing pace of start, but if you can envision your brand beyond Amazon, that's where you truly can be mastering your growth. And we're excited just to help people change their lives doing that or scaling their current business as well.
Yoni Mazor 53:34
Got it. So it seems like you got the technology lockdown, you got the right partner for that. You got the money lockdown, you got the right VC partner for that. And you got the strategy on lockdown because you see the vision where it's all going. So these combinations hopefully will, you know, make ensure design Zonguru continues the growth and success of helping other sellers. Okay. I wanna kind of recap the story, see if we got everything, right this far, right. So born and raised in, Johannesburg South Africa finish, you know, your college degree, business and marketing, and then you go for a year, you know, to travel mainly in the US and a little bit of Costa Rica. It's, some rugby-playing along the way and then 2001, you go back to, South Africa, you start, you know, your career with advertising.
Yoni Mazor 54:12
You do it for two, three years, and then a little bit of bartending and then you went to Cape town for a little bit, and then you moved to the UK, to London, you did also advertising there kind of develop up the community of parties and stuff like that. Not to mention that also in Cape town, you were doing, you know, the film production, right? So that was a kind of experience you had there as well.2004, 2007, you're in the UK, then you shift to LA because you met you know, a lady that you're involved with and you know, compelled you to which, you know, do a whole complete reset. So off you go into LA you build stuff again a little bit of production, but also once again, back into the, you know, advertising game, from 2007, all the way to 2014, along the way, in 2012, you know, Amazon comes knocking out the door.
Yoni Mazor 55:00
You also build your community or, you know, with the breakfast you meet Adam you both take ASM, you all, you, both of you develop your track and with retail, and then along the lines, you also develop another layer of the track with, you know, softer solutions, SAS with Zonguru, you launch it to the market, you know, around 2015, more hard on, and then, 2018 you bring, you know, CTO, the tech, you know, a partner that, you know, skills, the technology and the quality of it. And then 2021, you already, you know, come along with the BC. So you well-funded. And also you have, the growth strategy in mind, you see where everything is going, do we get everything so far correctly?
Jon Tilley 55:39
You got it, man. Yeah, these, yeah, that's been a wild ride for sure and many other, stories and crazy jobs in between that is for another podcast, but yeah, that's the main story. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 55:52
Thank you for that. I enjoy that. I learned a few new things, so I appreciate that as well. Okay. So now that we have that in lockdown, I want to touch on two last things, and very quickly, the first one is if somebody wants to reach out and connect or can they find you, so give my handoff. And the last thing will be, what is your message of hope, an inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?
Jon Tilley 56:12
Yeah. in terms of where they can find us, just go to, zonguru.com. you know, our support team is there, you can chat to them anytime, again, there are sellers on that team. Some who've sold businesses already who are on that team and passionate about helping you, so you know, is gonna be there. And they're gonna give you the best service in the industry, for sure our blog has got amazing content educational content. You can check that out. And also our Instagram channel at Zonguru, you know, we didn't wanna just be advertising, you know, a platform for our Instagram. So we've kind of tried to solve a problem thereby bringing you product ideas and inspiration in just the feed. So if you go into zonguru, it's just gonna be a feed or product ideas, inspiration, how to differentiate.
Jon Tilley 56:58
What's hot, what's not, and a whole bunch of stuff there. So if you're in that space and you're looking for product ideas with following us on our Instagram so that's kind of how you can get all of us, for sure. You can jump in there anytime and get help from our team in terms of inspiration, I think, you know, what's amazing about Amazon is that, you know, you don't have to have come from a specific country, have an educational background of a specific type, you know, of a specific, you know, age, you know, of specific race color or religion or anything. You can be anyone in the world who is curious, who wants to learn how to launch a product on Amazon. And you have access to the best you know, services and support, and education, and people who you can get off of all these digital platforms to help you create an amazing product that you can sell and compete against the biggest brands in the world. And literally with been a space of five years, completely change your financial outlook, where you could potentially sell your brand to one of these aggregators that are coming in and, you know, change your life from wherever you are, to something where you have a million to 2 million dollars cash in your pocket to start your next Amazon business. You know, it's an insane opportunity that has never been around before. Like it is today. You can literally do that for little investments and just with some consistent action doing something every single day on that business as a side hustle or whatever, you can, you can change your outlook and you know, hopefully, get to a place where number one you can reach that stage of being financially free, where you can say, Hey, I can look after myself and my family for my life.
Jon Tilley 58:51
And then you can start to dedicate more time to make an impact in the world. However, you want to do that. You know, and that's what I wish for everyone. I think, you know, we're all here grinding away in the acting race, just trying to survive and get to where we need to look after ourselves and our family, and if you can envision getting beyond that and making an impact on everyone else around you that's a crazy, amazing opportunity and growth path for us entire entrepreneurs. So, no matter where you're at, you know, you can do it in whatever you're doing. It just takes dedicating, you know, 10 minutes a day. If you can put aside 10 minutes a day for that vision, you will very quickly within five years, no doubts, have something that is sustainable long term and settles able and can change your life. So, if that's not inspiring. I know What is good.
Yoni Mazor 59:41
That's good. Yeah. It's great stuff. So opportunity, definitely out there, you know, opening yourself up to it you know, identify it, take action. You know, as you said, within five years, real dreams can come true. And then you'll be in a, you know, good position in life, at least financially. Okay. I love it. So thank you so much, John. I enjoyed it a lot. I hope everybody else enjoyed it and found it useful. Stay safe and help everybody. So next time.
JustThanks.
