In this Prime Talk Podcast Video Sponsored by GETIDA, Ryan Cramer, Partnerships Manager at PingPong Payments, a global payment processing platform, shares his personal passion to connect & grow eCommerce businesses and his own journey into eCommerce.
In the world of e-commerce, it can sometimes be difficult to know which opportunities to take and which paths to follow. But often, the way is directly in front of us and we just need to seize that opportunity and not be afraid to learn from it. Yoni Mazor from PrimeTalk talks about opportunities and motivation for e-commerce sellers.
In today’s episode, PrimeTalk has teamed up with Ryan Cramer, Partnerships Manager at PingPing Payments, a global payment processing platform that has helped more than 600,000 e-commerce sellers keep their hard-earned profits in their pockets. PingPong Payments offers assistance to e-commerce sellers in cross-border payments, VAT payments, and supplier payments among many others.
Ryan Cramer discusses his inspiring life’s journey from essentially door-to-door salesperson to WNBA events sales to his current position in PingPong. If you’re considering taking the next steps to get into the Amazon or e-commerce space and aren’t sure what to do next, then this episode is for you!
Visit PingPong Payments for more information.
Learn about GETIDA's Amazon FBA reimbursement solutions.
Yoni Mazor 0:06
Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of PrimeTalk. Today I have a special guest. Today I'm hosting Ryan Cramer. Ryan is the Partnership Manager at PingPong Payments, which is a global payment processing platform. So Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan Cramer 0:19
Thanks for having me. It's awesome to speak with your audience and talk to you.
Yoni Mazor 0:24
Awesome, our pleasure to have you. Alright, so today's episode is really going to be all about you, the episode of Ryan Cramer, so you're going to share with us, you know, who are you? Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where'd you go to school? How’d you begin your professional career, and then all the way to how you got to the world of e-commerce. So I guess without further ado, let's jump right into it.
Ryan Cramer 0:45
Yeah, it's a weird story. I love telling it to people because I think every person's journey is never the same, obviously. So my road path kind of started with failure. And it came when I started off college. My first job actually was working in the newspaper industry. So I was new business development, I had to go door to door collecting business cards, selling solutions back in gosh, this was 2012.
Yoni Mazor 1:11
Hold on before we jump right into the business ups and downs. Let's start with even more. Let's give him I want to move back even further. Yeah, where were you born? Where'd you grow up? Give us some context of, you know, your progression.
Ryan Cramer 1:23
I was born in Texas, by birth was born in Plano, Texas. Whenever
Yoni Mazor 1:31
That’s uh Frito Lay right?
Ryan Cramer 1:32
Yeah. Frito Lay, Dr. Pepper. Yeah, just I think it's either. It's a suburb of Dallas, Texas. So technically Southern if I were to modify that but I grew up in Indiana. So I moved there, to Indiana, when I was around six years old. So the majority of my life I spent in the Midwest. And then from an early age, I actually was very involved. I was the oldest of five. So I'm part of a big Catholic family, was very involved in sports. I played baseball when I was three all the way till I was 18 in high school and won a state championship, my junior year of high school. So the glory days, if you will, but my arm, my arm actually now regrets it every time I try to throw a football or something with my right arm. So that means that it was a lot of fun. I was very competitive, which allowed me to travel, college, and the university went to the University of Evansville. So in southern Indiana and studied communications.
Yoni Mazor 2:33
Was it a big college or private?
Ryan Cramer 2:35
Private and private..roughly...I think right now it's around 2500 students. It's a Methodist-affiliated college, but it was mainly folks from liberal arts. So I wanted to do something where I can be a jack of all trades. So I did communications. So I got my Bachelor of Science in Communications, but I have a creative side of me too. So I had a visual communication minor but allowed me to be in things like returnee involvement. I was in charge of giving tours to prospective students. I did homecoming committee, I was like in a dance...
Yoni Mazor 3:08
In other words, you had to kind of sell the university, right?
Ryan Cramer 3:10
Yeah, I had to sell the university. But I was super involved. So I loved talking with people. I loved being able to, you know, try different things. I think that's what allows me to kind of like, pave my path later on in life. So I was just very, I'm a talkative person. I love getting to know people and hearing other people's points of view. So throughout that time, you know, I dabbled in a couple of different things. I started in sales selling Cutco cutlery. So I actually...
Yoni Mazor 3:39
What’d you sell? Sorry, what was that?
Ryan Cramer 3:41
So Cutco cutlery. It's like knives. Basically, they're in New York.
Yoni Mazor 3:45
Cut? Well, what's the word you're saying?
Ryan Cramer 3:47
Cutco: C U T C O. Yeah, I think they're only in New York, but they're really high quality like...
Yoni Mazor 3:54
Oh, Cutco is another brand? Almost sounds like Costco. Yeah, okay.
Ryan Cramer 3:58
Almost like Costco. But the...so when I was a senior in high school, I was selling these to people that I had just met so I went through a sales program and got to sell almost door to door essentially with kitchen knives. Essentially...
Yoni Mazor 4:13
And Ryan, you did this same time you're still in school? Or this is right after school?
Ryan Cramer 4:17
Yeah. After high school into college. So I did this for about two summers and it actually allowed me to pay for my study abroad trip my sophomore year of college. So yeah, good question it. They have a sister school at a university called Harlaxton College, which is in Grantham, England. Grantham. So Grantham is about, I think it's where Margaret Thatcher actually grew up, about an hour train ride north of London. So I traveled to 10 different countries while I was over there, got to... that really opened up my you know, my eyes to the world basically getting to go to like Europe or like England, France, Germany. Spain, Netherlands I went to Greece, Italy, I was traveling as much and as often as I could.
Yoni Mazor 5:08
How long were you overseas? Like a whole year or?
Ryan Cramer 5:11
Only about three and a half months. So every weekend, all these countries? Yeah, look crazy. Or at least when I was in college, I was crazy to do all that traveling, but it was like weekend trips, hop on a flight, do a quick getaway holiday, if you will, and then come back on Sunday and hit the books hard. And then on Thursday night leave for a new country after that.
Yoni Mazor 5:34
Give us some perspective. What year was that when you're in the UK?
Ryan Cramer 5:37
That was in 2009? So I was...
Yoni Mazor 5:39
Yeah, 12 years ago?
Ryan Cramer 5:41
Yeah, about 12 years ago. So I was supposed to travel abroad again in 2020. But we all know how that turned out. So that's been put on hold until, you know, whenever we can go abroad again. But yeah, that really opened up my eyes to different cultures, different…. Again, I'll talk probably a lot about perspective. And it allowed me to kind of get other people's ideas on, like, perspective on like, Americans, but also just like how people live their lives. And so it allowed me to kind of just broaden my horizons and allowed me to, you know, just grow as a human. So..
Yoni Mazor 6:16
Yeah, accept differently, understand different cultures, different mindsets, different opinions, the different ways of life, some things just can't bend or change, even though you believe some way of life is a bit maybe better and more convenient. Still, they, you know, other people stick to their customs, traditions, traditions, just because, you know, they have, you know, they have a commitment to it. So I think that really opens up your eyes. And especially when you go over to Europe, there are only two types of no cultures going on with a lot of tradition, and the arts and the crafts and the, you know, the dining.
Ryan Cramer 6:47
I mean, that's where I think I get my food palate, and now it's just the food's amazing, especially when, you know, you have a first hand instead of Oh, like it's a restaurant or something, trying to recreate it. It's just the atmosphere in general, I think a lot of people don't appreciate it, which is why I think so many Amazon sellers or people in this industry really like traveling because you get all these different kind of components, if you will, to like broaden your horizons and really just get the better experience I think. Like you're not diversifying your own palette, you're not diversifying your own perspective. And that's why I think it's really important to travel and I'm a big advocate for everyone who can.
Yoni Mazor 7:25
Fantastic. All right, so 2009 you travel you then you come back to the stage. Did you finish your degree?
Ryan Cramer 7:30
Yep, finished my degree. Yeah. Yeah, I graduated in 2012. So yeah, almost 10 years ago now. So nine years ago, which seems like forever ago. But out of college, I, you know, started my first job in the newspaper industry, as I alluded to earlier, selling newsprint ads, digital display ads, SEM options...
Yoni Mazor 7:56
Which newspapers? All kinds or was there a specific one?
Ryan Cramer 7:59
Yeah, it's a regional newspaper down in southern Indiana and Southern Illinois, Northern Kentucky called Evansville Courier and Press. They were owned by….Yeah, Evansville Courier and Press. So
Yoni Mazor 8:10
Evansville Courier and Press. Okay, got it.
Ryan Cramer 8:12
Courier and Press. Yeah. So they are owned by the same company that does the spelling bee, EW Scripps. So if you see, like the little kids who are doing the spelling bee every year, it's the same company that does that. So long story short, I was doing that for about two years, going door to door trying to listen to different businesses and solutions, how to get them to stand out to this audience that we were speaking to as a solution. And then, like every aspiring person right out of college, I was laid off in December of 2013. So yes,...
Yoni Mazor 8:49
So you were there for a year, year and a half, you're there?
Ryan Cramer 8:51
Yeah, a year and a half or so. And then. Yeah, I think it was 2013-2014. And I got laid off, so 0 for 1 right out of college, and I did a lot of souls searching. I'm young. I obviously was, had a fiance at the time who was finishing up her degree. She was finishing up her degree in Connecticut, so we're not close. We were getting married in four months. So I did a lot
Yoni Mazor 9:13
Four months until you were gonna get laid off?
Ryan Cramer 9:14
Four months until we were gonna get married.
Yoni Mazor 9:18
So you got laid off. You're about to, you know, you were planning to get married four months afterward.
Ryan Cramer 9:22
Yep. Yep. We were. We were planning to get married in Ohio. And...
Yoni Mazor 9:27
What's in Ohio? Your family? Her family?
Ryan Cramer 9:29
Yeah. Her family and my family still lives in Lafayette, Indiana, which is where they're from, but yeah, it was kind of like one of the soul searching things
Yoni Mazor 9:39
Can we touch a little bit on what was the context of why you got laid off? Was this an industry thing because you know, the print was shrinking or because, you know?
Ryan Cramer 9:46
Yeah, so I was...there was a couple of us in our division, but it was across the board like writers are laid off, marketing and sales staff are laid off. And it was just like a random Wednesday. I had my schedule all laid out, I was going to start really selling solutions. I wasn't doing bad like I was hitting goals. And it wasn't a performance thing. It was just an industry thing you saw when you saw the reports on things like profitability as an all-company meeting when it's all red. That's never a good sign, I would think so. Long story short, yeah. It's kind of a difficult thing. I would...
Yoni Mazor 10:20
Are they still in business, by the way, they're still in business?
Ryan Cramer 10:22
Yeah, they are. I think a lot of it shifted to digital, but they're on a more lean structure, I would say. Yeah, I mean, I almost like, never looked back. I kinda say, Hey, I grew from that. I never want to be a part of that again, because, honestly, it sucked. But it was, I mean, it's a lot of hard work. You, you know, you're trying to sell a solution that isn't as viable anymore as it once was. So that was kind of a thing that I didn't buy into anymore. So yeah, what do soul searching but luckily, about a month went by, my wife got a job. She's a music therapist, so she can get a job almost anywhere. She got a job in a jail in Virginia, on the East Coast of the United States. So with me not having a job and she had a position. We both decided to get up and just move to a different state with no connections nearby, no family to support us. We just kind of jump into this entrepreneurial journey for ourselves. Yeah, start fresh almost, if you will. So she got a job. And then shortly a couple of months or two later, I found a position that got me into e-commerce with a company called Evergreen Enterprises. So they are a manufacturer and distributor of roughly 10,000 skews on a yearly basis, manufacturing in Ningbo, China, and then they distribute out of their headquarters in Richmond.
Yoni Mazor 11:44
Ningbo was very big into hot pots and pans, was this was kitchenware or everything?
Ryan Cramer 11:48
So this was home gift garden decor is like garden flags, garden stands, a lot of like more decorative items. And they were doing about 10,000 skews on a rotating catalog, if you will, on seasonal decor, so selling to retail stores, but then they're also growing their e-commerce division. I'm selling directly to Fanatics, Wayfair, Zulily. We were selling on Amazon FBA and FBM because we had our own warehouse system and this was in 2014.
Yoni Mazor 12:19
And they're based out of Virginia?
Ryan Cramer 12:21
Yeah, they're based out of Virginia. Still in business. Richmond, so um, because in the center, it's a capital yeah Richmond. So I think they're in one of the suburbs like Midlothian, or something. And they were growing. They're good directly to as a wholesaler, but they were trying to grow their direct-to-consumer portfolio. So there was a team of people selling to Amazon basically directly putting goods in FBA and fulfilling sales from FBM in our own warehouse there in Richmond.
Yoni Mazor 12:52
So let me just understand, so on the Amazon level, you had 1P, 3P? Or just 3P, third-party selling?
Ryan Cramer 12:58
It would be what we have our own brands. So technically, we are 1P...
Yoni Mazor 13:03
So you were wholesaling to Amazon? That's on the warehouse level?
Ryan Cramer 13:06
Yeah. And we are also dabbling into some 3P as well. So as a wholesaler, it was kind of a weird mix. Because you could wholesale, you... as a wholesaler, you were selling to retail stores. And we had these stipulations in a place where, hey, you couldn't sell below a certain threshold obviously...
Yoni Mazor 13:24
MAP pricing. Manufacturer-approved pricing. Something like that, or authorized?
Ryan Cramer 13:27
Exactly. So um, we had to always like, make sure that those are being like if we were selling directly to people, and they're under undercutting our own, you know, systems in sales, then we had to like shut them down as...so we have this really weird dynamic of we had salespeople selling to these people directly, but also we were trying to sell on the same platform they were. Again, a marketplace in general. So it's a weird dichotomy, if you will because we're
Yoni Mazor 13:53
You guys were like a super hybrid because you got brick and mortar also 1P wholesale to Amazon and wavefront. All the other retailers plus, third party selling, so doing DTC, direct to consumer. Wow, that's pretty interesting.
Ryan Cramer 14:05
Yeah, and so, we also had our own branded website, which I was in charge of, like running sales through so it was literally two websites that we aren't in existence anymore. But we built out. It was a zero revenue channel. We built it on Magento, I think, is the platform. So I was in charge of basically building landing pages, trying to go to third-party websites, almost like an influencer marketing, and say, Hey, we'd love to showcase our products. They're the lowest out there. We love to offer deals and incentives and coupons for your audience. You know, how do we get our name out to your members basically. So it was up to me to kind of like work with Ebates, like the cashback. They were still known as Ebates. That's how long ago it was. Now it's Rakuten, like bradsdeals.com, deal news, which is really popular with a lot of Amazon sellers now so is...
Yoni Mazor 14:54
So hold on. Let me get this straight. So 2014 you started with Evergreen and the first position they gave you was, you know, take care of...
15:01
Sales and Marketing Manager. Yeah, exactly.
Yoni Mazor 15:02
Sales and marketing manager on the website level, under dot com? Not any, any marketplace platforms, right?
Ryan Cramer 15:08
Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying. It was definitely weird because it was a zero revenue channel. And I had to figure out how was I going to get a brand that didn't exist in front of an audience that was massive enough to drive quick traffic? And how do I make enough, enough dent for them to continue to want to work with me? So is offering commissions like the affiliate channel does, working with these big websites and saying, Hey, this is our story. We can offer best on website or best on the internet pricing. But then also offer things like free shipping and really kind of dive into the consumer mindset of what they're looking for and seasonality. So it was me trying to test a bunch of different products with 10,000 skews on my disposal or ASINs at my disposal for Amazon sellers, which ones are going to yield the best results and be noticeable enough for people who want to buy a lot. So it was a lot of testing, a lot of like seasonal...
Yoni Mazor 16:07
So hold on, from the entire catalog, you had to kind of identity which ones will be the ones who are going to move the needle in terms of bringing traffic and revenue into your dot com website.
Ryan Cramer 16:18
Yep. And look at inventory levels, look at what we could sell it at. So I wasn't undercutting our own business, just for the sake of a deal. If there are inventory levels that we just had, that was just so bad that we had to get rid of. It was offering special deals and incentives. So it's almost like we had our own inner workings ecosystem of what Amazon sellers go through on a day-to-day basis. I just didn't know that. You as a third-party seller could do this. I was just doing on a level where a multi-million dollar company can allow me to kind of tinker with stuff. So it was really cool to test it out on that level.
Yoni Mazor 16:54
How'd it go?
Ryan Cramer 16:55
Yeah. So the first year, I drove a zero-sum revenue channel to six figures. I think it was around $650,000 in revenue my first year doing it ago, I knew nothing about the industry, it was just kind of a lot of testing and diving in. And the next year I did it. And we were around a million-dollar, over seven figures in revenue. So once I showed the value of like, Hey, this is a viable channel, you can start getting the voice like the respect of these, all these other websites.
Yoni Mazor 17:25
So 6 figures in one year, then a second-year as it was already you know the seven-figure correct?
Ryan Cramer 17:29
Yeah. So I like to tout that, hey, I took a business and a brand that wasn't my own. But I took it to six and seven-figure revenue channels. So all before it was cool, back in 2014. The old school days of...
Yoni Mazor 17:42
So 2014 it was at six-figure and in 2015 it was ready the seven figures?
Ryan Cramer 17:45
Yep, yeah. So yeah, those are the years that I grew those channels. And it was like obviously watching the rest of my team kind of do the Amazon game of working with our manufacturers over in China when we have to plan out how much inventory to send it to different FBA facilities, how far in advance I had to do and they were making their own special orders for certain selling products. And working with the team on how we're going to brand this website and this kind of entity to make sure that we didn't piss off or really Matlock, it. Yeah, basically our wholesaler business, but then also our e-commerce business. And where I fit in the middle, though, we did a lot of teamwork together of driving traffic in different ways, like their email marketing campaigns. They're just sponsored deals like paying ads, and whatnot. I broke our website three different times because I sent so much traffic at once. So I got to learn about...
Yoni Mazor 18:43
Give us a story of one of those instances. What happened? Give us a little...
Ryan Cramer 18:45
So my biggest fan, and I like to tell this to Amazon sellers because there's so much value in these deal websites. I think at the back end of what I learned through this process was I get to understand the psychology of what people look for in a deal. When I'm a shopper, everyone wants to get the best price out there. Right? That's why a lot of people go to Amazon. When you think about e-commerce websites, what do people get triggered by? Free shipping, some sort of coupon or discount, some sort of perk that says like, hey, all these add ons, and then you also get this and this and this, we're really greedy people is what I learned, but really trying to emphasize those highlights, and then also at a good price point. And so I got to find out that really sweet spot of price points. I worked with a
Yoni Mazor 19:33
The combination of a good price point, but also kind of bundling or packaging it up in a way where it's unique, ’s differentiated.
Ryan Cramer 19:38
Yeah, for sure. And then making sure we had a good inventory level so that we can support enough sales and it wasn't just like a flash in the pan 20 sale and then it's out. Just like launching a new product. Um, so one of the websites I have a lot of success with is, they're still in business, bradsdeals.com. I think they operate out of Chicago and they tout “best of the web”, they have a bunch of different publishers and work on different e-commerce websites, but also with Amazon sellers. So you can feature different products that are applicable to your audience. They have a lot of their audience is really unique because they have email blasts ago, I think twice a day, or at least it was that if you're featured on this, you have this huge wave of traffic to your website, and I'm talking like 10,000 people all of a sudden, instantly on a listing. And now that load, it goes zero. Yeah, it's the tsunami basically, of traffic. So they had this program called “60 days of deals”, where's the 60 days around Christmas? It would be, I think, November 1 through December 31, obviously, of just deals that are featured for the day, and they're like “best on web” stuff that's applicable to the audience that people would buy a lot of, and you have to have a great inventory levels, best on web pricing, and free shipping. So it's all these different levels.
Yoni Mazor 20:55
Great inventory levels, what? It’s a few 100 units, a few 1000 units, a few 10,000?
Ryan Cramer 20:59
Yeah, so it depends on the deal. And I would have to pitch my deal to them. And basically, the best deal that we can give, they would slot it on this like a calendar of deals. And this was like months in advance. So I have to do my own forecasting after work with my team, hey, do we have these inventory levels, so on and so forth. And this deal I came up with is Christmas ornaments that start at $3 and above. So it was kind of funny that at a price point where it says $3 and above, people are like, Oh, that's really cheap. And it's around Christmas time, it’s a very good deal. Not everything was $3. But that's where it started. And it was...
Yoni Mazor 21:38
So the benchmark was very alluring for them to click in. And then they can see what you’ve got, but then discover more.
Ryan Cramer 21:42
Yeah, and it wasn't like clickbait. But it was almost like, Hey, we do have stuff that is available at that but it's over a course of I think we had like 500 different ornaments you can choose from they were licensed ones too. So you have like college ones that people are fanatics over. You had different, not customizable, but you had just all these different kinds of options, basically, for people to choose like, hey, my favorite team might be in here.
Yoni Mazor 22:09
So you created this level, almost like this one-stop-shop for the ornaments, right?
Ryan Cramer 22:12
Yeah, exactly. So I built up this landing page that all like people didn't have to go find it. I pointed them all directly to, right to this place. And I’d turn on Google Analytics, and I just watch it. I was accepted to be on the Sunday before Christmas, before Black Friday, which is by industry-standard, the third-largest shopping day of the year before 2020 happened, but like traditionally, it's the third-largest volume of the year. One week before Thanksgiving. Yeah, so we were fulfilling people on holiday, fulfilling orders, and stuff like that. It's on a Sunday, so no one's in the office. It's me from my laptop, I think this weekend was I was in North Carolina visiting my wife who happened to be down there and we I was just like on my laptop watching and like any Amazon seller, you just watch sales trickling in, but I wasn't
Yoni Mazor 23:07
Which year? 2015?
Ryan Cramer 23:09
20...this would have been...2015. Yeah, so December 2015. And then I knew exactly I had timed it when the email gets triggered. That's how analytical I was. I knew when it would launch so I could watch it and time myself. Had my team ready. I was like, Hey, we're gonna
Yoni Mazor 23:25
So it’s almost like launching an aircraft into space. You're at the command center waiting for their dashboards.
Ryan Cramer 23:33
Yeah exactly. So I was watching this. And I was like, guys, like, I have this built, I kept prepping everyone going to be bad. It's going to be a lot of people. And they're like, oh, we'll handle it. It's not a big deal. We only had one developer who could support us on our back end because we're a small team at the time. And once the email hit, I go alright, and I clicked it over. And I just see instantaneously, I think I hit 2000 people on my one page at once. And then all of a sudden it goes down to zero and I go what the hell basically, I start freaking out, I go to the page. I was like, is the link broken? Is the website broken? What's happening? I'm coming to find out that the landing page had suffered so much traffic at once it overloaded our system. And it didn't allow for anyone to even connect to it. So I'm on the phone with my developer, I go What the hell's going on? All these people can't get to our website. We're missing sales like instantaneously as I'm speaking. And I think two hours went by. I'm getting emails from this company are like, Hey, man, what the hell, this is a big deal. We can't convert on this stuff. Just like you can't. And all these problems are happening and like two hours went by and then we finally got it back up and running. It would have been roughly a 30 grand day. It was pretty intense. Like for three to $15 you know,
Yoni Mazor 24:52
But that was your tuition. So the next time you did it and the next two times you did it, you were so well prepared. Hopefully, you made it up.
Ryan Cramer 24:57
Yeah, we had invested in some more server space. We did a lot of load testing, there was a lot of testing and I said, Are we sure that this is going to scale properly? It worked. And those are the things that you learn as you grow is, you don't think that there's this big wave that you can not manipulate traffic, but almost like the power of one platform on one deal on one blast, just like I would say, TikTok with some of these sellers who are saying like, one feature can yield in 10s of 1000s of sales, just because of one feature, everyone sees it.
Yoni Mazor 25:34
When you can hone in on where, you know, the demand is, is sitting and you can target it properly. And you introduce your product solution to that demand. It's a beautiful explosion in the digital space. But of course, yeah, you have to have the right rocket fuel and the right infrastructure to bear the stress and not cave under the stress test components of it.
Ryan Cramer 25:55
Yeah, pretty sure I lost a couple of years of my life on those deals. My wife was just sort of watching me pacing back and forth. I mean, it's like in any Amazon seller on this kind of Black Friday, Prime Days where like, my listing gets taken down for any reason or anything like that. It's you had all these steps that you built out months, and then weeks in advance, and something that's out of your hands, such as hosting website traffic on a landing page that you built out and you've triple-checked. It's just one of the things that something's always going to come up with, you have to be prepared for everything. So..
Yoni Mazor 26:27
Yeah, but you guys talked it up and continued, and seemed like you were still on the right paths for success. And it wasn't a meltdown.
Ryan Cramer 26:35
I mean, when I walked in on Monday, after all that traffic and our warehouse, I was I came in and I had a couple of people standing by my desk and go, Ryan, let me tell you that we have more orders today than we have ever seen this whole year on one day, and our warehouse is basically in a fury right now trying to fulfill these orders before Thanksgiving and Christmas, because people will need to...we're fulfilling by a merchant on our website. So I walked back to our warehouse. And I was just watching these flurries of people picking ornaments and packing them up in small boxes, shipping them out, and everyone was going bananas. So I felt...
Yoni Mazor 27:11
You moved the needle. You owned that.
Ryan Cramer 27:14
Well, my CEO then learned my name, to sit out of his office for the rest of the year in the time I was there. So it was definitely a unique experience to kind of see like, Hey, I did it for one product. What if I did it for, you know, 10 or 20 products. And then I started becoming involved in like, one on one conversations with like, distressed inventory that we had to move. How do we make this look like a perceived value in the deal? And it was a deal. Like you can retail it at 100 bucks, but you can sell it for 35. That was another thing. I was like I could find all these like unique products, just looking through this catalog of inventory and like products that might speak to an audience. And then really speak to them quickly and efficiently. So that's kind of like my learnings when I was there. So I did that for about two years or so. And then my wife and I wanted to relocate back to the Midwest, to be closer to families because she lives in...her family’s in Cleveland area. My family's just north of Indianapolis. So wherever someone got a job, that was the next place we were going to live. So two days later, my wife got an offer. I'm always following my wife for some reason. And yeah, so she got a good job quickly in Indianapolis, which is where we currently live.
Yoni Mazor 28:34
Was it a jail again? Or no?
Ryan Cramer 28:36
Not a jail. So she works for a nonprofit called Noble and does music therapy with people who have mental deficiencies. So basically like with people who have speech impediments, or any sort of disabilities where they can't converse through, you know, speech or communicate well. Using music as a form to express emotions and whatnot. That's why she works with people. Yeah. So it's, she's doing that remotely now. Over Zoom. So it's a little hard to help people stay focused on the camera, but she's above me. So if you hear music in the background, that's me and her. That's her above me. working away. Um,
Yoni Mazor 29:17
And you guys live in Indianapolis or?
Ryan Cramer 29:20
Yeah, so yeah, we live in Indianapolis or technically in Westfield, which is a suburb north of Indianapolis. But she got a job here. We bought our first home here. And I tried to tell my company back in Virginia, hey, I would love to work remotely. I'm somebody
Yoni Mazor 29:35
Hold on, when you moved, what year was that? 2016 already?
Ryan Cramer 29:38
Yeah, 2016 already. And I was looking for e-com work, because my company said, Hey, we would need you to be here. We need to converse with you in person. I think it would change now. If we were talking about it in 2020, then it was back in 2014 or 2016. Excuse me. But uh, so I was like, okay, like, I guess I can't work remotely. I'd been doing it for a couple of days here and there but the full time it wouldn't work for them. So I actually took a departure from the e-commerce industry and I worked for the NBA and the W NBA for two and a half years.
Yoni Mazor 30:13
No kidding. Wow.
Ryan Cramer 30:14
Yeah, the NBA. Yeah, the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever. They're both...I worked as a group events manager. So basically selling tickets and working with different organizations to come out to the game and hosting them in the arena. Whether it was you know, for the game or special like event, or was good.
Yoni Mazor 30:32
How did you get to that? What was the point of connection there?
Ryan Cramer 30:35
Ah, it was random I never met the people in person. It was all done through Zoom. I interviewed….
Yoni Mazor 30:42
What? Back in 2016? Was it Zoom or you’re just saying Zoom? Skype or?
Ryan Cramer 30:46
It would have been probably Skype back then. Yeah, I forgot.
Yoni Mazor 30:50
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure.
Ryan Cramer 30:52
Yeah. So they, … a lot of it was done over the phone. I had a sales background, I had this ability to like, adapt and grow and like, take the industry I didn't know and like hit the ground running. And so they were like, hey, we love your expertise in sales and marketing. This would be a good fit. And they kind of just offered it to me on the spot. I would say if I had to do it again, it would be I think I would try differently. But
Yoni Mazor 31:18
But you didn't work for the league> You work for the franchise, right? The Pacers and the…?
Ryan Cramer 31:21
Yeah, the Indiana Fever. So the WNBA team, the women's team. Yeah.
Yoni Mazor 31:25
So they’re both owned by the same owners?
Ryan Cramer 31:28
Yeah. So the owners of the Pacers and the Fever are the Simons. So they own Simon Property and Realty. Look, their headquarters is here in Indianapolis. But they have like, obviously, retail stores, which is
Yoni Mazor 31:46
Yeah I think they’re the largest or 2nd largest in America in terms of shopping malls. I think they merged with GDP growth drop, something growth, proper GDP, or GDP. I forgot the general charges.
Ryan Cramer 31:58
Yeah,, they do a lot. Yeah, like in terms of like shopping malls, but also like outlet stores, and malls and whatnot. But I met the owner in person, I've met his son who is going to inherit, like this billion-dollar entity. And they're like nice people. And it's cool. As part of professional sports, you get to meet like, the players who are normal people, they're just a lot taller. And you are five-seven so I’m super short. When you have a seven-footer, walking past you. It's really weird and daunting. But it's really cool. Like you get to go behind the scenes. You work with concerts here coming through the building,
Yoni Mazor 32:31
Why because you guys own the venue? So you also did more business through just selling...
Ryan Cramer 32:37
Yeah, our offices were in this...I'm trying to think of how big...I think it's like this 18,000 people arena. So you can go as high as the rafters were like these mascots will repel down to the floor, you can go behind the bleachers, and like, go behind the scenes, you get to meet like, you know, icons that are in the game right now. But it was all like, think about this way. So you have a nine to five job, you're talking on the phone all day, with organizations trying to come up with the game, and then you end up five o'clock, then you have dinner there at the venue, and then there's a game that night. So then you're working to 11 pm at night with people and that's on a normal day today if there's no overtime, or any other sort of, you know, a business that has to happen, or like after the game events going on because some organizations will rent the floor after a game and shoot around, you have to be there the whole time with them and represent the company. So it was really hard in terms of life balance, you were there constantly.
Yoni Mazor 33:35
It was consuming, right? Demanding?
Ryan Cramer 33:36
Yes, it was consuming, demanding, taxing, and consuming. You know, I think it's...you put a lot of work in, but in an industry where it's hard to grow and there's not a lot of upward mobility. I think that was something that was rough for me. But I like to... I loved working with the people, loved the, you know, human partnership aspect of everything and just knowing how businesses run.
Yoni Mazor 34:00
Did it feel a little bit like climactic, basically engaging on the phone, a lot of you know, the whole thing's going on, but then it comes to physical events. And then you see the magic happening with your own eyes. Was that there like a thrill in that at all?
Ryan Cramer 34:12
Yeah. Because like, I've had people come up to me like, Oh my gosh, like, I didn't think we'd be able to shoot around on a professional basketball floor before. I mean, to me, I'm like, I can walk on it whenever I want, like take a phone call, and I'm sitting in the arena, and most people have to spend hundreds, if not 1000s of dollars just to go to a game in general. So it's kind of cool to like work there, meet people there and like, have this entity as you're at your disposal and then kind of like selling yourself through this entity like, Hey, we can do pregame like a cocktail hour here, or we can do all these other types of events. What if I told you, you know, both basketball teams can have a game on the floor before the actual NBA game or a WNBA game later that night, and they would be able to watch the professionals play on the floor later on. Like it was kind of painting a picture in a visual...
Yoni Mazor 35:00
So you’re focused on bundling things, I mean, so what was the main purpose? Just to keep selling this NBA game or what?
Ryan Cramer 35:03
Or group, so group events. So anytime there were 10 or more people involved, that was my forte, it wasn't like going to the season ticket holder and saying, Hey, I have these tickets for you for seven or what 40 something games every year. This is the price, like use them for business development, whatever. There were different things like partnerships, you had business development reps here, corporate ticket sales. I was in, I was around the group events, and specifically for the WNBA, or that's where I did a lot of my focus was during the summer when the women played, I’m talking like with women events, and trying to get them out to the games during summer, working with like summer camps and whatnot, because we had like a kid's day. So I get to touch like organizations all across the board, which is really fulfilling and got to kind of like bring a light that otherwise these kids might not be able to come to a game ever. So you do like discounts and things like that too. But yeah, it was fun while you did it. It was definitely a unique perspective. But I was really hankering to get back into the e-com game.
Yoni Mazor 36:09
So was it already 2018 or 2019? This timeframe where you’re about...
Ryan Cramer 36:13
Yeah, I wanted to pivot on 2018 like, but 2019 is kind of when everything kind of really started paving its own path for me, I should say. So, in the Amazon space, a lot of people know like the Helium10s, the Jungle Scouts, and other service providers. There's another one that's here actually in Indianapolis called Viral Launch, which I'm assuming you know who they are. So Casey Gauss. Yeah, yep. Casey, and his team, founded Viral Launch here, gosh, that would have been 2016 or 2015. And I was trying to keep my ear to the tech scene and kind of figure out what, how I wanted to get back into space. And I saw they had a position for partnerships in affiliate marketing. And I was removed for a couple of years but met with Casey, though they had a fantastic product and service, I wanted to hop in and just say like, I want to hit the ground running and understand how to help this company grow. And I was hired that week, it was a really quick process. Anything in tech or SAS related, or any type of tech company, I feel like it moves pretty quickly if the right people get involved. So it was cool to see them see value in me from that perspective, knowing like I could draw from those past experiences, but not know everything about Amazon. So right from the get-go, I had to start working with our influencers and partners on how to use...
Yoni Mazor 37:34
This is already 2019? Early-mid?
Ryan Cramer 37:36
This was, trying to think...Viral Launch would have come early, I want to say May or April, I want to say April of 2019. Maybe May, maybe May or so. But I ended up...Yeah, I wanted to...I was there about 11 months or so through this whole wave of like, you know, the growth, the growth that we had, and then gotten to see a lot of new launches like with our PVC software. CashBack in terms of launching solutions, I got to have a lot of conversations with sellers and service providers and really pick their brains like how we can partner together and really try to sell Viral Launch from that perspective. But I got to meet a lot of cool people, both in person, but virtually as well. And then, you know, there was a time where the company had to like release a lot of people, I think with a lot of tech companies, you have this massive growth. And then if things don't work out, then you have to then obviously see everything scaled back. So there was a scale back process from Viral Launch that happened. What happened was...
Yoni Mazor 38:43
Yeah, give us a little bit of an explanation or context. What happened to Viral Launch? How do you perceive it?
Ryan Cramer 38:51
Yeah. Well, I was there. I was not a person that was part...I was still there when everything kind of happened. But I think in any business when you can try to think of like, what happened?
Yoni Mazor 39:04
But what happened? Just tell me, I'm not too familiar.
Ryan Cramer 39:06
Yeah, sure. Yes. So yeah, super successful. And then like, I think with industry, if you stretch yourself too thin, I think there's the ability that if you're trying to be a service, and software, and then all these other things that keep adding on to that, it's hard to support with manpower because I think that's the most expensive entity that you can invest in. So there is a direction that like the business wanted to go and then the direction that our leadership team wanted to go.
Yoni Mazor 39:32
So let's, let's touch the elements here. Right, so the main purpose of Viral Launch or the core competency was X, and then they tried to add Y, Z, and so forth. Yeah, so touch about that a little bit.
Ryan Cramer 39:42
So yeah, when you add on like software tools, you know, you have to...any kind of software tool you have to pay to support those systems. If it's a research tool, for example, like this is for any research tool out there. You have to pay for like access service bays, being able to keep tools updated. And you have the manpower to help with those services, whether it's running campaigns or whether it's running the software itself or being a customer service rep or being a salesperson, all those things kind of come with a cost. And you have to make sure that revenue obviously exceeds other costs. That being said like that's with any business, that's just the whole business.
Yoni Mazor 40:20
Right, but what was the moneymaker for Viral Launch? What was their core product, core solution, or core, you know, the golden egg?
Ryan Cramer 40:25
Yeah, the core tools, I would say, keyword research, product discovery. I would say it's pretty much using the data that Amazon has available, and consumers that are starting to sell on Amazon, break it down into a fact, like, hey, there's a micro-niche where I can jump into. And that's something that was super valuable for people because people need that to be successful from the get-go. I think there's a certain point where software tools aren't needed by sellers because they know like, what's working for them. But they kind of ebb and flow you have to constantly find ways and features to keep an Amazon seller engaged with your brand, whether it's using your...
Yoni Mazor 41:05
So as far as that sounds, your market research tool was the claim to fame and the growth engine for the company to explore? But you’re saying, after that, once, you know, you kind of do market research, you put your product in the game, you will find success. You can then detach, so that creates, I guess, churn or something?
Ryan Cramer 41:20
Yeah, churn. The lifetime value of a customer isn't as long as somebody if you're, you know, almost like...I’m trying to think of the good one maybe like if you have like a subscription to Netflix. Yeah, exactly like Netflix, I'm not going to just get rid of it. Like, they're gonna charge me another $2. Yeah, I'm gonna take it because I always...
Yoni Mazor 41:41
It’s a constant feed.
Ryan Cramer 41:42
So that's why you see a lot of new tools and features come out from like the competitors, you always want to have people that are constantly engaged and improve either the interface or a tool function, anything like that. I think that's the tricky, the trickiness of
Yoni Mazor 41:57
Right. And what happened to the company? Did it close down?
Ryan Cramer 41:59
No. The company still exists, I think. Yeah. So when you just have too many, like the, in terms of they had to let people go. I mean, that's, that's pretty public.
Yoni Mazor 42:08
Downsize, yeah,
Ryan Cramer 42:09
Yeah, they had to downsize because you have to get back, you have so much revenue, and then you have to, you know, you can only have so many people to not exceed revenue costs, and be profitable. So that being said, they...I think it was like, I forget how many people but then there was like a group of us that, the skeleton crew is what we called ourselves, was... Like the people...I called it a skeleton crew. So. Yeah. So I would say, microphones all of a sudden dipping. So in terms of like, leave it there. In terms of the other stuff that was going on. So I think there was like, 15 or so of us left when you have a big company of like 70 or so. And then you go down to 15. You look around, you're like, Alright, I guess I'm taking on more responsibilities. And what are we going to do now? So there was a, it was an interesting, weird time because it happened right before a lockdown in 2020.
Yoni Mazor 43:04
COVID hit when the pandemic hit?
Ryan Cramer 43:06
Yeah COVID hit, and then you're like, we're all of a sudden working from home. And then everyone's trying to figure out this pandemic going on. You know, this happened with our company, we were still you know, moving forward, trying to find our way in space. And then, I know a friend of yours, actually reached out to me, Tim Jordan, who I've never met before in my life, I was like, I don't know who this person is reaching out to me on LinkedIn, he reached out and he goes, Hey, man, like, heard about some stuff going on, we'd love to talk to you, I think there's a good opportunity for you in the space with this company called Ping Pong. I was like, I'm not into table tennis or anything. Like I'm not like, I don't know who you are, Nah I was just kidding. I’d like to hear good things and I've known the space, he had talked to a couple of partners who I've worked with and said, like, Hey, your name came up a couple of times, though you'd be a good fit for this space. And so we kind of talked through it all. And this was like January, February, around like the beginning of COVID, before it hit the United States. And then, uh, you know, they wanted me in this role that I'm currently in, and I was hired on and then, you know, the kind of the rest is history, I've kind of like, paved my way into working with a FinTech company now, which is working with Amazon sellers and e-commerce sellers but on an international level, so started like really small for one business, and then I broke it up into like Amazon sellers, now it's e-commerce and international growth. So my understanding of e-commerce game has significantly haloed into this big understanding across all these different
Yoni Mazor 44:40
Give us a little rundown of the spectrum of e-commerce. So just to give some context.
Ryan Cramer 44:45
Yeah. Um, so I just think it's, I think what we saw in 2020 has been crazy, how it sped up where I saw it back in 2014 when I got into this game, and I was like, What is FBM FBA? All this stuff like impact in my mind is like, that's interesting. You know, not thinking like an individual can do that as a business could. I was like, that's really cool. And that wouldn't shut up about it. Like I was always glued to analytics, I was glued to deal sites, I was like, all these different shopping behaviors you see every year is going to continue to grow 50% 75% triple-digit growth year over year over year. And I was like, This is so hot, like, I don't think it's ever gonna go away. Do you know? And I started thinking to myself, I was like, all of a sudden, we've hit this notion in a society where shopping online is no longer a luxury, it's now a necessity. And I saw that path really start to develop, like, I think you would agree with me, like, when we first started solving online shopping, you were like, Oh, that sounds like a, I don't know if I'm gonna get my credit card to a website. I don't know if I want to trust that it's going to be delivered to my doorstep. I want to like handhold it out safely from this retail store to my car so I safely get it home.
Yoni Mazor 45:58
Yeah, there was definitely a psychological barrier. Who was on the other side? Where is this all going to?
Ryan Cramer 46:02
Yeah, right. And then like knowing that it can get to you from around the world. It was this weird, like, psycho event that everyone just kind of got used to it all of a sudden, and now it's instantaneously, now it's a necessity, like, my family couldn't function without like, Yeah, exactly.
Yoni Mazor 46:21
COVID. Yeah you’re stuck at home. The only way for you to consume anything is online.
Ryan Cramer 46:22
I did my first online shopping for groceries during COVID. And I was like, This is so weird to not like being able to touch and feel like your produce. But then, like through a different kind of testing, I was like, Man, you could really innovate in this way. Or you can really enhance this vector in this way. If you could like, feel or video or text and chat, and like that's where like, all these companies kind of really shone, like Instantcart or like Uber Eats and things like that, where they're really glowing. But that's kind of where I was seeing it kind of go and we sped up. I've...even some people said 10 years in terms of like, where everyone is using... Yeah, exactly. Well, and that's the thing is, I saw that in the United States, as I alluded to this earlier, like the cultural concept. It hasn't even hit close to its potential internationally either. And I say this of like, in marketplaces like Mexico, or Amazon sellers in like India, for example, where billions of people are, they're just starting to get into, I say they, Amazon is just starting to get into these marketplaces, where you will see in two, I would say, two-plus years, maybe less, you're gonna start seeing...penetration is gonna be huge, but like these other marketplaces already exist, just sellers aren't very aware of it. Amazon.com is by far and away, like the biggest one, and that's the easiest one to get into. But you will start to see this growth internationally, I think, in the years ahead, where, you know, my product is has a place in the tidy around the world, it's not just to the 300 million-plus people in the United States, it's billions of people around the world, and how am I going to get my product to people, you know, in Africa, or in South America, or in Russia, or wherever you're...these marketplaces emerge. And with technology kind of like adapting as we did in 2020, it's gonna just be amazing to see the technical, technological advancements that we're gonna see on a global scale. So that's kind of where I see everything.
Yoni Mazor 48:26
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great. The ability to cater obviously, domestically selling in the US, you’re a US-based seller, you know, that's a pretty strong environment. But tuning in to the outside of the world, you know, everything that's available there in these expanding markets is going to be the next chapter in this decade, probably a new decade, a new chapter, right? So 2020 until 2030...
Ryan Cramer 48:48
It was a rough chapter, but I think we're like, all right now.
Yoni Mazor 48:52
Yeah you know it started with a dip, but actually, that dip in terms of maybe travel hospitality created a spike in the e-commerce field, right on a global level. So absolutely, you're gonna jumpstart right?
Ryan Cramer 49:04
And you see innovation come from something negative. You see lots of people like...what modern medicine is doing right now is kind of baffling to people.
Yoni Mazor 49:12
Yeah, it takes 10-15 years to create a vaccine, it took them a year, why? They're able to collectively group together all these scientists from around the world and collaborate. And you know, when I’d say 10 to 15 years because when you're doing it like 50 years ago, you have to send a letter or document or research document via FedEx or DHL or post office and reaches them, they write it until they type it or whatever, then they send it back and stuff like that. So everything instantaneously they can do the test results on the spot with Zoom or whatever they need, just so it speeds up all the logistics around it to nothing. To immediate.
Ryan Cramer 49:48
Yeah, and then even seeing how businesses, like the role of companies like I use a term like as a very general one that you know, everyone can relate to, but just seeing all the emerging ones that come from this kind of area. And like how the next wave of business is going to yield is kind of really funny to hear because I always speak to Amazon brokers and Business Brokers like, hey, we've been around for a while. But now all of a sudden, it just shone this light on this industry. We're like, holy cow, this asset that I have built out as a, as a private label seller, all of a sudden, I have an asset at my disposal like a, like a house or like a car, I could resell it.
Yoni Mazor 50:25
Like a real business. That has a lot of value. Intrinsic value. Yeah.
Ryan Cramer 50:30
Yeah. And it doesn't have to be just my goods. It can be my brand. It can be my solutions, it can be, yeah my trademarks. All those things have value, and it never was shown in that way before. And now it is. And now all of a sudden, you have these like trailblazers, like burning this path, and you have people who innovate behind it. It's just all these different businesses that you'll see. I even think logistics companies will even develop new... Yeah, exactly. Because you saw it like, there's just like, big clog up right now of how to get goods to from one place to another. But how do we like, alleviate some of those pressures? Not just with Amazon, but just like in general? Like, how do you get vaccines across the world in a quick, timely fashion, people are going to start relying on each other. So that's where e-commerce is going, in general, is on a global perspective. How do you expand outside just your own little tiny bubble?
Yoni Mazor 51:24
Right, love it. Alright, so um, thank you so much for sharing your story. So far, I'm gonna do a little quick recap to kind of see if we got all together, right? Around 2009 you graduate. 2010 you..sorry, 2012, you started out of college, you started your position in marketing with, you know, a publication with newspapers, and did about a year and a half and right around 2014, you moved to Virginia, where you start a position with Evergreen, whether in the e-commerce is about two years, your jumpstarted their dot com, own website business into the six or seven figures. And then switched to go into the home state of Indiana or currently right? And you dive into actually, I guess the entertainment business for lack of a better, you know, term, right when you there's a venue there's a stadium, there are a sports events and cultural events that you help sell on a larger scale for especially for groups, you do that for about two and a half years. And then, you know, this team of Viral Launch they’re around your neighborhood and you know, the Indiana space, you tag along and you have almost a year there where it was, you know, from a booming company, it actually experienced wind down. And, and then 2020 opportunity knocks in the form of Tim Jordan that connects you with Ping Pong Payments. And then you know, and then at the year 2020 was a phenomenal growth all across the whole industry. And this is where you are today serving the community, the growth, the potential. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. It has been phenomenal and fascinating for me to learn and study. Okay, so I want to finish off the episode with two components. The first one will be is: if somebody wants to reach out to you to learn more and connect, where can they find you? And the last thing will be what is your message of hope and inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?
Ryan Cramer 53:12
Yeah, so people getting in touch with me, obviously my email would be best. It’s Ryan. So R Y A N dot Cramer, that's C R A M E R. Not like Cosmo Kramer, like on Seinfeld, but C R A M E R at ping pong X dot US (ryan.cramer@pingpongx.us). Or I'm on social media, obviously, that's another way you can message me directly like either on LinkedIn or Facebook. I respond on all channels. If you spam me, I'll just delete it. But if it's a person who wants to you know answer questions...
Yoni Mazor 53:43
You’re an equal opportunity responder?
Ryan Cramer 53:46
Oh, yeah, exactly. Like, I'll give you...if you burn me once, then I'll just block you. Now. It's not a big deal. But if you're like, Hey, I saw you on you know, with Yoni, I had a couple questions about, I'm all ears, I will talk to you. I'm up at random hours of the day because as a global enterprise, we have to constantly be aware of what's going on around us. But, uh, I would say my tip for inspiration. I think we’re on the same path. Or we're on the same wavelength, like for inspiration. I would say, just kind of be open to new opportunities, I think it's always going to be your close up from the get-go, you're never going to be...it could be like this great opportunity presented itself. And if you just completely are not open to learning about it, or just trying to realize that, hey, I don't know all the answers, but I'm willing to learn about it, that there could be something as crazy as growing in the e-commerce industry. You know, from my own personal path, this is the journey that I took. I was something I had no prior history on. I was just willing to learn and I needed to work my butt off to understand all these different terms, these different capabilities of what e-commerce meant in general. And I just continue to dive, dive into it and absorb as much information as I can. I will 100% admit to everyone I don't know everything. I haven't even sold on Amazon yet, but my own experiences, it has allowed me to put myself in seller shoes. And I can sympathize because I've done it in different capacities. So even though it's not the same as me, like buying and having my own goods, I've done it for big multimillion-dollar businesses. And then also I can understand the backside of problem-solving for other Amazon sellers and e-commerce sellers and what they go through. I always think you have to sympathize and understand from their perspective in order to problem-solve for other people in the future. But I'm just going to shove my own solution down your throat, you're just going to naturally keep it and say like, no thank you and reject it, even though it might be a good fit. I'm on the same page. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours and vice versa. That's how partnerships work. So be open to opportunities and be willing to learn and grow and in kind of changes as you see fit.
Yoni Mazor 56:04
Love it. Beautiful. So keep an open mind. Be honest. If something's good for you, embrace it, immerse in it, don't be afraid of it. And hopefully, you'll reach new destinations and new heights, especially in this booming industry. Phenomenal. Very good. And Ryan, thank you so much for sharing your story. I enjoyed it very much. Hope everybody that listened also enjoyed this as well. Until next time, stay safe and healthy. Take care, everybody. Thanks, everyone.
