In this episode of “Spark & Ignite Your Marketing” podcast, we delve into the fascinating world of entrepreneurship and tech innovation with our guest, Ryan Angott. Ryan embodies the spirit of innovation and resilience. As a seasoned entrepreneur, he has navigated the tumultuous waters of starting and scaling businesses, offering a wealth of knowledge and insights invaluable to aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned business owners.
From Passion to Reality: Entrepreneurship and Tech InnovationÂ
From his early days being influenced by his father, a world-class entrepreneur and inventor, Ryan learned the ropes of business and innovation. He shares the story of his first foray into entrepreneurship, which came at a young age and set the stage for his future endeavors.
The Birth of TechLok: Revolutionizing Security and Efficiency
A major highlight of our conversation is Ryan’s venture into the tech industry with his company, TechLok. Another cornerstone of Ryan’s success is his pioneering work with virtual staffing through his company, Strategic Assistant Staffing. Recognizing the potential of virtual teams to transform business operations and profitability, Ryan has harnessed global talent to build a robust support system for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges, and Ryan’s journey is no exception. He opens up about the hurdles he has faced, including the impact of COVID-19 on his businesses and the lessons learned from encountering manufacturing and logistical obstacles. This honest reflection provides listeners with a realistic view of the challenges of entrepreneurship and the resilience required to overcome them.
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Strategic AssistantÂ
Techlok Solutions
Ryan Angott | LinkedIn
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Transcript
Beverly:Â
Did you know that approximately 90% of startups fail within their first year? Despite the staggering odds, some visionary entrepreneurs beat these odds and carve out their path. To success Today, we’re diving into the world of startups with a seasoned entrepreneur who’s not just beating the odds, but setting new standards for success. Get ready to dive into the entrepreneurial journey of a leader who’s all about building businesses and transforming lives. I’m thrilled to introduce to you Ryan Angott, a dynamic entrepreneur with a wealth of experience and a passion for sharing his knowledge with emerging business leaders. With a background deeply rooted in innovation in business acumen. Ryan has harnessed the power of learning from the best, including his dad, a world class entrepreneur with an impressive list of patents. This invaluable mentorship has propelled Ryan to launch successful products and companies marking him as a true visionary in the entrepreneurial landscape. What sets Ryan apart is his unwavering commitment to empower startups and small businesses, leveraging cost effective strategies like virtual staffing in the Philippines to double your profitability. But beyond the boardroom, Ryan’s true North Star is his beautiful family who fuels his drive to succeed and explore life’s adventures. Join us as we delve into Ryan’s journey, uncovering the secrets to his success and gaining invaluable insights into the entrepreneurial mindset. So grab your headphones and get ready to be inspired as we embark on this enlightening conversation with Ryan Angott. Welcome Ryan.
Ryan:Â
Thank you, Beverly. What a intro. Wow. You must be drinking this morning or something. That’s, that’s the best issue I’ve had on any of my podcasts. There you
Beverly:Â
go. I set, I set the bar high. Good. Good.
Ryan:Â
Yeah. Yeah. Glad to be here. Thank you for, uh, those kind words.
Beverly:Â
Well, I think it’s important. I, I’ve known your dad before I knew you, which is interesting. Like I hear that when I did the work with Automation Alley, I mean years and years and years ago. Yeah. And then I met you when you were working with Ovation. Yep. And so, and I didn’t put the connection together at first, and then I realized, oh, they’re family. That’s crazy. Yeah. Let’s discover how you got started and your journey. Share a little bit about how your career began and how it moved into entrepreneurship.’cause it wasn’t immediate. I.
Ryan:Â
No, no. Um, yeah, no, my dad’s great. He’s old school. He is now 75. So he’s in the lab just always working. He’s an inventor. He’s truly an inventor. Um, but, uh, yeah, you know, so I would say really my entrepreneur journey started with my dad. This is kind of a cute story. When I was 15 years old, I’m now 42. So long time ago in high school. Mm-Hmm. And, and my dad at the time, he was a CEO of his own company that he started to Mango products. Ironically, they sold consumer security products, which were now in that category with tech Lok. Uh, alarm systems and different, you know, like alarms for homes and like some personal device security stuff. But when I was 15, so this is like 96, he, he bought a, um, and this is more of the story is find your competitive advantage and go to a market where there’s no competition. Leverage your resources. That’s something I’m, I’m big on. He bought a CD ROM burner and this is like, you know, 27 years ago, no one had one. They were really expensive, but he bought one for his business. And I found out and I was, you know, you’re a kid teen. I was like really into music. I had a ton of CDs and I bought like my, I was just into music and light bulb went off and I go a Ron Burner. Wait, you can copy CDs. Oh no. Instead of buying a cd, I didn’t really think about the legal aspect of it 27 years ago. I’m buying CDs at Harmony House, if that, you know, right. Is nostalgic name or what for 22 bucks, I could buy a blank CD for two bucks, duplicate it and resell it at my high school outta my Loker. The light bulb went off when I was 15, and that was, my destiny. Ever since that I knew I had a little entrepreneurship in me, and believe it or not, Beverly, in that first year after he shut me down and found out like I was doing like some high volume, I think I did like eight grand in sales outta my Loker in high school. Oh my, I had like music lists and I would literally go around and I became known as the kid in high school. Like people wanted music. Everyone started coming to me and like, dude, we hear you. And I sold my CDs for like six bucks. Probably should have sold’em for like 10 mm-Hmm. But sold’em for six. Yeah. Made’em for two nice margin. And I cleaned up and that was like the first bite of the entrepreneur bug 27 years ago. You know, my dad found out and he’s like, you’re done, like, shutting it down. So, anyhow, that’s where it all started.
Beverly:Â
So I, I hear that from a lot of entrepreneurs. Like, I actually sold friendship bracelets. I sold friendship bracelets and it was awesome because I would do babysitting and I would make bracelets with my kids that I babysat. So I used like child labor and everything.
Ryan:Â
Child labor. Beverly, look at you.
Beverly:Â
They loved it because it was like a craft. So it was like, it was like a twofer.
Ryan:Â
You’re, you’re getting paid to babysit. They’re doing the work for you. They’re authentic, homemade. And you’re keeping’em busy, that check three boxes. I’m all about that. Right?
Beverly:Â
It was, it was awesome. My mom thought it was brilliant. She was like, that’s great. So what drives your passion for business and obviously your dad has always been part of that. Did he kind of instill that in you or is that something, do you think that was self created?
Ryan:Â
You know, your product of your environment is pretty common and my dad’s had some, some ups and downs in his career. He’s like Doc Brown from back to the future. I mean, when you talk about bold, big ideas, the projects he’s worked on, you know, the, the world’s first self, uh, driving commercial lawnmower. A breast cancer detection system, it’s not like he’s inventing the crop, which is like, or sham wall. Some little, little widget. Yeah, that’s easy. He goes after these monster projects, which is a good thing and a bad thing from what I’ve seen. The bigger the project, the higher Stakes poker, and I’m kind of living it now with Tech Lok, but, you know, so it was kind of what I knew, what I grew up with. He was always a I didn’t start that way, did little side hustles, I had, I’ve had probably four, I think in my call it 25 year, 20 year career since college I probably had four or five businesses, little stuff. Obviously tech lok a whole different animal and SAS is much different. Yeah, but, so it was kind of baked in my DNA, he was Entrepreneur of the year in Michigan from Automation Alley about 10 years ago. And you know, when you have that type of influence in your life, you’re able to learn a lot in the driver’s seat from somebody that just lives in the grind. I’ve seen him raise money, I’ve seen bankruptcies, I’ve seen successes. I’ve seen him buy his first Ferrari. I’ve seen him, I’ve seen it all over my life and it’s got pros and cons.
Beverly:Â
Which I know is more than just that now, like it’s moved into some other things. Yeah. There’s learning in all those moments, right? When you’re really successful, there’s learning. When you’re in the, dirt of it all. There’s success, there’s things you can learn. So what have you learned in this process that you think is really powerful about business and life?
Ryan:Â
Boy, there’s, that’s a loaded question. Um, you know, I, I took, I was very tactical one on the reason why I did two businesses., I didn’t go looking for the second business. So I started Techlok with my dad about five, five years ago as an idea. And we tinkered with it before Covid. Covid really, really hurt us bad, which I can go into as a lesson learned. But,, you think about the journey and how can you compliment, how, how do things. Go in hand in glove. And one good example of that was, you know, we’re at Tech Lok and we’re scrambling, we’re working away. And it was about two years ago, maybe even two and a half years ago, I was like, shoot, I just had my third. I had a local admin assistant helping me with social media, project research, filling out forms, a lot of just lower level work. That wasn’t great use of my time and I wasn’t great at it. The social, social game is, I think, better suited for a younger person’s, that lives in it all the time. Stuff like that. And it was after my third, admin that I was paying like 20 an hour kind of flaked out of me. No call, no show. They just said, I’m out. I trained’em. I’m like, I can’t keep somebody here. And I’ve had, I’ve had a couple people like that recently in other parts for, SaaS. But that’s another story. And I just go, I’m building this company Tech Lok, which I have a grandiose vision to be a hundred million in sales within five years. We’re gonna need a lot of help in staffing, at the time I could stomach taking on something else, and then I got a cold email from, the Philippines from Regine, the owner of Strategic Assistant Staffing saying, Hey Ryan, we cater to entrepreneurs for seven bucks an hour. We can do your social media appointment setting. All this stuff I was looking for. I was like, McDonald’s paying 15, what am I gonna get but for seven an hour, let’s give it a shot for a month. And I didn’t go looking for that business. It kind of found me and it turned out to be a true, like your story earlier, Bev, about a win-win checking multiple boxes and SaaS does that. And I encourage people to think along their journey on ways that they can either amplify or compliment other things that they’re doing. So I hired SaaS two years ago. For seven bucks an hour. My assistant Christina, who’s still my assistant to this day, I have bumped her up in pay and we have a different tiered pricing model. Seven bucks to like 12 bucks an hour, kind of depending on a few factors. She’s been one of the best employees I’ve ever had. And I go, wow, this just saves me a ton of time. It’s a third of the cost I was paying. It’s month to month. We have something here. We’ve got a huge labor problem in the US and entrepreneurs like me, I can’t afford to hire somebody full-time or even, part-time was tough. A lot of people didn’t want it. They wanted stability. They didn’t wanna work for a startup. And the the greatest challenge startups have is getting people to buy into their vision and give up their other career, especially three, four years ago or a couple years ago when the labor market was really tough. Now it’s gotten a little looser. I could build an army of qualified good people over there that I can help, with a partnership. Get trained up, have my own kind of in-house recruiting arm of tech Lok, and uh, essentially pay a rate. That’s a fraction of what it is here, month to month. It just checked off all the boxes. Oh, by the way, I could be an owner and also make money off that staffing agency. It was a win-win. And that really has been a, a key to our success. When I say we, uh, maybe I said it earlier, we have 12 employees. Half of them are actually outta the Philippines. A startup like me can’t afford 12 people here locally. If people are making even 60, 70 grand a year, which is light for the type of caliber people we’re looking for, you know that that’s a very big payroll monthly and we just don’t have it. So having a resource like in the Philippines where I can pay, you know, I think our six full or part-time people a month collectively is like five grand a month for six people. You talk about value in helping do my social media sales appointment setting, project research. We have two executive assistants, so that organically complimented tech Lok, but it also opened up my eyes for a new business. And that was kind of the two for one that I look at as a win win win. And that was a good story and I really recommend that for entrepreneurs. You go along your way, be open-minded.’cause, I wasn’t looking to get into the staffing business outta the Philippines. I saw an opportunity, I saw how it could benefit tech Lok. and then, we formed a great partnership and the rest is history.
Beverly:Â
I think one thing that entrepreneurs are really good at is being open to opportunity and connection, whatever that looks like. So how do we help each other? What can happen here? And building on those connections and networks if they’re successful. I believe that they are always looking for the opportunity and the connection. Sure. And it comes in really interesting ways, right? So here was a challenge, and so many entrepreneurs, myself included, struggle with the payroll side of the business., it’s the most expensive cost I have, and it’s the most important. You need good people to help you build your business. I mean, that’s just, it’s, it’s as easy as that, right? Yeah. Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t clone myself unless your dad has figured that out yet. Yeah. I’m sure he is in his lab. I think that that is probably the, the hardest thing for entrepreneurs is to clone themselves and to try to get people to work with them with the same passion and, you know, drive and desire that you have or similar in that. So one of the biggest issues that entrepreneurs have for sure. What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve had to overcome and how did you get past it?
Ryan:Â
Covid, COVID really hurt our business. We got into tech Lok, was the aha idea that I had. And then I said, dad, what are your thoughts about this? And we’ve spitballed for years about ideas and we’ve pursued some, and then we’d either say, ah, there’s too much competition, too expensive, can’t make it work. That was the beauty of having a true inventor as my dad, that I could always. Talk with and, and may you want a brilliant guy that can sketch up an idea and know this arm goes here and we can make it this cost and fabricate it this way. He’s got a real gift, blessing and a curse’cause he can’t shut it off. He has a hard time sleeping and, and everything else that comes with having a really busy creative mind. But, we got into tech Lok as kind of father son, okay. This should be a, a few hundred grand project, maybe a half million bucks. All in. We could probably fund most of this, if not half of it, which we did. We personally have 300,000 into Tech Lok and between him and I and, in five years of no pay. We think we can do this. We got some prototypes made. And going back right before Covid, we only had like 50 grand in. And then we go, okay, the market’s been validated. There’s a huge need, there’s very little competition. The competition out there is stale. Stagnant hasn’t changed in 30 years. You know that the cable Lok hasn’t, adapted. It doesn’t work it hasn’t evolved. We have something here and you get a lot of feedback from people. You just don’t blast. And we did surveys and talk to people and all sorts of stuff, and then we go, okay, let’s pursue this thing in mass scale. and then Covid hit and we’re like, okay, everything’s shut down. We were just at that point where we’re trying to bring this product to mass manufacturing. So what you have Bev, is you have, you can build, you know, we built a couple prototypes here that worked pretty good for like four or five grand. That’s a one off custom job, and then you build one, you prove it out., you tweak it and then you go, okay, we got it. Let’s go mass manufacture’em in the tens of hundreds of thousands. That’s way different than building one or two locally, and we tried building them in the US we couldn’t get the price. You really can’t build a consumer electronic product here to be competitive price-wise, which I could go into. Mm-Hmm. But I think most people know that TVs and DVD players and all that is built overseas for a reason. It’s literally four times more expensive building it here than, than overseas. So we, as Covid started, we go, oh, okay, well we can’t go to the factory. And my dad’s been overseas 35 times to be hands on sitting elbow to elbow with the factory building, we hired a consultant consulting agency for$50,000 over a year period to help. Match us with the right factory. We shop 44 factories around the world. And I know you bought a lap Lok. We were severely delayed.
Beverly:Â
I was part of the, it wasn’t a GoFundMe, but it was something similar that you did in people who were initially interested giving you some money Yeah. To help seed some of that work.’cause I was like, that’s a cool idea. Yeah. I go to coffee shops, I hate to leave it when I go to the restroom or whatever, my laptop. Yeah. That’s a cool idea. I’m gonna invest in like a small Yeah. Portion
Ryan:Â
of that’s, a lot of people get confused, only 7% of companies on Indigogo actually produce their product. Believe it or not. They actually come out 7%. So to your opening line, 90% of startups fail. You’re right. They do, and I see it. I mean, we’ve had some tough times in 20 early, you know, it hasn’t been all peaches and cream. We’ve had some really tough days where the bank account’s really low, and I’m the piggy bank. Everyone gets paid. But me, we’ve got about a 50 grand a month burn rate, 40, 50 grand. If you don’t have revenue coming in, what do you do? You raise money or you fund the business yourself. So I’m the bank at the end of the day. Oh, our 12 employees, they need to be paid and you don’t get paid. Mm-Hmm. I’ve never taken a paycheck at, at Tech Lok in the five years I’ve been here. But So you, you have that pressure mm-Hmm. You know, if we don’t have money and you gotta pay your bills, it’s coming out. It’s coming out of me, which I’ve had to float sometimes. Anyhow, that’s just the world of a startup and being a founder,
Beverly:Â
how many people did you have at Indigogo that were like interested? We
Ryan:Â
bought, we sold 25 grand a product on Indigogo. Our goal was 10,000. And so it was Okay. There’s things I would do over again with Indigogo and I think Indigogo is a consumer play. It’s not a business play. And my gut tells me we’re gonna have a lot of consumers with tech Lok. I think lap Lok’s really gonna flourish in the B2B environment for bigger businesses that have high compliance like government, you know, if you work in a government entity, DOD ice, it doesn’t matter they have. And, uh, banking, finance, legal, a lot of’em mandate. You have to have physical security on all your laptops have to. So if we’re kind of one of the only games in town with a modern solution, that’s a huge opportunity for us that doesn’t really cater to Indigogo. So some of those factors, anyhow, I’m derailing. I could talk about Indigogo, um, a little bit more if you’d like, but, um, yeah, that was almost two years ago. So, you know, and we thought, okay, we’re working with a factory. We’d found a factory. They’ve already started making some prototypes. This looks good. And going back to our biggest mistake, we hired the wrong consulting agency to, I’m gonna let them be nameless, but their whole job is to marry you with a factory on the other side of the world, especially during Covid, because we couldn’t go there. So they married us to the wrong partner. We got divorced recently. We fired them. That Beverly was a million dollar mistake that cost us two years and a million bucks. That’s a million dollars of hard money we lost. Time, effort, energy. To give you perspective, we only got about 500 units out of that factory. They were supposed to get us 50,000 units. So you talk about a kick in the chops. That was the number one. The new factory we found is phenomenal. We’ve got a handle on inventory and they actually have the, uh, capability to make like 50,000 units a month, way more fitting and qualified. So the lesson learned is do your due diligence on really big decisions. There’s a reason why companies, big companies, take a long time to make an important decision because the ripple effect and cost of making the wrong one often puts small startups like us out of business. We had to get really scrappy. We had to raise an extra million dollars that we didn’t think we had to. We had to sell a chunk of the company to keep us afloat. If we would’ve chose the right factory up front, we wouldn’t have had that problem. And that was by far, it was a million dollar hard loss. In soft, soft loss was tens of millions. Tens of millions. Huge, huge mistake.
Beverly:Â
How do you get past that? Like how, what do you do to it? It just raise the money and move on. Like, I mean, that’s like a hard thing to get over as a business, especially a small business.
Ryan:Â
Yeah. you make a mistake like that. It it 90, 95% of the time that company folds’cause you just can’t stomach it. No, we basically rolled up our sleeves and said, okay, we screwed up. Let’s get back to work. So we had to find a new factory, which we found almost a year ago. We hired a guy named Ben, my VP of operations, who lived in China for almost 20 years. Um, looks like me, speaks fluid Mandarin. He knows sourcing, he knows, you know, that side. And my dad does too, but my dad didn’t go there, you know, and he really couldn’t’cause of covid and he’s kind of an at-risk covid guy, and there’s other reasons why he couldn’t go, so we made a, a great key employee hire with Ben, we found, and he negotiated actually my dad’s contact helped find our new factory, but we negotiated and got, this other factory up and running and we just persevered. That’s all you can do. You just get kicked in the mouth and you go, all right, we gotta pivot. And you, you know what, what people don’t realize from the outside that haven’t made a manufactured good. And, uh, I’ll go back to my good friend Brian Neeley. He lived in the manufacturing automotive world and all about quality control and detail. And he actually gets this. But a lot of people from the outside that never built anything, especially from scratch, really just don’t understand that, you know, we come to these factories, we shopped 44 factories around the world during Covid three years ago, four years ago. And we’re a little nothing. Burger company, with a great idea. They don’t know us from Adam. They don’t know our background. You could tell’em your entrepreneur the year they’re, okay, well what’s your run rate? How many orders have you done before? Why are we gonna build a whole section of our factory, hopefully in, in the hopes that this takes off? Our current factory. For them to start our line, to start the setup. The tables, the jigs, the tooling. Now, some of that we pay for, they have to invest about a half million bucks. So you’re talking a, you’re talking a tough sell from a company that doesn’t have any run rate. It’s easy to go to a factory and go, Hey, we just did 20 million last year. We’re gonna, we’re gonna bring you 300,000 lap bLoks. They go, okay, great. Oh, it’s proven. The design’s done. It’s not a prototype. The market’s been validated. The con, you know, that’s easy. Any, any schmo could do that. The hard is new. When you have very little money, you’ve got very little resources. You have no proven run rate. They really have to take a flyer on you. And so to find a good, big factory is really hard. And that’s why it is so rare. And why I think tech Lok’s so special is the fact we pulled this off of this new factory. If we didn’t have this new factory, we’d fold. We just, you know, you get to a point where you just say, no one can make this thing. This is in tech Lok. Lap Lok is not an easy product, I’ll tell you. It looks simple. It has been very complex. So that’s the big lesson learned that, uh, you know, people have to understand where go where, when they’re going into any entrepreneur journey. You know, it’s one thing to o open up a pizzeria. It’s really different when you’re making something out of nothing and you have to kind of sell yourself along the way, you know, to like your vendors. You’re not, you think like vendors welcome your business Uhuh, not as a startup. There’s, there’s a ton of risk
Beverly:Â
such an interesting take. I’m a service business and I mean, obviously I’ve worked with companies who have a product, but it’s mostly an established product, so it’s a little bit different. But, and even when I started with the startup, I was more of a tech company. So it’s a product, but it’s like this cloud product, it’s not like an tangible touch it. Right? So I, I’ve worked with, um, factories in China just to get custom bags made and things like that, which has been a nightmare. And gosh, if you even remotely get near Chinese New Year or something like that, that factory shuts down for months. It’s a whole process. So you have to kind of know the, the culture too you’re going into as well. Like there’s a whole nother layer of like, negotiation and, and even. Some cultures will say yes, but they really mean no. So there’s some of that in there too, too, you have to figure out. Very challenging. For sure. So interesting. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So I’ve kinda know you a little bit better and kind of like the business background you come from. Can you highlight a moment or an experience that sparked a unique opportunity in your entrepreneurial journey? Obviously SaaS is one of them, but has there been other sparks, the podcast is called Spark and Ignite. Have there been other sparks? I think there’s so many in our lives where that it created opportunity for you to do something kind of amazing.
Ryan:Â
I got more Sparks and Sparky Anderson, God, rest of soul, great baseball for the Tigers in, I have ideas all the time, and you gotta manage those sparks. Because if you get lost in a new shiny object, you lose focus. And if you lose focus, you can really hurt the business. And, um, you know, I’ve self-corrected on that a few times over the years and trying to, it’s probably one of my greatest challenges actually.’cause I have a lot of ideas. I’m an idea guy. It, it makes me good at what I am. But it also derails from laser focus, get stuff done. I really have a visionary characteristic, um, kind of DNA and so, yeah, I have ideas now what I am doing instead of like different ventures. I look at things all the time. There’s a business can be made here easily there that could be done here, this, that and the other thing. I see that openly all the time. That’s relatively easy and it’s kind of a gift of mine, but what I’m seeing is vision within tech Lok and how to make the company better with unique, a unique lens. You know, for example, I’ve got a call coming up at 11. This would be a good idea of a vision idea. Do you, you know, the company, LifeLok ever heard of LifeLok? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My 11 o’clock call is strategy on how do we partner with LifeLok and I had that light bulb they’ve got a hundred million users. Their name compliments ours. Their whole purpose is identity theft and cyber crime, which is part of our purpose. You know, how could we partner, like Lap Lok sells for a hundred bucks. What if I could get LifeLok to partner with us, branch out to their ecosystem? We carve up a deal that we can digest that for everybody that buys a lap Lok, maybe gets a year free of life Lok as part of that package. Mm-Hmm. So it was a unique way, which is like a hundred worth, a hundred bucks in itself. And if we could structure that right, deal with life LifeLok, that’s an innovative way for, to take a little unknown tech Lok, lap Lok brand and pair it with a bigger known entity to give us credibility and compliment each other. So that is a good example of a spark. That I love doing that type of thought, strategic partnership. Mm-Hmm. That’s a unique marketing sales angle that very few people, could do. And that’s my gift. So that’s an example of, you know, something that I think could catapult the company if we’re able to get that deal done
Beverly:Â
directly looking for opportunities. And I think focus is really key. I think you’re right because most of the entrepreneurs I know struggle with focus. they just love the idea. The vision is the, is the, is the source fuel of an entrepreneur. Yeah. You’re not alone in that struggle. Yeah. You’ve talked about doing like market research and some different things. How do you identify and capitalize on emerging trends and opportunities in the world of your entrepreneurship? What is your process for that?
Ryan:Â
Emerging trends. For me, it’s just I see what I see. That’s kind of all I could say. I don’t have a process. You hear all this buzz about ai, you, think of what’s on the horizon or what’s coming out, and then, what could you do with it,? And I think there’s definitely ways to capitalize on emerging trends and build a business but I’m just not really there because I’m not thinking about new businesses. This is for other entrepreneurs that are looking to start something, my advice is, you know, you could Google, like the Hustle is a great news article I used to read all the time and they feed entrepreneurs new ideas. Here’s the new trends. You’ve got the baby boomer community that’s now aging in their seventies and eighties. Mm-Hmm. Maybe you could you start, a home care business to go help’em out? Home care or senior care in home is a huge category. Or, if you’re younger and you wanna engulf the AI chat GPT, you could maybe learn a lot about it and go apply it to businesses that have, you know, older leadership that don’t really think, I mean, my dad is not Mm-Hmm. Into the chat. Like, could I take that knowledge and be a consultant for Mm-Hmm. You know, kind of dormant businesses that aren’t thinking along those lines. So yeah, you gotta like, follow trends and do that. For me. Part of the tech Lok journey in Lap Lok was I saw an emerging trend. I saw a work from anywhere. Now this idea was before Covid in the work from anywhere, hybrid world kind of didn’t exist quite yet. And Covid really threw fuel on the fire to say, oh, okay, there’s a big gap here in the market. And cybersecurity and crime were at all time highs. Those trends in society kind of fueled our vision for tech Lok. So that was an example of me seeing a trend or pattern in our workforce that we wanna capitalize on. So you just see it when you see it. Trust your gut.
Beverly:Â
cause there’s something really powerful about that too. Right? You know, I think the older we get too, because, you know, forties, I’m approaching 50 here. Um, the more wise we get too, like we know. That’s probably not gonna work. Like we know how hard it is to do. So something now as opposed to that’s gonna take a lot of time. Your dad even that, you know, you’re gonna need this tool and this tool. He already knows in his head what needs to be done because he’s been there and done it before. Mm-Hmm. So I think that wisdom helps guide that too. The gut and the wisdom you have from previous experiences. So, you know, I own a marketing agency, so for me, marketing’s really important as part of the entrepreneurial journey. What has been the most effective marketing tactic that Tech Lok has used or even SaaS to grow their business?
Ryan:Â
You know, it’s hard to say. I mean, I used to be, uh, about a decade ago at Continental when I was a corporate marketing director 10 years ago. I was like a dinosaur. You know, like a lot of the stuff now is so different and I’m really trying to, uh, get more. Knowledgeable enough to speed. We’ve got, a great agency, believe it or not, we hired out of Australia of all places. what’s unique is that we’ve been really in startup mode, Bev. Even though this idea started five years ago with the factory issues we’ve had and only getting 500 units, we just haven’t had the inventory. Now we made the pivot to build an ecosystem of work from anywhere products. We now have 13 products like Chargers, different phone mounts and laptop accessories that cater to that hybrid workforce. But, marketing, we really haven’t spent anything yet. I kid you not, our new website got done last night at midnight in the Philippines. It went live today. Oh, that’s exciting. I’ve got a call in two hours to do a, a detailed review Monday we go live with paid search and Meta Monday. Okay. Okay. I would honestly say outside of Indigogo, we spent a little bit of money, which was kind of meaningless. Monday is when I would say we really birth tech Lok to the public. I’ve done posts, I’ve done organic, you know, check us out or get a phone out or buy a Christmas thing. But we’ve done it very minimal scale’cause we didn’t have that much product. We’re not gonna spend a bunch of money to drive people to the website and they go well out of stock for two months. So finally we have stock, on almost half of our products come Monday. And then the other, uh, in about two weeks, some of the other SKUs that we’ve bought, like our three in one charger, or five in one come in. By mid-March, we’ll have all of our skews fully stocked. Monday we’re birthing this, this baby for real. So exciting. Yeah. I mean, five years. I actually, it’s funny, I was gonna do a post, I, I will do a post on this. I wrote down receipts of when I started putting money in to the company and it was almost five years ago to date. And this is my receipt thing that I still have on my desk as about the grind. Yeah.
Beverly:Â
So I think one thing that I have found interesting as I’ve watched the social media journey of this, this new adventure, I guess it’s not new anymore, it’s five years, but it is a newer adventure for you. Is some of the behind the scenes stuff that you’ve shared, like at the factory and things like that, some of the videos and stuff along the way with the Indigogo people or whatever you’ve like your community of people you’ve shared it with. I like that part. Like I feel like, and I almost asked this question to everybody on the podcast, is the idea of storytelling to connect with your audience. So you all struggled to meet some deadlines and you were just like, Hey, this is what’s happening. And you made it really human and allowed us to connect more with the product by sharing some of those videos and behind the scenes kind of peaks in a way that was really authentic to me. And I was like, yeah, I mean, my patience was fine. I was like, fine. You know? And I knew it was a new product and you were developing it. I didn’t have an expectation for it to even come out when you said it was going to.’cause I worked in the tech startup world. Yeah, I know it’s gonna take a while. Yeah. You have plans, but then there’s this and then this, and then this happens. And. It just happened. So yeah, the best laid plans, obviously, but then there’s all kinds of things you didn’t see or things happen. But I think for me, that that storytelling aspect of the journey has been really powerful. Yeah. I wouldn’t stop that. My 2 cents is to wrap that up in a really, really nice, like how hard it’s been to get this product. Yeah. It’s a labor of love, truly of passion to get it out there. Yeah. And I think that’s such a, such a, human story, you know, work really hard. It you encounter, if you look at the hero’s journey, there’s always a struggle, right? They have to overcome the struggle at the end of the day. So to me, that’s been really powerful, the storytelling aspect that you guys have tried to sprinkle along the way for those of us that have been invested in the product for some time. That’s what I’ve enjoyed anyways. Along as on your journey. Um, good.
Ryan:Â
A lot of people actually say that a lot of people feel connected to me and are rooting for us as like Mm-Hmm. A friend or, you know, colleague, whatever, acquaintance. I saw this guy five do posts years ago and all that he’s been through and I do, all my reels are in one take. It’s within two minutes. And I try to be, it is all authentic. I don’t reshoot it like ever. And it’s just like, we had a really bad day or this is great. I try to be upbeat and positive, but I could go on and on and, and actually I’m trying to balance and better understand and I like your feedback of what’s, I don’t wanna just do stuff to be on camera. I wanna educate and I want to give real insight and perspective to people about what it is to have an idea, to see it, to come to fruition, and the pivoting and the challenges and the, the ups and downs. And I try to be very authentic on that. I’m not sure how much I should do. I do about two videos a week. a guy I spoke with yesterday, Armando, who we’ve done some consulting with, he owns a content company, so obviously he’s all about content. He’s like, you should be posting a couple times a day. And I’m like, Ugh. You know, I don’t about that. Like, I don’t know what to talk about, but I, I don’t know if you think the balance of my content is. Should it be more, I mean, you’re a marketer, should it be less, right? Is
Beverly:Â
it Right? Right. I mean, you’re putting, you’re putting this into my, into my, in my interview to me, which is interesting. But I would say this, you don’t just do video to do video, okay. You have to have an intention. And just like you had a strategic plan with your business, you should have a strategic plan with your content. And for me, and for companies like yours, I would build out content pillars like five pillars. One is to educate, one is to entertain, one is to whatever that looks like for your company. And then you create content around that. So for me, in my business, this is just an example of what I do with my content pillars, is I will create a blog post, and from the blog post I’ll create a video script. And then from the video script, I, I create a video or some kind of video content related to that content. And then from there I create, long form and short form. So I take the long form and I take, and I take bite-sized pieces out of it. So I’m producing content all the time, but I repurpose, restructure, and use my content differently, even though it’s pretty much the same content. But that also from an SEO perspective, a search engine optimization perspective, also, it feeds the beast because you have one key phrase, cre, keyword or whatever you’re trying to optimize for. And now you have all these pieces of content kind of leading to that key phrase. So you’re essentially building a spider web of content around that topic. So I, I think you can, excuse me, you can not have to record every day, but you could create content and repurpose it every day. You can be more strategic about it. So even these podcasts, Ryan, it’s long form content, but I will take it and take, yeah. Quotes from you about specific topics in marketing and use that as a piece of content that reinforces that idea or whatever. So you can be really creative about the content you create and how you use it. And that’s, I think, the power of a plan. Like having a really organized plan of how to create the content you want, what your people need, what your customers are, are like, that, where you’re getting the most engagement and then feeding the beast that is social media and all of that.’cause it really is like, it has its own life and it’s very organic and all things. So that’s my 10 cents, I guess in that. Does that
Ryan:Â
make sense? And that’s, that’s flush with agency out of Australia who we hired. They basically echo that same thing. It’s funny, I was, talking about LinkedIn and you obviously, we’ve got a big B2B play with tech Lok selling to big companies with higher compliance standards. You know, we’re not for Joe’s Plumbing. No, they’re not buying lab Loks. But if you work for JP Morgan, I bet have a policy. You always have to have your stuff Loked up, you know? I said, well, we’re gonna do LinkedIn advertising, right? Like, we’ll be on the ads and, and they’re like, no, we’re, now, that’s, that’s really, a tough game. You need to be the advertiser in a authentic way to, um, build credibility within your audience. It’s way more powerful and impactful as the leader of the company. I. To share your stories. You’re not selling your product, you’re being authentic about your storytelling. What makes you, your company, your people, your culture different and have a real authentic connection versus just, I see an ad about laptop, convenience and security, that that’s kind of like gone according
Beverly:Â
to them. It’s kind of spammy in like, in like in like sales throw up, which is not fun for anybody to have to like wipe off of them right in the process. Yeah. So yes, I mean, being authentic, it was the word of 2023 by Merriam Webster was being authentic and sharing your vision, your mission, your core values, your process, your, like, why you have this business, your passion. All those things need to be reflected in your content. It’s not about some contrived. It, it’s not about that anymore. It, it doesn’t have to be so polished and, and so professional. It needs to be kind raw and, and for it to be authentic. So the stuff that’s going viral is not polished stuff. Yeah. It’s the really vulnerable, this is hard to do stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, and that’s really hard for men. I’m gonna make it a little bit of a stereotype that’s harder for men, business owners for sure. To make that connection. It’s not something that’s really, even encouraged in our society. So there’s a whole thing for you to have to kind of come to terms with, I think in this space, and I do a lot of coaching with our clients about that. Like, no, that’s very contrived. We’re not sharing that. Like, and I kind of hold their feet to the fire because I think people want to feel like they’re perfect. All of us wanna be perfect. Like we all have this desire, I think in general. So wanna put out a strong face and a strong front. Sure. But being a business owner is hard. Yeah. And I think that’s the stuff that resonates in many ways. Yeah. And why this product is so important to you. That’s what resonates. Not necessarily like, oh, here’s this perfect product and all the perfect things, but the perfect jingle. Yeah. And the perfect lighting. No. Yeah. So I agree with them completely. I know you have a call, so I wanna make sure we get to the last couple segments. Okay, Ryan, um, I have a lightning round, which is rapid fire questions. So it’s just you kind of giving me an answer. We won’t really chat about it too much unless I have a question or something.
Ryan:Â
On video. And it’s just, we use Loom. Yeah. It is, it’s similar to Loom. I, I love that. I use that like. Three, four times a day when I’m instructing my virtual staff. It’s great.
Beverly:Â
What’s your favorite way to refocus or reduce stress at work? Like, what do you, like all the things are happening and you’re like, uh, how do you like regroup at work?
Ryan:Â
I would say exercise or alcohol. I hate to say it, but you know, if I had a tough day, I, I, I’m a very social drinker, like I don’t drink at my house. I had a tough day. But yeah, try to get your mind off something like, you know, if it’s nice out, I’d love to go hit golf balls last night. That was like, I had a tough day and it was a good way to just not think about work and just get, you know, take some aggression on some, some golf balls. Mm-Hmm.
Beverly:Â
What’s your favorite marketing
Ryan:Â
tactic? If you count trade shows marketing. I think trade shows are great. And your question earlier about what’s worked? We’ve done CES twice. We’ve had phenomenal response. We just had a, a call with Target, uh, last week came outta CES Best Buy. I mean, a lot of these big guys go to C ees. We walked away with over a hundred leads. So I love trade shows. I like in-person connecting authenticity, so trade shows for sure. What’s your
Beverly:Â
favorite source of inspiration?
Ryan:Â
Probably Shark Tank. Honestly. I look at it and I really can empathize with the people up there. Mm-Hmm. And it gives me encouragement. We have a brotherhood of entrepreneurs that are going through a really tough journey. And so I look at that. It’s not almost every night. It makes me feel better when like, they’ve gone through hell too and they made mistakes. So we’re not, you are not alone. Yes. We’re not alone. That, that’s, that’s probably it. Yes.
Beverly:Â
What’s your favorite entrepreneur to follow, to follow?
Ryan:Â
Well, to follow, um, yeah. I put my dad as an inventor, which I really respect his inventor, but entrepreneur from a financial standpoint would be Stuart McClure, my old CEO, who’s also an investor in Tech Lok. Tremendously successful. Sold his last company for 1,000,000,005 and um, I’ve really learned a lot from Stu. And, uh, he would be it.
Beverly:Â
So that’s the end of the lightning round. You survived all the questions. People like get very stressed out about the lightning round. It’s all good things though, and I think a lot of people don’t know some of these tools exist or some of these avenues, so it’s important. Just sharing that and other entrepreneurs may find inspiration or insight from them. Our next se segment is the Blaze Forward segment, and this is where you get to give advice to somebody else who’s in business or starting a business. What would you, maybe this is even the advice you’d give yourself at 15, Ryan, if you know what you know now, what would you tell that 15-year-old Ryan about business and entrepreneurship? That, that would be advice that would help them
Ryan:Â
along the way. Be really selective on the paths you take. There are, there’s a lot of ways to make a buck one, do something that you’re passionate about, obviously. Do something that you can digest as a person. A lot of people can’t do tech Lok. They don’t have an inventor as a dad. They don’t have the resources, they don’t have a cyber, A lot of people can’t do it. Just the same as, I couldn’t be a, a boat detailer. And so you gotta, you know, have like your own mini boat cleaning service. You gotta know your path and you’ve gotta really take a look at your strengths and weaknesses and choose a path that caters to those. I leverage your natural resources. You know, I chose a path of inventing a product. Because my dad’s an inventor, so maybe I should take advantage of that. So I, I chose, I found an idea and I chose a path that could cater to that strength. Likewise, I just was with my nephew last week who, he’s got a big name in the boat business in Metro Detroit. His name’s Hunter Ger. He’s 23. He’s a great kid and he’s looking, he’s kind of hasn’t found his career path. I go, hunter, you could go start your own mobile boat detailing you work in a marina. Like everyone knows the ger name in the boat business. Like you could charge whatever you want and detail these rich guys boats and or rich women boats and clean’em up and charge, make a ton of money and hire a kid with you and pay’em at 15, 20 bucks an hour. So point to that is know your strengths and weaknesses, follow your passion and be very, very, selective on the path you take.
Beverly:Â
That’s my, I think knowing your resources and knowing what you have around you, like the connections you have, and there’s people who are far smarter than me that are my connections, that have helped me get where I am. You know, their advice, their wisdom, their experience. All those things are super important. And yeah, play off your strengths, you know, that’s great advice.
Ryan:Â
You can follow me just on LinkedIn. My full name Ryan Angott is one for, weekly content about what I’m doing as an entrepreneur within our businesses. Um, business one is Tech Lok. That’s tech Lok.com, T-E-C-H-L-O k.com. Site went live today. It’s not perfect, but it looks pretty good. And, um, you know, we’re, we’re a great work from anywhere. Computer accessory brand that’s new to the market. Then the other business is strategic staffing. It’s, uh, strategic-staffing.com, strategic assistant staffing.com. That is great for entrepreneurs, small businesses and startups that are looking for a help at hand for rates starting at seven bucks an hour, either full or part-time. Highly valuable to, uh, any business owner.
Beverly:Â
So another little piece of marketing advice your website’s never done.
Ryan:Â
I know, I know,. I couldn’t agree more, Bev. But it’s, a great upgrade from where we were. We pivoted from product to brand.
Beverly:Â
Look at your gains and get over your gaps. I mean, that’s like you’re always moving forward and Sure. Reducing the gaps. Right. So the, uh, the website’s very organic. Like it is so hard for those of us who wanna check it off the list, like I wanna check it off the list, but it’s like a constant, constant, constant read, tweaking wording and all of that. And, oh, we need this there. And, oh, where’s the FAQs? And Oh, we need a media page. Like, it just constantly has to evolve, which is lovely, but also a lot of work. So
Ryan:Â
I It’s totally fair mean. I’m so glad it’s here, but we’ve got a little bit more work to do this week for our forward paid go live next week. But yeah, it’s been a herculean effort getting this thing.
Beverly:Â
Well, I thank you, Ryan, for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure, reconnecting and just hearing where you’re at and how things are. Ryan’s journey as a visionary entrepreneur and his dedication to helping emerging entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of business is always truly inspiring. So remember, success often lies in learning from those who have walked the path before us. Join us next time for more engaging conversations and insights, and until then, keep chasing your dreams and turning your visions into reality.
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