Dennis Hegstad  (00:00):

The day that we closed was different than the day that the money ended up like coming into our, my co-founder and I's account. But yeah, seeing like a wire transfer, like that was definitely like, holy shit. I like screenshot it, screenshotted it and sent it to my mom, my mom. And I'm like, I, I don't mean to be a douche bag, but this is fucking crazy. And she was like, whoa, that is pretty weird.

Rabah Rahil (00:31):

All right, folks, we have a real heater for you today. Somehow some way we snag Dennis Hanks dad for episode 17, Dennis is a purveyor of many things, including Shopify apps, his new VC fund and, uh, his amazing dog as well as an incredible nineties throwback vehicle. So Dennis, welcome to the show. Yeah, absolutely. And so this is actually unique, cuz we're both in Austin this time. Usually I'll have some little banter between, um, where you're at and where I'm at, cuz we're actually, um, just downtown in the studios and uh, I used to actually live in Dennis's current neighborhood, beautiful home. So I know you're already in Austin, but uh, fabulous. Any who, um, you weren't always in Austin though, right?

Dennis Hegstad  (01:14):

No, I, I left Austin in 2010 to Los Angeles and then spent pretty much nine or 10 years there and then came back, came back home.

Rabah Rahil (01:24):

Ah, I like it. Um, what brought you back?

Dennis Hegstad  (01:27):

Uh, my family's here, my business partner and my previous company live recovery. He moved here with his, uh, his partner and so it just kind of seemed like after growing up, I guess 21 to 30 years old, like my, I guess my priorities changed and I wanted to double down on sort of like family and, and work. I love that was all. And that was all here.

Rabah Rahil (01:49):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's amazing. So you're around what? 33 years old is kind of what my stock put you at. So in that area you've yeah. Yeah. Um, how did you get an entrepreneurship? You have such like a track record for like a 50 year old. How, how, when did you start hustling? What did that look like? I mean, it, it, it's pretty impressive what you've been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time.

Dennis Hegstad  (02:10):

Well, I hope, yeah, well that sounds really nice, but I think it's been a, a, you know, not so good, not so glamorous journey, but definitely fun. Uh, I started playing computer games super early when I was like maybe eight, nine years old and then got into like competitive counter strike in your junior high school maybe. And we had a game server company where we set up the servers and then we were like, we're our team. We were really good. And so we, we had a team that was sponsored by our own company to kind of like fake it till you make it. And then people were like, what you're sponsored, you guys are super good. What's this company. And then we started selling our servers to other gaming plans and built a relatively big business in high school. I mean, I was just working there and on the gaming plan too, but fast forward, you know, into high school and MySpace, I got into e-commerce then, which was like 2007 to 2009, I guess.

Dennis Hegstad  (03:01):

Um, and then after that I was, you know, kind of building meme accounts in 2010 to 2015, uh, had 10 million followers, I guess, on Twitter, 11 million followers on Twitter, not for my personal, but like different accounts that were meme pages categorized as like cool houses, cars, uh, like how fun tweet tweets about sex tweets about girls, random meme, tweets, movie related pages, just whatever we had it. Uh, I had it and then eventually end up selling those pages off and getting kind of back into eCommerce. Um, but yeah, so I don't know. I guess I would just say start it all. Just like figuring shit out on my own, but

Rabah Rahil (03:41):

I love that. How interesting, what gave you the idea to, or I guess what made you see the arbitrage in kind of starting these little mean properties and then, um, like how did you see that? Or was that just like a, fuck it let's try this out and then it just kind of hit or,

Dennis Hegstad  (03:55):

Uh, it was more like, I was kind of, this is like dumb to say out loud, but I was like kind of popular on my space and I, for sure, I, but it real, the only way I had sales for my first econ brand was because I was sort of like a puppet to myself. Like I had to go to all these I had to, I wanted to, but if I wasn't going to like concerts and warp tour and giving these guys and bands and girls and bands like different merch, like then my brand wasn't doing well because I wasn't spending money on ads. I was relying on like kind of having a brand. I didn't really understand paid traffic yet. And then after I realized like, oh, my space is dying time to go to Twitter. Uh, I started building multiple pages for myself, so I had like my own dentist account.

Dennis Hegstad  (04:36):

And then I had like four extras that I just like automated bots that were following and unfollowing people just in case mine got deleted, I would have extra ones. And then I eventually just realized like, fuck having extra ones, I'm gonna change those into the account names of like movies and stuff because Ashton Kucher raced Britney Spears and CNN of the first million followers on Twitter and 2009. And so I changed my backup accounts to meme accounts, like the movie Ted when Ted came out and like something else. And I'm like, why would I need, I don't wanna have like four accounts about me. I'd rather just have four accounts about random stuff where I don't have to like really be attached to them. And then after that I realized like, you know, I spent maybe a year on that without making a dollar eventually found this website called my likes, which was run by some people at Google who started like Google ad senses and like all these crazy products.

Dennis Hegstad  (05:26):

And they were offering like 50 cents to 30 cents a click for sharing links to Twitter. And I'm like, oh, I have, you know, four accounts with like 30, 40, 50,000 followers each. And I would share links and make like 40 bucks every time on each account. So I'm like, oh, whoa, I can make like a hundred bucks a day. And then I just got really, I just doubled down on that. And then I just started chasing trends and buying accounts and buying retweets and uh, yeah, I'd post a link and buy retweets from like celebrities. That's so amazing. Yeah. Found a way to kind of make like, you know, a couple hundred bucks a day and they were paying out weekly. So it was yeah. Turned into something that became kind of like a full-time thing

Rabah Rahil (06:03):

That is FA I've never heard that before. That's incredible. So from Counterstrike to me master to then you're starting to level up into your, uh, your companies, right. So you had your supposedly and then live recovers kind of about this time, right?

Dennis Hegstad  (06:18):

Yeah. So supposedly was the way to monetize my meme pages without relying on my likes, but also to tap into all my friends' pages. So instead of going to like AOL and saying, Hey, I want 5 cents a click or 10 cents a click for all the AOL websites. I can't only sell so many clicks a day with my 10 million or whatever followers, but I have 15 friends and we all have 10 million. I can say, Hey, we have 200 million followers on Twitter. We can drive this much. Right. And so I would get call it 10 cents a click from AOL and I'd pay my friends 7 cents a click, uh, and I'd make 3 cents on every click. But then I'd also drive my own clicks too, where I'd make full margin, but I basically built my own network for my pages and, and I let other people tap in and I took a fee.

Dennis Hegstad  (06:59):

Um, but after that essentially moved on from that got into e-commerce again, sort of less meme pages back to e-commerce, but I've been doing a lot of paid traffic and me and meme pages and all this stuff. And so I figured like I could probably really do well with e-commerce did some of that my own drop shipping sites, but kind of like instead of drop shipping, I would actually import inventory from say, China, I would get my own products produced and white labeled. I wasn't just shipping from China. Um, but after doing that for a while, and kind of chasing the trends of like, kind of like the fidget spinners to the black charcoal mask to the, this, to the that I, I, I started realizing, like, I think that there's like more opportunity in some of these apps. Um, I talked to my co-founder of live recover before we were co-founders I guess, of that business and showed him some stuff. Right. And then he came back to me and was like, Hey, I think we should do a text message app with like live humans. Right. It wasn't my idea. It was actually my, my co-founders idea. Um, so to be fair, it live recover was not my bus, my, my idea. It was his

Rabah Rahil (08:01):

That's so fascinating. And so I was actually reading, uh, when I was doing research for the podcast, um, he built it while he was on vacation. Is that, was that correct? The MVP, he just cranked. Yeah. You kind of ranked dumped on him and he basically just cranked out an MVP for you in a, a couple weeks on his vacation.

Dennis Hegstad  (08:18):

Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, he, he, he knew what to build. Right. He was an engineer and he knew from some feedback we had talked about it done, definitely like a lot of research and he did e-commerce as well. I had done e-commerce so we knew how did we service ourselves? Right. And like, what would we want? And there was also SMS bump and attentive already in the market. Uh, and so we, it wasn't like, I really needed to tell him much of what to do. He was like, give me two, three weeks and I'll have something that we can start onboarding customers, you know, for, by the time I'm like done, you know? So he went on vacation, I think, to like Italy and somewhere else. And then he came back, had a couple days of like, you know, up uploading everything, getting everything ready in the public environment, on the web, and then was like, Hey, do you have customers? I'm like, yeah, I got like 25 brands ready, like ready to go. He's like, oh shit. Uh, sweet. And then, yeah, it was kind of like from day one, we were just able to, yeah. I relied on him a lot, obviously. So, cause I'm not a, I'm not an engineer, even though I know a little bit, I know enough, but not enough to be spending my time writing code.

Rabah Rahil (09:25):

Yeah. I love that. The other thing I found so fascinating was, um, you guys essentially, I mean, not burned the ships, it sounded like you're, you know, in a decent financial place, but, um, for my research, you guys didn't take a nut till what, eight months or so after you started the business where, um, that mean that's a pretty long time for most people, right. To not pull anything outta the business. How did you construct that? Was that on purpose? Where was your head at there? Where kind of like, can you color on the lines there?

Dennis Hegstad  (09:54):

Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think next time, you know, like if we work on something else in the future, I that's probably not gonna be the way it goes <laugh> but, uh, I think at the time we, we were very adamant on building a business that was self-sustaining even if it meant, like not making any money for ourselves personally, for however long, uh, because we were reinvesting a lot of the money into ads. And when I say a lot of money, when you're only making like three or four grand a month in revenue for your whole business, when you launch, right, like you put a thousand dollars a month into ads, two K right. Half your revenue, the other half were costs. Right. And we, we did every text because we're a human powered text message, you know, app. Uh, we did every text ourselves for the first eight months too.

Dennis Hegstad  (10:41):

So like if we weren't responding to the text on behalf of our merchants, we were not making money. And we did that on black Friday, Thanksgiving morning, Christmas morning, new year's Eve, new year's day. Like I was on my computer. And so is my co-founder doing every text for every brand. That's cool for the first, for the first six to eight months, we finally hired our first texting agent, uh, after the first like six to eight months. And we were like, why the hell did we take that long? When they, you know, we, we had talent in, in, in overseas and the, and the salaries were enough that we could have, you know, justified paying for it earlier. But we were trying to be like, no, we should wait, cuz we're not even paying ourselves yet. We should, you know, obviously we should pay someone else first before us.

Dennis Hegstad  (11:23):

But, uh, yeah, we waited a little too long. Um, and you know, when you take a, when you really have a, we have a realistic salary, right. Like, sure. I haven't worked personally for like less than a hundred K a year in a while. And so granted, when we started paying ourselves, it was like two K a month each. So if a company say, wanted to look at your financials, they're like, oh, well is this company profitable? And you're like, yeah, it's profitable. Like, well, not really. You guys are only taking a salary of 25 K a year. So if you were paid a real salary, this company would be in the, the whole. So we had to like actually zoom out and look at like, damn, what are we like? You know, we didn't, we could have even waited longer. It was the point on the salary, cuz it really didn't make a difference.

Dennis Hegstad  (12:03):

But we tried to like kind of introduce the salary at a low amount, just to get the company on a position where we have to be expecting some like real expenses, not that like two K a month was real, but to the proportion of the revenue of the business, it was like maybe we were doing 20 K a month or something then. And we were like, oh, we should at least pay ourselves like a little bit. Just so the company's getting used to that sort of, I don't know, capital expenses, not like we waited another two month. Yeah, yeah. We, so then we, we did all that properly and paid ourselves as like employees and did it all, you know, in a way that made sense. Oh cool.

Rabah Rahil (12:34):

That's so fascinating to me. And so at what point, or I guess where was your head space at? Was it always in terms of like an exit acquisition or were you building like this juggernaut to hold onto for life and then somebody just hit you with the number that you couldn't refuse or like where was your head at when you're building this company?

Dennis Hegstad  (12:52):

We didn't have any intention of like building it to sell it. I think like most, most people might think that's like the goal. I mean, maybe that's a dream of some kind like, wow, that's an amazing outcome if that ever happens. But, um, we had some interest really early on, which was kind of cool. Like, like I think in our beta phase we were like six months old and someone offered to acquire us for like couple hundred thousand bucks and we're like, right, right. No, we're like, no, come on. Uh, we, we have a lot more work to do. We didn't even feel like we had earned whatever that was. Right. We're like 400,000 bucks, like, no. And so we waited like, you know, another year and then someone else tried to offer a couple, you know, a million dollars for something. And we're like, no, like we think that, you know, we have more work to do.

Dennis Hegstad  (13:34):

Um, and we felt like we were still pretty early cuz a lot of companies are like what SMS marketing. It's like 2019, mid 2019, we launched mid 2018. Um, and so like eventually it started getting to a point where we were making some serious money and when we was just my co-founder and I, and our, you know, team of texting agents and one other engineer. So realistically like we were never bigger than 10 people, uh, three, three core myself, a co-founder and another engineer and then texting agents. But, um, you know, at a certain point when there's a lot of competition around you that are all raising venture capital and they're being valued at ridiculous amounts of revenue multiples, call it forty, fifty, sixty X and you're bootstrapped. And you're like, not that far behind in terms of revenue, people are like, they look at you as like a, a very attractive value buy. And so there was a, you know, at a certain point where we're just like, whoa, we didn't list our company for sale. It wasn't for sale. We were building our business. Um, but when people are knocking on your door and, you know, giving you offers that make a lot of sense, uh, sometimes you, you might listen. And then, you know, for us, we found some people that we thought were great partners and we ended up selling the business to them.

Rabah Rahil (14:47):

How cool, what that is definitely an entrepreneurial wet dream where, uh, you're just kind of working. And then all of a sudden this money suitcase not <laugh> is kind of at your door. And you're like, huh, I wonder what we do here. Um, without revealing too much, what is that process like? So somebody started courting, you, you, you guys kind of start to like open the kimono a bit, you show 'em some internal numbers and then the, the negotiations start from there. Or like how, how does that for people that have never been involved in an acquisition or anything like that, what are the machinations behind that?

Dennis Hegstad  (15:17):

I, I mean, to be honest, this was my first time doing something like I would call like a big acquisition mm-hmm <affirmative> the, the one I sold my meme network for like a co like 150 K or something. And that was felt amazing. Right. But this was, you know, a, a life changing amount of money. And so it was, we had already gone through a process with someone else who had given us a, a deal that we thought was very fair, but they took a lot longer than they had sort of proposed. And after, you know, call it three months, we're like, this is taking way too long. Um, we had done all of, you know, what we had felt was our, our side of diligence. And then that ended up not falling, you know, working out. And so we had all of our financials and everything in a row, everything was ready to go.

Dennis Hegstad  (15:58):

Right. And then we're like, okay, we don't have time to be selling our business. We need to be working. Like we have too much that we could be doing right now. And so we got back to work and then maybe 60 days later, 90 days or less, uh, someone else came by. And then all of a sudden it was like three people had come to us inbound saying, Hey, like, we'd be interested in potentially talking about acquisition or whatever or whatever. And, uh, we know we had a baseline number from the company that had already tried to offer us and had kind of went through this process with us. Um, and so we just said, Hey, we've grown by like a good amount since then. And not that we think, like we can charge, you know, necessarily double or whatever amount, but we, we need more than what the previous, you know, situation was.

Dennis Hegstad  (16:42):

And, uh, pretty much all the parties we talked to agreed, but one or two of them were willing to move forward faster. And, and just like, kind of basically not, we explain, like we don't want to be stuck selling a business, like trying again. Right. Cause then you might be stuck selling a business for six months outta the year and you're like, no, I gotta work. You can't do, it's hard to do both. Especially when your company is just three people <laugh>. Uh, and so yeah, you know, we found a good party and, and they, there wasn't really much negotiation. It was kind of like, we were all on the same page. We flew, we met each other in person, went on some trip, kind of like, not, not like parties, but like a work trips and talked about the future of the business and made sure everything was kind of in line and discussed like vision and where we at, where we are at, in the market and just kind of, yeah. Make sure, kind of a character check. We like each other, we know each other, do we feel like we could be there for each other? And, uh, yeah, just kind of went through that motion and it ended up, you know, not taking that long, like wet less than half the time of the other situation or more, and, uh, worked. Yeah. Just worked out pretty well.

Rabah Rahil (17:45):

How surreal was that for you? Like, was there any moments that you kind of had like that out of body experience, like in the last negotiations, when that the big number's gonna close, you know, and the wire's gonna hit the next day or something like that, did you ever have kind of like a holy fuck moment or was this all just kind of like, you know, you'd been hustling towards it and there was just, you know, eventually as you do good work and you create value in the world, um, you know, a lot of times you get rewarded for that. What was that kind of head space? Like when you were like closing that deal for the first time? Cause it sounds like it was significant money. And so that, that had to be a lot of ramifications going through your head, but right.

Dennis Hegstad  (18:22):

It was a, it definitely was like, I didn't know, you know, oh, there's always something that could change or happen last minute. Maybe like the other thing we were kind of emotionally invested, like this is gonna work out we're, we're stoked. And then after a while, we're like, we understood it. Wasn't because, and my, we have an advisor who goes, one deal is no deal. <laugh> basically like if only one person's trying to buy your company, it's you don't have a deal. Like you're gonna have multiple people trying to buy your business at once. If you have a real, like a real exit opportunity. And so, and that ended up being true. So he was right. But, uh, you know, yeah. Like the day that we closed was different than the day that the money ended up like coming into our, my co-founder and I's account.

Dennis Hegstad  (18:56):

But yeah, seeing like a wire transfer, like that was definitely like, holy shit. I like screenshot it, screenshotted it and send it to my mom, my mom. And I'm like, I, I don't mean to be a douche bag, but this is fucking crazy. And she was like, whoa, that is pretty weird. And uh, so I was like, okay. I was like, yeah, I think I also feel like I need to move a lot of this outta my bank account. Now <laugh> just because I'm like, what the fuck? This doesn't seem safe. And then, uh, yeah, that was cool. Uh, had a little bit of an identity crisis after I'm like, what do I do now? This is like, I don't know. Interesting. Yeah. Now what it's like now, what, who am I, this is it like, it's not like, you know, enough to it. It's like maybe enough to live like a very like conscious capital conscious life. But like the lifestyle I wanna live is like, I'm still young and I don't have a family yet, so I wanna still go a little harder and try to do more. So it sets me up to do more and invest more. And like I bought another app since selling live. Yeah. I saw

Rabah Rahil (19:50):

Which yeah,

Dennis Hegstad  (19:52):

But like it's, it's not. Yeah, but it's, you know, in my head I'm like, oh wow. I built this head up this idea since I was like, maybe a teenager, maybe selling a company for tons of money and you're just gonna go lay on a beach and do nothing or something. And then it's like, within like weeks, I'm like, I need to get back to doing something like I'm bored as fuck. Uh, and that's what it was. It was like, there, it kind of felt liberating in a way, but also like, that's it like <laugh>, I

Rabah Rahil (20:15):

Don't know. It's a new, a new game, a new mountain kind. I

Dennis Hegstad  (20:17):

Bought, I bought a new truck and I bought like an expensive watch. And then like I bought my mom a watch and gave her

Rabah Rahil (20:23):

Some money. I was gonna say, your mom, yeah. You got her some sweet time

Dennis Hegstad  (20:26):

Fees. I just, I took care of my mom a bit and, and like paid down more of my, my house just because interest rates are so low that I, there's no reason to pay it all off, but yeah, just like normal stuff. I'm like, oh yeah. All right, cool. How let's let's get back to it. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (20:40):

That's so fascinating. So through all this, um, so I don't know if I knew you really intimately before the identity crisis, but I've been a long, long time listener first time caller. And you seem like one of the happiest, most productive kind of guys I'm seeing your Strava tweets, like all this stuff. How do you kind of keep things like, do you use any frameworks? Do you have routines? Like how do you stay so happy, successful, productive? Like, is it just in your bones or like, do you have kind of systems that you shape that shapes your environment to allow for the path of leads, resistance to be the most productive path?

Dennis Hegstad  (21:15):

I don't think I have a lot of frameworks necessarily. I, I try to follow people who do, because I strive to be more like them <laugh>. But, uh, but I'm not, I think like, at least for me, I've just always kind of done my thing and been fortunate that it's sort of been working out. Uh, and I haven't really relied on a lot of other people for my own success, but that's not to say that I don't wanna like work with more people and like have more people around me, but at least moving from even LA to Austin before it was just so much noise and nonsense and compare comparison to other people and trying to, yeah. Keep I find myself like going, like shopping for designer stuff, just because I'm like, just for what to prove that I have the money to do it.

Dennis Hegstad  (21:53):

I don't even wanna know this shit. And then I move here and I'm like walking, you know, I'm wearing like socks and fucking flip flops and just looking a mess and I don't give a shit. What, what I, you know, it's just like a different mindset of being here. And like, even though what I'm doing now is like significantly more than, and then have quote, have more stuff and money or whatever, than like when I was in LA, but here I don't care at all to spend that money on, on comparison or keeping, comparing, keeping up with other people, comparing other people. So I think like for me, like waking up pretty early at, it doesn't matter when I go to bed, I get up at like 6, 6 30. Uh, I try to run or do cardio every day, but like mainly running just because I like running specifically. And I think that Austin's beautiful and I get leisure out of it. Yep. You're

Rabah Rahil (22:38):

Gonna have marathon too. Yeah.

Dennis Hegstad  (22:39):

Yeah. I'm doing a half marathon with, uh, my girlfriend this Sunday from the domain to downtown is the name of it sponsored by three. That's

Rabah Rahil (22:45):

Like a really cool course.

Dennis Hegstad  (22:47):

Yeah. It's like right on the frontage road the whole way. Um, but yeah, so, you know, I think that also just like, I've been not having an employer slash someone who can kind of restrict the way that I call it. I don't wanna say act, but the way that I am, uh, maybe that's on Twitter or in person or in groups or, or whatever. Like I don't have anybody who really is able to check me. And while that might be reckless to some degree, I can just do what I want. And that's, that's a, that's a somehow like hard to be upset with myself or anything if I have full luxury over all those things. Whereas like maybe if you work at a company and you feel like saying something to someone, you have to hold back because you're like, oh, I don't want to get fired because I don't have a, you know, and that's normal.

Dennis Hegstad  (23:29):

But like, and at the end of the day, if I wanna do that, I'm only hurting myself and my business and my apps. So at the end of the day, like if I want to take on that irresponsibility or responsibility by acting a fool or shit posting or being myself or whatever that means, then I'm gonna do it. Uh, and I think that for me, at least that's so far been okay, <laugh>, I don't think that's a great framework for anybody or for most people, but, uh, you know, generally I try to be nice and help people. And, and, and sometimes I, I, I act a fool and, you know, you gotta be able to handle both of those. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (24:03):

At the, yeah, totally. I think that's the human experience, but on all accounts, I think you're definitely above average in terms of, uh, joviality. And I've, I've always seen you kind of put out a helping hand to pay it forward. So I, I think you're doing an incredible place there. Do you do any kind of meditations? Are you spiritual, religious, any of that stuff, or you just kind of, you know where you're at and you're centered and you've kind of, I think what you wanna be.

Dennis Hegstad  (24:25):

I think meditation is great and I wish that I was like more disciplined with my time and like made it part of my schedule. Cause I, at one point I really was after some like bad, not, I wouldn't say bad stuff, but I had some like problems with Xanax in the past when I was like 25 or 24th. And like meditation really helped me then a lot after kind of getting, getting through all that. But now I just haven't made the time. I think that meditation is amazing. Like I will, I will leak out of my eyes because I don't take the time to like give myself, but I kind of run for that. Right. For me when I run, I'm not on my phone, I'm not on my phone. I spend an hour running, maybe even an hour and a half without stopping. And my heart.

Dennis Hegstad  (25:02):

Rate's like, you know, at a great pace, I'm just like in pure bliss, I'm not talking to anybody. Sometimes I don't have music on, I'm just listening to the nature. Or sometimes I have like rhythmic music or even like death metal. And I'm just like in the zone. Yeah. And it's like, feels amazing. So to me, it's kind of like my own meditation, but it's not truly sitting there and doing like breath work per se and like reflecting or, or thinking about nothing. Like I'm certainly watching where I'm going and have like, you know, I'm aware, but no, I don't, you know, I don't, my mom told me something fucked up, but I still think it's true to, to say is like when I was a kid, I'm like, mom, my parents were in Norwegian and growing up in Texas in Houston. I'm like, we moved from San Francisco to the Woodlands where I grew up and I'm like, mom, all my friends go to church on Sunday.

Dennis Hegstad  (25:42):

Like, why don't we go to church? And she's like, Dennis, like, God is like Santa Claus for adults. Like once you get to a certain age, you just like, stop. You just like stop believing. You don't need any of that. And I was like, oh, okay. <laugh> so like, she told the same thing, same thing to my brother. And I'm like, oh, so like kind of growing up, I was never really like, she's like, you can just make anything happen that you need to do and do, and like just take, take ownership and you know, whatever. Yeah. Pray if you, if you want to. But like she just said it set the stage pretty early, like no need, which is, you know, that's an opinion, but yeah. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (26:15):

Naturally enlightened. Yeah. For, for sure whatever serves you. I think there's definitely some, some beauty and religion, but personally I think the, the, without getting too far down the rabbit hole, the organized part of it can get a little precarious, um, sometimes where it's not really, um, serving the purpose as much as it should be. I love that. Sure. Okay. Two more quick questions here. So you have, uh, pretty, uh, nice watch collection. How did you get into that? Is that, was that just something that you came into the money and you wanted to play with? Or was that always on the radar?

Dennis Hegstad  (26:45):

To be honest, like, I, I definitely got a watch when I was young. I think for my dad as like a gift that I thought was a gift, I'm like, wow, I got a fossil watch in like fifth grade. I thought I was the sh I thought I was the shit. I'm like, yes, I got a fossil watch. And then it was really cuz my dad wanted me to have a watch so that I knew to never be late. And I'm like, oh, so like what a terrible gift. But like, it was masked as a nice gift, but I love that. And I like, I love that watch cause I was like, you know, you're I was a kid and I eventually, you know, got like a G shock and I thought like, these are kind of cool. And I was very into skateboarding growing up. Uh, I was probably five, six years skateboarding and yeah, eventually just, you know, I got like a fake Rolex, I think when I was like 13 from, yeah. Some, some friend's dad went to like Africa or Egypt on business and he like got me and all my skateboarding, friends, fake Rolexes. And I remember like wearing it to the skate park and just thought I was like so sick. And then like I ended up cracking it on the ground and I was just, my life was ruined. I'm like my

Speaker 3 (27:38):

Fucking fake Rolex. I paid $75 for us ruined.

Dennis Hegstad  (27:41):

I was so upset. Uh, and then I was like, I'm never getting to have one of these until I can buy, you know, a real one. And then my stepdad growing up was in like the air force and whatever got was in the country club and golf business growing up in the Woodlands. And he had a bunch of nice Rolexes. Uh, and so he was always like letting me like wear them even though like way too big for me, but just like in the house just to like look at them as like solid gold, old school, military edition for only air force specific like veterans of like, you know, whatever. And I'm like, wow. You know, these are really like pieces of like history and kind of just like, got, I didn't, I wouldn't say I was big into watches, but I definitely was like exposed to them and was like, kind of told, like appreciate them basically.

Dennis Hegstad  (28:23):

And he was a pilot and had his own like little twin engine plane that he had a park ownership with some friends. And so he was very into like that culture. And so I, I started to like it and then I bought my first Rolex when I sold my meme network, which is actually the one I'm wearing right here. But I bought it like probably in five years, 26, 20 17. And then yeah, when I sold live recover, I bought two more. Uh, and then when I bought my mom this Rolex that's fine yacht, yacht master. And then, yeah, I'm still kind of on the hunt because they're like other people are buying NFTs and I, I bought a few, but I'm like, you know what, I'd rather buy watches because most of the watches I've been buying, I could get for the same price as a picture of a monkey and I can like wear it and then it's worth double also. And it's like got gold or steel and like metals that have more inherent value to me than like a picture on the screen. Not that I'm hating on NFTs, but just like in comparison, there's different types of things that you can invest in. And I understand those more. And so I like the history a little bit, but yeah.

Rabah Rahil (29:19):

Yeah. I love that, man. That's, that's beautiful. I'm right there with you. I think, uh, and also too kind of a ancillary point, um, as a male, you really only have a few ways to express yourself. Right. And like your time piece is usually one of the most explicit ways to, uh, kind of express yourself. So that's a really cool thing. Okay. For sure. Last question for the main segment, you have a bunch of amazing tattoo work. How did you get into that? How much chair time have you done? Uh, cuz you, you have full sleeves on your legs, correct?

Dennis Hegstad  (29:47):

Yep. I think they're called. Yeah. I guess they're called leg sleeves, but yeah, I have both my legs done sleeve.

Rabah Rahil (29:51):

Yeah. Yeah. How did is, is it all one piece or was it just added onto or like how did you it's pretty intricate.

Dennis Hegstad  (29:57):

Yeah. It's one piece for both legs. I basically like had this guy I met in Austin when I was probably 18 or 19. His name's Hector F uh, he works in Austin now again, he recently moved back, but when I was 18 I was like, I don't, all I care is like tattoos, every paycheck I had, like every two weeks I was getting a paycheck while I was working on my E eCom stuff and meme stuff. But I was like every paycheck I'm getting $200 or $300 towards a tattoo. And so I'd go get towards working towards my leg, but I basically started with the outline of the whole leg and then we did the color and then, uh, yeah, he ended up moving to LA or I'm sorry to Oakland. I moved to LA. And so I was flying up there every, every few, every few months, uh, just to get my, my other leg worked on.

Dennis Hegstad  (30:36):

And then, yeah, we just did both like full legs and, and now I'm kind of, I've taken a break from getting tattoos for now. But I think like if I get to, you know, let's say my next businesses do really well. I made it kind of promise my mom. I would never do anything on my arms unless I had like, basically like, fuck you money. And I don't know what that I don't. Yeah. I don't, whatever that means, whatever fuck you, money means. But if that number hits, then I'm just, and, and hopefully by that time, if that ever happens, but that maybe won't want them anymore. That's kind of like set the goal post out so far that like, by that, by that time, eh, I'd probably be like, maybe I'm like 50, like, eh, who's 50 trying to buy their like Corvette going through a crisis. Like I don't, I don't need that.

Rabah Rahil (31:16):

Get in the anyway, the neck piece at 55 or something.

Dennis Hegstad  (31:19):

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not gonna be doing that, but yeah. So I don't know. I've always just liked tattoos and now I've kind of, I've got 'em

Rabah Rahil (31:26):

<laugh> I love it. Um, alright, cool. So let's jump. That was the main segment. So fascinating. I've been wanting to ask you all that stuff. Um, let's jump in the value add segment. This is why the people bought the ticket. Um, triple

Dennis Hegstad  (31:36):

Oil, shout out triple oil.

Rabah Rahil (31:38):

Ho. So what, um, are the hardest parts and best parts of starting and running your own business? What would you say?

Dennis Hegstad  (31:46):

I think the best parts I touched on were just like being able to kind of go at your own pace, but you know, being able to be yourself on your own schedule and things like that, or working with a group of people who allow you to do that, then it's like ideal. Um, and then like, you know, the worst parts are, are probably actually the same thing because those things can hurt you and you don't really understand, like to some degree when other people put guidelines and guide guidelines in place for you. It's not like they don't even know what damage you could do to both like the company you work for or your own company. Yeah. So I think like, yeah, obviously there's a lot more upside in owning a business, but let's just say you can't work for on something and give it the nurturing it needs for like six to 12 months and you have to raise money spending six months raising money.

Dennis Hegstad  (32:32):

It's a, it's just a different level of grind. So I think, I don't know. It's hard. I think RA like building a, company's really hard if you have a partner and a team that you can work with and someone is really good at raising money and someone's really good at building the product and someone's really good at doing the business side and you found like a, a, you know, your tribe and then that's, I would say that's better, like starting anything with a really small team is super hard and I wouldn't advise it unless you've done it before. And you kind of know, you know, like maybe you've got a little extra money and you can buy some time to like, not do anything other than this. And if so, then maybe you're in a more fortunate position than most. But

Rabah Rahil (33:07):

I love that. Um, what are you most excited for in 2022? So you're really plugged into the DTC space. You're obviously have a little constellation of Shopify apps. Um, what are you most excited for there?

Dennis Hegstad  (33:22):

I think we still haven't seen like the full scope of like where the app store and just the app are gonna go right now. I think, you know, like we're missing obvious things, but I don't know if they're needed, so I Shopify's so big now. And I'm like, yeah, I'm excited to see where we're more apps are going and that's cuz that's the space that I work in. Right. I'm like, Ooh, are there gonna be like AB price testing apps or are there gonna be live video shopping apps or what's gonna work. What's gonna be cool. But I, but I still think all the like chasing those cool things is, is exciting, but like focusing on the stuff that already exists and works is also not too bad. Like, like you're you, you guys with triple whale are in an exciting space, right? Like right now it's really hard to solve for attribution and like, and a lot of the stuff because of the iOS changes with Facebook and tracking.

Dennis Hegstad  (34:09):

And so like, those are, those are things that I'm excited about seeing how, you know, how much efficiency, those types of tools bring to brands that have been suffering because it's not like Facebook doesn't work anymore. It's just that like a lot of the Facebook might not be able to optimize because of these things. And so you are sort of left spreading a wider net, which means you have to be a little more organized and then Facebook will eventually catch up on the optimization stuff. They are, they're just still catching up on the reporting side. So I think, you know, I am excited for, for those things to kind of get not, I wouldn't say back to normal, but get to a little bit of a healthier place and then, you know, still excited to see like what is, how do NFTs actually play into Shopify and things like that.

Dennis Hegstad  (34:51):

Um, I'd also love to see Shopify get a little more heavy on digital goods. And I don't mean NFTs. I just mean like, I would love to be able to gift a free ebook if you buy my product or upsell, call it an upsell of a free ebook download through the Shopify platform, right. They, they have a wide open opportunity to sort of compete with gum road and just like, or just kill gum road. I mean, gum, road's an amazing product, but they could buy gum road easily. They could release a product that's comparable for cheaper and that's so I don't know, I'm excited to see, you know, where that stuff goes and you know, there's, there's a lot of new stuff, but uh, you know, Shopify's opening up more extensions to their checkout, which I'm excited about for, for order bump for other apps that do things in the checkout

Rabah Rahil (35:35):

About native.

Dennis Hegstad  (35:36):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just, just all this new Shopify checkout, like expansion I think is gonna be really good for merchants and just customization stuff. So we'll see how it goes.

Rabah Rahil (35:46):

Yeah. That's a super fascinating outlook. What do you think in the next three to five years? Is it gonna be an era of incumbents or is it gonna be an era of startups?

Dennis Hegstad  (35:56):

I mean, we're seeing like right now what's happening is like, it's like, I think there's just like a cycle where it's like, oh, let's, let's UN let's unbundle everything. And then it's time to like, oh wait a no, no it's time to bundle everything back up. And then it's like, oh no, the future's unbundling. So like, I think right now we've been still in this kind of like unbundling phase, but we're starting to see it become back of this bundling up phase where at least in the ecosystem of Shopify, I'm hearing more and more about people who are saying, Hey, we just bought 10 apps or, or like even myself, my goal was to, you know, use my fake VC kind of like my own money, not like a lot, lots of money, but say for, you know, acquiring five apps, we spend a million dollars total or something. Um, that's for me, like that's five apps, but like other people are gonna raise $10 million to go buy 10 apps or, or five apps or whatever, and so, or more money. And so I'm like, damn, there's now we're at that point where I think there's gonna be a lot more of this sort of, of, of bundling up opposed to just like more startups. And then that's gonna just be them eating those people and using their efficiencies behind the, behind the scenes to kind of like kill all the competition. But we'll see.

Rabah Rahil (37:04):

Yeah. I I'm much of that same ilk as well where, um, cuz you're seeing a lot of like the thorac yous and people that are either Amazon rollups or Shopify store rollups now, um,

Dennis Hegstad  (37:15):

Open

Rabah Rahil (37:15):

Store kind of yeah, exactly where, uh, and you're also seeing it all in the agency side where if you have kind of like a smaller agency, a lot of these bigger agencies are just gobbling up these kind of smaller books essentially to, uh, basically pad their balance sheet. I guess. I, I don't know, really understand.

Dennis Hegstad  (37:31):

Keep growing. Yeah. You gotta keep growing

Rabah Rahil (37:32):

Exactly. Right. Like just, Hey, we'll pay the way I see it is almost like an acquisition cost. Right. Whether they're basically those are marketing fees that they're paying to acquire these customers and then hopefully it nets out and they don't churn and that kind of stuff. But yeah, that's really fascinating. I love that. Um, what else do we got here when you see, when you were kind of bumping up against other businesses, was there any glaring mistakes or anything that jumped out at you that you wouldn't do next time or that you saw in the moment where you're like, oh, that's gonna be a real big Mo ball hanging out there. That's a, that's a pretty fatal misstep

Dennis Hegstad  (38:06):

<laugh> Mo ball love that. Uh, I, I think at least from my mistakes, our mistakes was like, we, we shouldn't have waited so long to hire some people. And I think that like raising money is hard. So unless you're good at raising money or have someone who is go do it, but we, we just did. We were, we got burnt out early in our business because we weren't reinvested. We were really close to our minimal profits. Right. Because we were just like, oh shit, we're making money. We should have some money in the bank and should be prepared to spend like whatever on ads and this and that. And like, realistically, we should just invested everything into the team, had very little in the bank at all at all at any time. And just kind of like focused on growing faster. Um, I think that that's pro I don't know. I think that that's probably like the main thing.

Rabah Rahil (38:52):

I love that. Yeah. Quick, quick growth and then kind of validate the thesis or falsify quickly so you can pivot.

Dennis Hegstad  (38:58):

I, I think that's, well, I mean, even being profitable, if you're really profitable when like your first or second year in business, the question is almost like why, like I know at the end of the day, like you're trying to grow the business. Like at the end of the day, you're gonna end up paying taxes on that profit anyway. So if you don't really want that money and you're just, you know, it's like if your business made a lot of money, it's kind of like, unless you need that money for yourself right now for some life event, which if so, that's fine. But if you don't should have probably spent that on like more growth or some new tests or something, I don't

Rabah Rahil (39:26):

Know, section 1 79, go get you a car or something. <laugh> no, I'm totally with you on that though. There is a certain aspect of, and it's kind of odd those small digression, but it's so weird. The, the tax treatment of w two income versus the business income where it's just, it's so unique where you're those w two taxes, man, you're, you're gonna pay money on that. And it, to your point, like, unless you need access to financial instruments, dude, business income is the way to go where you can ratchet that, that tax liability down by spending your money versus w two you're gonna pay what you're gonna pay. It just kind of is what it is. But I, I love that, man. Okay. Last one in the value add segment. Tell me a little bit about fake VC one, your branding, sensational. It's phenomenal. I mean, first absolute first rate. Um, and then secondly, what was the story behind the piece you got? I mean, that is a stunning piece of jewelry and I'm, I'm guessing it's real correct.

Dennis Hegstad  (40:16):

For sure. For sure. Real. I don't know like how much for sure. Yeah. I mean, so I it's gorgeous. So thought I'll show you. I think it's hilarious. I got one for live recover too, but it's amazing. Okay. So this is like, it's like a little, it's just our logo, but I, I thought it was hilarious

Rabah Rahil (40:31):

Diamonds for everybody that are listen to.

Dennis Hegstad  (40:33):

Yeah. It's like a little emoji of like a it's gorgeous character. But anyway, so this I see on Twitter and not that I have like any kind of feeling towards it. I just think it's kind of funny that everyone seems to be a VC. And so like, I don't know what that means that I see someone who's like 18, that's like a VC. And I'm like, okay. I mean, I believe you, but I don't know really what that means. And so since it became so popular, everyone's like a VC or a VC scout. I wanted to start a company where anyone and I, I will do this. I've just been lazy because I've been focused on other stuff. But if anybody wants to build this, please hit me up. I would, I will pay you. Uh, but fake VC will eventually be a place where anyone can come pay $9 a month to be a VC.

Dennis Hegstad  (41:13):

And so you'll be able to be a VC for nine bucks a month. And anyone that doesn't believe you you'll have a page on our team page for $9 a month that says that you're a limited partner in fake VC and you are, have a picture and you can put it on your LinkedIn and out of it, you get nothing out of it except for access to our investor updates. But the investor updates are just me and like how my companies are doing, which I'll probably share on Twitter, but that will be something that you get and that's it. Uh that's all. But so the name was really just to kind of like be a parody and a meme about like, not, I don't have a college degree. I dropped outta college. So I'm not really, I have no, you know, like accolades on paper, but as someone who's also using their own money, I'm not going after big deals that I wanna buy Shopify apps that will be like, you know, a 60, 50, $80 million, whatever evaluated business.

Dennis Hegstad  (42:03):

Now, like we're going after companies that are like, you know, doing 25 K a month in MRR, maybe, maybe a little bit less. If you have a smaller business that's niche, that's just making money, but not trying to spend money on big quote VC ideas, just like companies that will cash flow and that are relatively sustainable. And so that was sort of the thought. But eventually when we drop the sort of way where you can pay to upload and be a VC, and then that's gonna be, that'll be my fun project that I'll, that I'll be super excited

Rabah Rahil (42:29):

About. There has to be some sort of NFT angle to that as well.

Dennis Hegstad  (42:32):

I was thinking about that. Then it

Rabah Rahil (42:34):

Get a little membership

Dennis Hegstad  (42:34):

Card. Maybe, maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's a better play.

Rabah Rahil (42:38):

Some economics where, because you shouldn't be an LP right off the bat for nine bucks. You should, you should charge people to be an LP. You can just be INBC. But if you wanna be an LP, then you have your NFT card. Cause I mean, LP, you're running the show essentially or pretty much, you know what I mean? You're well,

Dennis Hegstad  (42:52):

All you get is a photo. All you don't get. No, you don't get to do anything. No one does except for me. No,

Rabah Rahil (42:56):

No, no. I'm saying in a stereotypical, in theory, you're a limited partner in a VC, like you're, you're, you're throwing weight around

Dennis Hegstad  (43:02):

Versus right. So now it's like, you can pay a little more or less to be an associate versus an LP or like GP in the right. All the GPS. We have honorary GPS. It's mark. It's like mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and uh, Jeff Bezos for now.

Rabah Rahil (43:15):

<laugh> that's quite, uh, that's quite the list there. That's amazing. Oh Dennis, I had no doubt. You would make it to the rapid fire round with that hair. How wouldn't you? Okay, cool. So now we're gonna get into some fun questions. Okay. Let's do you ready?

Dennis Hegstad  (43:30):

Yes.

Rabah Rahil (43:31):

Okay. Shopify app store overrated, underrated,

Dennis Hegstad  (43:34):

Underrated.

Rabah Rahil (43:36):

I love it. G wagons overrated, underrated,

Dennis Hegstad  (43:39):

Overrated.

Rabah Rahil (43:41):

Ooh, really? And this is from somebody that has an incredibly, very nice one beautiful color scheme. I love it. SMS marketing, overrated, underrated,

Dennis Hegstad  (43:50):

Underrated.

Rabah Rahil (43:52):

I love it. Austin. Underrated, overrated.

Dennis Hegstad  (43:55):

Underrated. For sure.

Rabah Rahil (43:57):

Ooh. Alright. Right. All right. Um, starting selling a business, overrated, underrated.

Dennis Hegstad  (44:03):

Starting to sell one.

Rabah Rahil (44:06):

I'm starting and selling.

Dennis Hegstad  (44:07):

Oh, definitely like starting selling underrated. Yeah. I mean it's underrated. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (44:11):

Love it. Crypto overrated. Underrated

Dennis Hegstad  (44:15):

Crypto underrated, but NFTs. Overrated.

Rabah Rahil (44:18):

I love it. I like the distinction petite, uh, EK Philippe. I can never say it. Right. Patek, Patek,

Dennis Hegstad  (44:25):

EK Philippe.

Rabah Rahil (44:25):

Uh, yeah. Watches, overrated. Underrated.

Dennis Hegstad  (44:28):

I don't have one. And personally don't like deserve to have one yet. So I'm gonna say they're, they're underrated,

Rabah Rahil (44:34):

Underrated. I love it. Uh, what gave you more gray hair live, recover, or supposedly,

Dennis Hegstad  (44:41):

Probably live, recover.

Rabah Rahil (44:43):

Okay. <laugh> bigger nut though, too. So the gray hair was worth it. Yeah, sure. LA galaxy or Austin FC.

Dennis Hegstad  (44:50):

I'm gonna go Austin FC just because it's local,

Rabah Rahil (44:52):

Blah. Hey, Homer pick. All right. You be you're a booster or something, right? Or like a minis sponsor or something there?

Dennis Hegstad  (44:59):

No, just, uh, no,

Rabah Rahil (45:01):

You just went to the stadium.

Dennis Hegstad  (45:02):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (45:02):

Yeah. I love it. It's a nice stadium. Uh, what's the, your favorite watch that you own or favorite watch that you want to own

Dennis Hegstad  (45:11):

Right now? The favorite watch that I own is this Otmar, pigge, uh, Royal Oak, but I'd like to get, you know, this other Royal Oak, uh, chronograph and maybe another Rolex. And then I'm probably not gonna buy any watches for quite a while. Think I have enough.

Rabah Rahil (45:25):

I love it. Um, your favorite artist, I remember you had that really incredible piece where it was actually a painting and then, um, almost like an interactive piece where he, or he, or she actually can't forget, but burned

Dennis Hegstad  (45:37):

It in front of you, right? Oh, it's oh yeah. It's Sage Barnes. He didn't burn it in front of S of me, but he did, he did burn it and like film it. I, I, I actually think Sage Barnes might be like my favorite out of the ones that I have at my house. Um, yeah. I like Sage Barnes. He's

Rabah Rahil (45:49):

He's cool. That's a be really cool, interesting piece. Uh, your favorite in-person marketing event,

Dennis Hegstad  (45:56):

You know, I'm not really good. I'm gonna say geek out because it's the only one that I've been to.

Rabah Rahil (46:01):

Are you going to Dubai

Dennis Hegstad  (46:03):

In February? I, I, I don't think I am, but if my, one of my buddies in town was like a co-founder of it and he's going, and he is trying to get me to go. So I, I might go, but as of right now, no.

Rabah Rahil (46:13):

Okay. It should be good.

Dennis Hegstad  (46:13):

Are you, are you going,

Rabah Rahil (46:15):

Yeah. Yeah. We we're sponsoring the event. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. That's nice everywhere, baby. Yeah, shack attack. He's a good dude. Him and James are good dude. Good. People's uh, favorite place in travel too. And why?

Dennis Hegstad  (46:28):

I really like going to New York just because it's a good taste for like a weekend or a couple days or even a week or two, but, um, you know, I, I, yeah, I like being like in the city for like that small amount of time, then the rest of the time, I kind of just want to be left alone and have some space. So I think New York is great. Yeah. Probably my favorite place to do it.

Rabah Rahil (46:48):

Exactly. Same here. I, I love the fire, but I'll burn up if I stay there too long, cuz I, I can't turn off and it's just but wonderful energy there. Love me some NYC. Yes. So favorite way to spend your time.

Dennis Hegstad  (46:59):

Uh, I'm gonna say probably like working or running <laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> um, I really like feeling, I feel really good when I run and, and really, really good after I run and you know, I really enjoy working to me. It's almost like a sport and so I try to, I wanna get better and I try to learn, I think I know a little bit about a lot. And then there's like a few things that I know a lot about, but I, I like to be able to hopefully keep up and not be, I mean, I, I'm not obviously an expertise in like health or bio, anything outside of like, like business or software type of entrepreneurship and eCommerce, whatever. But in my sort of horizontal of you, I wanna kind of know a little bit about a lot. So I think I have a lot of enjoyment in like trying to learn more

Rabah Rahil (47:41):

How exciting I love it. Yeah. Lifelong learner beginner's mind. It's the way to go. Favorite follow on Twitter.

Dennis Hegstad  (47:47):

Favorite follow on Twitter is probably Nikita bear. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (47:52):

He's has to be especially

Dennis Hegstad  (47:54):

A guy. He's funny guy. Yeah. He's just really funny. And he is really funny in real life too. I, I got to meet him. He came to Austin a couple months ago and yeah, just a funny guy. And I enjoy that. He's like a ship poster who sold his company for Facebook and continued ship posting. And he's also like really bright. So

Rabah Rahil (48:10):

It's the perfect dichotomy. I love it. Okay. Last question. And then we'll wrap up. If you could have dinner with three people dead or live fictional or non-fictional who would it be? Um, this is a four person table. You're all eating at the same time.

Dennis Hegstad  (48:23):

Uh, I'd probably pick Steve jobs.

Rabah Rahil (48:28):

Love it.

Dennis Hegstad  (48:29):

Walt Disney and Christopher Columbus. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (48:32):

That is a quite a unique mix. I love that one got an Explorer and then you have two visionaries. Incredible Dennis, you absolutely smashed this. Your, your reputation proceeded. You were so much fun, so many eloquent responses. Um, do you wanna plug anything? You wanna talk about order bomb, fake VC? The time's yours? My friend.

Dennis Hegstad  (48:51):

I mean, if any, yeah, if you're using Shopify, make sure you try triple whale for your analytics and uh, securing your pixel data. And then yeah, if you do order, if you wanna do upsells with order bump, we'd love to have you test our app for, uh, in check out post purchase upsells. But aside from that, yeah, nothing I really wanna plug.

Rabah Rahil (49:10):

Perfect. Um, you can follow Dennis on the bird app at the, is it dag or is it Dennis? It's

Dennis Hegstad  (49:16):

Your full number? Dennis? D E N N I S H E G S T a D Dennis. He said, yep.

Rabah Rahil (49:21):

Super, super fun feed. He also has a fun Instagram feed. If you want get some more visuals there. And then if you want to try and keep up with him, follow him on Strava. But Dennis man, this has been incredible. I really appreciate it. We'll have to put a big dinner or something together in Austin. We can do, uh, this in person next time, but dude, super mutual. Appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Uh, keep crushing it, spreading all the light and awesomeness and uh, we'll see you on the flip.

Dennis Hegstad  (49:44):

Yeah. DTC, barbecue coming soon.

Rabah Rahil (49:46):

Oh, coming soon. Absolutely. All right folks, that's all we got for you. If you do want to get more involved in triple well go to tri triple.com to sign up. We are also on the bird app at tri and then we have an amazing newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday, you can subscribe to that right on our Twitter profile at tri triple. Well, Dennis, again, thank you so much, everybody else. We'll see you on the flip byebye.

Dennis Hegstad  (50:07):

Thank you. See you.

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