The Exchanges

Q Okay. And what's the revenue model? Are these, are, is this a recurring SaaS model or one-time pay-as-you-go kind of thing?

A Yeah. For the first, uh, 18 months, we made the platform free. However, in the last month, we've just turned on monetization. And so it's a subscription model, similar to again, Netflix, uh, a month, and you can access all of the content that you want. And also there's a whole bunch of special features that are only available to, uh, to premium members, such as the ability to download content, to be able to watch offline. The ability to create your own playlist, to speed up playback, and a whole bunch of other things that are only available to some service. So you get in two weeks, free trial, or you can eat, and then you can decide if you want to continue.

AI assessment note: “And so it's a subscription model, similar to again, Netflix”

Q Okay. How do you, how do you anticipate making people sticky on this? Anytime someone launches a content site or membership site, the hardest thing is churn is through the roof, especially to real SaaS companies that are software based. How do you keep churned out?

A Yeah. So that's something that we're really trying to Uh, aggressively. So, um, obviously there's a bunch of things. That we're, we're looking to do. Um, so having intercom built into obviously the website, but also the app as well, having lots of kind of conversations with, with people like a concierge service. So, uh, people can just search for what their biggest problem or challenge is. And then we just send them the direct video that solves that problem. So by trying to have more of a direct relationship with every single user through, through live chat, um, then we hope that that will, uh, will help. The other thing that we've done is we've built in a bunch Different gamification modules as well. We have, uh, badges that people can unlock based on their consumption. We also have, um, a new content which is coming out kind of every week. And the other thing we have is like a global leaderboard as well. Trying to make the product as, uh, as sticky as we can, but we're still got, um, yeah, so we really know that, yeah, in this area, oftentimes the average Expand, you know, four months. And so we've got, um, and also giving people a substantial discount for doing, uh, for going 12 months in advance as well. There's nearly a 40% discount if you pay, uh, upfront. So we hope to lock people in for at least a year, which is enough, um, to, you know, get people really, um, on the, o…

AI assessment note: “built in a bunch Different gamification modules as well. We have, uh, badges”

Q Got it. Makes good sense. Um, so this is where you're going. This is what you're building business and quickly, uh, your other platforms, right? We understand business blueprint is an events business. So are you producing the events? You're taking a hundred percent of the ticket revenue, all that jazz. It's a typical events business or it's a little different.

A Yeah, so it's a, um, it's basically a leveraged business, uh, coaching model. It's a sort of twelve-month business program where we teach, uh, entrepreneurs and, and small business owners how to better use technology to improve their business. So we have, uh, over 600 people now that pay on average 10,000 dollars a year for our business education program, um, and it operates all across Australia and, uh, and New Zealand. So that model has been proven to be Really successful. However, um, because of that, we're limited to the number of people that we can help us, so like a high touch, high cost, uh, model, and so the aim with Bizversity was how do we make a business education, uh, how do we make it more accessible to people, how do we make it more convenient, and how do we make it more affordable for people to learn the skills that they need in order to, uh, grow their own successful business.

AI assessment note: “it's basically a leveraged business, uh, coaching model. It's a sort of twelve-month business program”

Q Okay, and walk me through, I mean, how many people are now paying for that service?

A Yeah, so we now have about a 160 people that are paying for that service. This is in our first month, so it's sort of brand new in terms of Monetization, and so now it's just a matter of how we can continue to grow. So we'll do that by having those individual accounts, every single person either signing up directly, or we're now actually looking at talking to many companies as well about getting a company-wide account, and also we've had Of interest from franchise groups that are looking to provide training to their franchisees because most of them, when they buy a franchise, they really, um, they, they get a product or a service, but they really, um, don't get a lot of business training and they come in sort of very, uh, very green and lacking a lot of business training. So it's a really low cost way to be able to provide a lot of information to especially first time entrepreneurs. So we see that's the kind of way that we'll probably scale, uh, faster in the future is by more of the sort of B to B style, uh, transactions.

AI assessment note: “we now have about a 160 people that are paying for that service.”

Q And then a few years later, what'd you grow that company to, but before you moved on to your next thing in terms of sales?

A Yeah. In terms of sales, we got to around about half million dollars, um, in terms of revenue. Um, but that's when I kind of, uh, decided I wanted to start looking at some other business ventures and I had this passion for publishing. So I came up with this series of books called the secrets exposed series. And we published, uh, 15 books in the space of, uh, two and a half years. Um, so that was kind of a record in Australia. So all of these books were called, were interview books that I did, where I would pick a topic, like for example, marketing experts, small business owners, great public speakers, property millionaires, and I'd find 15, like of the best people in that particular field. I'd interview them all, collate all their ideas and put them together in a book. This is kind of, again, You know, before the days of podcast interviews, I had to do it all the, you know, the recording way and transcribe them all and put them all into a book. Um, but we published, uh, 15 of those books, um, self published, or did you hook up with a publisher? All self-published, all self-published. And yeah, to sell, sell, uh, you know, that, that amount of books, uh, 250,000 all self-published was good. And if you want to know the revenues, we did about 1.5 million dollars, uh, in terms of book sales within the two and a half years.

AI assessment note: “In terms of sales, we got to around about half million dollars”

Q And why did you, so back in 2001, how old were you?

A So I was 19 and, uh, I started my first company a few months before and realized that one of my, uh, I suppose one of the challenges was, was being so young and in business. And I was running, uh, a company which was running seminars for teenagers, teaching things like goal setting and leadership and communication skills. And one of the things that we were always challenged by was people saying, look, you're so young, you're so inexperienced, you know, um, yeah, how can you be doing this work? And so we thought, Well, how do we create credibility? Well, one way is to do what you do for the next 20 years, and then someone will say, okay, you've got credibility. Or secondly, you can manufacture credibility. And one of the ways to do that is through writing a book. So we, um, we wrote a book and then we learned about how to sell it in bookshops. What's that?

AI assessment note: “So I was 19 and, uh, I started my first company”

Q What did it cost you? Just, I know that you've published a bunch of books, so this might be tricky, but for someone else listening, that thinking about self-publishing, your biggest cost is obviously actually publishing, like having a manufacturer make the book, the physical paper and binding it and all that. What did it cost you on average per book?

A So when you're doing more than about 5000 copies, the price of it comes way down. If you're doing like a hundred, they might be like 10 dollars a piece, but if you're doing more than 5000, they end up being less than two dollars per book. So if you're printing, say, 5000, it's about sort of 10,000 dollars. Now, one of the things I did very, very successfully was to actually pre-sell my book before I actually had to cover the, uh, the print bill. And the way that I actually did that is by pre-selling the books, uh, to the people that were in the books. So many of them went on to buy a thousand copies. Um, and, uh, then what I also did as well is I did a number of different partnerships with various companies and associations and, uh, non-for-profit groups and accelerators and, and, uh, any kind of organization that, um, was around that particular topic. And they would Pre-purchase certain books at a big discount.

AI assessment note: “if you're doing more than 5000, they end up being less than two dollars”

Q move us forward. So it's 2010, 2011 at this point. You had a company, you were an information company in, uh, uh, you did up to about 500 grand, uh, in annual revenue. Then you started kind of really writing books rapidly, did about 1.2 million there. Then you kind of get the itch to become a philanthropist and start investing in, I guess, 2009, 2010. Um, where'd you go?

A Yeah. So I started a company called business blueprint and how it sort of started was that, uh, having been in business, you know, for, for eight or nine years up until that particular point, I started to see this shift. The digital revolution had kind of started, um, that, uh, Google was now the kind of main way, main way to market, you know, yellow pages was kind of dying. Uh, this thing called Facebook had just popped up. Um, you know, uh, YouTube was just purchased for, you know, over a billion dollars by Google. And business owners were kind of feeling that everything's changing and they, but they had no idea what to kind of do about this shift. They talked to their accountant. They'd have no idea. None of their friends would, you know, kind of know what's going on. And so I basically started a company teaching small business owners across Australia and New Zealand, how to use technology to improve their business. And it started off, you know, from scratch and, uh, we've grown it very successfully over the last seven years. Now it's a business that does More than five million dollars a year in revenue, and it's a really fantastic business.

AI assessment note: “So I started a company called business blueprint”

Q Why would they be on board though, Dale? Like, do you have unique videos specific to their franchise? Why wouldn't they just sign up to, like, create their own videos, or use YouTube, or?

A Yeah, so most of them will have a Basic sort of training, um, like the company that we're speaking to at the moment, they have about 40 videos that just cover the core sort of aspects of how to, um, how to basically run a gym. Um, so they provide training around that area of expertise, but most first-time business owners, again, they really, uh, don't Understand a lot of the, the sort of fundamentals, whether that be about, you know, time management or how to read, um, a balance sheet, or it could be around, um, how to, um, uh, you know, use social media in order to grow their business, how to create a marketing plan. That's, they don't provide any of that sort of training. Um, they just sort of say, you know, here's a business modeling. So, um, one of them is the fact that we provide a very broad range of education content covering kind of everything that someone could possibly want to know. And then the second thing is everyone is sort of focused on great content. And I would sort of say that that's a bit of a commodity. Now there's great content everywhere on every platform. Well, we've tried to do is really focus on how do we remove the friction to actually consuming, uh, content. And so like, for example, you've got content on a website. Oftentimes, it doesn't work very well on your mobile, or if it does, it's hard to watch videos on a mobile that come through a website. O…

AI assessment note: “we've tried to do is really focus on how do we remove the friction”

Q open loops into the tool to get people to continue engaging it on a weekly or monthly basis. And, uh, maybe, you know, we'll do a follow up later on, uh, on that. But, um, uh, last question here from monetization perspective, uh, any plans to monetize this? In other words, the teachers have to pay to put videos in here or, or how are you making money from it?

A Yeah, so, uh, right now, um, I've been able to self-fund it from the existing company that I have that's been, um, being quite successful, but now we're actually being approached by, um, corporate partners, um, um, insurance companies, uh, banks, uh, telecommunications companies as well that are all trying to speak to small business owners, and so I've got an amazing product that small business owners love and are using On a regular basis. And so, um, what we're doing now is offering, uh, partnership packages whereby those, um, corporate partners can actually, um, can, can receive, uh, ads within the actual product. And also, um, we can help them to create digital content as well, uh, to serve their customers. And then they can benefit from all their cross promotion and from the other non-competing businesses. So that's kind of, uh, conversations we're having right now. And there's, um, looks like there'll be a number of them coming on board within the next Um, within the next few weeks, which is exciting.

AI assessment note: “what we're doing now is offering, uh, partnership packages whereby those, um, corporate partners”

Q the sales copy like to the person that you included in the book that then you'd asked to, to purchase? In other words, did you say, Hey, I'd like to interview you for this book, but as a part of that, I require that you buy a thousand books or like, how did you literally structure that wording and then give us the actual name of someone that did that?

A Yeah. So when I, I did 15 books, the first four books, there was no kind of requirement to purchase any copies. I literally found the best people that I could, uh, and I did all the interviews collateral material. And just before I went to, to, um, to actually publish them, I then sent them all, uh, like a proposal and basically said, Hey, I'm going to print, uh, this is your one chance to get them at a massive discount. And probably a half of them actually purchased copies of the books. So once I then had the first four out, I had credibility and then I was having people approach me saying, Hey, when's your next book? I want to be, I want to be in it. So what I then did is I raised the bar and I said, well, if you want to be in my next book, then you have to commit to purchasing a thousand copies. And, uh, I was able to fill up, you know, my next 11 books, uh, that way, um, by having people actually commit to purchasing a certain number of copies that guaranteed, you know, that we would be printing at least, uh, 20,000 copies per book. And then we went on to sell another five to 10,000, ah, through bookshops.

AI assessment note: “if you want to be in my next book, then you have to commit”

Q I see. That makes sense. And what cut do you give the distributor? What do you pay them?

A So they normally, um, you get 35%. Normally, as a, um, If you go through, through a major publisher, you normally get a 10% royalty, and that's it. If you go directly to a distributor, you'd get 35% out of which you take your costs. So if your costs are around about, you know, five to sort of seven percent, then you're probably left with just a little bit more, maybe 15 to 20% is kind of what you're left with, um, and that means potentially you can, um, you know, double the amount of money that you make per book, but the real benefit of You know, doing what I've done, which is, uh, which is self-publishing, is that you basically are buying your book at cost. You're buying your book at two dollars, where if you go through a mainstream publisher, oftentimes they'll sell the book back to you, the author, at, say, Uh, 50% less retail, and if retail was, say, 20 dollars, they sell it back to you for, say, 10, but the only actually, they're buying it normally at about a dollar 50 when they're doing those sort of, like, print runs. So oftentimes, um, certainly in Australia and in America, that you get, like, maybe three months, maybe, if you're lucky, six months worth of bookshelf time, but, uh, then it kind of disappears from the shelves, and then basically it's, it's, uh, kind of up To you. So over the life of a book, five to 10 years, you actually become the number one consumer, th…

AI assessment note: “If you go directly to a distributor, you'd get 35%”