As parents, we're in a tug-of-war with modern technology, trying to keep our kids safe while not stifling their digital savvy. That's why Mark and I sat down with Nate Randle, CEO of Gabb Wireless, to shed light on creating a secure digital space for our youngest tech users. Our discussion weaves through the snowy streets of Utah tales right into the fabric of child-safe telecommunications, revealing how Gabb's innovative solutions are crafting a more protected online experience for children. I even toss in my own story of breathing easier as my kids explore the digital world with Gabb's tech as their safeguard.
We've all seen kids glued to screens, but what's the real impact on their development? This episode traverses the underestimated terrain of how technology is shaping our children's social skills, creativity, and capacity for unstructured play. It's a compelling exploration likened to teaching them to swim—with the right support and structured exposure, they can navigate the digital waters safely. Nate gives us his insights on the importance of in-person interactions for kids and how even non-social media tech can affect their development.
Building a brand isn't just about luring in customers; it's about keeping them close and turning them into your most avid promoters. Nate and I chat about the delicate dance between customer acquisition costs and the golden nuggets of lifetime value, all while steering clear of discount-driven pitfalls. We also take a look at how investing in customer relationships lays the groundwork for a successful brand, fostering loyalty and creating a strong word-of-mouth network among parents who value trust and quality. Join us for this enlightening episode that's part guidebook, part roundtable, and entirely essential for marketing in the family-focused tech arena.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
As parents, we're in a tug-of-war with modern technology, trying to keep our kids safe while not stifling their digital savvy. That's why Mark and I sat down with Nate Randle, CEO of Gabb Wireless, to shed light on creating a secure digital space for our youngest tech users. Our discussion weaves through the snowy streets of Utah tales right into the fabric of child-safe telecommunications, revealing how Gabb's innovative solutions are crafting a more protected online experience for children. I even toss in my own story of breathing easier as my kids explore the digital world with Gabb's tech as their safeguard.
We've all seen kids glued to screens, but what's the real impact on their development? This episode traverses the underestimated terrain of how technology is shaping our children's social skills, creativity, and capacity for unstructured play. It's a compelling exploration likened to teaching them to swim—with the right support and structured exposure, they can navigate the digital waters safely. Nate gives us his insights on the importance of in-person interactions for kids and how even non-social media tech can affect their development.
Building a brand isn't just about luring in customers; it's about keeping them close and turning them into your most avid promoters. Nate and I chat about the delicate dance between customer acquisition costs and the golden nuggets of lifetime value, all while steering clear of discount-driven pitfalls. We also take a look at how investing in customer relationships lays the groundwork for a successful brand, fostering loyalty and creating a strong word-of-mouth network among parents who value trust and quality. Join us for this enlightening episode that's part guidebook, part roundtable, and entirely essential for marketing in the family-focused tech arena.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the unstoppable marketer podcast. With me, as always, is my co-host, mark Goldhart. Mark, how are you, sir, doing well. How are you? I'm doing really well.
Speaker 2:Oh good, yeah, we're both well, it's well yeah that's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's been really cold these last few days here in Utah, Like windy cold.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just second winter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it Punx-Atonnit? Punx-atonnit Phil? How do you say his name?
Speaker 2:What oh the Groundhog the?
Speaker 1:Groundhog, I don't know, punx-atonnit, I think it's Punx-Atonnit Phil. I used to live out there. Oh good, yeah, punx-atonnit Phil. He said Pennsylvania. He said it was going to be a shorter winter and he did, yeah, and he said we're hitting second winter.
Speaker 2:Well, utah just has a second winter, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We always do.
Speaker 1:You have fake spring, second winter, so you're saying the Groundhog when he makes that statement. It's not for Utah, it's a national average.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's not talking to regions, he just understands the average. Like we're still going to go through our phases.
Speaker 1:Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I don't know how right is he. Do we have any stats on that?
Speaker 1:I think he's right 100% of the time. Is he, yeah, always, I have no idea, I never missed.
Speaker 2:I don't really care about him. Don't care for that Phil guy.
Speaker 1:He's a huge he's an icon. Is he? Yeah, he's an I mean, he's an absolute icon, like the way MJ is Is he a pet? Yeah, he's an icon, he's an icon.
Speaker 2:And do they keep him in a cage?
Speaker 1:and then put him in the hole, or is? It just-. They do keep him in a cage, I believe, and I don't think he actually comes out of a hole. Oh, he doesn't. No, I don't think so. I think they just like, like, unveil him and he's there, and if he sees his shadow, he's I can't remember what it is Seems fake. It's not 100% backed by science. Yeah, I don't like it. So well, dude, I'm excited for our podcast.
Speaker 2:It's a child labor. Child labor, but with an animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure you can make that argument. Yeah, I would. Well, I'm excited for our episode today. Me too. I'm actually way excited because the guest we have today has been somebody who Like I'm wildly passionate about his business.
Speaker 2:And him as an individual.
Speaker 1:And him as an individual. He's just really handsome and I like he's been somebody that's been on my like In the podcast, like when you're interviewing, you put bucket list people and I'm not trying to like brown nose right now, but but Nate Randall has been kind of one of my bucket list people because I'm so passionate about what they're doing and they're growing and scaling like crazy, and so I'm really excited to introduce Nate Randall, ceo of GAB Wireless. Nate has a ton of you know. Right now he's the CEO of GAB Wireless, but he's got an insane um resume around you know, working in marketing for Callaway and Nike. Um, massive businesses here in Utah called Vivint Qualtrics was recently sold for what Like 12 billion or 8 billion I can't remember, but some sort of billion Enough for the guy to buy sports teams. So yeah, a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And now is the CEO of GAB Wireless. Gab Wireless is a-. This is gonna be my take at this. Alright, you might have to hire me.
Speaker 4:I'm ready, I can't wait.
Speaker 1:But GAB Wireless is a um. It's a revolutionary telecommunications company that is revolutionizing how children can interact with media while being able to communicate with friends and family.
Speaker 4:Rack'em, that's a Jim Rome. You know Jim Rome, are you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know Jim Rome, you know Jim Rome. Yeah, absolutely, that's a.
Speaker 4:Rack'em Well done. Yeah, we can-. Rome is burning. Yeah, Rome is burning.
Speaker 1:I listen to that all the time as a kid Like all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, which is?
Speaker 1:weird, Like I was like in like seventh or eighth grade and I'd listen to Rome's burning.
Speaker 2:Like every teenage boy, goes through an ESPN phase. Yeah, loved it.
Speaker 1:Welcome brother.
Speaker 2:Thank you. How are?
Speaker 1:you.
Speaker 4:So good.
Speaker 1:It's good to have you, thank you.
Speaker 4:Good to be here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said so we own three GAB devices in our house, thank you. And our kids like it's so nice, it's so funny. Like I grew up one you know like we want to keep like I understand the dangers of social media big time. You know I see what it does to adults, let alone kids. Number one to like you always understand like the potential.
Speaker 1:You know no parent wants their kid getting caught up in pornography, which is such a like that just happens at a very, very young age. It doesn't matter how old you are. You're like you come in contact with that at some point. And the other thing that I love that like I always feel like a little bit embarrassed when I say this, because I grew up like in the nineties. I grew up like walking on main roads to school as like a seven year old and now like I have a hard time letting my 11 year old walk two blocks in a very safe like we live in a very safe community and so now that I have like a watch, I can be like, okay, yeah, walk to your friends, but like call me the whole time, like be on the phone with me the whole time.
Speaker 1:you know, so we love it for so many reasons, man so it's such a cool product.
Speaker 4:Well good, thank you. Appreciate it? Yeah, we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you give us your spiel.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll give you the short on on gab. That's where you want to go first. When I joined the company or got connected to the company a little over four years ago, I looked at it as safe tech, and safe tech was a cool mission because I'm a dad of four and I thought, okay, well, if I can be a part of something where I can make a difference for kids and families, be a cool part of my career. And now, four years in, it's much more than just safe tech for kids, and I don't say this casually. I think the biggest problem facing our kids today is too much tech too soon and too much screen time. Kids in junior high are spending four to five hours a day on devices. By the time you get to high school, it's eight to nine hours.
Speaker 4:And I have a 17 year old at my house right now 16, almost 17. And it's real. It's a problem, yeah, and what we're doing is giving parents and kids an alternative solution to the dangers and addictions that are out there. So it's the stories I hear every day of the way our kids are getting crushed by these apps that are addicting them for hours and hours, and hours at a time. How does a kid go find a new hobby, friends, normal relationships, any type of success in school when they're spending eight to nine hours a day on these devices? Yeah.
Speaker 4:It's just, it's mind blowing, it's crushing them.
Speaker 1:It's crazy.
Speaker 4:So we're just trying to give an alternative to say, look, we believe in tech, but let's take some safe steps in and let's not have our kids so addicted, by the time they're 12, that the anxiety is through the roof and they can't even function unless they're on the thing. And that's what's happening. We've done studies and you take away a device, a smart phone from a smart phone from a kid, say that three times and within minutes they're like they're stressing out Totally. It's like nicotine or drugs.
Speaker 2:They show withdrawal symptoms Totally.
Speaker 4:It's a problem. So I immediately get passionate about it, because I'm in it every day and it is a our kids are in trouble. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And we're now taking the stand of. If we don't care about our kids and if we don't protect our kids, who will right? We've been talking about this for five years and just now Congress and others are coming around to saying maybe we should ban TikTok. Yeah, we got kids killing themselves because of TikTok. We got kids committing suicide because of TikTok. We got kids tracking down fentanyl because of TikTok. So there's just no reason why anyone under 16 needs to be on these platforms, putting themselves in harm's way, not to the sexual predators that are outstocking our kids For sure. You get into these chat rooms. We've had it locally with some very famous families who have had kids in these chat rooms and somebody comes in and poses as a 13 or 14 year old and there's some 35 year old freak. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And they're stocking kids and meeting them at the backside of Maverick or at a dance studio and kidnapping these kids. So I just got super serious really quick but it is no joke, yeah, and so now, when I see Our leaders saying we're gonna ban this or finding these social media companies, it's about time. Yeah it's about time for sure. Our kids are getting picked off and it's, it is, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2:Well, what's the biggest misconception for parents? Why do parents continue to Give their kids smart devices?
Speaker 4:because you don't want to be that parent. Everyone has one and if you don't give your kid one, you're that parent and if you're that parent, kids don't want to come hang out at your house. Your kids get teased and what we have to say to parents is you can't wait until 13 or 14 or even now 12, when they're getting hit up. You have to have a tech plan much earlier, when they're six, seven, eight. If you're giving them an iPad and they're living on an iPad for four hours a night watching YouTube for kids and that's the babysitter they're going to want to move to the next level of addiction. So you have to be preparing your kids about what's coming up way in advance.
Speaker 4:If you wait till the moment in time, then you become the bully parent of the bad parent or the helicopter parent. But if for years you're saying, look, here's our plan. When you get to eight, you're gonna get a safe watch. When you get to 12, you're gonna get a safe lockdown phone. When you get to 14 or 15, we're gonna add a little bit of flexibility. By the time you're 16 or 17, if we built a trust in our family and you're making good decisions and you're doing well in school and you're socially adapting, we can talk about taking the next step. But at 10 or 11, handing a kid a smartphone, throw in a few parental controls on. Our kids are so much smarter than us. They get around the parental controls like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then parents wake up three months later and their kids end up pick the problem and they're debit. They're shocked. Yeah, how does this happen to my kid? I'm like Because you gave him an adult device through a couple of parental controls on, hoped it would work, didn't check back. Your kid went to a friend's house. The friend knows how to get around the controls right.
Speaker 1:So it is what one thing that, like my wife and I have talked about.
Speaker 1:You know, we're actually super lucky because we moved into an area a few years ago where my oldest is everyone's youngest, yeah and and at first we were kind of like, ah man, we want some like younger, you know.
Speaker 1:But what ended up happening was like I'm kind of like learning from all of these parents who have like 18 year olds and high school students in their house, but they also have, you know, a 10 year old in their house too, and and we're hearing these, these stories like, oh yeah, my first ones had the iPhones and now, like this is what we're doing. So I'm like, oh, this is such a blessing, because now I'm like my kids are the oldest grant, you know, some of the oldest grandkids in both sides of the family, so we don't have Any like nieces or nephews to look to for that kind of stuff, and so one thing that we've done not and not that this is the direction the podcast is gonna go down for the rest of time, but I think it's important just because this topic is so important is like one thing we're doing, so that we don't be those parents is like we're trying to like. My daughter and my son have really core good groups of friends right now, so we're trying to have the conversations with the parents.
Speaker 1:Yes, to be like hey, we don't want to give our kids iPhones. It would be amazing if, like, all of us could commit to each other and be the group of friends that like so that two or three of you don't get the iPhones and they're on tick tock and then now my daughter feels like super left out and she wants it. And now she's misbehaving because we're you know all these things. So those are like that's like one of the many things that we're kind of doing to try to figure that out, to prevent the bullying, to prevent the your kids feeling left out and but that's what it takes is you have to be engaged.
Speaker 4:You can't just sit back and let it happen and then say, well, my kids addicted now and I jumped in. Anytime somebody brings up gab. First couple of years I was in this. I was like yeah, we're safe tech. I'm hearing these stories every day. Yeah, and I'm seeing the devastation these kids are facing and it's too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one thing, one thing I want to. I mean, listen, we'll jump into some of your history too, but because we jumped right into the mission and focus and like how critical has the success of gab been to the fact that you guys have such a blatant Polarizing, why, around every decision you make, how has that impacted the success of gab?
Speaker 4:Significantly, because you have to choose a side, and that's what we're trying to do, is we want to press parents to pick a side. So, and anytime you have to pick a side, you have to process where you stand and If you're neutral and in the middle and you're trying to figure out, that's okay, we'll help educate you. But there are so many parents who say, well, I'm going to give Social media my kid and then I'll just monitor it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't know a parent in the country who has time to monitor their kids Social media.
Speaker 4:Yeah and then there's these masking agents that are out there, these apps or companies that say oh, go ahead and give your kids social media and we'll just monitor over the top of it. Well, that's a false play, because those apps tiktok, snapchat, instagram the people billing those apps know exactly what the monitoring companies are trying to do, so they make it impossible to monitor. You can't monitor things like Instagram messages. You can't. You can't monitor where the algorithm is taking content. Sure.
Speaker 4:So you get these false notifications from these Monitoring companies that tell a parent hey, your kids looking at something. We're kids aren't even looking at it for a long time. Yeah, your kids already been getting those messages. So there's a lot of masking agents out there that give parents this false hope that they actually know what's going on and they have no clue.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Was that the biggest rebuttal from parents. It's like I don't understand what the rebuttal is Like. If you're picking a side, like I understand, there's people picking a side, but what do you hear from parents that say, well, actually, no, I think they should have an iPhone.
Speaker 4:It's the way kids talk, you know, if it's just the pressure?
Speaker 2:Is it just the social pressure from their kids and the parents.
Speaker 1:I think it. I think there's social pressure for parents to have. The parents want to be on it.
Speaker 4:And a lot of parents are so active in it that it's counterintuitive to think that If I want to be active in it then I can't tell me kid, they can't be active in it, but the biggest one from parents is well, that's way our kids talk these days.
Speaker 4:Our kids talk through all these social media platforms. Okay, cool, then set up opportunities for your kid to talk outside of those social platforms, because justifying and settling on that's the way kids talk today is the problem. There are kids high school kids that are sitting home on Friday nights. I've seen it and I say what are you doing tonight? I'm hanging out with my friends. What do you mean? You're hanging out with your friends. You're home on the couch? Oh yeah, but we're. That's not hanging out. That's being isolated and secluded and thinking that you're having a relationship with people through some digital connection, and it's not teaching you all the social skills you need to be successful in life Eye contact, interaction, conversation, back and forth. And then they get in public. Kids aren't asking each other on dates anymore. They don't even know how to ask to a dance.
Speaker 2:Well, going back to even younger in the developmental cycle of kids, I think it's interesting to think about how technology is taking away free play too. Yeah, so there's the really dark side of, I think, the teenager phase. There's a lot of darkness to it with tech because of porn and cyber bullying. But when you get even younger, in this five to 10 range, right by giving a kid a piece of technology, they never learn how to have free play and an imagination. And free play is usually how they develop a lot of those social skills at a young age. That's how you play, that's how you interact, that's how you communicate, that's how you fall down. Have you guys seen any evidence or studies around how technology is hindering that developmental cycle early on?
Speaker 4:So we just did a big study through a group called LEK and you should see the data. I mean, kids aren't creativity. Kids are asking parents for help on basic creativity. Now they have a project in school that's some type of art or craft and they can't even sit down in the kitchen counter and creatively think what that might look like. They have to. I gotta look on YouTube where I gotta ask somebody. I can't take the first step into a creative thought without a screen telling me what that first thought should be. I need validation or a direction of where to go with this creative project, because I can't formulate those thoughts to get me to that project. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's wild.
Speaker 4:It's sad and it's draining our kids of everything that's good about being a kid.
Speaker 1:Even like it's not just social media and the computer, it's also video games. For example, we let our kids play the Switch right and my son loves, and he's not even playing the games that are wildly addicting games. He's playing NBA 2K, which is just like these one off free games. They're not like I'm playing the championship and so I have to be playing all the time and even him sometimes, if he doesn't have friends that can hang out and it's five o'clock or six o'clock and it's maybe too late to call friends or whatever, he'll just be like dad, I'm so bored, what should I do? And I'm like dude. Welcome to my childhood.
Speaker 4:Yeah, welcome to it.
Speaker 1:Like shoot some hoops, jump on the tramp, play in the snow. I right now can think of 10, 15 different things that you're sibling. Yeah, go pick a fight with your sister. I don't know, you know, but it's funny. So it's not just phones and it's not just social media and it's not just YouTube, but it's really any piece of technology.
Speaker 2:I think and I just read a study that free play, right in that creativity, promotes emotional stability later in life. So the kids who have more free play early are able to have more emotional resilience later, probably because you have to be comfortable with the unknown.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you have to be able to go with the flow.
Speaker 2:It's just like oh, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I have to figure it out, yeah exactly, I went super deep fast.
Speaker 4:No, no, I like it.
Speaker 1:I know you wanna go some other places, let's jump into some marketing stuff and I kinda jumped into the why side of things. Right, we've said this on the last few episodes, like the greatest brands out there have an enemy, like they identify an enemy, your enemy is technology, or maybe I shouldn't say technology.
Speaker 4:Well, no, you're headed in the right direction. We believe in tech and we believe in technology. It's just too much, too soon. It can't be untethered, it can't be all consuming. You don't push a kid in the deep end of the swimming pool. It's no swimming lesson. Yeah, I use this analogy all the time. How many kids do you have?
Speaker 2:Three.
Speaker 4:So have they gone through swim lessons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, one and a half.
Speaker 4:Okay, so the one and a half that have the one has, one is starting you have a plan.
Speaker 4:Well, it's summer, we gotta get little Bobby or Jessica swim lessons. You know who you're going through. You've gotten feedback on who that instructor is. One of the parents goes to the swim lessons. You sit on the sideline, you're watching. Even though there's an instructor there, you're still making sure there's no drowning, there's everything going okay. And then when you actually go to the public pool where you're swimming pool after the swim lessons, you still have all these rules you gotta have floaties on, you gotta have a life jacket you gotta have. You can't be in the deep end, near the deep end without mommy. But then we give our kids tech and we literally push them in the deep end and we walk away and we come back three months later and when they're at the bottom of the tech swimming pool we're like, shoot, they're drowning. How did that happen? So it it just.
Speaker 2:It takes like any tool I remember thinking about it like guns. Guns is it's a good comparison because guns are so much more immediately dangerous, so people think about them in an immediate way. Right, a gun is a tool in its true sense. Yes, it's a tool that's also used as a weapon, but it's a tool that's been used for hunting and whatever right, and also for violence. But you don't just hand a kid a gun. Who would ever just hand their get a gun?
Speaker 2:No one would right because, you know the dangers that are there, but I think what happens is that's an obvious Danger for parents. But a phone is not an obvious danger because they think of it as fun or whatever they might. Oh, what's it? We can communicate, or it's fun, or they can learn things, yeah, but they don't realize how addictive it is. It's like handing your kid a drug and you know those little brains can't handle the dopamine hits that they get off of those and then it's just because of an addiction.
Speaker 4:I don't know if you saw it with a surgeon general just said a couple months ago, the wait, the what said in general surgeon general.
Speaker 2:Oh, and he came out.
Speaker 4:He's the general of sir he's the general of surgeons, the surgeon general.
Speaker 1:I heard. I heard the surgeon general is what I heard when you said that. That's why.
Speaker 4:I asked, he is the surgeon general. He's the general of the surgeons, which makes him the surgeon general. They came out with a study and said that the problem with social media today Is a higher risk for your kids. And if you sat at the kitchen table and gave him a cigarette, wild, yeah, wild better off to give your kid a cigarette Than to give them social media with the dangers and addictions that are currently out there.
Speaker 1:Well, it's crazy, it's still be cool, I guess. If you give him a cigarette right, it look cool. Yeah, I mean you could go to that and social media.
Speaker 4:And then you look, I'm not advocating for smoking. Put some Ray Bams on, look cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean kind of look cooler than looking at a phone, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So how are you guys using? So listen, like there, there's there, there are this, there's this. This debate between Like I shouldn't even say this debate. There's a discussion within marketing between like, features and benefits. Right, and a lot of the Benefits we're talking about right now have been the wise you guys have discovered. How are you guys utilizing these things that you're learning? You know the information from the surgeon general, the, the data, or the Data you just pulled from that company. Like what are you guys? How are you guys using that to educate and market to your audience right now?
Speaker 4:Storytelling is the Pure as part of the marketing craft. Right, I mean, you can. You can feature and benefit people to death, or you can go to their pain points and help them understand why your Solution helps them overcome those pain points, and that's where we spend more of our time. Okay, we educate parents. We've got a blog on our our website, and it now has a library of everything you need to know about anything related to tech, social media, anything going on in that space, yeah and what we tell parents is if you want to know about the features and benefits, if you want to know about the deeper challenges, go there and learn about it.
Speaker 4:Sure, but when we're in our marketing messages or when we're out at events, we're talking about Real scenarios of what's happening with kids, so that parents can identify and say that just happened in my home.
Speaker 4:Yeah or that just happened to our neighbor's kid, yeah. And when you can connect on the emotions of weight red alert that that's happening to me, that's happening in my home. It gets parents to act quicker than if you say and we have this, and we have that and Right right. It's we spend the majority of our time on. If it hasn't happened to you, it will. If you give it to them, it's not if it's when yeah and Just helping parents to understand that you are not immune from what's happening out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what have been some of your best medians to tell those stories and to connect with your customers?
Speaker 4:Best has been, well, the the greatest of all has been word of mouth. For us, nice. So one of the smartest things that our marketing team did out of the gate is we went and found about a hundred moms. We had some dads in there too, but a hundred moms that were impactful in their community and not necessarily Social media influencers, although we've had those, sure but just a just a little piece of Data here is women Traditionally, generally speaking, are much better at word of mouth than men.
Speaker 1:Oh, so much, and they oftentimes make the decisions within the home to yes, right.
Speaker 2:So when he's saying moms and like there's a few dads, it's like moms are just better at.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sharing that, yes, yeah and they're in so many more group settings. Yeah, they have the banco groups and this, the soccer trips and the dance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're sitting at a dance recital for dance practice for an hour, because they can't go back and forth. Right or in this group of Facebook women, whereas, like when I drop my kids off at dance, like I'd much rather drop them off Drive 20 minutes back. Yes, hang out for 20 minutes, drive 20. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:My wife is in. There's a dance competition this weekend. She's up in in Layton, caseville, uh-huh and same way. I'm gonna like all this drive back and forth yeah, just exactly what I'm doing but you stand up there for two days totally so. It's this convention of mom sitting at the courtyard Marriott and then a chap, yeah, talking about all this stuff.
Speaker 4:So we went, found a hundred moms and Educated them on our product, gave it to him for free, free service. And then just said in your casual conversations, if you're having a positive experience with gab, talk about it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it was amazing how it took off. When did you guys do that? Almost four years ago now, okay, so out of the gate, 80% of our business was in Utah, 20% was out Okay, flipped 20% in Utah, 80% out wild. And that's happened because we strategically went through the country and found a mom in the Bronx and found a mom in Alabama, and found a mom in Texas and in Wisconsin and and when you do that, and then they're in their circles and they're sharing their, their resources and their referral codes and things. It is crazy how, if you have something that's making an impact and improving the peace of mind for parents, they proactively talk about it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so yeah, we've spent on all the social media platforms. We've done events. You know we do all of our SEO targeting and and paid ads and everything but investing in moms for word of mouth has been the leading way that gab has grown.
Speaker 1:This podcast episode is brought to you by bestie. Bestie is the first ever AI powered post purchase survey platform. Bestie is revolutionizing the way you understand your customers. Are you uncertain about what motivates your customers to choose your products, unsure how customers are discovering your brand or which marketing channels are most effective in driving sales to your website? Or do you know how long it takes your customers to make a purchase decision? Look no further, because bestie is the ultimate solution for you. With besties cutting-edge AI feature, you can effortlessly create comprehensive surveys in just a matter of seconds without the need for any of your valuable time. And that is not all. Besties automated insights will regularly provide you with Actionable information, week over week, giving you the tools to drive your business forward. Now, with the holiday season in Full swing, there is no better time to start gathering valuable customer data. Bestie is offering an exclusive 30% discount For q4, alongside a 14-day free trial. Do not miss out on this opportunity to supercharge your business and truly get to know your customers. As Ecommerce owners and agency owners ourselves, we use bestie every single day to help us make better decisions on how we communicate, acquire and grow our customers. Visit bestie AI or check out apps, dot Shopify dot com. Forward. Slash bestie today to secure your q4 pricing. Don't wait start making data driven decisions with bestie today.
Speaker 1:Have you heard the tipping point before? No, malcolm Gladwell yeah, I love the tip. You probably know where I'm going with this, right like so To those for those of you who've read it and can't remember or haven't read it, the tipping point is a book by Malcolm Gladwell and there is, in my opinion, it's like. I'm not a huge book reader because I just like it when people just get out and work rather than read books and think but this one is like I think it was written in two, 2002 or something like that, or published to something. Do you know? I feel like you would know this. Wow, abby could figure it out for us when.
Speaker 2:Now, when the tipping point was if I was to guess it probably be when I was in high school. Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure one of this, it's one of his.
Speaker 1:Not first books, but some something before I was in college.
Speaker 2:It's 20 plus years old, yeah right, but it's like still tried and true today, you know and there's this.
Speaker 1:He gives us example that's very similar to what Nate said here, which is there was a company that was called hush puppies yeah right, you remember this. There, like these shoes that are actually now. If, like they were to be popular today, like it, they would crush it today. But they were massive, like in the 80s I think it was, and they were one of the biggest companies and then they were pretty much a nobody, like an absolute Nobody. But then there was this influential group of people I think it was in the Bronx or something like that that started wearing them and the company went from like a Million dollars in annual revenue to like 30 million dollars in a year because the right people just started wearing them.
Speaker 1:You know, which is where the influencer model Kind of came from, I think. But the but the problem is, like, what Nate is saying is a little bit different. What Nate and the tipping point are saying is different than what we deem as influencer marketing, which is you have a channel of distribution socially, so talk about it and it Hopefully we blow up right and that can work sometimes. But there's something so different From like a passionate person who's just talking about those things in their circles versus to people who have never met them digitally online, and it's like I'm sure that was a lot of work to discover that and to identify who those moms were.
Speaker 4:It was but once you, when you invest the time and find the right people, initially those people are coming back to you saying, hey, I've got a friend who would love to Be a part of gab, and being a part of gab is we send him or her a free watch, give him a little bit of service, free service, and then it just amplifies totally. So we to your point earlier. We now have neighborhoods With parents who have kids between six and ten and there's 15 watches in the neighborhood gab watches and they let the kids roam the neighborhood and have the free play. And then they let the kids roam the neighborhood and have the free play Because no one has home phones and parents are worried that if I let my kid go play two blocks Down the road, that if they need me they won't be able to get in touch with me. Yeah, when everyone's cruising the hood, yeah, the gab watch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's a one-touch. Hey mom, I'm down at so-and-so's house, can you come pick me up? And so we have neighborhoods now telling us we've got a free flowing neighborhood, open neighborhood, because we trust that our kids have a one-touch way to get into it. What was the you said? You said that pick took off massively in four years ago.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us a little bit about, like, when you say massively, can you give us some maybe Percentage growth numbers you don't necessarily have to share, like, oh, we were making this much and then went to this much, but how much did you guys grow when you guys, when that kind of started taking off, was that like the pivotal point of growth for you guys?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we Our first year we did three million in annual recurring revenue. Okay, we said we were going to have a free flowing neighborhood. We started this mom word of mouth and In four years we're tracking to a hundred million in annual recurring revenue wild. There's other things we've done, but the community of we believe in safe tech and we want to rally our friends and neighborhoods to not fall into the dangers and addictions is a real thing. And when that goes? Here's an example. And I messed these names up. I Um, jessica love Hewitt Is that her name? Yeah, I mess her up with Sarah Jessica Parker.
Speaker 1:Jessica love. He was my childhood crush. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well and you're both wrong. It's Jennifer, I think. Oh yeah, Jennifer Love it. Did I say Jessica? You did say Jessica See.
Speaker 4:I told you, Jennifer, I am so Can't hardly wait. Jennifer love Hewitt. Yeah.
Speaker 4:She bought two gab watches off gabcom. We had no clue. She gets them, puts men to play with her kids. They have them for a couple of months and she goes on her Instagram and says I just bought the most incredible product for my kids two of them. They're gab watches and they're just. Then she pauses and goes amazing. And when I saw it I was like are we when we decide to pay her? Yeah, we reached out to her and she said no, I just I needed a safe connection for my kids. Yeah, then I heard about you and I bought two of them and I'm a huge fan. So if you start at the right way and it grows and then you get to celebrities we've got NFL and NBA and MLB guys that are constantly on the road, yeah, and they love gab because when they're at the hotel or traveling, their kids are hitting them up on the gap watch and I have these a list celebrity athletes reaching out to me saying I love your gab watch.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I get tax and voicemails from you for my kid. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So yeah, it's word of mouth has been huge. Do you know? Do you have any idea? I don't know if you guys track this Mark and I use some tools to track this kind of stuff but how big is your word of mouth? Do you know? Percentage of like revenue, not like. Do you have any idea from like, a guesstimation or an estimation perspective of like? Oh yeah, 30% of our customers say that it's word of mouth. Right now it's about 30%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the magic number, what we've learned, like, if you're at 30%, you kind of well. One, it means you have product market fit for sure and two, you almost have this insurance policy around. How much money you start spending and marketing, yeah Right, and not to say that you just start frivolously, frivolously spend without understanding, but you just understand at that point, the more money I spend, the more money I'm going to make, not only because people are going to buy from the marketing spend, but those people are going to go tell three or four people and it's going to double my return on investment or triple or whatever you discover that number to be so that's we talk about cackleot or cost to acquire a customer, and we have a set number in our financials and when you go, have it happen, word of mouth, and you're essentially getting free, free acquisition.
Speaker 4:You paid for the cack once. Yeah. To acquire a mom in a neighborhood and she falls in love with your brand and then, when she shares it five, six, seven, 10, 12 times and they go purchase off that mom's word of mouth yeah, and you're not paying the cat to acquire that customer. Yeah. It's a that is a home run scenario.
Speaker 1:It's a new business, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can reverse engineer that too, right? And that's how you justify the spend of acquiring somebody. Yeah. Because I think a lot of companies get caught up with well, it's free marketing. Right. But the reality is is it wasn't free marketing, because you guys had to do all the research and time and investment to place those phones strategically yeah, in the right pockets to get that initial word of mouth growth.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so it wasn't necessarily free. It's not free and the return isn't as as immediate as you would think. It takes time, yeah.
Speaker 2:But that organic foothold helps. You then say, okay, now I can acquire customers. And I know that if I can acquire 10 customers, four of them are going to be net promoters and that's going to equate to five referrals each, or whatever the number might be for your company? Yes, and then you can do not just a lifetime value, but you can also do a net promoter value Right, and that's how you can start justifying the growth spend of acquiring. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And just for those listening right, that's net promoter score. That's the way you can measure this. And then also your, if you're running surveys or talking to people, how many people say they were referred by a friend and family? Yeah. So those two metrics are going to help you understand how to reverse engineer into if it's justifiable for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure. The other thing that's really cool is like, not only do you have this like referral network of people, but you also sell a recurring revenue service too, which is really nice. So how are you guys like? There's a lot of people who look at CAC, and that's it Right, and I think CAC is a super important metric to look at, for sure. But CAC doesn't often account for how often those people come back and maybe buy a second watch or upgrade from a watch to a phone. But it's also counting that 15, 20 extra dollars a month per person who gets put on a service. Yeah, how are you guys? Are you guys accounting for that when you justify your marketing spend?
Speaker 4:Yeah, 100%. So CAC doesn't really matter if you don't know what the lifetime value of the customers.
Speaker 4:Totally, I mean if you, if you have a CAC that you fall in love with and say, oh, our CAC is under 100 bucks and go win that customer for $100, but they stay with you for three months in bill and you haven't got the return on that CAC. Yeah, cac's an absolute waste, totally. So we do CAC to LTV ratios Nice and we know exactly what the lifetime value of our customer is and we spend a ton of time on retention and upgrade. Yeah, so once we bring a customer into a watch, as an example, we know the LTV of that kid is two years max probably. Okay, we've been selling watches for almost three years and we've sold several hundred thousand of them and we know what the retention of that customer is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a kid on average is on our watch two years, okay. Well, if you're not trying to retain, with six months left educating the parent on what the next step is, they're going to get to that two year life cycle and they're out. Yep, and so the CAC to acquire that customer. You got the return on it, but it was a like a two year lockdown LTV. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, we want to pay for a watch customer once Yep, for us around a hundred bucks, yep. And then we want to have him in a watch for two years. We want to be educating, retaining and advancing to our next product, which is our lockdown phone Yep, we're not paying them. We're not paying for that CAC again Yep, they buy a more expensive device and the subscription, the monthly subscription, goes up because of the data plan on the phone. Yep, if we can keep a customer for two years on a watch, two or three years on a lockdown, and then we're going to have to pay for that. And then we're going to have to pay for that. And then we're going to have to pay for the next product, which is our new CAC Yep, and then we're going to have to pay for that.
Speaker 4:Now we're going to pay for that, and then we're going to have to pay for the next product, which is our new CAC. Yeah, and then we're going to have to pay for the next product which is our new CAC, Yep, current churn and they can keep current and advance them through a life cycle or a lifetime value. That's how you substantially grow business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is also something that some listeners might be thinking you're a subscription model, but it also works for just regular product businesses. Right, you don't have to have a subscription? No, you have to be thinking now and really that's going to be the way to survive and thrive over the next 10 years. Yep Is creating that life cycle for a customer where they come into you and then you nurture that customer, you get them part of your band and tribe and then you can upsell and resell to them and cross sell to them across time, not just that one time.
Speaker 2:And a cat yes, cat is also kind of a drug, because if you get too caught up in cat, you're always going to be chasing a lower cat, which then leads to discounts, which then leads to things that just kind of devalue your brand over time. Yeah, and like you said, if you're just always chasing first timers, all of a sudden you're left with this situation where you're going to be going oh crap, cpms have gone up over time with Facebook. You know everything's getting harder and I only have a returning customer rate of 20%. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep Like how do you survive?
Speaker 4:Yeah, what we've learned is, if you bring a customer in, for every year they're with you, they become a less expensive customer, they become more educated on your product, they become more of a word of mouth, they're adding value to your community and they're costing you less to serve Yep Because they get it. They've now downloaded the app. They've had multiple, I mean it's you right. You kind of know the flow.
Speaker 1:So I don't have a lot of customer service questions. Yeah, you're not calling in.
Speaker 4:Every time something happens, you just kind of figure it out yeah, and so when you've paid from once and you put some money into retaining them, the value of that customer actually grows over the lifetime with them because you're spending less on them and then you're giving them optionality to be able to advance up through so many of the other products. It's a we have out of the gate. I think is a new brand.
Speaker 4:Especially with the pressure of investors, you're always wanting to add new, new, new, like look how many new customers, new lines or new this or that's important, but if that's the the majority of your focus, you're losing sight of who you already have, and if you let them go out the back door, it's much less expensive to take care of a current customer, totally. But it is to go find a new one.
Speaker 1:The other thing. That's way cool and I think we've kind of alluded to this. But I want to, like, I want to tie it together with maybe some data. But Mark and I Mark and I own a survey company actually and we like there's a massive correlation between high word-of-mouth brands and returning customers, you know. And so somebody's like well, how do I get more word-of-mouth? Right, you gotta ask well, are these people willing to come back to you?
Speaker 1:Because if you're building a product or service that people are willing to continue to pay for whether it be a subscription service of some sort or if it's clothing, right, like I bought a pair of pants and so I love the pants, and now I gotta get the t-shirt. I love the t-shirt, now I gotta buy the hoodie, love the hoodie, now I gotta buy the sweatpants right, that person is 10 times more likely to now be a word of mouth customer. So if you can get your return I'll have to go back and look at it, but I think if you can get your returning customer rate above a 40%, then your word of mouth people who say I heard about you through friend or family member is going to be above a 20%.
Speaker 4:This is your brand, right? I mean you've been a part of this Asher this jacket. I don't know how many I've sold, but I wish I was getting a cut Because when I wear it and people say where did you get it? And I tell them Park City, utah brand. I have word of mouth for this brand, this brand and a few others that I wear. I wish I could track how much product I've helped sell because it's word of mouth is.
Speaker 4:I know it's the simplest old school marketing idea but if you can get a customer to proactively talk about you, for nothing I am. I finally reached out? Tell me yeah. Matt, finally you're selling. Look man, I'm an anthem for you and I don't even know you, so we should probably connect, because I am nonstop talking about your brand.
Speaker 1:He's really, really good at product development, and that's where everything we're talking about returning customers, word of mouth, like it all starts with a good product. It all starts with either solving a why or solving a why people think they have, and I say those are two different things. Right, you have one problem here, which is, like I look at your brand as a problem solution. Right, okay, I got a problem. I'm worried about what's happening with my kids. Here's my solution to protect my kids.
Speaker 1:Let's take, because not everybody is like that, just so I can relate to everybody in the audience. Right, like, let's take clothing. This is not a problem solution. Brand style and fashion is not problem solution. But there's a problem people think they have, which is I want to look a certain way, I want to feel a certain way, which it's not life or death, but if you can create that product that makes them feel like, oh man, I woke up and I feel good, I look good, then you can get that person to come back, you can get that person to talk about you. So how awesome.
Speaker 2:There's also the dark side of word of mouth.
Speaker 1:Yes, right, these people are terrible.
Speaker 2:This sucks, that's right, you have detractors too right. So going back I mean we learned that couple podcasts back is if you don't take care of your customers once they're in the door, then you are running more of a risk of detractors in the longer run. Totally so people aren't excited about your brand and people will just start saying oh, I got it on sale. All right, that was fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause nothing's worse than forgetting about the customer who gave you a chance. So, like you thought a lot about them and then you've now said, okay, I will now let our customer, I don't have to worry about them. Like, if you don't solve a customer's need, yes, they're going to be bad, they might complain about it, but then it'll be done one time. But if you solve a customer's need and then turn your back on that customer like that's a death sentence.
Speaker 4:Well, I can talk about the other side of it, cause we just went through it. We were humming along for almost four years, we had some bumps, but we just went through a massive growing pain this last holiday. We had projected how much we thought we were going to sell. Good problem to have we blew through that projection. The challenge is our product is an immediate activation. So on December 25th, when hundreds of thousands of kids opened up a GAV device, we weren't open on Christmas, and so December 26th was game time and we had done all of our testing QA, back end support and when hundreds of thousands of devices come online at the same time, problems were bound to.
Speaker 4:We've never done it that level before and things started breaking that had never broken before, that we had no heads up and our customer service lines got overwhelmed and we had some product bugs we had to work through and I had to make a public apology.
Speaker 4:No, I had to.
Speaker 4:I wanted to make a public apology, but there was a two week stretch where we fell short, for our customers Didn't want to, but it happened, and I think I learned more through that two or three week stretch than I had in the previous you know, several months because, as the face of the brand, I had to go out publicly and say, hey, we really appreciate the support during the holidays, thank you for caring about our brand and our product and believing in safe tech.
Speaker 4:But you've tried to get in touch with us over the last two weeks and we've fallen short. You deserve better. We're sorry, we'll be better and we've implemented things to get better. But part of that dark side is there's only two routes really run and hide and hope it gets better, or take it face on and own it. And we owned it and, although I'm sure we lost some customers saying, ah, it's not worth my time, I've had so many people reach out and say, because you publicly owned it and addressed it and just did what you could to take care of it. It makes me believe in the brand even more.
Speaker 4:So even the dark moments, if you manage that's not a me thing, I'm not saying I managed it right, but our team in agreeance with me, we're saying look, we just gotta own it. If we're a brand for families, we can't then turn our back on families when we've let them down. We gotta go apologize, For sure.
Speaker 2:Customers are more forgiving than people realize.
Speaker 1:Oh, so forgiving, Especially when you're transparent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you just own stuff as a brand and a company, people will forgive you. If it's head on, it's the longer you let it fester that they get fed up.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like a kid right, like if my kid hides something from me, like I get so mad. But if my daughter's like dad, I lied or something, I'm like, oh my you're not in trouble, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 4:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for then telling me the truth.
Speaker 4:You're the cutest liar out there.
Speaker 1:Well, dude, listen, this has been awesome. I know we're kind of coming up on our time here. I have one last question for you. Just I like just to ask this question to everybody Like, what is one massive mistake you're seeing brands make today?
Speaker 4:To me too, and by me too. I think there's so much copying going on and if you're copying and you don't build a moat and you don't know what you stand for when you do hit these challenges or growing pains, it's really hard to fight through it. I see a lot of brands come out of the gate with pounding the chest and they're the next big thing and then they fade super fast because they lose their identity and our identity and we've obsessed. It is so clear that we are taking on the giants of tech and they're pushing down on us and we feel like we are pushing uphill. But it has created this internal rally cry of we will not back down. I will take on Apple every day and go green bubble, blue bubble until that changes and it may never change, but I'm gonna be part of the anthem to make it happen.
Speaker 4:And taking a stand like that as a brand is really important, because when you go through the hard times, that's when you gotta say that's not what we stand for. This is what we stand for and because we stand, we're gonna fight through this and a lot of brands that are me too and don't build their character. They just don't last, they fade fast, Dude.
Speaker 1:Do you remember who said that same thing when I asked that question? Does that response sound similar? I wanna make the correlation because you guys are a massive company and this guy also owns a massive company, so I think it's super important that two huge businesses have said this. But you remember when we interviewed Nick Greer? Do you know Nick Greer? Yeah really From Bilt.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He said the same thing, I asked the same question. He even said it like me too, like stop copying everything, yeah, and obviously they were wildly successful and had been killing it. So I said the same thing with you. So thank you so much, dude.
Speaker 4:I really appreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 1:Where can people find GAB?
Speaker 4:GABcom, g-a-b-b. It's the best place. And then we're out in the community trying to do as much good as we can. We just started a nonprofit called GAB for Good. We're giving away a lot of product to single parent families and kids going through cancer treatment, so there'll be a way soon for people in the community to give to that opportunity. Awesome, yeah, we're GABcom.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And what about you, nate? He wouldn't say this, but he is a massive LinkedIn influencer, just based off of the things he talks about.
Speaker 4:That term makes me so cringy. It is a little cringe, but creator he is a massive LinkedIn enthusiast. I use it. I didn't know that this would happen, but to have a platform where I can help single parents find jobs and where I can be a voice for protecting our kids has been a place that I never anticipated. Using LinkedIn for that, but we've helped hundreds of moms get jobs so cool. We've taken care of a bunch of kids and underprivileged families that needed a safe way to stay connected and it's been really cool.
Speaker 4:Incredible Nate Randall Well thanks bro, really appreciate it, appreciate it.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you guys next Tuesday. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe to the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.