Season 1 – Episode 4 – Jack Thomas
In this video Adam DeGraide interview the CEO Jack Thomas of the exciting new start up GETMULCH.com. Jack shares his stories of the challenges of raising money, staying on plan and the inevitable unknowns that happen when you start your own technology business. Get mulch is a nationwide internet based companies that helps connect mulch providers with consumers, making the process easy and convenient to order and get mulch installed. Find them online here https://getmulch.com/.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today’s episode of David Versus Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors. But when. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business Software. A free time Inc 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.
Adam DeGraide (00:31):
Hey everyone. Welcome back. It’s Adam DeGraide with David Versus Goliath Podcast. It is so awesome to have you. So grateful to be here. By the way visit us online at davidvsgoliath.com. I’m sorry. It’s actually davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. That’s davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. You can subscribe to receive emails from us and get updated when new episodes come out. Plus you can also apply to be interviewed on the David versus Goliath Podcast. I’d love to hear your story.
Adam DeGraide (01:07):
Last week we talked with Ryan MacEachron from ISU, ARMAC, the insurance agency insurance agency out of the high Desert. Great interview. I highly recommend you check it out. And today we have a tech startup extraordinary. A company called GetMulch.com. That’s right. GetMulch.com. You can kind of imagine what it’s about. But I have Jack Thomas, the CEO and founder of GetMulch with me today. Jack, give them all a thumbs up. Man, it is so great to have you on the show. We are so grateful that you took the time. And I think a lot of our listeners who are aspiring entrepreneurs, maybe they haven’t started a company or they have started a company. What does it take? The guts it takes, the money it takes, the strategy it takes to actually start your own business and get it funded. So I’m really excited to have you today. So Jack, welcome to David Versus Goliath.
Jack Thomas (02:01):
Thank you for having me, Adam. Appreciate it.
Adam DeGraide (02:03):
It is our pleasure and honor. It is not every day that people get to hear from a young tech startup. Somebody that had a great idea and decided, you know what, I’m not just going to think it I’m going to go do it. And that’s what you’re doing@ at GetMulch.com. So our listeners and viewers can know a little bit about it Jack, tell us the problem you’re trying to solve for and why GetMulch is that solution?
Jack Thomas (02:32):
Yeah. So the biggest problem is within an industry like mulch. It’s something that I think most of us tend to forget about, not think about as much as I now do with the company, because we see it all around us all the time. But the ability and the process in getting it, whether you’re somebody who wants it installed or whether you just want it delivered so that you can do it yourself, it’s way more complicated than it needs to be. And typically it’s way expensive than it needs to be. And so the problem that we’ve identified is really in the breakdown in communication more than anything, and actually as an industry listening to what the customer needs and how they need it.
Adam DeGraide (03:14):
Yeah, that’s awesome. So basically the concept behind it was you want to make it easier for the consumers of mulch, the providers of mulch to connect with each other digitally so they can order right from the comfort of their phone, their tablet, their laptop?
Jack Thomas (03:32):
Exactly, exactly. We are a one-stop shop to get mulch installed or delivered nationwide. And we’ve partnered with suppliers and installers and other multi providers throughout the country to make that more easy. They’re easy on the customer at the end of the day, so that they can call us whether you have a hundred different properties that need mulch or whether you are a homeowner that just needs a few yards for your garden space. We have the people to get it to you more efficiently and at a better price in most cases on a day-to-day basis.
Adam DeGraide (04:04):
That’s great. Well, I’m going to need mulch pretty soon. I’m sure you know that. I think I’ve told you that a couple of times. I just have to go on there and put in how much I need and let GetMulch channel the rest, but it’s so great.
Adam DeGraide (04:17):
Last couple of weeks I interviewed a guy that has an event company. He started it up from the ground up and is built at handles big events for major brands. I spoke with Ryan MacEachron at ISU ARMAC last week is a large insurance agency in the Desert of California with a lot of employees. And what I love about having you on the show right now is that you’re very much a startup. Still in the startup mode of A, you had to raise money. B, you always have to raise money as you continue to scaling [inaudible 00:04:50]. You had to build a software. You had to do all of these things. But I think going back to the genesis of one of the first things that you wanted to do for the company, GetMulch, part of it had to do with your brand and the idea. The GetMulch logo that we’re seeing behind you there right now. What was your process? Did you create that? Did you work with some other people to create that?
Jack Thomas (05:12):
Yeah. We worked with another agency, a local agency here that we had a relationship with. And we went through the typical process on a limited budget. As you said, we did a friends and family round to get ourselves enough to build out our platform to test the market. And part of that was investment was to appropriately walk through a DNA process as to who we are as a company, who our customers are, what is the message that we need to communicate with them and then finalize that with the branding and with the logo. And the other day, I mean, mulch is a very simple product. You don’t have to spend too much time thinking about it. The biggest problem with mulch is not everyone knows what is the best type or how much they actually need and what not. So as far as the branding goes and whatnot, we wanted that to be simple as well just to feel comfortable and easy and self-explanatory because people-
Adam DeGraide (06:07):
People don’t wake up in the morning and say, I’m thinking about mulch.
Jack Thomas (06:10):
No.
Adam DeGraide (06:11):
I think you might be one of the only people in America that dreams about mulch.
Jack Thomas (06:15):
Yeah. We have a mutual friend that would be one of the few people I’ve ever talked to that legitimately thinks about mulch regularly. And hopefully he’ll be on an episode with you one day and he can talk about that.
Adam DeGraide (06:27):
That’s awesome man. It’s fascinating because if you don’t really realize this, when you’re starting your own business it consumes you. It really does because it all falls in hinges on you. I mean, you’re the CEO, you’re the founder. I know you have partners and people you work with, but at the end of the day, man, the responsibility of this thing, whether it’s successful or not falls on you.
Adam DeGraide (06:50):
So you have built a website, you built the brand, you kept it simple. I think it’s very easily identifiable. You did a family and friends round, and then you had to go to the next step, which is look for some investors.
Adam DeGraide (07:01):
Tell people that are in that process right now that they don’t have a lot of money. They may be only in the germination phase of the idea. They’re thinking about, like, I need to get this from an idea onto a piece of paper onto an actual proposal. Tell a little bit about that process for the listeners.
Jack Thomas (07:18):
Yeah. I think one thing most people who go down this path don’t realize is the number of meetings you need to have for one and the different perspectives you’re going to have with every new investor that you communicate with. Some people may have an immediate connection that’s directly in line with what you believe is best for where the company goes and many won’t. And it’s really more relevant to what they’ve invested in, in the past or who they have relationships with currently that is relevant to their ability to validate why you need the money and what problems you’re trying to solve. And so
Adam DeGraide (07:57):
It’s not for the faint of heart by the way. It’s not for the faint of heart to go ask somebody for money.
Jack Thomas (08:02):
Yeah. I’m not the most confident person when it comes to talking about what I do. Because as we said, I mean raising money for the first time, you’re still learning so much about what the customer needs. And there’s a lot of holes that have not been filled yet. And so there are times in the back of your head where you believe you know exactly what the customer is telling you. But you need the money to go prove that so you have to be able to articulate the vision well enough and tell the story well enough to actually make it believable to the point that you earn their trust, you get that money and then you go validate it.
Jack Thomas (08:44):
As we’ve learned with the initial round, sometimes you got to make major tweaks to how you use that money that you didn’t expect. But if you continue to move forward and if you continue to push things forward and you do it on a budget, you learn enough of the things that make each step of the way easier. So yeah, raising capital is definitely new. You definitely have to talk to a lot of people who’ve been down that road and you definitely have to rehearse and spend the time to make sure you’re articulating the right story. That you’re talking to the real pain points and in the issues that are going to resonate with that specific investor. And hopefully you’ve done your research before meeting with them.
Adam DeGraide (09:24):
I want to try to put you back to that first day. You’re sitting in your car, you’re about to walk into your first presentation where you’re going to ask people that are serious investors, smart, educated people, have had very good success and they have a lot of money because they’ve worked hard for it. What was going through your mind five minutes before you opened that door and took that first step out?
Jack Thomas (09:52):
Pure fear. Because as you said, it all falls on you. I have these other people that I’m hoping to hire one day, that I’m hoping to bring along for the journey one day. And I’m asking these people who are looking at me in this case, in those early years that really didn’t have a true proven track record on my own. Had always worked with other people. And to go in and be as vulnerable as I feel you need to be and where I naturally communicate is out of a place of honesty. It’s terrifying. [crosstalk 00:10:32].
Adam DeGraide (10:33):
I can imagine you sitting in the car, little beads of sweat, maybe up here you have a little televangelist, little napkin, you got to go grab, maybe you have a little bit more perspiration. Man, I’ll tell you people don’t… You look at these successful businesses folks that over the years that have been built and you think that these guys are just have easiest life in the world. But if you go back to the beginning phases of these businesses where they had nothing they maybe were given a small amount of money and they’re now having to raise another round of money. Man if you’ve never done that before, it takes a lot of courage kind of like what we’ve been talking about with David Versus Goliath.
Adam DeGraide (11:12):
And so with plans and goals for GetMulch, I know when you first started you had an idea of what it was going to be. And then a couple of years into it, you needed to change those plans and goals. Give the viewers and the listeners a little bit of insight into where your initial thinking and how that changed and how that’s not bad. It’s just part of the process.
Jack Thomas (11:33):
Yeah. Originally we felt that the best way we could serve the consumer is by supporting the professional. So the original app that we built, the original platform that we built was designed to generate a much larger amount of high quality leads to the installers that we put into our network and then to provide a platform for them to better sell to those customers by getting quotes out and following up on their behalf and doing all of that. And we thought if we do that because each of them have their local businesses throughout the country that is going to better serve the customer.
Jack Thomas (12:15):
Well, then what we learned is that most of these guys they’re out on the road installing mulch themselves. So they don’t have the time. They are not the best at following up when they need to follow up with a customer and communicating if the schedule changes. They are really good at installing mulch or delivery of mulch or manufacturing mulch. And the customer needs more than that. And I think that’s typical in a lot of [crosstalk 00:12:41].
Adam DeGraide (12:43):
That was probably a challenge because you’re relying on very busy people to respond to these new opportunities coming in, probably had a lower conversion rate, lower satisfaction for the actual customer, frustration to the actual installer, because they’re like, why are all these leads not turning into money? It’s a whole breakdown. And so then he pivoted and now what is the model?
Jack Thomas (13:07):
Yeah. So to go back real quick on that, not only were we doing that and producing thousands of leads per month for these providers, but we were spending our own money to do that. And they weren’t paying anything to us unless we closed the business, and helped, and they actually went into the job. And so there was a lot of pressure on us to actually deliver on what we believe the customer needs.
Jack Thomas (13:32):
And at the end of the day that caused us to change the model because we leveraged technology in the way that you have with your various companies, we were able to look at the data and see what, when we’re involved, when we’re communicating with the customer we do a far better job than they do.
Adam DeGraide (13:49):
Absolutely.
Jack Thomas (13:50):
And in the end we then can control the financial aspects of things, which nobody really wants to deal with.
Jack Thomas (13:57):
And so the current model today, we have built out our network to more than 400 suppliers and installers across the country.
Adam DeGraide (14:05):
That’s amazing.
Jack Thomas (14:05):
We handle every single lead ourselves. We quote everything ourselves.
Adam DeGraide (14:09):
That’s great.
Jack Thomas (14:09):
We do the invoicing and then we handle the communication between the customer and our provider at the end of the day, because our network is so big. Each customer needs a little bit of a different approach to how the job’s done in some cases. And so we’re able to go and find the right person for the job and be the one to facilitate that versus waiting on them to do it.
Adam DeGraide (14:30):
That’s awesome, Jack. That is so fantastic. Stay tuned really quick. We got to go to a quick break everyone, our listeners and watchers here on David Versus Goliath Podcast for a special message from our corporate sponsor Anthem Software. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Anthem Business Software system is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours, find, serve, and keep more profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever-changing digital world. Take a short video tour at anthemsoftware.com.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Anthem Software. Every business [inaudible 00:15:06]. Let our software sing yours.
Adam DeGraide (15:28):
All right. And we’re back with Jack. Hey, that actually rhymes. And we’re back with Jack. You got to make that like the theme song. And I’m back with Jack. I know it’s terrible.
Jack Thomas (15:38):
I’ll let you write it for us.
Adam DeGraide (15:41):
As being the guitar whisper, as you know I mean, it’s obvious that I could absolutely do that. This has been very interesting. I think this is important for our viewers and our listeners is like, just because you have a great idea and you get your first round of funding and you go out and you start doing it doesn’t mean that your initial business plan was the right hypothesis. And now you’ve been able to pivot. Now you actually serve the customer. You are handling that process. It’s a better experience for the customer who needs mulch. It’s a better experience for the busy installer and everyone’s winning in this scenario. That’s awesome. And obviously it takes people to pull this all together. I know you’re not a one man shop in any stretch of the imagination. We don’t need to go into numbers of employees and things like that.
Adam DeGraide (16:23):
But really what I’m just curious from your perspective, you’ve had a few stints here in building your software out and the challenges that, that presents. Talk to people that are actually thinking about building their own software. It’s not for the faint of heart, is it?
Jack Thomas (16:37):
No, it’s not. There’s still a debate, even within people like you that I know who have done it on what can be successfully completed overseas versus in the US and there’s benefits to both. Typically the development time per hour, the cost per hour for development time when you’re using somebody overseas is significantly less than the US, but then there’s the gap in the communication, especially with the time change and all of that. And so it can add a lot of problems, but again the cost is usually significantly better and the talent is there too.
Jack Thomas (17:16):
With us we decided to keep it close and keep it in the US and originally we worked with a company that was just further up north than us and we were same time zone same everything. And everything went great to get off the ground. We shortly learned after that. It’s just really hard to communicate when you’re not the primary focus. And so we brought in a local guy that still freelance and still not full-time, but we had much more communication, much more consistent time with him that significantly allowed us to improve each new development update and any fixes or bugs that appeared-
Adam DeGraide (18:01):
There’s bugs?
Jack Thomas (18:02):
And now at this point, I think we-
Adam DeGraide (18:03):
There’s bugs [inaudible 00:18:03]. Can you believe? I had no idea.
Jack Thomas (18:05):
I mean, [crosstalk 00:18:05]. The ability to test something in a staging environment, push it live to production and expect it’s going to work, it blows my mind that it never works as it did when you tested it. And so having [crosstalk 00:18:19]
Adam DeGraide (18:20):
They call that in the business, the gremlins get in there.
Jack Thomas (18:23):
Yeah, yeah. In our case, for us, there’s no doubt in my mind that when we close on this next round we will have a full-time developer with us because for one of the things that we need to accomplish require that, but it’s just too difficult to give them a project if they’re freelance and then maybe not talk to them for a month and then give them another project. Because they’re always going to be pulled in a different direction. If you can find someone and get them to commit very specific amounts of time that are consistent, it’s going to allow their mind to continually think through the processes the way they need to be thought through so that you’re not having to babysit as much as in my case, as the CEO of the company. I don’t always have the time to test it the way it needs to be tested.
Adam DeGraide (19:13):
Somebody who’s going to do it. Sometimes it has to be your [crosstalk 00:19:14]. Yeah. Someone who’s going to do it. Yeah. That’s interesting, Jack. Again, obviously you know I’ve been building software for a really long time and it’s definitely a lot of fun. It’s been very lucrative and profitable, but it’s never easy and never one project is the same as the next. So kudos to you.
Jack Thomas (19:30):
And I mean, as we changed the model like you said, just to wrap up the technology aspect of things. You also, when you talk about the courage and at least the effort in it, we raise this friend and family round and we go and build this great platform and it does work great. And for the little amount of money that we put into it so far we’re happy with it. But with the change to the model that we made it’s a pretty significant change to go from building something for an industry professional to now needing to build something that is 100% geared towards the customer and consumer. [inaudible 00:20:04].
Adam DeGraide (20:04):
It’s a true supply chain software. It’s the searching, it’s the finding, it’s the ordering, it’s the quoting, it’s the approval process, it’s the collecting of the money, it’s the hiring, it’s the managing, it’s a whole different ball of wax. No doubt about it.
Jack Thomas (20:20):
So you take what you can keep and then you rebuild everything else. And that’s a whole process in itself.
Adam DeGraide (20:27):
Does that cost money? Of course it costs money.
Jack Thomas (20:30):
As you know.
Adam DeGraide (20:31):
I absolutely do know. So tools that get mulch users right now. So what are some of the marketing tools to get your message out to potential customers of GetMulched.com? How can they find out about you? Are you writing articles? Are you doing organic SEO, email me? What are you doing?
Jack Thomas (20:51):
Yeah, a little bit of everything. Because it’s a little unique and we can’t market ourselves fully as a local business even though we have nationwide exposure. We have to be more creative and pushing out blog content, social media contents. We do text message, a little bit of text message stuff right now. And a lot of that’s more on the customer retention or post quote side of things. Once we’ve actually quoted somebody following up through texts has been very effective for us in a marketing tactic in itself.
Jack Thomas (21:26):
Social media is great. I mean, on the residential side of things again the ability with Facebook and Instagram to take something like mulch, which is a beautiful product and makes anything that you put it on look much better. It’s great to have those platforms.
Adam DeGraide (21:43):
Feel like you can put it on my hair? [inaudible 00:21:46] I can’t get up more here.
Jack Thomas (21:49):
I was thinking about it this morning too, though. It’s like you could take the front of the house with no bushes, no flowers, no nothing, but if you just lay them all around the front of a house-
Adam DeGraide (21:59):
Yeah, they look good.
Jack Thomas (22:00):
… there’s nothing other than mulch. It’s significantly going to improve it.
Adam DeGraide (22:02):
It does.
Jack Thomas (22:02):
And so having social to connect with the customer that way is great. LinkedIn is just a ridiculous solution for connecting with our commercial customers.
Adam DeGraide (22:13):
No doubt about it.
Jack Thomas (22:14):
We work with a lot of playground manufacturers, and a lot of property managers, and municipalities, and that’s where they’re spending their time. And so for us to be able to do direct marketing to those people on LinkedIn has worked great for us. And I’d love to get into TikTok next, when we bring on our next marketing employee. That’s one of the things that I think we could do a lot. [crosstalk 00:22:38]. It’s just fun too.
Adam DeGraide (22:40):
Have you heard of YouTube Shorts. They’re starting to kind of try to compete in that short video space. I haven’t really looked into a lot of it myself yet. I would imagine it’s similar to what we see on TikTok. I mean [inaudible 00:22:51].
Jack Thomas (22:51):
It is. Yeah. Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, for somebody who has a large presence on YouTube to begin with it kind of just makes sense because then they can take aspects of the actual… In your case, you can take aspects from each of your podcasts, chop it up real easily within YouTube and turn it into a story that is much shorter and concise and gives a more easily way to promote the main video that you took it from.
Adam DeGraide (23:17):
That’s awesome. There are so many amazing tools and things available to small businesses like us Jack. LinkedIn is a great one, especially if you’re having any B2B business or any B2B network. Facebook obviously is great. Twitter is obviously great to get to the consumer. I think you’re on the right track when it comes to that. That’s fantastic.
Adam DeGraide (23:37):
You mentioned recruiting and hiring. I mean, that’s something you’re going to be doing very, very soon on a major scale after your next round. Currently right now what’s the process you have to find the good people or you mentioned one of the first jobs you’re going to go look for your next round of funding as a marketing director, a CTO, for lack of a better word. What process do you plan on working with a firm to help you? Are you going to handle it all yourself?
Jack Thomas (24:02):
Yeah. I mean, a little bit of both. There’s sales people within the industry that we have relationships with that we’ve gotten to do business with just through our normal day-to-day operations. And they have insight into the industry that is far beyond the number of years that we’ve been a part of it. And so being able to leverage those relationships and leverage them in a full-time capacity is one way we’re going to approach things.
Jack Thomas (24:33):
But then on the marketing side of things, again, fortunately, I know people like you and we all have-
Adam DeGraide (24:38):
You do know me.
Jack Thomas (24:40):
… a good network of resources. A young entrepreneur like me again, to go back to the key of just even us surviving as long as we have with the capital that we’ve raised up until this point depends on my ability to be able to pick up the phone sometimes and ask you for help when it comes to things like that, or to get insight on, is this really the right person? And so fortunately we have a great team of advisors and a great team of investors from the beginning that if I need them to do an interview for us I can rely on them for that as [crosstalk 00:25:15].
Adam DeGraide (25:15):
You need people man. [crosstalk 00:25:17]. Well, I think what you just said is so fantastic. You don’t want to do business alone ever. I don’t know. I feel it would feel so bad for the person who’s trying to do business alone. We need each other. Especially small businesses, and startups, and people with the same passions.
Adam DeGraide (25:34):
We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. It’s like, you got to help somebody that’s further ahead of you and then look for somebody… Actually try to get help from somebody who’s ahead of you, look for somebody who can help behind you, bring them up along with you. It’s really about community. And it’s really about helping each other. Unless they’re your direct competitor, then you want to push them [inaudible 00:25:54] and kick their butts.
Jack Thomas (25:56):
Yeah. One of the things I’ve always admired about you watching you now what six company, fifth and six company that you’re on right now is each step of the way you’ve been able to start with that core team of people that allow you to accomplish things so much quicker because-
Adam DeGraide (26:13):
Couldn’t do it without people man.
Jack Thomas (26:15):
… in what you’ve done. And if I could go back to the original round of money that we raised from friends and family, I would allocate some of the money differently than we did into people and not into some of the technology, and not into some of our marketing budgets that we had, although those things were effective and we collected a lot of data, which is some of what we needed stepping into a new industry. The people could have had just as big of an impact. And like you said, that we’re raising more capital, more than anything right now is to get the right people in place that allow us to truly help the customer the way they need to be.
Adam DeGraide (26:50):
Jack, that is such profound wisdom. Hindsight’s always 2020. So for anybody who’s listening right now, do not neglect people in your initial business plan. They’re the lifeblood of an organization. Well, we’re going to take another quick break right now from a message from another sponsor. We are so grateful you’re spending some time with us here. I’m your host, Adam DeGraide on the David Versus Goliath Podcast, stay tuned.
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Adam DeGraide (28:18):
And we’re back with our final segment with Jack Thomas, the CEO and founder of GetMulch. Jack, you are doing great. I know you don’t get interviewed a lot. You’re doing a fantastic job. I believe that I’m learning even more about your business. And you’re a friend of mine, and this is really great to learn even more about it.
Adam DeGraide (28:40):
I want to talk about one of the most important things in business. And you’ve mentioned it. There’s been challenges in GetMulch. From the beginning and there’s ups and downs in a startup. And yet you’re here you are. You’re standing, you’re still persevering, you’re walking out of the battlefield with that smooth stone called courage. How do you have the courage to stay in it when things are not going the way you want them to? Can you see the future in that just… Or you just stubborn or what is it? Help people understand. Because the difference between success and failure is perseverance. It’s not just courage to step out, but it’s the perseverance to stay on the battlefield. Tell us about that.
Jack Thomas (29:27):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day I would never have imagined that I’d have anything to do with mulch. I’m a marketer. I’m good with strategy. I like the ideas. I liked seeing a business grow and I’ve enjoyed watching people like you succeed ahead of me and to see what I liked about what you did and things that I would have done differently. That aspect is fun. But I think more than anything, the belief in what we are doing and why we are doing it is a major component to it because I just had my fourth kid. I have to look at my children and-
Adam DeGraide (30:03):
You’ve got four children?
Jack Thomas (30:04):
I got four children. [crosstalk 00:30:05]
Adam DeGraide (30:06):
Say hi to all the kids really quick.
Jack Thomas (30:09):
Hey guys, we love you so much and doing all this for you and Adam’s been there to help.
Adam DeGraide (30:15):
It’s awesome. It’s awesome. Keep going, Jack. I’m sorry to interrupt.
Jack Thomas (30:18):
Yeah. So I mean, at the end of the day looking at my wife and saying, “Hey man, it’s not easy. Why are we doing this?” And having those types of conversations. At the end of the day, it’s like, man, we know that when we get to that point that we’ve accomplished the goals that we’ve set for the company and the things that we are hearing from the customer at the end of the day, that it will be worth it. And it’s not just the financial benefit. It’s the pursuit of building something for the first time as a young entrepreneur and the ability to identify problems that we feel people are ignoring and do something about it.
Jack Thomas (30:53):
And so the excitement comes from the unknown. It’s definitely stressful and it’s definitely hard. But if you believe truly in the end goal that you’re trying to reach to, then you don’t really want to stop. Sometimes you feel like you want to take a break and slow down and take a step back and look at, are we doing it the right way? Which is an appropriate thing to do. But getting to the point where you know exactly why you’re doing it is the thing that I’ve honed in on. And when people have asked, “Hey, how long do you think you’ll continue to do this? I know it’s hard.” And I’m like, “I don’t see why would we ever stop?
Adam DeGraide (31:35):
Yeah. Why would you stop? And you said something very, very important. You talked about belief. One of the things I’ve always said is anything truly great or worthwhile starts with one word and that’s believe. Because if you don’t believe it as a CEO and founder there’s no way your investors, your employees, your other partners are going to believe it. And it doesn’t make a difference Jack, what anybody else thinks about your business or believes about your business.
Adam DeGraide (32:05):
It only matters what you believe about your business. And as a CEO and founder, it’s mission critical to make sure that we are articulating and communicating that passion, the love and the drive for why we do it to our potential clients and also to people internally. So how can people get ahold of you, tell them your website address or email address and how they could reach out to you.
Jack Thomas (32:29):
Yeah. Getmulch.com. It’s real simple. Or you can email me at jack@getmulch.com. But at the end of the day-
Adam DeGraide (32:38):
Jack is back.
Jack Thomas (32:39):
Jack is back. Actually, when I played soccer in elementary school I was action Jackson, but I’ve never kept that nickname.
Adam DeGraide (32:45):
And it’s probably better Jack is back, Jack is back is my favorite. Yeah, I like it.
Jack Thomas (32:47):
Yeah. So getmulch.com and that’s the easiest way. There’s quick form on there that you can fill out, it asks you a few questions that help us better understand what you need. And then from there, you’ll be contacted by us directly either through phone or electronic means. And we’ll take care of you from there.
Adam DeGraide (33:08):
That’s awesome. Jack, thank you so much for joining us on David Versus Goliath Podcast.
Jack Thomas (33:11):
Thanks for having me.
Adam DeGraide (33:12):
It’s been great. Everyone, look at how much you learn watching and listening to this podcast. I can’t think of a single place I’d rather spend time as a business owner than hearing stories, real-world examples of what people are doing to take on their giants in winning right here on David Versus Goliath Podcast. I’m your host, Adam DeGraide. We’ll see you next week. Thanks for watching.