[00:00:00] Speaker A: I don't know what firewalk means. I have no references for that.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: The most simple environments is where I learned the most.
[00:00:07] Speaker C: Anybody that sees it remembers it.
[00:00:09] Speaker D: I'm richard Gerhardt.
[00:00:10] Speaker E: And I'm elizabeth Gerhardt. You've just heard some great tidbits from our show. Stay tuned for the rest.
[00:00:17] Speaker C: Want to protect your business?
[00:00:19] Speaker D: The time is near you've given it.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Heart now get it in gear it's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:29] Speaker F: I'm Richard Gerhardt, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:36] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. Not an attorney, but I work at Gearhart Law doing the marketing, and I have my own startups.
[00:00:42] Speaker F: Welcome to passage to profit everyone. The road to entrepreneurship, where we talk with startups, small businesses, and discuss the intellectual property that helps them flourish.
[00:00:52] Speaker D: We have something that we've never had on the show ever, and it's Dave Albin, and he is a firewalker, and he's going to tell us all about it.
[00:01:03] Speaker E: Amazing. Yeah, I got to hear this. And then Courtney Peebles with Solubo special toys for kids. And I think they're unlike other toys that are on the market there, and they're really worth checking out at her website. We'll talk about that later. And then Alex Neist with hostage tape. No, it's not what you think.
[00:01:20] Speaker D: I had heard the name, but I didn't actually think about it until you mentioned it. It could be a lot of things.
[00:01:25] Speaker E: Mouth breathers beware.
[00:01:27] Speaker D: So I guess before we get to our distinguished guests, it's time for IP in the news. Artificial intelligence. It's really been a big topic now in the intellectual property world. All sorts of AI programmers are trying to get intellectual property protection for the inventions that their software creates. And so we have here Mr. Stefan Thaler from Missouri, who has a software program called DABUS, and he claims that Dabbas is sentient, which I guess means that it's got human characteristics.
[00:02:06] Speaker E: He says, and I quote, there is a new species here on Earth, and it's called Davis. I do want to give intellectual property credit for this article. So it was from Wired and it was written by Will Beddingfield, who's a staff writer at Wired.
[00:02:21] Speaker D: And so the whole story is really about how intellectual property inventorship rights, ownership rights are being challenged in the courts right now. All of the laws say you have to be a human being in order to get a patent or a copyright. And of course, there's a lot of people out there now with AI who are challenging that. I think it's really interesting. It's kind of scary to me because I think if you have AI, the number of inventions and creations you can come up with is almost infinite, right? And so you would have all of these machines that would sort of own all the new ideas. And to me, that seems that it would be a big challenge for us.
[00:03:01] Speaker E: But part of the problem too, with AI is that it doesn't just start with nothing. It goes through the Internet and takes other people's work and then makes new work out of it. But it's still using other people's work.
[00:03:12] Speaker D: That's one of the big challenges with copyright works, because the AI software goes and looks at all the other artist works that are online and then it combines them using software and it comes up with a new creation that looks a lot like the old creation.
[00:03:28] Speaker E: Right. So it's going to have to be litigated in the courts, I guess, but I don't think AI has reached personhood yet.
[00:03:34] Speaker D: When was the last time you felt sorry for an AI description from Chat GPT?
[00:03:39] Speaker E: Can an AI do a firewalk?
[00:03:41] Speaker D: I think that's the ultimate. So I guess the moral of the story is, watch what you put into Chat GPT. We'd like to ask our distinguished guests what they think about this phenomenon. Dave, thanks for joining us on the show. What are your thoughts on this?
[00:03:55] Speaker A: My position, as far as what I do, I think I'm pretty safe. I don't think anybody's going to come out there and replace me anytime soon. What I do find interesting is that if I want to promote my company or I want to write content or whatever, I know that I can go out there and use AI and it can create some really interesting content so that we could add to the website or letters or whatever it is. But from a physical standpoint of what I do for my clients, I've got no worries.
[00:04:22] Speaker D: Have you ever thought about maybe doing like a virtual firewalking? Somebody puts coals down in their backyard and you talk them through it on zoom?
[00:04:31] Speaker A: No. The thing about it is that I'm there for the specific reason we do things three ways safe, safer and safest. So with that in mind, if I'm not there to control the temperature, because when I lay the coals on the grass, which is what they walk on, I can bring the temperature down by hitting the coals with a shovel. We did a board break. We were pretty successful at that. Tony Robbins does one too. He does a board break and he sends the boards out to the people and there's instructions and the setup and so on so that I think you can get away with.
[00:05:02] Speaker D: So, Courtney, what do you think about Chat GPT, AI and all of these other new phenomena getting intellectual property protection?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: My husband, Daniel, he actually has taken classes on AI because he just is very interested in it, so I hear a lot from him about it. We have used Chat GBT in different scenarios, but in this case where they're claiming, like, intellectual property, I think it's interesting because there's one particular AI platform that's an image generation platform, and you can actually load in an image and ask it to reverse engineer it. So it gives you the prompt, and in the prompt, it has different artists. So I can understand how these artists are getting mad because in the prompt is their name, and that's kind of what's building the image. So I think that walks a really fine line. And in cases like that, I don't really know how there's much grounds to get intellectual property because it's based off of somebody else's work. I think there's so much gray area. I do think, though, that it is very helpful in some scenarios. Like website builders now have it infused into the platforms, and that can help with writing copy. But as far as intellectual property goes, I think it's going to be really interesting to see how they battle it out in court. That's kind of going to be setting the tone for everything that comes after that.
[00:06:18] Speaker D: You make some interesting points, and I'm just going to play devil's advocate a little bit here and say as an intellectual property person, I think most new creations are based on something that somebody has already done.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:06:31] Speaker D: That's one argument that the AI people have, is that, well, other artists create art by having looked at other paintings. Yeah, but I'm not sure that there's really the creative spark that goes into that.
[00:06:44] Speaker E: I don't think it will ever be the creativity of somebody coming up with something really new, because people that are true creators, they don't care as much. I mean, they want to make money from what they're doing. They have to support themselves. So they want the IP rights, but they know they can always create something new.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: So, Alex, I have a problem with that. That's the fear that we all have, right? As we create AI and it continues to evolve, where is this going to end up? How far is it going to go? So do we really want to give agency to AI and the machines to actually own IP? I don't think we do.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: It does seem like the courts are really in a position to kind of consider all of the big social issues. You need broad social input on this in order to come to the best decision. Of course, with our congress, who knows.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: If that would happen?
[00:07:31] Speaker D: But anyway, so I guess the moral of the story is we don't know what's going to happen with AI and AI creations and who's going to own the copyrights and the patents that come from it. So I guess we just have to live in limbo and wait for somebody to make some more decisions on this. So anyway, Dave Albin, thanks for being here. And as we all know already, you're a firewalk instructor. The first thing anybody asks is, how did you get into the firewalking business?
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Well, I went to my first Tony Robbins seminar in 1995. Seven years prior to that, I had joined Alcoholics Anonymous. So on June eigth, of 88. I woke up that morning, and I've hit threshold. I was done. I'm out. I can't live like this anymore. I was in a tremendous amount of physical and emotional pain. And so my first thought was, well, I can end this by putting a bullet in my head. Well, thank goodness I was married to a woman who had three kids, who were my step kids. And as I'm contemplating that, I'm like you know what? You can't do that, man, because, yeah, you may have solved your problem, or at least you think you have, by putting a bullet in your head, but you're going to kill those three kids, and you can't do that. So figure out another way, pal. And so the next thought I had was call Alcoholics Anonymous. When I was getting sober, I had insomnia, and I was up late at night all the time, and I'm up late one night, and there he is, Mr. Enthusiasm himself in 1988, a young Tony Robbins selling personal power. It's a 30 day program, and though I didn't really like Tony, he was pretty pompous, and he's all motivated, and I wasn't. But he said two things that got me. First thing he said was, we'll do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure. Well, heck, that's why I was drinking a drug, chasing some kind of pleasure and trying to avoid pain. So that made sense to me. And then what really got me, though, is he said, the way we make decisions, we make them out of inspiration or desperation. And I was pretty desperate, so I bought his program. I did what the man told me they're doing at work. So one of my buddies in AA I loaned the program to. Seven years later, in 1995, he calls me on the phone and said, hey, did you know Tony Robbins is coming town? Said, I had no clue. And he said, Are you available on such and such a date? You're going with me. You got me into this. You got to go with me. So I agreed. At the very end, he's getting ready to hang up, and he goes, oh, wait, by the way, I left out the best part. We're going to be doing a firewalk. I don't know what that means. I don't know what firewalk means. I have no references for that. But my brain's going, no, we're not doing any of that. But I'm not saying this to Dan. I don't want him to think I'm a coward. Right? Yeah, sure. Dan's great. All right, firewalk. Ask the event. Well, the big day comes. We get to the event. Tony takes the stage at 02:00 in the afternoon. Next thing I know is, after midnight, I've been in a room for 10 hours along with 3500 other people, and all of a sudden, Tony goes, Take your shoes off. Oh, no, I see where you're going with 100ft.
[00:10:23] Speaker D: You're going to be smelling, right?
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, no, you're not tricking me into that. Well, here's the dilemma. I'm sitting in a room with 3500 people. Guess what they're doing? They're taking their shoes off. Now I've got to take mine off, right? Or otherwise everybody's going to go, hey, look at the guy walking out there with his shoes on. Well, it gets worse, because when he gets everybody going out there, he gets everybody to start clapping and chanting. So now everybody's walking out, 3500 people going, yes. And I'm walking out there going, no, I ain't doing it. Well, it gets worse, because when you get outside into this giant parking lot where they facilitate the firewalk, he's got African drummers, right? So now it's done.
It's a dog and pony show, like anything you've ever seen. Well, Tony Robbins knows this is one of the most life changing paradigm shift experiences on earth. And he also knows there's a bunch of cowards just like me that are going to go hide in the back. So what's he do? He trains people to come find you. I'm back there minding my own business, thinking, I got it all figured out. Here comes this guy. Bottom line is front of the line. And with the help of one of Tony's people, he got me across. And it was one of the most life changing experiences that I'd ever gone through. And so the next thing I know, I met a Tony Robins seminar. As a volunteer, they put me on the firebuilding team. They offered me a position to work on the fire team. I took over all of Tony's firewalks in three. We can do them in hotels, out in parking lots. I have a lot of people come to my house privately, celebrities and so on. In five, we set the world record in London. 12,300 people. 2014, google called me and said, are you the Dave Albin that does the firewalk for Tony Robbins? Yes, I am. We'd like to hire you. That's when firewalk productions was born. 2014. From there, NASA, Notre Dame, Virginia tech, Chickfila, Microsoft, Heineken, they all started hiring me to come in and create this paradigm shift experience.
[00:12:16] Speaker D: Don't try this at home, kids.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: We try this at home. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be back with.
[00:12:20] Speaker D: More firewalking information and advice with Dave Albin passage to profit with Richard Elizabeth gearhart. And we'll be back after this commercial. I'm Richard Gerhardt, founder of Gearhart Law. We specialize in patents, trademarks, and copyrights. You can find out more at learn more about trademarks.com. We love working with entrepreneurs and helping their businesses grow. And here is our client, Ricky, to tell it like it is.
[00:12:44] Speaker E: Hi, I'm Ricky franco, founder and CEO of prime six.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: We manufacture high performing, clean and sustainable fuels like charcoal and logs. We've been working with gearhart loft since the beginning, really, and they've helped us figure out the trademarks, the patents, everything that has to do with product development and how to protect our inventions. And we're extremely grateful for the wonderful team that has been supporting our business since day one.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Thank you, Ricky.
[00:13:10] Speaker D: To learn more about trademarks, go to learnmoreabouttrademarks.com and download our free Entrepreneur's Guide to trademarks. Or book a free consultation with me to discuss your patent and trademark needs. That's learnmoreabouttrademarks.com for your free booklet about trademarks and a free consultation.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Now back to passage. To profit. Once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and.
[00:13:30] Speaker E: Our special guest, Dave Albin. Dave is unlike any guest we've ever had on the show before. What I want to ask Dave now is, as an entrepreneur, are there similarities to other businesses, or are there things about this that are really different that makes it kind of hard to have a business like this? Because we're all about entrepreneurs and solving their problems here, right.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: It's really a combination of both. The reason I started Firewalk Productions is I was driving down the road in 2014, and Google called, and they said, hey, are you the Dave Albin that does a firewalk for Tony Robbins? Yeah. We like to talk to you about hiring you. They wanted to do the firewalk in the middle of the day, and I said, no, absolutely not. I've got to be able to see the coles at night. It's a safety issue. We won't do it. Tell you what we could do. We could do a glass walk. They're like a glass walk. We can walk it on broken glass. Yeah, absolutely. And they go, OOH, tell us about that. That's how I ended up going to Google. That's how I went to Mountain View.
We did two glass walks for Google. In fact, it was one of the executives that was there that was going through the graduation. She's the one who told me, hey, you should probably think about starting your own business, because there's a huge marketplace for paradigm shift experiences, and you're the guy.
[00:14:41] Speaker E: Yeah, no kidding. But what are your biggest challenges? Obviously safety. Right. That's probably your number one.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: I had a client one time that flew me out. They wanted to talk to me before they hired me. And I got out there in the boardroom, and the CEO said, hey, we got Dave Alvin here. We want to firewalk 350 of our sales and marketing people. Who's got any questions? Well, the corporate attorney was sitting right there, and he goes, I got a question. How many of our people are going to get burnt? It's a fair question. And I said, well, to properly answer that, let me ask you something. How many of you have ever taken your family to the beach or to a pool or to a lake and got them sunburned? They all raised their hands. Well, that's 100 times more dangerous than any firewalk you're ever going to do with me. And as soon as I said that, the CEO spoke right up. And without even Blake and I, he turned to the CFO, who was sitting right there, and he said, look, if this guy's good enough for Tony Robbins, that he's good enough for Google, he's good enough for us. Book him.
[00:15:34] Speaker E: So probably your biggest challenge is perception.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. 100%. Because they think somebody's going to get hurt because it sounds so dangerous. I've walked to half a million people in my career. Has anyone ever been to the hospital? Nope. The worst case scenario is you get a little blister on the bottom of your foot and you put a little sensodyne on it, or a little Neosporin, in a day or two days, it's gone. That's the worst case scenario. In fact, that's why I tell people to go watch the Oprah firewalk, because Tony literally says to her, because Oprah's losing it, man. She is not real thrilled about this firewalk. She's scared to death, just like most people are. And Tony turns her and he said, Look, Oprah, what's the worst that could happen? Burn your feet off and die? Come on, I'm not going to let you get hurt. And that's the moment. And that's all she needed, was that a little bit of encouragement. Which is interesting because that's kind of a metaphor for life, especially as an entrepreneur. We need a little bit of encouragement, and a lot of times that doesn't come from our family. And so that's why it's such an extraordinary experience, because when you get to the other side, that's what happened to me. I was like, I walked on calls that were 1000 degrees. I didn't burn myself. And so now when I was in that celebration and down there with 3500 people, we were all was like, okay, where's the bus? Let's go climb Mount Everest. What's next?
[00:16:49] Speaker E: I have show notes here, and it looks like your kids did the firewalk.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Is that true?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: My daughter was six. My son was nine.
[00:16:56] Speaker E: So what did they get out of it?
[00:16:58] Speaker A: If you talk to them today, you know exactly it's empowering. And that's the beautiful thing I love doing kids.
We were at a tony event in New York. Tony knew that my kids were going to walk that night. We walked all the participants, probably 6000 of them, and then they were over in the shadows. And as soon as he was ready, Tony waved him over. Here comes my daughter, six years old, completely fearless. Tony took her by the hand. I took her by the hand. We walked her. My son stepped up. He was nine. Tony looked at him and said, I love you and I love your daddy. Go. My son took off. Now, they had spent about an hour or so with one of Tony's trainers to get him ready for that. But yeah, I've walked hundreds and hundreds of kids, and it's one of the most powering things you can do for a child. They'll remember it forever.
[00:17:46] Speaker E: So I got to follow up with this. So if you have adults that are hesitant or afraid to do it yeah, my nine year old did it well.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And that's really interesting. I do a lot of events for EO, the entrepreneur organization. And so they ask me all the time, can we bring our family? Can we bring our kids? Absolutely.
And so all the adults we did Philadelphia here last year at EO, and one of the very first families to walk was the person who I was my contact for EO and her son walked, and I think he was probably 1110 or eleven, and all the adults like, oh great, the eleven year old doesn't. So now I got to do it.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: So can you tell something about somebody based on the speed at which they walk through the fire pit, the slow walkers, do they have a certain personality versus the speedy ones?
[00:18:41] Speaker A: No. Some people get there and I teach a couple of different ways. I'm like, look, you can do this like the Cherokee Indians did it. You just put your hands in the air and you look up, you believe, you trust, and you walk at a normal pace. Or you can go MMA style. You scream yes three times, really intensely. Throw your arms in the air and you scream yes, and your body takes over because your body's like, okay, fight or flight, what's going on? Releases all the chemicals and you storm across the coals. Now, when I say storm, I do tell people, don't run. You can walk fast if you want, but do not run. Because if you trip and you fall on those coals, that's not going to be pleasant.
[00:19:18] Speaker D: Are they watching the fire coals while they're watching, or are you? Some do ahead.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Great question. Some do, some don't. When they're staring down, that's when I tell them to get your eyes up. Don't stare at what you fear. Look to the celebration end. That's where the reward is. The beginner's walks. I typically lay them out about 15 to 18ft. It lasts about 4 seconds. Advanced firewalking. We've done 100 foot firewalk. We do a graduation. It's called a 108. Basically we build three lanes that are about 15ft long. We build a fire in the middle, and then we walk each lane one time and we walk it 107 times. And then at the end we stretch it out to 20ft, and that's the 108 for the final walk. So you're literally firewalking for about an hour. And we do that on the big island of Hawaii, and people are capable of just about anything. When I do my talks, I put a picture of a guy on the screen behind me. His name is Eric Weienmeyer, and he's standing on the top of Mount Everest. And I'll ask the people, so who here can tell me where my budy Eric's standing? And somebody will go, Ah, he's down the top of Mount Everest. Great. Here's what else you need to know. That man right there climbed the seven highest mountains on earth. Put him on a mountain bike, he'll tear it up. Put him in a kayak, he can probably navigate just about any river on earth. But here's what you need to know about Eric. He's blind. Anything you've told yourself, why you think you can't do something, is probably a know. That's what it does. It creates that self worth, your self confidence, your self belief.
[00:20:47] Speaker D: That's amazing.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Every client's got something going on, right? Typically there's three types of clients that are going to call me. Number one, the company's breaking down. Things are really bad. Everybody's crashing and arguing and obviously the political system that all hit back in March of 2020, mask and vaccines and political and everybody arguing. That tears a company apart. It shreds them because if two people aren't getting along and they're on a production line, guess what? Production goes down. And every CEO, him or her knows they better fix it because if they don't, then the profitability goes down and the shareholders aren't going to like that.
[00:21:23] Speaker E: What's the second kind of company that would hire you?
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Second kind of company is things are mediocre. Things aren't really good, things aren't really bad. They're kind of in the middle. They need to break out of that. And then the other is they're kicking butt. They are rolling everything's going along unbelievably, and they want to shift it up and take it up another notch. So it's typically one of those three things are completely bottomed out. They're in the middle or they're at the top of their game.
[00:21:47] Speaker E: So it's everybody.
[00:21:51] Speaker D: It is firewalker Dave Albin. Thanks for being here. More passage to profit with Richard Elizabeth gearhart.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Back after this.
[00:22:00] Speaker G: Hi, I'm Lisa Askley is the inventress founder, CEO and president of Inventing a to Z. I've been inventing products for over 38 years, hundreds of products later and dozens of patents. I help people develop products and put them on the market from concept to fruition. I bring them to some of the top shopping networks in the world QVC, HSN, Evine, live and retail stores. Have you ever said to yourself, someone should invent that thing? Well, I say, why not make it you? If you want to know how to develop a product from concept to fruition the right way, contact me. Lisa Askeles the inventress go to inventingatoz.com inventing a to z.com email me lisa at inventing a to z.com. Treat yourself to a day chock full of networking, education, music, shopping and fun. Go to my website inventingatoz.com.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Passage to profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth gearhart.
[00:23:00] Speaker D: We are at one of my favorite parts of the show, which is where Elizabeth gets to show off her project.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: So, Elizabeth, what have you been up.
[00:23:09] Speaker D: To in the entrepreneurial world?
[00:23:11] Speaker E: Well, first of all, for those of you who have heard this before, I have a podcast, another podcast with Danielle Wooley. It's called the Jersey Podcast podcast, where we talk about cats, and we have people come on the podcast and talk about issues with their cats, products they've made for cats, different things about cats. And a lot of them have really interesting backgrounds, too, so they talk about their backgrounds a little bit. The interesting thing is that we actually do get a fair number of men that come on this podcast. You don't really think of men as liking cats that much, but men do like cats. It's fun because we get different people. We have interesting conversations. We keep it kind of short. It's only 20 minutes. We actually did have a monumental experience. We had somebody come to us through his publicist, so that was pretty cool for our little podcast.
[00:23:57] Speaker D: Oh, that's great.
[00:23:58] Speaker E: And Danielle is excellent, and she knows a lot about cats, and she's always hilarious.
[00:24:03] Speaker D: So where can our listeners find the Jersey Podcast? Podcast?
[00:24:07] Speaker E: Yes. It's the Jersey podcast. E-O-D-C-A-T-S. Jersey podcast. Podcast. Because we're from New Jersey.
[00:24:14] Speaker D: And what else do you have going on?
[00:24:16] Speaker E: Blue streak directory. So it's a B, two B directory of businesses. But it's a video directory. And I have some software now that can help people make 32nd pitch videos, and that's going to be their profile on the directory. And I'm doing B to B businesses, and I'm kind of focusing in on coaches because I feel like they'll be more comfortable on video and media people because they'll be more comfortable on video. So my website is getting close to being finished to help. But also this weekend, Richard and I are going to a conference that a good friend of ours holds twice a year. Now, Lisa Askelies at this AOE conference here in New Jersey, and I'm going to have a table there and see if I can convince people to record their 32nd pitch.
[00:24:58] Speaker D: You won't have to twist too many arms. Your natural charm will come through.
[00:25:02] Speaker E: No, it's kind of scary for people. So I think maybe if you can't do a 32nd pitch on video, maybe you should go do a firewalk and.
[00:25:08] Speaker D: Come back, get your situation straight.
[00:25:11] Speaker E: I'm really excited. Richard and I are going to be grandparents in March, and so Courtney's company, Soluble Toys, really intrigued me a lot. These are toys for kids, but they're not your normal toys. So I'm going to let her talk about how they're different and why they're so great for kids. So welcome, Courtney.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Thank you, and thank you for having me. Solubo our tagline is Play simply learn exceptionally. And that's really what we try to do. The toys that we have, I design myself, and I design them because I noticed that my kids would get really just bored with the super busy, loud, colorful toys. And then I started making toys out of cardboard boxes and stuff. Like that, and they loved it. So that's kind of where a lot of it came from, and a lot of inspiration that I have comes from my own kid. And then I also thought back to how I learned when I was a kid and how the most simple environments is where I learned the most, and that's what lasted the most. So that's really the essence of what I've tried to infuse into our business, is just simplicity, but also, like, an incredible learning environment.
[00:26:18] Speaker D: Sounds great. I've been to your website, and the toys really are super cool. But you designed all of these yourself.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: The very first toys that we launched was our Emotions Coin Drop and our Learning Drop. And I designed both of those. The puzzles I selected, I wanted them to fit my vision. They weren't something that I specifically designed. They were like, the design that I chose. And it was just something that I worked with the manufacturer. But main two toys. Yeah, I designed them completely myself. I had never designed anything like that ever before. So that was a really cool challenge. Like, I challenged myself to do it and then here we are now.
[00:26:54] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:26:55] Speaker E: Right? Well, and I looked at your website, too, and I really like that you have little discs with faces and the emotions that go with the faces, but also you had one where a baby, it's sitting up. I don't know if it can even is old enough to walk. It's just putting cards into a slot. And the reason I like that so much is because it's something they can do and they can feel like they accomplished something.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, absolutely. It's funny because a lot of people ask me, they're like, well, what's more popular, the Emotions Coin Drop or the Learn and Drop, which the Learn and Drop is with the Flashcards? And I'm like, well, it depends on who it is. And it's pretty much right there, like, next to each other 50 50. But I found that it just depends on how the people see the toys. Somebody could see the toys as like, this is an incredible opportunity to stick cards in the box. And some people could see that and be like, well, why do we stick cards in the box? So something that we actually recently started doing is we work with a lot of pediatric specialists. And so I gathered a ton of activities from all of them and just condensed it all into a card. So every toy that goes out now goes out with a card with recommendations from these pediatric specialists and what age groups. This is the interesting part. So when we originally launched, it was twelve months and up, but it quickly turned into something that I didn't expect. And I have a licensed marriage family therapist. She tells me she uses it with like six year olds and even older than that. I actually had a speech therapist recommend that we take the toy itself and then also pair it with paper that's the same color. And then you can use it for even older kids. And the same thing with the flashcards and the box, you can use it to any age. So it's really become more open ended like I had originally hoped it would be. But it's proven to be way further than I expected. So I could say even going up to 1012, it just kind of depends on the person.
[00:28:48] Speaker D: Courtney's toys are so different than so many of the toys that are available now.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: If you went to, like, Target or.
[00:28:55] Speaker D: Walmart or something where all of those toys are based on characters in Disney movies and all these other things. And to me, it's kind of interesting because a child who is deciding on what toy to play with, on the one hand, if they're influenced by a movie or they like a particular cartoon character, that's one source of motivation. But if they're playing with a simple toy that doesn't have sort of that same kind of oomph behind it, or notoriety, I guess, is that kind of different, do you think, for the child between playing with the two toys?
[00:29:27] Speaker B: I think it depends. I'm not going to sit here and say that I don't have toys like that at my house for my kids, because I totally do. My kids are, like, obsessed with the number blocks, and there's so many toys that we have that are like number blocks. Toys like this Netflix show. When I look at my kids and I see my kids playing with a toy like that, they love it, but I have found that they're less likely to play with it longer. It honestly depends. But a lot of those toys are designed for that use and that use only. It kind of limits the child to that use. Whereas if you have a toy that's more open ended, then they could use it for a bunch of different uses. And if they get tired of one, they can do something different. So it's really that longevity difference. And it's so true that every child is different anyway, and having toys that are like, this is how you play with it, that's it ends up being a little bit harder to appeal to a vast majority of children.
[00:30:20] Speaker E: Right. I think you want them to be interested but not overstimulated. I think a lot of the mainstream toys are overstimulating, so I think these simpler ones probably are better, especially right before bed.
Yeah.
So how are you promoting your company? Are you selling at Walmart? Are you selling on Amazon? Are you selling just on your website?
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So the main place that we sell is on Amazon. That was something that we quickly found out was really just where people go to turn for stuff like toys for kids, especially educational toys. So we quickly decided to sell on Amazon and it's gone really well. We have made a community on Instagram, and that's really primarily where people find us. And we have been able to come across some of the most incredible stories of how people have used our toys. Like I said, pediatric specialists, they have backed our toys from the beginning, before we even released the toys to market. We had a speech language pathologist test them with her clients. And so having that has also been really beneficial. And people love to hear how toys can be used for child development. They just love to hear that kind of stuff.
[00:31:28] Speaker D: So when you went into business and you created your toys first, how did you have them made?
[00:31:34] Speaker B: This is actually something that I have spent a lot of time doing research on. So I didn't know anything of how this stuff worked prior to designing the toys. I have my master's in film producing, and there are some aspects of film producing that work with producing a physical product. Because if you think about it, a film is a product. So that definitely helped me narrow in my search. But I quickly learned how to work manufacturers, and I did a lot of stuff on YouTube trying to watch things about tutorials, of how to do things. That's just the reality of trying to understand how this stuff runs. I didn't find a whole lot of resources or classes on how to do this. I just kind of figured it out along the way.
[00:32:15] Speaker D: I think that's really important for entrepreneurs who are wanting to start a business is the resourcefulness, because there's not always just a book out there that says these are the steps that you follow and you can have your toy made.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:29] Speaker D: You have to do a lot of research. You have to do a lot of comparison shopping. And then there are good people to work with and people who are not so good. Right. It's hard sometimes to tell who are the good people to work with, right?
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker D: Did you find that? Are the toys made in the United States? Are they made overseas?
[00:32:49] Speaker B: They're made overseas. I did, I think, about ten interviews before selecting our first manufacturer, and with that, they sent us samples. And I really stress when I'm making decisions about people to work with. I really rely on people's vibes. I know that that's a really catchy thing to say, but I really do look at their communication and look at how they're communicating with me and their timeliness. And just like, if I get a good, well rounded, positive experience from them, then I'm more likely to work with them because I know that we have this trust built. And that's really what I looked for when I originally started interviewing manufacturers, is just that good quality relationship that it wasn't like, they're working for me, I'm working for them. We were just working together to make it happen.
[00:33:39] Speaker D: That's great.
[00:33:40] Speaker E: I like our relationship with Noah Fleischman who produces this show.
[00:33:45] Speaker D: And then so what are your future plans? I mean, are you happy with the business as it is now? You want to grow it? Where do you see your business in another couple of years?
[00:33:54] Speaker B: We've actually had a lot of growth in the past couple of months.
I think it was a week ago, I released a children's book, something that I wrote and illustrated. It's called all the ways Sterling communicate. So that's something that we have been educating our viewers about. We have a new toy coming out when we go to the Toy Fair at the end of September. And that's super exciting. I designed that one as well. So that'll be the first time anybody has ever seen it, aside from our testers that we have. And so we have expansion. We hope to get into more retail spaces. We launched a podcast called Neuroplay. And then I also launched a kind of adjacent company with a speech language pathologist that is actually like helping people who have toy companies. So a lot of the knowledge that I've gained, I've been able to do consultations with people. And that's been really cool too. So really just getting our toys out there more and then also supporting other people, I'm very passionate about giving back and supporting. That's really the hope for the future.
[00:34:57] Speaker D: That's amazing. And that you've got so much on the table, it sounds like you're really taking off. You'd mentioned on your website that you're autistic. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: It has kind of been the way to describe it is like a domino effect in my family. My brother was diagnosed first. My brother was diagnosed as an adult and he's my older brother, so he's about three or four years older than me. And when he was diagnosed, then it kind of sent like it was when my son was about a year and a half. And so then we kind of understood some of the things that were showing with him. And then he got diagnosed a few months later. And then I think my mom got diagnosed after that. And then I got diagnosed after that. And so it's just kind of been like this domino effect in our family. But it has been unbelievably helpful to understand how our brains work. So that's been really cool knowing and just getting to adjust our perspectives on so much, it's been really helpful. I would say that my experience as a child and my experience as an adult, it really has impacted my ability to create the toys that I have because there are so many children that learn in these different ways that there aren't a lot of toys curated towards them. And I'll give you a great example. My kids use something called an AAC device and it's an app on an iPad. But it's basically how they talk and that's actually what my children's book is about. It's about using an AAC device, and it shows the progression of using the device and then eventually implementing American Sign Language and also spoken language. So our kids actually, with our toys specifically, they will use their devices to play with the toys. And that's something that I don't ever see with other companies. A lot of autistic children get overstimulated easier, and I know I get overstimulated easier. So kind of taking all of that and bundling up into just how we do what we do, it's just changed so much. It's really good.
[00:36:59] Speaker E: That's excellent.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: So what is your website, solubotoys.com it's solobotoys.com.
[00:37:08] Speaker E: They'll buy directly from your website?
[00:37:11] Speaker B: They can. And there's actually an integration between our website and Amazon. So if somebody wants to buy from Amazon, they can actually buy from Amazon on our website.
[00:37:18] Speaker E: Okay, great. Thank you so much, Courtney. What an incredible product. And it is something brand new. If you have little ones, I highly encourage you to take a look at it soloboytoys.com. And now we are on to our next presenter, alex, nice. With such a cool name, it's called hostage tape.
[00:37:37] Speaker D: I almost wanted to say it first. You could say it hostage tape.
[00:37:41] Speaker E: Okay, Alex.
[00:37:42] Speaker C: Got to get some grit in there. Hostage tape.
[00:37:45] Speaker E: Alex, tell us all about it.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: I'm sure the first thing that everybody's thinking right now is, why would you call it hostage tape? So I'm going to get to that in a moment. So what is hostage tape? We've really built it as it's the strongest, comfortable mouth tape on the planet.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:37:59] Speaker D: Mouth tape.
[00:37:59] Speaker C: It's mouth tape. So on my face right now, I've got a nose strip. So this is actually our secondary product. So when people go to the site and they buy mouth tape, we give them an add on, an upsell to be able to use our nose strips, too. Because really, when you're talking about keeping your mouth shut, then people's minds, their questions always go, what about my nose? Because I've got a deviated septum, or maybe I have trouble breathing out my nose. So that we thought, well, let's come up with maybe a cooler way to have a nose strip. So when you sleep, as we get older, we tend to sleep with our mouth open, and that's not good at all.
[00:38:36] Speaker E: So we should keep our mouth shut when we're sleeping.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:39] Speaker D: So that's the issue.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: The issue comes down to just keeping your mouth shut. Right. We want to be breathing through a nose most of the time, except when we're talking or we're eating. So now let me get back to why did we call it hostage tape? Okay, there's two really core reasons why we did it. One was we're tapping into this core emotion that people feel by not being able to get sleep because of their partner or because of themselves, they feel held hostage. Now, secondly, on the other side of that coin is funny story was when I first discovered Malletaping, I just went and I bought some just really cheap stuff. I would put it on my mouth at night, and I would warn my kids, hey, I'm going to warn you. I'm going to put some tape on my mouth. It's going to look like I'm being held hostage, so don't freak out. I was inspired by so James Nestor wrote a bestselling book called Breath, and he talks about mouth taping. And you could just get like, three M MicroPort tape, surgical tape. You can get it really anywhere on Amazon or at a Walgreens or something, right? And so I just bought some of that and tried it. It's really uncomfortable. It doesn't always work for everybody if you have facial hair. So when I did right, you look like you're being held hostage. Right. So that's kind of the joke. When you do it, you look really goofy. You look funny.
[00:39:52] Speaker D: You've been kidnapped or something.
[00:39:55] Speaker C: You totally do.
[00:39:56] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: And so in this era of, like, liquid death, right? If you guys know what liquid death is, it's this up and coming brand who they've made their name on flipping marketing on its head, going the other direction with it and getting attention. And so we said, that's what we're going to do. We're going to take this concept of hostage tape and lean into those things I talked about. But we know that it's going to get people's attention. It's going to inspire men to start the conversation, to think, what the heck is this? And anybody that sees it remembers it.
[00:40:27] Speaker D: Why just men, though? I would think that all genders would be interested in hostage tape.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Right?
[00:40:33] Speaker D: Well, okay. Like a lady's version or a guy's version?
[00:40:37] Speaker C: Well, certainly from my point of view, I leaned into the demographic that I resonate with was, all right. For most of us men, the issue with this in general is a lot of people will say just use a little strip or just a little bit of gentle tape. But the problem is that doesn't work. That doesn't hold for a lot of us men, right. That have maybe strong jaws. We just pop that right open. So it's not good enough. That might work for some people, doesn't work for everybody.
[00:41:02] Speaker E: And I can see how the name would appeal more to men because they're like, always watching the Bruce Willis movies.
[00:41:08] Speaker D: I don't want it for sure, but men may be snoring more than women. I don't know if there's any statistics.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: There are. Yeah. Statistically, like 75% of them are men. It's mostly men, but certainly women are, too. But also on the flip side of it, you could look at it and say, well, women would be buying this for their husbands, too, and they certainly do. We just wanted to make sure we were leaning into and we were marketing to this segment of men that quite honestly, men are certainly cheaper to market to the cost of advertising for women, middle aged women is a heck of a lot more expensive than it is to men. So we said we're going to lean into that. We want to lean into men who we are and make something masculine that you don't see. You do not see this kind of branding out there on a product like this for men. And so we did it and it's.
[00:41:54] Speaker E: Taken on think Dave wants to say.
[00:41:57] Speaker D: Yeah, Dave, take that hostage tape off and say what?
[00:42:00] Speaker A: You know. I would like to try it because I read something one time where they said the average human being swallows like a thousand spiders in their lifetime because their mouth is open.
I'll let Alex speak to that. But yeah, I mean, that's another variation.
[00:42:22] Speaker D: On the walk thing.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: You can do spiders and good idea. Spiderwalk. I like that.
[00:42:28] Speaker E: But it works with facial hair, right?
[00:42:30] Speaker C: It does, yeah, exactly. And that's one of the really key differentiators is that with this tape, we designed it in a way that it's going to work with facial hair. It's going to be able to still adhere to whiskers, all of that, which most men have some sort of facial hair. And so that's always the first question men will ask is, I can't mouth date because I've got facial hair, rest assured.
[00:42:50] Speaker D: But this then basically stops snoring.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:52] Speaker D: So even if you're sleeping by yourself, you would still want to try this just because wake themselves up when they snore.
[00:43:00] Speaker C: So the more important thing is it is mouth breathing, right. So when you keep your mouth shut, it can reduce and stop snoring for many people. It doesn't always stop snoring for everybody because some people still make noises in their nasal passage. It still happens. Right. But really the most important thing is that we are not breathing to our mouth, we're breathing to our nose. So that's at the end of the day, the most important piece of why the tape exists and what it's trying to do.
[00:43:28] Speaker E: Yeah, because I think to Dave's point, you don't know what's going in your mouth.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: So Alex, are you getting more oxygen that way too, in terms of feeling the correct way? So that make a big difference in and of itself?
[00:43:39] Speaker C: Yeah, the studies say that you get up to almost 20% more oxygen and it really simply comes down to this. It's the relationship of CO2 to oxygen. And what most people don't understand, I mean, even I didn't understand it until I learned it, was that we need CO2 in our body in order to take in oxygen into our muscles. So if we're mouth breathing and we're exhaling too much CO2 and that's leaving our body, then we have less ability to take that oxygen into our muscles. There's a one for one exchange of CO2 to oxygen. Right. So think about that now if I shut my mouth and the amount of CO2 in my body is at a good amount now, the oxygen I am breathing is able to go into my muscles.
[00:44:24] Speaker E: That's interesting.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Fascinating.
[00:44:25] Speaker D: Oh, that's another reason not to be a mouth breather.
[00:44:28] Speaker E: Right? But how are you selling this? What's your main channel of commerce for this?
[00:44:32] Speaker C: We purposely did not go on Amazon. In fact, Amazon actually just banned mouth tape. So we can't even get on Amazon. We're in the process of trying to work with them on it because ironically, our tape is actually FDA approved. We have a class one FDA approval on the tape, but we sell primarily on shopify. So we've got a shopify, people go to the site and we spend a lot of money on Facebook marketing.
[00:44:56] Speaker D: And so you also have though you're wearing right now. So for our listeners who want to go to our YouTube channel Passage to Profit show and they want to see Alex with a piece of tape over his nose that also helps.
[00:45:09] Speaker C: When people look at the mountain, one of their next natural questions is, well, what about my nose? What if I've got a deviated septum or I'm having trouble breathing out of it? So we just figured, like, all right, as a business, how can we increase the order value while also giving people a really valuable product? Because now they trust us. And we just thought, all right, well, let's take a nose strip and make it look really cool with the same branding that we have.
[00:45:31] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:45:32] Speaker D: What about earplugs?
[00:45:33] Speaker C: Yeah, we talked about it. It's certainly in the realm of the things that we want to do. We're trying to find all these different ways that we can help improve sleep in a very non invasive way.
[00:45:44] Speaker E: Yeah, I like that. So do you have any testimonials from anybody that's used your product?
[00:45:49] Speaker C: Oh, yes. So if you go to Hotchestape.com and go to the reviews, go there and look at that. We've got over maybe 2500 reviews at this point, but a lot of reviews. And I think the most common term that you're going to see, and Dave actually mentioned it earlier, is life changing. When people discover Maltaping for the first time, most people describe it as being life changing for them because now they're actually getting sleep.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Right?
[00:46:14] Speaker C: And sleep is probably the most valuable thing that we're all getting or not getting that can really make the biggest impact on our lives on a daily basis. So think about that, right? If you're getting bad sleep and it's stacking over and over and over again, and then when you finally start to get good sleep, it really jolts you and you realize how poor you've been sleeping up to that point.
[00:46:35] Speaker E: Wow, that's excellent. Well, again, the website is hostagetape.com. Thank you very much, Alex.
[00:46:43] Speaker D: Passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.
[00:46:45] Speaker E: Our special guest was Dave Albin firewalker extraordinaire amazing. And don't go away because we still have a little bit left.
[00:46:53] Speaker D: And we'll be back with more Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt right after this. I'm Richard Gerhardt, founder of Gearhart Law. We specialize in patents, trademarks, and copyrights. You can find out
[email protected]. We love working with entrepreneurs. And here's our client, Peter, who tells it like it is.
[00:47:12] Speaker H: I'm Peter Olson, founder of on and up. We recently were elected as one of the best invention of Time magazine for 2022. Through this journey, we've been relying on Gerard Law to guide us in the right steps to build a right portfolio of patents, trademarks to support our launch of our new product. It has been a great experience working with Gerard Law as they have a deep knowledge into the market both in North America and overseas. So we make the right choices at the right time.
[00:47:40] Speaker D: Thank you, Peter. To learn more about patents, go to learnmoreaboutpatents.com and download our free Entrepreneur's Guide to Patents. Or book a free consultation with me that's learnmouthpatents.com it's Passage to Profit.
[00:47:53] Speaker F: Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
[00:47:56] Speaker E: Noah Fleischmann is our producer here at Passage to Profit, and he just has a way of putting his best memories in perspective.
[00:48:03] Speaker I: Back when I was in junior high school, the one thing I understood the least was the one thing no teacher was ever going to discuss. It was that tiny little room at the end of the third floor with the big wooden door and the sign that said Teachers Lounge. Okay? It's a lounge for teachers to get together once in a while throughout the day and talk amongst one another. I can understand that, but why did they have to hide from us? As I got older, I understood it had nothing to do with anything personal. It was just part of the larger Judeo Christian foundation of division between authority and disciple, teacher and pupil, manager and employee, if you will. And it's a system that's worked very well over the years. I mean, think about it. How much command or intimidation can you instill in anyone if they can actually see you eating or walking into a restroom? It's a system that's worked very well for a very long time. But can that system actually be on the way to changing? With more and more independent startup entrepreneurs becoming their own boss, working directly for the people, we just might end up breaking bread communally a little bit more often. Less walls, bigger tables. And as my mother once said, we all flush in the same direction.
[00:49:09] Speaker C: Now more. With Richard and Elizabeth passage to profit.
[00:49:13] Speaker F: It's been a really fun show. I've had the time of my life. And if you haven't had a chance to hear the whole show, if you're only tuning in late, you can find us on our podcast that'll be released tomorrow. Anywhere where you get your podcast and also our YouTube channel and also our social media handles well.
[00:49:30] Speaker E: Now it's time for my question.
[00:49:32] Speaker F: Yes, it is.
[00:49:33] Speaker E: So I'm going to ask Dave Alban. Firewalkadventures.com. Dave, can you share a favorite quote or mantra that has guided you in your entrepreneurial endeavors?
[00:49:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Stop looking for heroes and be one.
[00:49:47] Speaker E: OOH, I love that. Courtney peebles soluble toys.com. Can you share a favorite quote or mantra that has guided you in your entrepreneurial endeavors?
[00:49:58] Speaker B: My mom, growing up, always said the Serenity Prayer, talking about accepting the things that you can't change and having the wisdom to know when you can. And that's really what I've been trying to think of because there's so many moving parts in business. It's just kind of picking your battles and deciding which one's most important and then just leaving the ones that you shouldn't fool with.
[00:50:17] Speaker E: Excellent.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: Very profound.
[00:50:18] Speaker E: So, Alex Neist with Hostagetape.com, can you share a favorite quote or mantra that has guided you in your entrepreneurial endeavors?
[00:50:27] Speaker C: You can accomplish anything you want. You just have to be willing to work for true.
[00:50:34] Speaker E: Excellent. So Richard Gearhart, owner of Gearhart Law first full service patent, trademark and copyright law firm, can you share a favorite quote or mantra that has guided you in your entrepreneurial endeavors?
[00:50:48] Speaker F: Well, absolutely. We were talking today about Oprah Winfrey and her life changing moment when she was doing the firewalk. But one thing that she said that stuck with me is that you are responsible for your own success. And I think that that is a really good thing to keep in mind, because if it's going to happen, you're the one that's going to have to do it.
[00:51:11] Speaker E: Yes. So for my favorite quote or mantra that has guided me in my entrepreneurial endeavors, it's the phrase never give up. I think it's so easy to give up and to feel discouraged at times and to say, oh, my gosh, this is never going to work. But if you give up, then you're done, right?
[00:51:28] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:51:29] Speaker E: And I'm not ready to be done everything I'm doing. So if you are interested in firewalking or if you're not interested, watch Oprah do it and then become interested.
Dave Albin Firewalk Instructor and he does it for entrepreneurs, he does it for companies, and his website is firewalkadventures.com.
[00:51:48] Speaker F: He's a hot guy.
[00:51:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm stoked that you said that.
[00:51:53] Speaker F: I mean, the junks just write themselves.
[00:51:57] Speaker E: And for children ages, one year and up, we don't know how far up, but obviously quite a ways from what Courtney's been seeing. Courtney Peebles has solubotoys.com. That's solobo toys.com. Also a book all the way. Sterling communicates. And a podcast Aeroplay.
[00:52:17] Speaker F: She's got some really amazing toys. So if you need to entertain a child, whether it's yours or your grandchild or somebody else's child, you really got to check out her website.
[00:52:27] Speaker E: Right. And then if you are a mouth breather or know a mouth breather who could use a nice little gift, but only when.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Sleeping.
[00:52:36] Speaker F: It doesn't work with daytime mouth breathers.
[00:52:38] Speaker E: So Alex Neist has hostage tape. Hostagetape.com? And the benefits are many. You have to go to his website or listen to his interview to hear how really getting yourself to breathe through your nose while you're sleeping is so much better than breathing through your mouth hostagetape.com. So this has been great. Thank you all.
[00:52:56] Speaker F: Before we go, I'd like to thank the Passage to profit team. Noah Fleischmann, our producer, alicia Morrissey, our program director. Our podcast can be found tomorrow. Anywhere you find your podcast, just look for The Passage to Profit show. And don't forget to like us on Facebook and Instagram. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation.
[00:53:30] Speaker A: Take care, everybody.
[00:53:31] Speaker F: Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
