Ep. #815 - How to Increase Your External Traffic

Andrew Morgans 0:00
Hey, what’s up Hustlers. Welcome back. This is Andrew Morgans, founder of Marknology. Here for today’s episode of Startup Hustle, I’m bringing you guys an awesome guest, we’re going to be talking about how to increase your external traffic. I was in a podcast webinar. It was a it was kind of a painful podcast, honestly. And I met Matt and I, he was talking about what he does, and I’m going to explain it to you guys here shortly. But he was explained about what he does. And I was like, Oh my God, I need a full hour with this guy. I think what he’s doing is amazing. And I wanted to bring it to you guys. So without further ado, Matt Parker, welcome to the show.

Matt Parker 0:39
Yeah, thank you. Cheers, Andrew. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to this discussion. I’m sure you’ve got some great questions for me.

Andrew Morgans 0:48
I know we’re gonna have some fun where you come from?

Matt Parker 0:50
So yeah, from Greater Manchester in the UK. I’ve literally I haven’t been around the world. I’ve done a few things. I’m sure. I’m sure you’re gonna dig into that. When you just said that to me earlier. You’re gonna get a bit of a bio about me, but yeah, I’ve just kind of like a northern guy from from just outside of Manchester. And yeah, I mean, are you, are you a redhead? Like me?

Matt Parker 1:14
I can’t tell a little bit. I know, but my brother and dad are. So I’ve got a red beard, but I’ve not yet.

Andrew Morgans 1:20
On I’ve got a red beard. I got a hat on. You know, I’m 99.7% European per 23andme, the 23andme DNA test. So I’m American, but as it gets, but I knew me and Matt, we’re gonna hit it off. Just like you know, his idea is brilliant. You know, working around his Pinterest space. Before we jump into the details and Matt’s story. Shout out to our sponsor for today’s episode has made all this possible. FullScale.io helping you build a software team quickly and affordably. If you’re looking to scale your software team full scale.io is a great place to start. Alright, man, I like to start with a little bit with like the hero’s story, before we just jump into like business and what we do and, you know, I think it’s it all starts with a story stories are everything. You know, did you Did you always know you’re going to be in the E-commerce space? Did you always know you’re going to be an entrepreneur? As far back as you want to go? Kind of like where do you get started?

Matt Parker 2:16
Okay, I’ll go into more detail than I’ve ever been actually. Because you’ve you’ve actually triggered something in my head. So I’ve gone way back to when I was a degree student. So I basically started off degree level after doing software, graphic design communication. I went into programming did multimedia UI interface design? Okay. And obviously, that included the old school, Macromedia, which is now obviously that got acquired by Adobe. And I’ve seen, you know, I’ve seen the rise of Adobe for Photoshop one, so maybe I am older than I probably

Andrew Morgans 2:53
know, self worth. I’m 35. Are you older or younger than me? I’m older. I’m 30. Okay. So he said that, like he was a lot older, but barely.

Matt Parker 3:03
It’s just when you see these things popping up. Now, you know, you’ve got different versions, you kind of go oh, I remember the first one. And it kind of takes you back. So but yeah, no, I did all that kind of stuff. And what’s interesting is, is that did my degree around about the 1999 2000. Mark. And at that point, what the reason I’m explaining this now is because I think it will come full circle we’re moving into. And so the stuff we were doing interactively in JavaScript was very relatable to things like the metaverse that’s coming up. And it was kind of like, you know, looking into the dynamics of creating a flash based interactive website where people could shop, you could kind of shop you buy products. And it’s kind of the sad part is we’ve been through this whole process. And I’ve followed this throughout my life in that I’ve ended up in E-commerce because what happened overnight, is that the blogs came out you had bootstrap code in your Twitter. Yeah, all these things popped up. And suddenly interactive sites became a thing at the back of the room. And, you know, the motion imagery didn’t yet I mean, man, I’m going 56k modems where you could hear it in the background. Yeah, yeah. So we didn’t have the bandwidth. We didn’t have the technology too early, exactly too early. And we’re working in Dreamweaver working in ones and zeros, grid systems, all that kind of technical stuff. And from there, I had an exhibition on the tower, and then I got some placements as an intern working alongside some decent companies. I was working with BBC television. You know, and we did, I did some DVD interactive UI interface designs for Universal Studios for the music department and different things. So that was cool. That was kind of a DVDs, you know, you hear that name now, and it’s kind of like that’s gone as quick as it came in. And that’s what I’m saying things move so quickly. So So yeah, moving forwards. I worked for my degree did an exhibition did a Few placements. And then I actually became ill with the Lyme disease had Lyme disease and nobody knows this. I’ve never really spoken about this. And it kind of knocked me on my knock me on my ass sorry to say, you know, yeah, I’ll be back. And at that point I’d actually been over to Los Angeles, I’d written some scripts, I got into Tennessee law school of excellence, I came back home. I was a bit of a nomad, but I knew I wanted to be in the multimedia industry somehow. But I was so ill, I had to reevaluate my life with evaluate things. I was actually working at the time that I became ill for a big company who was working on a contracts like Prudential and Balbus lung lease. So they’re kind of the companies that own Petronas Towers in Kuala lumper. And so I had to come out, I was working on things that I enjoy, but I had to come out so I was to help. So it was actually a blessing in disguise, because it made me reevaluate things. And yeah, I kind of started looking at the E-commerce side of things. So it’s like, you know, I can see things developing with imagery, and, you know, just small scale, non blog kind of movement with multimedia. So I started off eBay of all places. Because there wasn’t any Amazon, literally. Yeah, I kicked off a business that became five or six figures, couple years. And then I created another eBay store. And then Amazon came along with buy on demand. And obviously, I had to have a go at that. Because maybe me, I can’t help myself. I thought it should be by now.

Andrew Morgans 6:36
Is that what you mean? Is that what you said?

Matt Parker 6:39
Um, so. So, obviously, yeah, sorry. So obviously, with eBay at the time, it was more an auction based algorithm. So you’ve got the time stamp algorithm, but with Amazon, what they were trying to obviously coin, which they have is the sort of buy on-demand audience, you know, buy it, get it tomorrow, they weren’t into that Amazon, they were mostly auction and just about 30 day, buy it now kind of thing. So they obviously Amazon saw a gap in that market. And I moved with the times with that sort of thing.

Andrew Morgans 7:06
So just so just for, like, pausing there for a second same thing, like I am an Amazon, you know, I built an Amazon agency, it started with eBay. Right? Basically, I got, I feel like I had maximized out what I could learn on eBay, in regards to not that I couldn’t build the business or whatever. But I was truly I’m truly passionate about e commerce, like I actually care about the science of marketplaces, and is problem solving for me, and I like it, I enjoy it, I want to be the best, I want to figure out why it’s working like this, like that comes natural to me. I’m not just a businessman, you know. So there’s a difference. There’s a lot of great agency owners and different things that you know, know how to build teams and know how to brand and know how to, you know, all those types of things. For me, it very much started with just a passion for E-commerce, I was like it’s pulling in kind of creativity. And on eBay, I was able to make these bundles. And I was using like Photoshop to kind of like, yeah, sell some borders and include this item and this item and this item and a photo and I’ve got now I’ve got a bundle. And that’s what’s the difference between me and the competitors and the items specific things I could change and the SEO right of the titles and descriptions. And then Amazon came along, which was the complete opposite of that you couldn’t customize the descriptions, you couldn’t change anything around, you had to have white background photos, you had to have like all these kind of like, it wasn’t about taking photos of your dad’s stuff in the garage, it was instead like, Fine, you know, more legitimate, it felt more legitimate in regards to who they wanted on the platform. So I made the same transition. I loved Amazon because it seemed like there were endless possibilities in regards to the things you could do proactively to grow them. And I liked that I liked that part versus eBay. It was like there was a point where you’ve got it set up and now you just like let it go. You got to do its thing. Yeah,

Matt Parker 8:53
I agree. Okay, it became stagnant. They had the opportunity to move in a different direction but I think that that’s what happens with these things. This is why I’m always keeping an Instagram that’s why I’m doing Pinterest now because I think the such dynamic shifts that happened that you know, I think people need to be careful they don’t copy hold themselves into one ideology, because you know, that is the end of your business because I’ve done that and I stepped back and I started failing because I was like, oh, okay, I’ve got it all sorted I’ve sussed everything out. No, it’s eCommerce and look how fast it’s moved. The obviously with a catalyst known as a pandemic, it’s kind of blown everything forwards out of proportion. And everyone was trying to scramble to keep up on or not keep up because it was a terrible time for a lot of people but also a good time.

Andrew Morgans 9:37
So it is a blessing and a curse. I’m living it because you know business is growing right more brands than ever are running the commerce you know more people are buying online than ever before at the same time. For the brands that are the people I work with, day in and day out. It’s the hardest it’s ever been for us. You know supply chain inflation competition Yeah, comparing the last, you know, comparing to a pandemic year when numbers were off the charts, you know, so you go like this and 2021, are you still growing? Or is there a decline? Because you know, now people can go back to stores, one of the hardest years, you know, I’ve been in the business for sure.

Matt Parker 10:15
Definitely in a weird one as well, because it wasn’t scalable. Wasn’t scalable attraction, you could, you couldn’t actually quantify the scalability because it was so erratic. I, it’s funny, because I started obviously, on eBay. But eventually, I paid I became part of the eBay development global testing team. So last year, I was testing the new personalized feature, because we built people gonna think I’m nuts when I say this, but we built an automated system based on different plugins that we built in the Wukong world. And basically, it runs 440,000 ASINs. Because we do personalized and it doesn’t autonomy. So yeah, when I say lots of people, the heads roll off and go, What was that even mean? But the reason why I went to Pinterest with this is because we’re able to test this with pins and do something different. And we’ve got this system in the background, why I’ve never gone elsewhere and sold that off is because I just like learning. I know, some people don’t get that. It’s like, why don’t you sell it I have been approached to sell it off. And I’m like, well, where’s the fun in that? You know, I’m kind of I’m only here once and I’m getting older one on?

Andrew Morgans 11:22
You know, it’s like something someone from the UK would say for sure.

Matt Parker 11:27
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it might come to a day where I can’t afford to put food on the table. And I’m like, Oh, I don’t have a choice. But at the moment, I’ve got a supportive wife and family. And, you know, I think I think it’s good and great that I’m able to do this right now. So sorry, I deviated as well away from

Andrew Morgans 11:44
No, no, no. This is good. This is good. And you know, I just relating like that path. I think that anyone that’s a problem solver, that’s an investigator or whatever the case might be. Trailblazer. You know, you start with something, you learn it, you know, maybe not become an expert, but you learn it. And it kind of creates the next thing, you know, and the next thing and I think that anytime you get into, you’re now on a platform that what you may be found or discovered is now changed quite a bit. And sometimes you change with it. And other times you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna go find, you know, what else is new? And, and how I can pull that in? So like, without you I do a lot of things on Amazon, but it’s it’s really a lot of things. I learned before that in the comments that I then brought to Amazon, you know,

Matt Parker 12:30
definitely, absolutely, definitely. I mean, I’ve got a couple of scenes. I mean, I’ve got internal stuff. And I’ve got with the brands, because we’ve got to some bigger brands. And that was part of the case study that we’ve used for our Pinterest, because it was always great to have something internally that you could test because you’re able to throw something out a while and see if it’s stuck, but without the expense and risk of the client, you know, so that’s why we did it. And I thought it was a perfect opportunity, because our brands suited the demographics of Pinterest, because obviously, it depends. It’s a very female orientated 80% marketplace and certain things that don’t sell.

Andrew Morgans 13:07
I use Pinterest, by the way, I must. I’m part of the 20% I guess so well, yeah.

Matt Parker 13:11
But that’s, that’s that’s changing. That’s changing because and the reason I know that’s changing, I can see the changes, especially with Gen Gen. Gen Z’s and millennials. This is a big change there. But yeah, again, I’m quite I’ve gone off point, this is what I do. My brain is so full of all these things you’ve gone from so I’m gonna bring you back, but it’s because I like it.

Andrew Morgans 13:27
I’m actually sticking with you. So I wouldn’t even know that you’re because I think I’m right there with you. I’m like, Yeah, me too. And if you need some brains to play with some sacred seven figure brands to play with you let me know. Okay, so sure, yeah, it’s just a sidebar. But you know, we have some products or some brands that do very well. They’re brilliant. We have some that are that have been with me a very long time and are the brands that I get to test with and play with. And, you know, they’ve also been on the benefiting side of all of our innovation, you know, so getting brilliant opportunities on stuff first. I love those brands. I know I am. So if you have to, I’ve got a couple probably have two or three two that are always down to test stuff. So you just let me know. Yeah, so So bring it back to Pinterest. You said you started on eBay. You were you had a couple of stores going. Let’s pick up the story there. So you had like a couple of stores going on eBay are selling products. They’re doing e commerce. What came after eBay.

Matt Parker 14:26
So the moment I’ll start from this point, and what backwards so at the moment, we have still got our I’ve got an associative colleague, a director Sugata. She’s running the brands, but we’ve actually got six stores in total. Okay. eBay, Amazon and Google WooCommerce. We didn’t do Shopify just because I prefer believer in Shopify, especially Pinterest. It just didn’t give us that freedom as coders. If you don’t, I mean, it doesn’t give you the freedom to be able to be a bit more innovative if you’ve got that coding background, so that’s why we stopped with WooCommerce. But yeah, I’m going back to what you’ve just said. Then we went on from eBay, then to Amazon, I’ve moved, moved properties three, four times. And started off started off in a garage. Even though I don’t come from a really bad background, sort of middle class affluent background, I wanted to start off on the on to fi and I bought a heat press because I’m actually qualified in screen printing. Okay, so a lot of people don’t know this side of me, and I’ve never really spoken, but it isn’t, it’s integrated with what we’re doing. So now we’re based in a warehouse in Manchester, we’ve got our own screen print studio, we’ve got digital print studio. But what I’ve had to do, which is a lot of things a lot of directors don’t want to do, is step back now because it’s become a lot more self sustained. I’ve got a great team, something about 10 years to build the skill set up because it’s very unique in the way that it operates. And so now, we move from eBay, to Amazon, to where you come to integrate into Google feeds. And now we’re at a point where that’s running on autonomy, I can step back. And we can use that as an engine when needed to help scale others on Pinterest. And that’s the way I’m looking at it. It’s kind of like a building block for me. I never thought I’d look at it like that. It’s just kind of worked out that way. And I’m a firm believer in timings. And I think that with the skill set of everything that I’ve spoken about previously now with you, and where I’ve come from, from that multimedia background, and with the personalized sort of, you know, broad, broad, what’s the word demographics of what we sell to from, and it’s mostly Ladies category from sort of, well, baby ladies from newborn all the way up to leaders were. So if you think about them, demographics and his clothing, all these things are quite affluent on Pinterest. So it’s kind of like I’ve been thrown on a path of innovation, but it’s been laid out for me, but I’ve had to take the reins and think well, it’s obviously there, why not go with the flow. So I have not ended up here where I am now. And that’s kind of it really.

Andrew Morgans 17:00
So I love it man, I relate so much. You know, Mark Knology is full service agency from Creative I have creative department to we actually have a three PL and warehouse now. So from you know, supply chain to the creative to, you know, being an Amazon advertising agency partner, so we’re certified in the ad side to or an advertising agency, if you want to see it that way. Yeah, really like a construction company for digital. You know, whether you want social media, not that we offer all those things like social media and web design, but we can, you know, we specialize in Amazon, but for building my own brands, now, it’s felt like Mark Knology was building it. And learning along with these other brands for the last 10 years, really is set myself up to just like, from start to finish, you know, build brands and support them through whatever they need, you know, whatever that that thing is, instead of having doubt sources or sources, it’s like, yeah, we can take care of you know, whether I’m doing that for my own or for others. It’s just not how I saw it. But what I really do see it as a building block, you know, a lot of people are looking to exit their agencies right now, and different things going on in the space. And for me, I’m like, I’m just this is literally like day one, I’m just getting started, like I just, I just saw a problem I got more to do. I think it’s cool how you just go with the flow and just, you know, see what opportunities come up. Some of the some of the brands we’re working with that have never seen, I would have never thought or I thought of myself as a creative at one point. And but I was so good at computers and tech that I was like, it’d be stupid to just try to be a musician, when I’m really good at tech, you know, for example, you know, so it was like, I feel like E-commerce is how I blended the two, you know, being a problem solver with creative creative ways of doing it. But what the technical background is, and we’ve chosen these careers, are these, like, you know, these industries where you don’t get bored. If you’re doing it right, that’s exactly that’s exactly the point.

Matt Parker 19:00
All my internal team, I’ll say to them, and I say this a lot. They’ll they’ll they’ll moan alone, I’ll say things like, Oh, why am I putting myself through this, you know, the victimized kind of card and I’m not a victim. Nobody is really when you walk back and step back from it. We all speak to each other. We have meetings pretty much every month, not every week, if we can just to thrash things out. We’re kind of at all the cards on the table kind of crew. And you know, they’ll turn around and say, well, oh, I can’t believe this. You know, I’ve got to do these extra hours and I’ll set off to do them. And then I’ll go no, I want to I want to get this done because it’s something different. And I always say to them, if you want to find a nine five go out there, no problem. But if you want something different, you never want to be bored. Trust me. I see myself as a catalyst. If I can keep that ideology of always pivoting and moving. Then whoever I’m a firm believer, you attract what you are. And, you know, I’ve attracted I think I’ll speak for them because they’ll probably agree I’ve attracted some crazy, amazing people that are innovators off the wall and love to blow things up. And that will do for me, because like you say, it’s who I am. And I’ve accepted that I don’t do mainstream board and I don’t do an exit strategy. I wasn’t really sort of Kosher with that I didn’t, I wasn’t really, I didn’t really know what it was. And so very recently, because all I’ve ever understood, even when I worked in the industry was growth strategies that exits. And if you look at the big hitters, you know, Microsoft, Apple, you look at all these big hitters, they’ve never had an exit strategy in Amazon is not an exit strategy. They’ve had a growth strategy. And so if you look at it from that angle, why is the question the reason? Exactly. And they’re innovators, they want to do something different. So for me, I’m very much adult, like to let something go, not at the expense of my own mental well being, but I like to make sure that if I can find out and there is a way, I’ll try my very best, I’m just a sucker for knowledge, basically.

Andrew Morgans 21:05
I love it birds of a feather, okay, like, I like where you’re at, because this is more the exception than the rule, you know? Yeah. And I appreciate that, you know, and it’s something I’m navigating myself that I just like, I like to challenge like, you know, before they’re streaming, when, if I was a kid, I would love streaming and all that stuff today, because I was just a mad gamer. Like, I was hacking literally games off a porn sites, when I grew up in Africa, people are gonna laugh at that, but like, Alright, so what it was, was like, these are exploiting zip files, you know, because yeah, because so like zip files, you would go download these images from the back end of these porn sites, okay, you would change the name, the file, the file name, to.ar AR, like dot zip, or like it with a sequence of like, one to 200 or something, and you have these 3000 kilobyte image files. And when you combine them all together, created a zip, you would unpack that zip, and there would be like, some exe files in there executables that might like, create an install, right. And in Africa, you know, 2000, before 2001, you know, with a satellite, you know, we I was like putting these things together and bringing pieces from America over to Africa with me, like playing the games that my friends were also getting, you know, and buying at the time. And I just liked doing it, you know, it was like, I just liked solving these puzzles, kind of, and it was like, what I guess what I was getting at is like, the games for me then translate even to the algorithms we’re working on now. And I’ve gamified them a lot in my mind in regards to like, yeah, you know, Twitch stream, or documenting my gameplay, you know, or whatever, but I want a few X Xbox in my day. And, you know, and like, even the Amazon algorithm, thinking about it, like, a scoring system, or like a game, you know, when it comes to ROI business. You know, it’s different times, you know, it’s different times, then then in those early days, but for me, it’s still very much a competition, you know, that I’m like, oh, this person is using direct mail to make their like, you know, their business or their Amazon rankings increase, you know, by getting some sales that are coming in through direct searches, or like, you know, whatever the case might be, and it’s like, Ah, here’s another here’s another game piece, or another clue, so to speak, on how to how to execute a holistic eCommerce strategy at a high level. And thinking of it in that way, as just like, what’s another, you know, tip, a strategy? Game hack? And yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Matt Parker 23:40
You’re going back?

Andrew Morgans 23:43
Yeah. It’s still fun for me. 10 years later. Oh, yeah.

Matt Parker 23:47
Yeah, yeah, we are saving further and all that kind of stuff. Because when I go back, I actually had a spectrum. Sinclair’s that exe when I was two and a half. Then when I was three or four at Atari xe, which is like just before the Atari STS, and then I moved on to I think it was a macro, a Commodore, what was it now? I think it was an Archimedes, which are BBC computers. Okay. The big floppy drives. And then yeah, you might not remember I’m not sure but you stopped. One. Well, yeah, exactly. And then, from there, I moved on to a Compaq computer. But this is the thing when I was 11. I went through nine Compaq computers because I got viruses on them through trying to do hacks and trying to create things. And my dad was convinced that it was about a faulty batch. But really the theory I remember I pretty much broke all of them. And then I progressively moved on from there. And I’ve always been interested in gaming like yourself, I mean, even my degree was part of UI interface was it was kind of part of doing computer game UI interface design. And I’ve got friends who went on to EA doing other things, animators, digital animators, all that kind stuff, which was cool. But yeah, maybe I see that things in the same way as you but never realized that so I spoke to your soul, you know, interesting, really, I see that as a strange but relatable outlook what you’ve just

Andrew Morgans 25:12
I think, I think at our age, like in our time with tech and where it’s come in our lifetime, you know, regardless, we’ve been here when it went from that stage of like, you know, the big floppies, you know, to doom that was, you know, how many ever floppy did like CDs Oh, Bob Kane, and you know, like, oh, wow, wow, yeah, I got you with that one I knew. But, you know, it was those puzzles and strategies. And that was before social media. That was before people were limiting their kids with game time that was before, you know, I grew up in a jungle, they have plenty of time to game and play. These are these hard strategy games that like once you figure them out, like, you know, makes a business problem in E-commerce honestly seem easy in regards to some of these puzzles. Yes, games had in the early days. And you know, I’m not I’m not a gamer. I’m not paid to game, you know, but do I bring that like experience to what we do today? Very much so. And it’s been something that for me, it’s still fun. And still, the challenge, you know, where’s the fun in that, so to speak, I can relate to that a lot. The money is important, because it funds everything that we do, and it funds the research, and you know, all those kinds of things. But at the end of the day, I never got into this business to exit. I got into this business to solve problems, you know, including my own problems, my own financial problems. I was like side hustling, you know, trying to make trying to make an extra dollar for sure.

Matt Parker 26:39
It’s though you make valid points. And it’s almost like, I always say, I spoke to someone recently. And I asked them, I said, Why, why? Why was Apple ever a big thing when you already had sort of, I think it was a called Acorn Computers was around when Apple was it, all these various fruits and vegetables pop up out of nowhere? And then, you know, they became big. Now you could argue why they would become big, because it’s a different operating system, what made them special? The argument is, is that the end of the day, it, that’s the that’s the thing, if you’re going to do something that I believe in this, I think you’ve got to do something exceptional, you need to be different. And I believe there’s a quote I saw recently, and I think it’s really probably the listeners, listeners might step back and really think about this. And I think it’s a brilliant quote, If you always did what you always say, if you always do what you always did, you’ll always be what you always were. However, if you do things differently, you’ll be something else. And I think that’s a really good quote, because I think that if you step out your comfort zone, and you want to be you want to beat that endgame boss, and find the strategy that does it, so to speak, in gaming terms, then if you do that, then the money will probably come because innovation can actually work around anything in my eyes. And I think that if you do find that way, it’s not easy. But if you look at it as a challenge, you know, it’s I think the most difficult part comes is I’ve got a family, it’s obviously you’ve got that responsibility of income. Yeah, you know, that’s always a problem. But if you can somehow do both, do both and sidetrack that in your mind and focus on what’s important, which is the innovation not just cashing in, then that will come and I believe I really do believe that. It’s easier said than done. I know, I know. But I listen. I when I started off, I my parents could have offered me money. And I didn’t want anything for five years. I literally my wife, you know, she’ll vouch for me on this. I reinvested everything. She was the breadwinner. She was the head of department school, I had nothing, and she supported me and kind of things have flipped because she’s an alternative therapist. So I support her. She’s got we’ve got an alternative therapy clinic at the back of the house. So I supported her we both now entrepreneurs doing different things. But yeah, definitely, I think the main key with this to get out there is if you’ve got an idea, and you know, you’re only here once you might regret it if you’ve got the capability of doing it. So just have a goal because there’s a lot of people out there with great ideas, just confidence and

Andrew Morgans 29:01
work ethic and the ability to push past like not getting it done, you know, I was gonna make Oh, but tell me tell me, I’m not the only one that you know, we’d have one computer, maybe three buddies are on the same computer, one person’s playing. The other two are kind of his walkthrough. It was streaming before streaming, right. And we would take turns because the game was so hard that you know, you needed all three minds kind of like working through the puzzle strategy. And you might play this level you saved at the save point before the boss, and you might play it 300 times before you executed some sequence of moves or puzzle that eventually got you past the boss. And it’s like that that resilience that relentlessness to you know, you know it’s beatable. It’s a game has been beatable. You’ve seen people beat it. That relentlessness to push through that and to figure it out even if it takes 300 times is something that a lot of the I don’t even want to say it’s the younger generation just people in general myths when it comes to this and that’s the difference. I’m we going to do what they’re not, which is to try this 300 times until I get it right. You know, or to figure it out. And that’s really the difference. It’s not that I’m genius. It’s not It’s innovation caused by, there’s a problem here, I’m gonna try to fix it, I’m gonna try 300 times to like to, like figure out a solution, you know? Yeah.

Matt Parker 30:18
I mean, my interns have got a really, I think, I think they think I’m crazy. Because I’ve got so many statements, I’ve got scenes up in the warehouse and like unit and all these different statements on the walls, because I’m a firm believer in subliminal messages and how it can influence you. And so ways. You know, kind of it usually, if it’s difficult, it’s worth doing. And you know, exactly what you’ve just said, I think these things are actually equally as important as running a business. Because, you know, I know that virgin Richard Branson, he employed a company called fuel. And this is when I actually did work for a few companies in London, I’ve not run into that, because it’s more of the corporate. But they would this company fuel would put images of certain things that were strategically put in the building to increase productivity and positivity. And it’s a massive business. And it’s, you know, at the time, it was such a fad on Earth, you said that to sort of the generation price and be the goal. What does that even mean? Now, it’s kind of like more accepted. People accept these things as logic. But you know, all these different ways of looking at a business, people need to understand they’ve got to step outside of the the zone or the lane, and really observe and see, well, is it just about getting something from a to b? Or is there more than one viable route, and I suppose this is why I’m doing what I’m doing with the whole chat with external traffic, because I’m going outside and looking outside in.

Andrew Morgans 31:48
Let’s let’s, let’s pause right there. Once again, shout out to our sponsor for today’s episode FullScale.io, helping you build a software team quickly and affordably. If you’re looking to scale your software team, Full Scale that IO is a place to start. Amazing company and without them, you know, this show wouldn’t be possible. Back to Back to this conversation here. Let’s talk let’s let’s take a step into, you know, as we as we wrap up the show the next 10 or 15 minutes or so, talking about increasing your external traffic and you know, as long as the conversation we’re having all the time, it’s, it’s what are the other things you’re doing? Okay, well, this isn’t working well. Are we trying anything else? Like because if we’re not, I don’t want to just sit here and keep wasting my time talking about the problem, you know, so it’s like, what are all the things we’re doing? Pinterest? A great off Amazon external traffic. You know, that’s where that external traffic is coming from. Let’s talk about pin formative, like we really just haven’t even taken time talking about pin formative. we’ve alluded to it. But what are you exactly doing for brands? And you know, what are you guys researching? What are you developing? What are you guys pushing out? Well, let’s talk about performative.

Matt Parker 32:55
Okay. Yeah, sure. Well, just to kick it off, I started performative because I could see the potential with Pinterest. And I believe that what we’re trying to do is utilize Pinterest, and work with because we are working with them. We’ve got contacts on Pinterest, and we were trying to the other middle, we see them as the middleman. If you imagine a spider’s web, we see them right in the middle of every EECOM social media platform, I think that they’ve got the potential to fall traffic, or we’ve, we’ve proven they’ve got the potential to funnel traffic anywhere, because what Pinterest offers that other places don’t is freedom of TOS in an ethical way. So you can, you can spin off a lot of velocity of traffic from five angles, and pin that onto a board with an affiliated pin that goes straight to your Amazon listing, which could bump it up on the A nine algorithm. So what what I mean, primarily, what performative is, I mean, if you had to summarize it, because I know you have to put these things in a capsulated. One sentence, we’re an E, we basically, we are a PPC based agency that works with elearning, along with Pinterest, and we’re developing with developers and engineers and creatives. And that’s it. That’s pretty much it. But we’re doing things differently. We’re kind of not coming from it from an aesthetic lifestyle angle, we’re coming in at an angle, we’re, we’re actually built our own our own internal software called pan net. It’s not something we spoke about yet. It’s still in beta stage, but it’s utilizing metadata within video imagery. We’ve got some cool things of scale and organic Calico algorithms. There’s a lot more science behind it than you know, the then I can go into because I’d be here for an hour but basically, with a background with JavaScript and you’ve got Adobe as well. With animates. We can combine all these things and create something more interactive for the user, especially where I think things are going not on with Metaverse everything. It’s you know, I mean, you’ve got talk with Metaverse with Shopify Facebook, that is a thing. You’ve got your you’ve got your Uh nsds, And people don’t understand what they are yet, but I can see where all this is potentially going, you know, playing one style, I can see it happening.

Andrew Morgans 35:10
You know, what’s crazy is that like, you know, first first his kids were nerds were super nerds, oh, yeah, we care about this stuff, then all of a sudden, we’re cool because Hollywood makes the nerds cool. And, and Silicon Valley makes nerds cool and rich, you know, and then business as a whole. So eCommerce is transitioning to e commerce, which everyone you know, in a big way, I think even in store is like, has the elements of E-commerce at this point, it’s just commerce now because it’s all connected. So but then, you know, the next step is then bringing it almost back to video games. So all of the, you know, all the business will be, or a lot of money in business comes back to video games and in NF T’s and like, think about the early tech adopters. Sure, there’s investors getting involved and things like that, but it’s guys like me and you girls like me, and you, you know, playing games. And the world’s coming back full circle to their, you know, since was definitely was with Sims was a phenomenon where people jumped into living these lives through this digital world for a while. And World of Warcraft. And you know, we’re here at the beginning of these things taking over people’s lives. And what’s going to come back because it’s going to come back to a virtual world, where money and dollars and currency is being exchanged at a high level, and it’s like, hey, money is going to be actually in the hands of developers like us. It’s actually it’s, it’s crazy. Like, to me, it’s really cool. It’s not that hard to imagine as a Star Trek, like, you know, I grew up watching Star Trek and seeing that stuff. Now we have the iPad, and we have this and we have that it’s all like it was all like kind of created in Star Trek in some ways. And I think of the stuff now Ready Player One, you know, recreating that reality,

Matt Parker 36:50
I was just gonna say that, yeah, and there’s that film out with the Ryan Reynolds account when it’s cold recently, and he today I bought blue shirt guy anyway, it’s a simple sort of thing. He puts the shades on the glasses and everything, you know, you grab some money, you put it in a box, but this is why, you know, I think that all these things are connected and moving forwards. I’ve just got this thesis and predicted ideology of where I believe things are gonna go connected. i You said it is our video game. This is another thing is that people were getting scared of videos. But I believe with constant refresh video algorithms are the future because it’s just because people get scared by the idea of creating this for Feature and video. I’ve done my research with people, and they got a video oh, God, you know, so much work in that that was moving things on your screen where you have to actually do more work than an image? No, because you’ve got the you’ve obviously got Canberra and tailwind and all these different companies now popping up, especially in affiliation, because we’ve got them as partner, affiliate companies as well. So we understand what’s going on and what’s fresh, but where they’re going, it’s kind of like, you can optimize images on an AI based software platform now that will create a video, even with, you know, with an AI elation of images. And yeah, but it’s not that the thing is, a lot of people just look at the aesthetics again, where in theory, even if you just move something from A to B, there’s still a 25 to 30 frame rate, and within it within each single frame in one second is a vast amounts of data. So the potential in one second completely outweighs an image on a video. And I can see where that’s going as well. That’s why we’re trying to utilize, you know, pen net, and we’re trying to, you know, scale things organically.

Andrew Morgans 38:33
I sent you this video I did on YouTube, where I’m predicting Amazon ahead of time. And now videos taken over, not that it was genius craziness, but it was talking about you know, they, they push it toward hearing impaired and all these different reasonings, you know for adding captions to your video and being able to watch in the bathroom, on the toilet, you know, with the sound off and watch the video on Facebook, whatever. But really, it’s just all these all these algorithms and marketplaces planning for using video search and being you know, so that it’s being able to search the videos live through the captions and it’ll be search indexed by the captions, and you know, the the alt texts and things behind in the videos, I think I just really think that’s coming. If it’s not here already, but like, you know, that’s why they’re pushing all these brands to it. And so whether you’re you know, if you were a first mover on Amazon, when it came to video, you were getting advertising costs like next to free for a while before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon and you know, ones that were innovative and moving. We’re killing it.

Matt Parker 39:32
It’s funny to say that because I was at the conference in Amsterdam, the conference, the orange click and the competition up there. We had to join up in tables of five there were a few 100 people in this room. We had to come up with the best hack that we could find clean hack of Amazon. And ironically, we want mean these five guys I don’t know I’ve never even seen three of them again, one was from Switzerland. We won and it was all to do with the video algorithm on lifestyle on life. Sorry on as Amazon US and how to scale quickly up to the top with 20 30,000 views using that algorithm, and it’s not when you when you break these things down, it’s not rocket science. It’s just like you say, I mean, I’ve had a discussion I don’t you know, don’t even Berlin. It’s a friend of mine. And we’ve had discussions. I mean, I’ve been at the back of the room. He’s been at the forefront, obviously for a while and I’ve started speaking to him more and more about what I’m doing, but he’s actually pulling me out a little bit because I’m a bit of a geek with a night nightmare agenda. People

Andrew Morgans 40:26
don’t know how to handle this.

Matt Parker 40:29
I’m not great at networking. I’m getting there. It was kind of like we’re actually going to be we’re going to be showcasing a prosper. And it’s gone from me too.

Andrew Morgans 40:36
I’ll be the first time so this hall so I’m two years into pushing myself out there so I might be a little ahead of you as far as getting out from behind, but I’m two years maybe like that make even with this podcast. Last year was a big networking year for me even that’s, you know, that’s how we connected where I just was like, we’re doing cool shit like on Amazon here in the Midwest like with my small team. I want to be involved, you know, and, and, and more so involved not because I need business, my business is growing. That was part of the problem. I don’t need to come out. I don’t need to come out of the dungeon if I’m growing my business. Yeah, I’m profitable. But anything about I like the industry. I like to community I like yeah, I’m gonna get more support and have more help and have more colleagues, and I enjoy that part the the feeling part of talking to like minded people like myself. And so it’s been good. Yeah, let me help you. Let me help in what way I can we’re gonna get like a beer or something and prosper. That’s cool. So you’ll be in you’ll be in prosper in March.

Matt Parker 41:36
So yeah, we’ve got a booth. And I’ve got a little hack and bring you with me, hopefully, it’s a bit different because I like to engage people, you know, I want to do something different, not just a banner, I want to do something.

Andrew Morgans 41:47
Okay, I got a tip for you right here live on the show. In this, it can get a little below pricey. I think like booking stuff through them. I’m not sure I don’t do a booth because I’d like to be on the move. And I don’t have something to sell like that. I’m afraid the customers that come by my booth would be the ones I don’t want. But like it’s about couches, okay, or like chairs. So like the booths that do well at prosper, have like some kind of like chairs or couches or something for people to sit because we walk walk, walk, walk walk, yet the trade shows.

Matt Parker 42:17
That’s where we have got circular tables to represent pins. Okay, we’ve gone for circular because it’s more of

Andrew Morgans 42:23
as long as there’s a place to see

Matt Parker 42:24
ya. Well, I want to speak to people who want to speak to me and sit down with them and have a chat. And I think that’s important. I want to face to face discussion rather than the stand because I think it’s very formal. You’re not relaxed. And also, I know what you’re saying, I’ve been to these exhibitions where they have sort of the square, you know, tables at the front. And he’s kind of very, what’s the word? border line? Yeah, it’s kind of like, here’s us, here’s you. And so we’re trying to, we are trying to make it more of a comfortable area to be able to discuss things and see,

Andrew Morgans 42:55
I just remember, I hung out the good Tito booth all the time, because I was just like, they had couches and snacks. And I was like, the food was and so I was like stealing their snacks. And a lot of people would come by I was like, I gotta talk to everybody. Anyway, I guess that this couch, so that’s a freebie.

Matt Parker 43:13
But no, that’s a great idea. Um, I get a lot of British snacks, and over there just as a novelty, that’s a great idea. You know, gamer doesn’t like to have a mouse bar or a pack of crisps or a kind of sold or whatever. Yeah, it’s a great idea. Actually, really good idea.

Andrew Morgans 43:26
Thank you can do all the marketing stuff, you can do whatever. But at the end of the day, people are like, I’ll talk to you for 20 minutes. Why your snacks?

Matt Parker 43:35
You know, it’s a true gamer, right there. Somebody who hits the fridge early in the morning and needs to go and get something. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Morgans 43:42
This has been awesome. And you know, I know that. The last we hear about pin formative, like, you know, I think we could keep going and going, but it really is the mindset and finding people that are, you know, as a founder, I tell brands all the time, like I don’t even work with me to brands anymore. Like, you know, that was the early days. Like I’m really just looking for the projects now at this point that fuel me and the projects that are the key to success across whether it’s been formative my business, whoever says being innovative isn’t like pushing the limit. You know, even if the thing you’ve been in, like, you know, you were talking about the operating systems that came in when, right, but the reason they were successful, the reason why people wanted them was it was innovative.

Matt Parker 44:23
It was news, it was a change, you know exactly why they came up with the first iPod, iPod, and, you know, touchscreen, what’s this? I mean, that was like, a novelty in itself. And they’ve always done that. I mean, okay, you know, people do mold sometimes that Apple doesn’t have such a feature that should have, but they’ve always been different. And that’s the whole thing if you bring it, but if you’re different, you stand out. And if you can find those niches, those low hanging fruits, the column or gems, you know, I think that’s a great area to work in, because usually there’s less hassle, it’s more difficult, but it’s worth doing.

Andrew Morgans 44:57
That’s why you got to take your own advice. Well, well and that’s your sign off, but you got to take your own advice. It says, if you’re different, that’s how you stand out. Right? And so there’s your call to networking and your call to come out of the shadows a little bit, you know, you know, we’re different. We’re different. We’re innovators. We’re trailblazers, you know, creating stuff that people haven’t seen, or at least seeing things in a way that people haven’t seen them. And that’s something I’m learning. Just as someone that was, think about it, like grew up in Africa redheaded came by and wonder, you know, just where do you fit in, you’re weird, you’re different. You’re a nerd, you know, how, you know, computers, computers aren’t cool. Girls don’t care about that, you know. And now at 35 weird and different, it can result in a lot of money. Number one, but also, it’s the only thing, it’s the only thing that matters really, in the world is being yourself. And, you know, our little quirks are something that solves a lot of problems, you know, whatever that looks like. So, now, at least as I’m motivating myself, right, get out there and just be Drew, you know, is like, it’s not about being polished at these things. It’s about like, look, in the world we’re in now, as founders, I’m talking to the founders or listening or anyone else in there is like, you can be whatever you want to be in the, in the digital world, like, you know, you can create whatever you want to create. So yeah, you know, chase that down, and and where’s the fun, you know, where’s the fun in that accent you like? Really, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hold, I promise you might like, where’s the fun in that? It’s a simple answer. That says a lot to me.

Matt Parker 46:33
And also another one, another one people say to you, you know, you’ll get people who don’t have that entrepreneurial ism, they’ll say, why are you doing that? And my answer is, why not? And they can never answer your why not? Because if you’ve got a fundamental idea, or you’ve got you know exactly where you’re going, if you’ve got that focus on focuses is the word I believe you’ve got to have a focus. Absolutely. You know, that’s the word of the of the, what century century? Yeah. And I think if you’ve got that, then why not, you know, just keep going.

Andrew Morgans 47:03
So I think it’s been one of my, my secret weapons has been being being in Kansas City, Missouri. I love my city, you know, but we’re 2 million in the middle of the country, we’re not in LA, we’re not in San Francisco, we’re not, we’re not in New York, we’re not, you know, Chicago. And it has been that I have way less things trying to take my focus. Not that can’t be, you know, lose focus here, because anybody can in any situation, you know, girls and, and the bars or money or family or hobbies or, you know, whatever the case can lose your focus. But it’s been a blessing to be in the Midwest, where, you know, my focus has been, instead of seeing what everyone else is doing, and all the other agency owners and founders are doing, and, you know, these Silicon Valley parties are like, you know, I’m not seeing any of that. And, you know, it’s just been like, I’m doing my thing my way. And it built something cool, I think because of that. And so it’s something I see as a strength now, maybe when I didn’t, that, you know, I wasn’t getting that exposure, you know, like, blah, blah, blah. I also see my friends struggle when they compare themselves too much to other founders or other business owners because they’re around all that distraction. You know? Yeah.

Matt Parker 48:13
Yeah, I think that’s huge.

Andrew Morgans 48:14
And and you kno, Gary Vee, I’m, I’m a big fan of Gary V’s, too, you know, and that’s the currency of the future, like, the magic skill. If you want to have a skill, you’re like, Okay, what are all the skills I can have? What’s, you know, what do I need in 2022? To be successful? It’s focus.

Matt Parker 48:28
I think it’s very difficult as well, and all that you probably get off now soon. But I think I’d say what I’m basically what you’ve just said to answer that, is that with the world that we live in, especially with social media, so rife, obviously your phone is in front of you. It’s so difficult now to focus if you don’t have a set routine, or, you know, yeah, exactly. And, you know, going back years, 20 years, it would be a cigarette pocket on a table in front of, you know, a guy sat having his meal because you could smoke inside. Now it’s a mobile phone. It’s a different type of habit. So focus is E I feel I feel I do feel a bit for Gen Z’s and millennials I think that the old this all these things going on, you know, your tick tock Snapchat, all these things happening in your phone beeping, it can become overwhelming, you’ll lose your focus. So I think that if you can have some structure to these things, and try and streamline it a bit better. That’s the word then. Yeah, you can get focused, but I do feel for the younger generation with this because I think that there’s so much going on now with tech, it’s it’s hard to sort of navigate sometimes.

Andrew Morgans 49:37
Yeah, and I honestly give us a little bit of I say us as in our generation, a little bit more leniency because we are the first generation I feel like you know as kids or young people to go through all of this change the social media, E-commerce, you know, all of the inputs like I mean, we’re literally can get internationally you know, advertise to now from all over the world, and there’s just so many inputs, and we’re the ones we’re the generation having to figure out what that balance looks like, you know, and it’s like, a little over and then bring it back and then over and then bring it back. And hopefully we can teach a little bit to the younger generation. But I’m proud of us though, if I’m a millennial. You know, one of our things is we’re doing something that civilization has never had to do. And I think that’s, you know, seeing technology advanced at a level that’s, that’s insane compared to last, you know,

Matt Parker 50:29
that was that’s the word it is insane. And if you’ve come back from a generation we have, I would go out and I would play with my field, play my friends on a field that I come back, but we’re talking about a generation that started with ones and zeros, the fundamental building blocks of the digital age, and now we’re here. There’s not I don’t think there are as many people that understand that transfer. It’s almost like on a refined level of building a structure of a house, people understand that different brick types, but we were there when the sun was made. Yeah. So I get where you’re coming from with that completely.

Andrew Morgans 51:03
Guys, I’m gonna have all of Matt Parker’s information in the links. You heard he’s gonna be at prosper, shout out. I’m going to be at that booth, checking those UK snacks. Of course. I’m speaking on Monday, so I would love to see you there. I’m gonna be talking about how to build your brand. So it’s gonna be a fun just like one on one combo, but really putting together the ideas behind you know, getting a thought together for a project and putting together and creating a brand story. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show, Matt. Like, I know it won’t be the last time.

Matt Parker 51:35
Yeah, no, no, it’s been brilliant. Great, great chat. Thanks. Thanks, Jerry.

Andrew Morgans 51:38
We’ll see you next time listeners and shout out again to our sponsor fullscale.io helping you build a software team quickly and affordably. See ya.