 Welcome to the RFLOS Unlice Podcast. Again, we are here and podcasting things to say. So, I'm Caleb, we got Taussos on the ones and twos as always, I have Taussos. And this week we're excited to be joined by John Gill from Kotuckify. So, say hi John. Hi, everyone. So, we're going to talk about John's experiences in the Westworld. We're going to talk about using indoor management platforms, all sorts of random things. But before that, Taussos, give the kid people out there, they're called actions. Yeah, don't kid. Don't forget to like, listen, or subscribe to our channel right here on YouTube or anywhere you download your audio podcasts like Apple, Google, or Spotify. John, my man, thank you again for taking time out of your busy day to join us. Have a little chat. You know, you've been real active on the Westtalk Facebook group, getting a lot of folks to know you from there. You've been doing speeches and stuff at the last few Westworld shows. But for the folks out there that don't know who you are, please give us a little bit of an introduction, kind of like yourself, your background and whatever possessed you to decide to jump into this whole West thing head first in the hills. Yeah. So, it's actually very simple. While I have a lot of ARNAF background, a lot of ubiquity background, been using ubiquity products for about 13 to 15 years now. But before I started my WISP, I did, for three to four years, I was an RF engineer for 12 radio stations. I would go out and maintenance transmitters, towers, all the bells and whistles that comes along with that. So that was, you know, very, I was very much, and then I had networking experience before that with multiple different IT adventures and stuff. So across the board, I was pretty much set up during the pandemic. I got fired for my radio station job because, you know, small businesses closed. They didn't need to advertise, but just go down in radio stations. And so I was the first on the chopping block. So then I said, well, what can I do to help out? And I saw the need for internet just go through the roof. And so I did it with my first stimulus check. I went out and bought some ubiquity radios and took off from there. I started to serve my neighborhood, you know, because in my mind, if I can't serve my neighbors that I can walk to, I shouldn't be doing it 14, 15 miles out into the county. So, you know, that was a very simple thing. And then I literally lived next to railroad tracks. So I got on a tower, jumped the railroad tracks to another tower, serve some people in that neighborhood, and then made the big commitment to four miles out in the county. And before long, you know, three years later, I'm looking at 50 square miles of coverage, just approaching 100 subscribers, which is a very exciting number, you know, switched over to different gear to learn different things, still running ubiquity, but better antennas, better CPE radios, along the way learning a lot of things and figuring it out as I go. Okay. So the local internet options where you live, you know, when you're like, okay, I want to get out here and give people a better option, like what, you know, what is currently serving where you are now and you're in the area that you cover? In my town, we actually have two fiber to the home options, a cable option and DSL. So the city limits are pretty well covered. You know, you can subscribe or hop if you want to, or just stay with one if they're good and so on and so forth. But out in the county, the county only has DSL and that's the only option. You know, you do have the satellite options, but Starlink isn't available here. There's still a two year waiting list. Then there is, you know, the Hughes debt, which isn't even worth it. So it's so much of nothing out there that it's insane. And then our next county up, which is Fad County, they have fiber all along the county. And I have people that are connected that are right next to the county, but, you know, because such and such got an agreement with whoever they either the county or the state or the city to service that, they won't make the jump across the street to connect the customer because that was a part of the agreement. And that's when I'm seeing coming down the pipe to all these funds is like, you know, Ardolf, they have an agreement that it's this side of the road. Well, then what happens to the other side of the road? Gotcha. Gotcha. So, you know, there's a lot of different places that's your big networks and stuff that started in the exact same way is just kind of starting to have your basement, you know, you saw a need and had an opportunity. I mean, you were definitely came out of the gate, I think a lot faster than a lot of people were just because you had a background experience. Yeah, I knew that you did that a bit, but didn't realize, you know, it was for so long and had that sort of breath and scope. So you had some good stars, you know, like some ideas of things like, I don't know, grounding, you know, some important details and background experiences live. So I'm sure that was really helpful as you got started up. But of course, the network side, you know, it's a WIS network is different than a lot of what a lot of people enterprise, you know, folks may sort of understand. But in the end, it's all routing and switching in the grand scheme of things. And then determining where you send your traffic. And then we talked later about this, the more nuanced parts, your billing, your local management and stuff like that. Yeah, I was a support background. I did a lot of things in billing correctly, texting customers to let them know, emailing customers, you know, getting all that down pat before I really, you know, started getting outside of the neighborhood, literally. So, you know, get all that down pat first. And so, you know, billing is just as important as networking that you bring it up, because without your customers paying the bills, you can't pay for your network. Minor details, minor details, right? So, but that was just funny that you mentioned that, you know, a lot of people when they're new, they're like, they're just worried about, you know, they're really good at one part. So, maybe it's a network site, maybe it's an RF site or what. But, you know, those details really slip because you're like, oh, we'll figure out this billing stuff and then, you know, quickly find yourself having to manually, you know, write out all these invoices and stuff. So, have you automated that or are you going through any current billing systems or how are you doing that? The billing system is UASP, but the automation side of it, you know, setting up everything. And you know, when it was just my neighbors making sure that worked continuously was very important, strikes the credit card processor. Many people use strike for credit card processing, so that wasn't new. The good thing is Twilio, which is a phone provider, a SIP provider, they all are, they have a plug-in for UASP that will text your customers and they even know your bills do. And if there's someone that's watching this right now going, okay, how can I prove my billing side or how can I prove my WISP all together, I highly, highly recommend that plug-in just because the read rate versus text messaging versus email is an 80% increase in people reading a text message over an email. So, that means there's an 80% increase in people saying, did I pay my, oh, I can see I need to pay my bill. So, yeah, that's, you know, I really consider that, but yeah, that's really important just being able to get those reminders out there and, you know, doing it by text. I mean, honestly, there's a ton of stuff that the more I think about it, like I handle a lot of my own personal business over text reminders or payment confirmations and stuff like that, because it's always there. I could, I could do it from the sofa without having to sit up or whatever, which is, you know, with, with my amazing physique is something that's really important. Anything I can accomplish in a prone position, I think I get a lot more done. I mean, we need to think about it. When we're, when we're dealing with the smoker and babying the smoker, we can, we can text and see what's going on. That's the real importance is what can we do while we're at the smoker? Yeah, his thermometers, his thermometers and text messages for sure. Stay, stay. They do, they do. Because I live in the future. The future is now. The future is now, old man. So, okay. Well, that's, that's the really cool. So, and you're doing this full-time now, or is this kind of a still, this is 100% full-time, my 100% full-time job. My wife stays at home. You may hear babies in the background, two twins, two teenage twins and teenagers. So, you know, it's, it's definitely on the sole source of income. So when people think, oh, can this be done in this age where there's fiber to the home? Look where there's not fiber to the home. And you can, you could very easily start up a wisp and take your time and start it up correctly. Don't try to, you know, you don't want to look to get 100 subs in the first month because you don't have the manpower to do that. Correct. Yeah. It's something really important about really knowing how to grow. Everybody wants to grow fast because they want to get there. We're, we're in this society of instant feedback and, you know, wanting everything to happen overnight. But I've seen many companies, not just in the wisp industry, but just as a whole, fail for just growing too fast because they just couldn't keep up with it. And it, you know, it can turn on you. So it's, it's a good thing to know your limits and to grow it in that way. Yeah. Definitely 100% knowing your limits and, and try your best to, you know, not grow your network. If it, if it takes you two hours to drive to a customer, that's probably not a good place to start your network, because you're not going to, you're not going to make reacquire revenue very well with the service calls. You're not going to be helpful to your customers when, you know, you have to plan out days in advance because I, oh, I have to go out here and do that. So definitely think about it in the way of what would I want my ISP to bring to me and then bring it to your customers. It's very well put for sure. So yeah, you know, and especially growth and expansion, like you see, there's this like whole set of like hard skills and soft skills that you've got to learn and manage that you maybe, you know, have never dealt with because you're like, oh, I just have to put a CPE at this guy's house. Like how hard could it be? Right? Radio, J arm screws, we know. But then you learn all the fun that he wants is of, you know, finding your line of sight, getting up there, heights are scary. So things like, you know, how do you run your cable? How do you get to your ground points integrating inside? And then anytime you walk inside someone's house, I mean, 100% I tell my customers, I said, look, I'm going to treat your house as my house. And I don't want, you know, we've all seen the big cable providers do it. They'll come in with a drill in hand. Oh, you want a TV here? Want a TV here? You want something here? And just start drilling holes. I don't want to turn my house into Swiss cheese. So I'm not going to turn a customer's house into Swiss cheese. When you drive back, I've shown many people my network and when I drive past their house, they're like, where's the CPE? I'm like, oh, I hit it behind their roof. Or I, you know, behind their whatever. Oh, I put it on the other side of their direct TV dish or something like that. They're like, Oh, I can't see it. That's the point. I don't want you to be able to see it because I want, I don't want a bunch of antennas on my house. So that makes, that makes sense. So keeping that network size or location management, we've, we've seen that happen a lot too. It's like, you know, it's great that you found an area that's clear, but, you know, I'm not saying you can serve it, but you need to have a plan or, you know, maybe you run the network from here, but you've got an installer or something when you get out of the scale, you can hire someone locally that can bounce around because it doesn't take too many two hour round-trip service calls where you spend most of your time, you know, chasing your tail and actually giving you an accomplished, which is, which is really important. So, and the internet's not, it's not following the kind of current trend as far as cost goes, right? So the cost of internet seems to be dropping and dropping and dropping, but your cost to maintain the internet is going up, right? So, you know, one, one service call to a customer could negate three months of revenue potential, right? With that price of gas and everything else. So, oh yeah, and vehicle maintenance. I mean, I'm looking to rebuild the front end of my truck because it's time to do that and, you know, look at it $1,500. So, you know, that's a lot of money. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. I think too, like the service call side is where the quality of the install comes into play. And it's again, it's one of these sort of hard skills that you've got to pick up on quick because, you know, again, you spend all your time chasing ready installs or water starts getting into the cables and stuff. Like I have six months down the road, then again, you're back to chasing a tail again. So, now for like advertising and stuff, you know, is it all been word of mouth so far? Are you looking to expand, you know, what are your thoughts there? Keeping in mind to you that like, what works really well for your area being sort of rural country, you know, southern-ish part of the country, I guess, or mid, you know, completely different than anywhere else, right? I mean, every place is different. So, what are you looking at for advertising or marketing? The most effective advertising that I see is a list of what I like to refer to as the pound of ground advertising. Either put down yard signs, knocking on people's doors, talking to your customers. And I have one of my door hangers here. Notice it's bigger than my face. And also, it also looks like a utility company just came and turned off your utilities. And people hate that, but at the same time, it gets them to call the phone number because they want to, you know, complain. And I'm like, well, hey, I made you call. So, big door hangers, big, bright door hangers is number one, like number one for, you know, when those customers aren't there, talking to them. Another thing that I've realized is don't be afraid to say, hey, I'm the owner of the company, take the company, go, hey, I'm the owner. Yes, I'm out here selling you the product. Yes, I'm out here going to be servicing the product. And yes, I'm out here. I've built the product and show pride in your work. And then that really shows the customer, hey, you're in it for the long haul. Amen. Amen. We talk about that on the show all the time, like, you know, people so worried about all this money coming in and people being overbuilt and stuff like that. But, you know, the areas that are underserved in the U.S. right now are that way. You know, they want to know that the owner's there. That means something to them that you're taking pride. I mean, you know, the world is getting kind of tired of that, you know, robot, you know, when you call up and I ordered something online the other day and I had a problem with this, like, I can't even find a phone number for some place to call. You have to send an email. I mean, that's ridiculous. You know, so putting yourself out there and letting people know that, you know, you're the owner and, you know, you're there to take care of them and want their feedback is really important. I think it makes a huge difference. Again, specifically in this demographic of underserved that we're trying to cover these days. So that's awesome. Oh, yeah, 100%. And with that, you know, educating your customers too on places to go and especially when you're a one-man band is very important. So if you put status updates on Twitter, Facebook, some kind of social media, tell them to go there to look for those status updates. So that way when you're trying to fix something, you're not ignoring those phone calls that your customers are trying to figure out what's going on while you're trying to fix whatever broke. So it's very important to educate your customers and say, Hey, go to my Facebook page or go to my Twitter, you know, whatever and letting them know, Hey, this is this is that that's going to save you so much when you're when you're dealing with a problem. For sure. You know, actually, when we're talking about the customer sort of service side of things or the robot, like we actually just have this conversation, our neighborhood, like last weekend, a bunch of neighbors were all hanging around and they were talking about the trash pickup here. Like we've got this big juggernaut company that has like four companies under it. And they just when you ditch one to pick up another one, it's all the same company just different names, right? So we've actually found my wife and I did some research and found like a little local operation and you call them, you can talk to a by God, honest person, like a person picks up the phone. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But um, you know, they're they cost a little bit more, but like truck shows up on time, they have great service, they send you the emails, hey, your trash was picked up today, or hey, we're going to be running you. We're going to, because of a holiday, they move us because just little things like that, but they're not that little kid. They're huge things, obviously, right? They're huge things that take a little bit of prethought and action on your part. And it just means so much. And then like, we've we've converted like the neighborhood over the last six months is like now like 80% of this company, we just randomly found and we're rolling. So I'm like, Hey, guys, you give us a trash money kickbacks or something. That's awesome to say. Actually, they do a referral. They did a referral thing. Um, it's actually saved us quite a bit of money every time to you. So, but I mean, that plays into exactly, you would think, okay, trash service, like how do you make that service, you know, interesting, whatever. But it all plays down to small businesses offering a good service. And with a little bit of intelligence and planning ahead, um, they do really, well, you know, they run smaller trucks, which means they don't wake everybody up when they come through early in the morning. So just, yeah, I'm going to look into that myself, right? Yeah. I mean, it's so annoying. Like I said, we have the same, same kind of problem. Like they, they, they don't pick up in the morning, like they're supposed to, which is typically after you go to work. I mean, sometimes it's like five, six p.m. They're coming by. And sometimes you put, you know, you have too much garbage. So you put some trash bags out there. Sometimes they take some of them, not all of them. You know, they, they, they're kind of Nazis when it comes down to, you know, this is not, you know, considered trash. They won't leave it here. I'm like, well, thanks a lot. You know, now some animals got into it, tore it up and, you know, garbage is everywhere and I got to pick it up. You know, it's like, what the hell, man? So I got to look into that. It's funny. They're getting about passive aggressive email and warning too. Like we did that one time, we like sent some jog by the cam. They're like, Hey, you know, your, your trash was picked up. But then there was like another noble light below that. I was like, as a reminder, you can't just set stuff by the side of the, you got to call us and they're like, we're giving you this one game and we're like, okay, my bad. So, but at least they told you why they told you why, right? R is it just, you just leave it there. You have to figure it out. Like, Oh, like once it was too light or something like that, they thought it was leaves inside and they, they don't take brush, which makes sense. But it was paper, you know? So I don't know. Yeah. So then they called them and they're like, yeah, we'll pick up anything. You just got to call us a day or two and they're like, yeah, crazy. Like again, talking to a person. So, but, um, you know, it's all the same skills and they all, yeah, what causes a business to succeed in their particular niche is a lot of things. But in the, you know, small business runs on service and not sucking. So if I can offer anyone any MBA advice, just focus on that. So, yeah, that right there is a college degree to sign off on it. Make sure your customer service doesn't suck when you start a business. Here's your degree. Yeah. Or like we say, don't be an asshole. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Now, give me a $10,000 check for your degree. So, but, uh, anyway, so, I mean, coming back to the service thing too, you know, you've done a lot of work with Villa. There's a whole video on that. How do you, how do you pronounce it? What's the proper way? So I knew it was Villa. Gotcha. Well, they weren't you asking the question. But, um, but anyway, so, but, so a lot of what you're doing with that really plays into the service side of things as well. Like, you know, as we know, you know, most of the trouble calls that people have money to do work, you know, 90, 95% of it is actually something on the device side, their own devices, or the router just sucks too. Yeah. Right. So, you know, they got a Wally Whirl, they buy whatever is on sale, some piece of junk, and it's just, you never know what the settings are. They leave everything at the fall. So, talk a bit about, you know, managed this, the sort of managed service. Like, do you offer that as a paid service, or is it just something that you do for all your customers? And what are you doing there? So the, uh, the way I, I do upsell it, if it's just one router, I just, it's a free router. But then if you want more than one router, so the way I sell it is, do you have trouble in the toilet while you're on the toilet watching TikTok? It's the easiest, give me, if you get, and people laugh, then they instantly, your friend, because you made a connection and you say, Hey, look, I can fix that for as easy as 10 more dollars a month. I can put you, put two more wireless routers in your house, get your internet everywhere, every corner of your house. Uh, and most of the time that that's a yes, but the, it's not just about managing and helping the customer. And we all know this in the wireless ISP world. I am not just managing the customer's devices. I am managing the frequency. I am managing all of that because I can tell these routers, even they're mesh together, they use the same channel. I can tell the billows, Hey, use this channel and it will stay in that channel. So that way I can have a CPN on the high side of the band or the low side of the band and their routers on the other. This works for 2.4 and five. So then that opens up me being able to control where everyone's at and, and give the customer a really good experience. I like to refer to that when the customer connects to the, to the router as the last foot and then from the home to the tower as the last mile. Uh, the customer doesn't know any of that. All they know is my tick top keeps freezing up while I'm on the toilet. It must be my internet. No, the internet, your router is just on the other side of the house. So yeah, it's, it's that easy to take care of the last foot. Uh, and, you know, when the customer calls, there's a, there's a portal. You can log into the portal, see everything, reboot things, make network changes, do everything while you're there. Uh, one of my favorite things is, you know, you get those customers that are all too happy to hit that reset button. Um, they don't have the reset button walk down, but I can reprogram the router remotely. So I can go in there and completely reconfigure the router remotely and then the new, the old settings come up. So then the customer connects back up. They're like, Oh, everything's working. Thank you so much. And so that saves me the 20 minute drive to their house or, you know, just the service call in general while I'm sitting here on, you know, on my computer doing whatever. So very cool. On your own toilet. But I didn't go there while he's administering. Yeah. He's administering his whole network from the toilet. So in a past life, I used to do a lot of like RFP mapping and scamming and consulting and training and stuff like that. And when I was training, especially I would tell the installers or the planners, I'm like, look, this is going to sound real funny. But if the internet wifi does not work in the bathroom, you're going to hear about it. Like it's crude, but it just, it is, you know, it's just what it is. So that's really important. Yeah. Managing that experience, managing that last foot. I really like that. I don't think I've really, really heard about it that way. So I'll be stealing that. But, um, you know, but again, it's, you know, because they don't know the difference between their network or whatever else is just basically, and it's gotten worse is like, you know how they call like, especially anyone younger now just calls all internet wifi, right? It's like, oh, my wifi doesn't work. I'm like, dude, you're on your cellular connection on your phone in a different city. Like it's not the wifi. So I'm like, you don't remember the dark days where you had to like plug in with a cable and you couldn't wander around with it. Right. So, uh, so speaking of Tik Tok, I saw a Tik Tok the other day where when a millennial was talking about, Hey, let's have a family phone that everyone can take turns using it. It's mounted on the wall. I was like, that was a reality in the 90s. Yeah. Exactly. So, oh geez, for some reason, I thought you were like family cell phone this year. Like that just concept is absolutely terrified me. I'm like, yeah, I know where I take my cell phone and I don't want the other people taking my cell phone there. No, no. And mine is like, totally like, I don't really do anything bad on it, but I'm like, it's your most private device. Anyways, but, and that's what, and again, back to the whole home wireless thing is everyone lives on their phone 24 seven and like the coverage with a phone is just absolutely terrible. And that's why I think that now that router manufacturers have actually figured out repeating because I mean, for a long time, you could buy those relay range extenders, right? And then the relays and they were always just terrible, but it really seems within the last few years of people have finally figured out what it takes to make a Wi-Fi repeater in a home, like actually work and stuff. Because again, the RF characteristics out of this thing are just so terrible when you compare them to a laptop or anything else like that. I mean, you're talking about the RF characteristics of a cell phone. What was it three years ago, four years ago? If you held the iPhone the wrong way, it messed up both the antennas and you couldn't get reception. So if they can't get holding the phone right, the RF characteristics moved completely out the window and you just you need to have a better RF experience on that last foot for the customer. You're right. Referring to something as Wi-Fi for a customer is the exact same reason. My logo is what it is because people confuse that with Wi-Fi all the time. And that's exactly what I want. So like it's Kleenex versus tissue, you know, I want Kai-Fi or KY-Fi or whatever instead of Wi-Fi. So, you know, that's kind of what I was cheating for in the whole picture of everything. Yeah. The KY could get people going in the wrong direction, but I was like, don't worry about it. Please bring it up. It makes it easier. It's easy wireless. Yeah. But here's the big thing about it is you're not going to forget it. Exactly. Yeah. It's just like Toys R Us logo, the R being flipped backwards, you know, it's exactly the reason why you won't forget it. You're going to be like, oh, they screwed up on the sign or, you know, it sounds like Kentucky Fried or whatever. Cool. Say it, whatever, you know. I'm game for it, but try to forget me now that you've etched that into your mind. No, it's not. I mean, it's really important. This is an inherent part of marketing is just making this concept stick. So sometimes you go one way, sometimes you go the other. But KY-Lube will let you go anyway. Okay. Moving on. Hey, we'll talk about this when you ask us whether we're editing this part out or not. But, okay, so let's see. We've talked about billing. We've talked about sort of the end user experience. You know, you do a lot of work with the fledgling sort of whiffs that are coming up. You know, you're a likable fella. You've got a lot of passion about what you're doing and sharing people what you've learned and stuff like that. So, you know, for new whiffs or like, you know, the sophomore year, so they figured it out. They got network around that, but now they're in our sophomore year where you realize that, okay, this is actually deeper, more complex than I thought. Like, what do you see as people's biggest sort of stumbling points? Or even with yourself, like, what's your biggest pain point that you face and, you know, this sort of fledgling part of your network build up? Balance. At that point, it becomes down to balance. And it's balance between the home life and the work life. If you have, you know, you're a bachelor down a guy and that's your style, then by all means, start a business, love the business that becomes your wife. But, you know, when you already have an established family and established home and everything, it becomes quite difficult at that time to go, okay, I have this set of customers, 100 plus, 200 plus customers under my belt. Now, how do I manage, you know, at what point do I look and go, do I need to hire this person? Or at what point do I go, okay, enough's enough. I'm dragging my newborn kid out and about or, you know, whatever, like you need to go, hey, I have office hours. When those office hours are done, I'm done. Because you, your next step is either divorce or burnout, take your pick, both equally suck. So when I'm asking, you know, oh, I've had my whiskey for about five years or whatever, three years or whatever, find out something because I've done that. I had a business before that was a computer shop. And I literally, there was a reason there was a couch there because some nights I would sleep on the couch, wake up, start the next day over again. And it put a, me and my wife were dating at the time and it put a big strain on our relationship because it was always, hey, babe, where are you going to take me? Okay, we'll watch a movie in the shop. Okay, that's like the third time this week, you've said that. Yeah, okay, I got to work. But that's where you need to go. Okay, I need to find balance because it's all going to be over in either burnout or divorce. So you just need to pick one and go from there. 100%. And that goes with the, you know, don't grow them too fast and keeping that. And, you know, I try and tell people all the time, you have to make you time too. I mean, you know, that work hard, play hard, kind of a thing. Burnout is for legit, you know, it will happen. And if you don't take some time to reset yourself, and sometimes it's just about, you know, looking at and resetting your goals, what do you really want in life, right? So maybe you don't want to be a wisp that has 100,000 subscribers. Maybe your ultimate goal is just 1000 because you like what you do, you want to keep the business going, it makes the revenue, it affords you the lifestyle that you want or what you're happy with. And that's it. So it's really, you know, really up to you, but it can easily get out of hand. It could easily get out of hand. Yeah. Yeah, and it doesn't take too long before, you know, you start building and growing and then the next thing you know, your time is spent managing all the people of the business versus the actual business or why you got into it in the beginning, you know, and that's where, that's where a lot of people kind of get smothered. I was talking to a CEO the other day, 5000 subscriber ISP, and you know, he was still out and doing switchovers or still out doing stuff, because yeah, he manages the people 1000% he does that. But at the end of the day, he's like, this is why I got into it. So I don't want to lose that aspect. I don't do it as much nearly as I did when I started, but once or twice a week still gives me the energy to really see what we're doing in the in the broad picture of things. So yeah, that's that's important. So you know, I when my wife and I met like I was still in that running gun phase, you know, early early 20s and stuff, you know, where you're doing all that sort of thing. And, you know, and it worked for us because you know, she was used to it. But at the same time, like to try to do it now, no, I think I would definitely like we don't have any kids or anything. But it's like at the same time, I think my wife would leave me if we if we try to do what we did 20 years ago. So there's, there's that aspect, you know, we get that, why don't you start a whisper and you've got all this experience and stuff. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to work that hard if I can work that hard anymore, you know, we'll see much barbecue, a little too much gray here on the edges, you know, like, man, I don't know. Coming off the ladder from a roof, Patty, I'm done and it's only nine o'clock. No, your limits, man. Yeah. But um, no, I think what Tosca said is is super important, you know, as you figure out what the business is, is you got, yeah, you always need to be thinking about not necessarily an exit strategy, but what's your, what's your long term goal? Like not just a two year goal or a three year goal, but at the end, like, what do you want to be doing with your life? Right? You know, if you're happy doing this and, you know, we know a lot of folks that are like, you know, I could grow this bigger and better, but I've got a handful of loyal employees, the money's good, you know, we're happy where we are. And, but if things change, they can pivot and I roll out with something else. So it's about understanding yourself and, you know, what you want to do. So yeah, 1,000 percent. So, um, yeah. So let's see, adding employees and growth, that's definitely a big thing. What are some other sort of stumbling points that you're seeing, especially now? Like one thing that, you know, we've seen and we're sort of harping on a lot recently is if there's a lot of people now with either analysis paralysis or hesitation on building a cell, say, yeah, we want to build our network, we want to grow it out. Um, but man, there's all this cool stuff coming down the road any day now or month, whether it be six gig, which is going to be ready, you know, next quarter, next quarter, next quarter, AX or, you know, some newfangled technology, next generation equipment and stuff like that. You know, there's a lot of people that are just kind of him and Han versus, you know, there's still a lot of opportunities got there and build and grow. So I don't know, kind of yummy thoughts on that sort of thing or I would, I would very much say that there's hesitation in the market. I think you guys saw it. And when I was at West America, I 100% saw it. No one wanted to make a move because they were uncomfortable with the direction everywhere was going. So what I would say is now is your time to do it. Everyone else is pulling back on the throttle of going forward. Now is your time to get out there by your gear, whether that be AX, AC, you know, whatever, whatever you're comfortable with. And that's another thing I want to harp about is fanboys. You know, some people are out here, you know, they will swear by micro tech, you know, they'll bow down and bow the micro tech on routing. But at the end of the day, I've been using ubiquity for 15 years. And when it's three o'clock in the morning, the network's taken a crap, I know how to fix it. So, you know, that's, that's the thing is do what you're comfortable with. So when you're taking that step to go, Okay, hey, I want to start a whisper, I'm going to start ISP or whatever, pick something you're comfortable with. If you're not comfortable with it, talk to your neighbors, throw up an AP at your house, connect your neighbors for nothing because truly you're you're educating yourself. And that's what you're paying for by giving your neighbors free internet. Okay, this didn't work, this work, this didn't work. Okay, ERP, let's let's turn this knob, let's see this knob, let's see what this does do with do that. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, you can put a J pull on your top of your roof or a tripod or whatever and shoot to your neighbors, you know, in figure it all out. You know, if you're a bit more comfortable with it, then maybe you can start with a tower and start actually the business model of it all. But the biggest thing is getting out there and starting figuring out something you're comfortable with and going, you know, if you've been using TP link for a while, they're starting to enter into the game of the the middle mile, sorry, the last mile. So, you know, go with TP like if you're comfortable with them, comfortable with ubiquity, go with them. Mamosa, you know, you know, I just know a lot of people right now are scared of Mamosa, but it's not about what you're scared of what's happening. It's about making that next step. And I'm telling you right now, if you're looking to make the next step, don't look at giving people gigabit service. Look at giving people a stable, happy service. You know, people right now, they don't need a gigabit, they need maybe 50 to 100 megs. And you could easily do that on AC. So, you know, get your AC gear, get it out there, get it going and, you know, work with your customer service where everyone needs work. Amen. For sure, man, you're preaching the choir like we said on the last podcast was like, don't be, you know, don't be looking for the unicorn. The unicorn is not there where if you just capture this thing that everything just happens automatically, right? So, you know, focus on what you can do now, what's available now. And then when all the cool, when all the cool new stuff gets actually out there and cool and all the bleeding edge guys get all patched up from their cuts and wounds from around my bleeding edge, then look at, you know, what the next generation may bring. So, exactly. So, John, you know, you operate your business at a very local level, you know, that's just clear and your focus on there is good. Talk a bit about if you can sort of the local side of, I guess the politics or maybe not even straight up politics, but getting to understand the movers and shakers that are in your town, your city, your county. You know, we brought this up a lot in various podcasts, you know, you're, when you're taking the fight to the man, you know, that man might be on Capitol Hill in D.C. or in your state's capital, but in the grand scheme of things, you know, there's a lot of local level politicians or, you know, members of the government that are actually really interested in serving their clients and not getting, you know, tied up with the nonsense. Like there's a lot of interest and a lot of potential help and stuff out there. And I know you've been active on that sort of local layer and stuff. So, if you could, you know, speak a little bit about that or, you know, what you're finding out or even just be in, you know, part of, just being a part of the community in general. Yeah, that's very important. Being a part of the community, I would say with the local legislation and in learning the legalese and all of that kind of does help. You don't have to become a lawyer, but you have to understand the words that they're saying. I started with my local government. My local government hasn't been too much of a help. So then I started going up and basically how I did that was super easy. You know, when you're sitting on the toilet, we're sitting there, go to LinkedIn and look for, type in their names. They're your local government people's names that the leaders, the congressmen of the FCC and, you know, start typing in their names, making those contacts on LinkedIn. And then what happens is they're seeing what you're doing in their feed. And if you want to even reach out and message them, you know, I've talked to high ups, see it and see OOs of ubiquity. I've talked to, you know, that's how I whisper was involved, but also that's how I got to meet the commissioner car of the FCC. So, you know, in those things really lead to bigger doors that are, that are, that swing way open for you. And now my local government that wasn't helpful before is kind of like, okay, we need to listen to him because now he has the federal and state behind him. So, you know, just because you wrote into a wall trying to climb the ladder, you know, go to your courthouse, talk to them, explain what you're doing. A big thing for me was I had a customer appreciation day where I invited the local government down because at the end of the day, the local, those, your customers are voting in the local government. So if they can figure out, oh, hey, you know, he's actually doing something in the community. And then they see it, then that, that just works out a thousand times better. And then take that to, to the state. Take that to, you know, to DC. If you can't go to DC, I highly recommend joining WISPA. And, you know, WISPA is in DC. That's their job is to be in DC. They can't be in all the states, but they can be in DC and pushing different things in DC. And it call them up and say, hey, I'm having trouble with XYZ or, hey, I think this would be a cool idea. And then they could say, yeah, okay, that does sound like a really good idea. Let's do this, let's do that, or I'm seeing problems with this and that. And, and, you know, don't be afraid, just like when you start at your company, don't be afraid to walk into the door. Also, one thing that I found out from, from JJ, who has a tech weight, I was totally unaware that if you go to your local, either state government or local courthouse, you can do leave behinds the same as you do for your customers that the door hangers, you can leave those in your, your officials offices and be like, Hey, you know, just dropping this off when you get a moment, you thinking about broadband or whatever, and they'll take it, put it in their little broadband folder. And when the conversation comes up, they pull the folder out and start searching through. So, you know, you can just leave behind a little, you know, nice little look at sheet or whatever. And the same advertising goes along with that too. So make your sheet hard to stick in the folder. So it's always sticking out or whatever, you know, something along those lines to get their attention. The biggest thing that is different between pitching to a customer and pitching to, to representatives is to representatives, you're not pitching your company, you're pitching your plan with customers, you're pitching your company. So that's the two things that I would be different. But yeah, when you're small with negative 100 or, you know, plus 1000, they're all going to do the same way. And you may already have an ISP that is local to your state that's doing that. So just get behind with them and talk to them and be like, Hey, you know, I'm doing the same thing you are. So when's the next time you're going to the state capital and I'll join you and make those days and do that balance. And you'll, you'll really, you'll really make an impression on the state and local level because if local wasn't listening to you, but state starts to listen to you or federal starts to listen to you, then the locals going, my boss is talking to that guy, I need to listen to that guy. And that's the game really starts to change then. Pretty nice. Yeah, no, that's fantastic advice. I think it really speaks to, you know, what we've said in the past about working on that local level, but also like, you know, how how running an ISP or running a list is so much more than just the the radio side of things or network side of things. You know, when you start looking at the big picture of advertising customer service, and then, you know, bacon, you're making plans for the future. Even, even if you're just getting to know your local politicians for when you start growing, you need to, you know, run into permit issues and stuff like that. You've got a path to escalate things or whatever it may be. So, you know, all those sort of things really come into play to be successful and to grow things out. So that's, that's awesome information you shared with us today. So definitely. Well, cool, man. So I know you're super busy. We can hear you've got your word crew in the background slamming around with things, helping you redecorate and stuff. They'll be the other day calls before too long, I promise. Little hands are great with the little part. Yeah. The little dexterity. You're like, all right, we're going to trade this teddy bear out for the ride-out. So this is hilarious. Come on, baby, get to work. There's no child labor laws when they're your own. Actually, there is a tax credit. You can give your kids a certain amount of money and you could write it off on your taxes. There you go. Yeah. There we go. Sounds like a plan. So now we'll go ahead and let you go. I mean, anything in closing you want to say out, you know, anything you can close out with or the biggest thing is go ahead, you know, if you're thinking about starting with us, take the step and do it and plate it out. First and foremost, talk to the people, see what their complaints are and then lean into those complaints. Don't knock the companies that are already there. Don't go out and say, you know, Winston Spectrum, you know, whoever the big dog is, don't go knocking them. Say, hey, what's your current problems with your internet? And then at that point, you have a jumping platform to go into. I always tell all my customers, I said, hey, I don't talk bad about the competition. I let my customers do it. Fantastic. Fantastic. So those that are looking to find or reach out to you, we'll head to your website. We'll post that URL up here down here somewhere with the URL there. Facebook, whatever. Yep. Facebook, John Gillespie, we'll throw some information up there or in the description or something like that. Well, very cool. Close things out. I guess Tossos, anyone looking to find us, where can they find us? Yeah, you can find us everywhere on social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. You can always email us tossos at rfelements.com, Caleb at rfelements.com or just, hey, go to our website, rfelements.com. All right, all right. So we'll wrap this up. We'll talk to you soon, John. And everyone else, we will have a child later. So be good out there. See ya. See ya. Bye.