 Hi, and welcome to School of Hostile. I'm your host, Sarah, and this is a show where we chat with everyday entrepreneurs about everything it takes to build the business of your dreams. Small business lies at the heart of our country, and there are 27 million people that own and operate their own business. And our next guest is no exception. He is a serial entrepreneur with a mind for business and an eye for trends. And he has built four different businesses in a variety of industries. Jeff Esquio is a self-made entrepreneur, and he has appeared in Forbes' Inside Edition and has even done a TED Talk. Very impressive. His journey started with CryoCentral, a recovery center to help decrease inflammation, increase metabolic rate, and so much more. And of course, his second business, SoulFresh, is a shoe restoration company. Welcome, Jeff. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. You know, me and you have been friends for a while, we went to grad school together, so I feel like we go way back, we know what it was like when we didn't have any businesses, and now you have four of them. It's so impressive. Could you tell me about why you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Yeah, I mean, it's been sometimes since the Baruch Bearcat days, when we've been like four or five years now. So yeah, a lot has changed. Definitely decided to kind of take the leap of faith that I think most entrepreneurs do, and do it full-time. So I'm happy to have done it, and it's nothing but a great learning experience, and it's so fun thus far. Yeah, it definitely is an experience, and once you've accomplished what you've accomplished, it's really fulfilling. Now, back at Baruch, is that where you got your idea from? I think you took some entrepreneurship classes? Yeah, so when I was going to Baruch, I was kind of in a weird place career-wise, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in the industry that I was in, which was mainly sustainability, or corporate hotels. And luckily they were able to cover some of my grad school degree, so I decided to pursue my MBA. And while I was doing my MBA, I took an entrepreneurship class, and that's kind of where I got exposed to the whole idea of owning a business. So that's kind of how Cryo Central, the first business I happened by business partner Danny came together. Can you tell us at first a little bit about Cryo Central? Sure, absolutely. So Cryo Central is a cryotherapy and muscle recovery pain management center. So we do services that include cryotherapy. So what it is, is it uses extreme cold to kind of get a response from your body that you're kind of looking for. So I was really big into the fitness world, and I was doing powerlifting, and I noticed this was a big thing on the West Coast, and had it really made its way to the East Coast in 2015, so I thought there was a pretty big opportunity. And what cryotherapy really is, it's just you're in this cold chamber for about two to three minutes. Yeah, it feels like five hours though. I've done it before. I was like, this is the longest my body has ever felt in my life. Absolutely. So it's kind of a shock to your body, but that's a response that you have. But you feel amazing after. That's what shocked me the most. Absolutely. So a lot of people who come to us, they have inflammation issues, joint pains, arthritis, you name it. So we run a full gamut of people who are athletes trying to look for an edge in their recovery or just people dealing with aches and pains that they can't find relief anywhere else. Now you mentioned California in that. Why watch California? I think California is a great hub in the United States for trends that are going on. A lot of what I see that happens in the West Coast tends the way its way to the East Coast over time. So cryotherapy was just one of those things. In 2015, there were a few on every corner and they were starting to pop up fairly steadily. Whereas in California, they were a few on every corner or was there some here too at that point? California and Texas mainly, there was a big market for it in both those areas. And then Jersey, New York, there were maybe three to five facilities at the time. And now it's up to maybe 30, 40. So I think we got in at the right time and it looks like it's becoming more and more well known in the industry. I think catching trends is a real skill set. Do you have any advice on how other people can catch trends early that actually will be beneficial long-term? Not just like those trends that last six months and then go away? Yeah, I mean, it's just an understanding of, I guess, the market that you're looking for trends in. So for cryo-central, I think about fitness and how people are always more passionate and there's a steady increase of people being more aware of their health. So I knew this was a good niche, a good market to go into because I only see people caring about their health growing more and more. For SoulFresh, that is a sneaker cleaning and restoration business. And I've always grown around Jersey City, which is a population here, a town here in Jersey that had a big sneaker, what they call sneakerhead population, people who are really into urban fashion, urban street wear. And that was only growing and that's very popular around the US. So I just started to think about the future of these kinds of industries and is it a good opportunity for the service that we're trying to provide? Yeah, it really is brilliant because you have all these people collecting sneakers and they are willing to invest thousands and thousands of dollars. I mean, I went into a sneaker store last year and they had a pair of collectible sneakers. It was $50,000 for this pair of sneakers. So you know people are willing to invest in it. So it's brilliant, you know? People invest in the sneaker. They wanna take care of it and your business does that. It's a big branding play. A lot of the sneakers that are out there that are most coveted are, there is not many of them. So a lot of people in this industry, they wear them because they love them. They have a passion for them and also because of the resell market. A lot of times people will buy shoes for a retail price and go to the resell market and sell it for two, three, four times. So a lot of people involved in sneakers look at it as their version of the stock market. So what was the first thing you did after you came up with the idea for SoulFresh and CryoCentral? Why don't we start with CryoCentral since that was your first business? Sure, so CryoCentral was a bare bones. I've never been an entrepreneur. I was strictly a corporate America type of worker where I was had a nine to five and I didn't know anything about it. So I literally Googled how to start your own business. That's pretty much how my path- That's pretty much how we all start, isn't it? It's like Googling our best friend. Absolutely. It's so funny how people don't think like it's as easy as that, but it was... I wouldn't say easy, but it was... It's not easy, but... You have to do a lot of research on your own. Absolutely. With the emergence of like YouTube, Google and there's so much online learning you can do, that's literally how we started the foundation. We've looked up how to start a business, how to start Cryo Therapy business, how to open your own store and just kept a bottle rolling from there. I imagine there's a lot of investment that goes into Cryo Therapy. You have to buy all that equipment. How did you deal with funding for that? That's a major hurdle for a lot of entrepreneurs starting out and a big risk factor too. A lot of people are really worried about putting their savings on the line, taking loans out. But luckily for me, I had about seven years in the corporate world. So I had a bunch of savings saved up. My business partner Daniel Pozo, he actually won 50-50 on it with me and he also had the same. So we had a good foundation of cash to get started and along the way, as a business and as you grow and as you scale, sometimes you do have to take loans that will help you grow. So now you have three locations with Cryo Central. You have one location with SoulFresh but I believe you're expanding to a larger location? So we recently just expanded. So to talk a little bit about their history, SoulFresh actually started as a pickup delivery company. So just as a way to kind of test the market because there's not many places that'll clean and restore your shoes for you. So I wasn't sure how solid an idea it could be. So we just started locally, just doing pickup and delivery. Eventually made our way to a small 400 square foot storefront. And then one year later, which was this past year, we moved into a much bigger store so we can offer more retail, take in more orders and just be more efficient. Well, I'm glad it's all working out really well. Now a lot of entrepreneurs, there's a moment where they're working a full-time job and they have this business idea. Maybe they've already started the business. And the question is when do you quit the full-time job to do your business full-time? And sometimes you're doing both at once, often you are. Can you talk about that journey for you? With my experience, most people always say if you're gonna commit to something, do it 100% and do it full-time. Where I kind of took a less risky approach that I thought was keeping my full-time job and employing people to run the day-to-day for Cryo, which Cryo Central, which is the first business. So what we did was I kept the full-time job, my partner and I both did. We hired people who would manage the store on the day-to-day and we just managed everything right through our phones. We put systems in place to make it real easy on them and we just communicated regularly via text and emails and just grew the business that way. And then it wasn't until I started to notice the business was starting to move upwards, we were opening up the second location and we needed more help on that level. So that's when I decided to make the jump and I looked at the income and made sure that I would be able to maintain my livelihood without the support of my full-time job and that was the perfect opportunity. Could you briefly just mention your two other businesses? I know we're not gonna get too much into those because you have so many businesses, which is incredible, but they are in different industries, which I think is brilliant, especially today because with the whole COVID situation, you do have certain industries that are knocked out. For example, tourism's knocked out, but by diversifying your industries, you've really been able to maintain success. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean with, so the other two businesses that I am a part of, one of them is Energy Now. Energy Now is more of a B2B business which works mostly with other businesses, whereas SoulFresh and Cryo works with retail customers like you and I. So with Energy Now, we worked with hotels, commercial buildings, and matching them with energy suppliers locally, that'll give them the best rate. So just by knocking off one or two cents off their energy bill, they're saving tens of thousands of dollars that they could put towards energy efficiency projects and things that are more sustainable. And that kind of ties back to what I did in my career when I was working in corporate America, which was helping hotels be more energy efficient. So that's really the only business that you had actual work experiencing before going into it, it seems. Yes. That's so bold of you to choose businesses to start with that you technically had no work experience and I respect that so much. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, a lot of people are like, what's your core competency, what's your skill? I think for me, it's really just being able to build process. This is the fourth business is actually, like you mentioned, an entirely different industry, which is childcare. So what we did with our team was we bought out a daycare that was looking to exit the industry, upgraded some things, added a couple of things that we believe will be essential for a Montessori. So a Montessori is more an advanced style of learning for toddlers and up. So we take kids six months and older and put them through more of a robust education system, whereas a daycare is more of watch a child and that's it. So I've kind of grown that as well as the other three businesses by just recreating the wheel. I feel like if you know how to market, which is number one, know how to build process, which is number two, that's essentially the two main pillars that you need to grow any business, how to get customers and how to keep them going and keep it growing. So with that, I've been able to go into different industries just putting that blueprint in place and building around it based on what the industry needs. Your blueprint idea is so brilliant. Can you please write a book about this or an article? Cause I think a lot of people would just really appreciate it. So somewhere has a blueprint idea, just so I'm clear, the first step is marketing, marketing your business, correct? Like for most of the businesses, I did a survey. So I want to understand how big is the demand? So if it's big enough, and if I market correctly, will it be profitable? Then that's kind of where I start to explore it. So yeah, marketing is definitely important in the early stages, so you have to understand is there enough of a market out there to be successful? So it's understanding the market. Is there a demand in the market for the product is step one? And then step two would be building the product? Yeah, I mean, Bill, once you know there's a demand out there and now you have to try to figure out how to get them in. So it's all about branding. You're building not only a business, but you're building a brand. People want to be able to come to yours versus any other competitor and why is that? So you have to create that why. So you have to create a value proposition that makes you superior to other competitors. Yep. And then what's step three of that? Getting a little funding maybe? Well, execution. And now you have to create this process where it's kind of running on its own. It's getting more customers in the door and it's keeping the customers that you have. So once you put that machine together of all three steps now it's a matter of refining it, improving it and growing it. And when you say refining, improving it what ways do you use to determine how do you improve it? Do you take customer feedback, adapt and then move forward? Yeah, absolutely. Customer feedback is really important to us. Luckily for us we have nothing but five star reviews across the board for all the businesses because customer service is very important to me. And being in the hospitality background I understand the importance of customer experience. Constantly listening to feedback what they think will improve their experience at any of our locations. Maybe it's a matter of pricing, maybe it's a matter of value that we have in our service. So it's just being open to feedback, good and bad and putting together something that your customers will appreciate. And then just repeating that process for other businesses and that's pretty much the blueprint that you've been using that has worked. Google, YouTube, learn, learn, learn, fire away. You have the four different businesses in different industries. Was that strategic or did that just kind of happen naturally? No, it just happened naturally. I mean opportunities came along and it just looked, it just weighed for me to hedge my risk as well. Being playing in different industries, seeing how things unfold. But yeah, a lot of like the sole fresh business, my business partner Steve, Mike and Justin they're big in the sneaker industry and they have familiarity with it. So I knew, hey, let's do it. This is a good opportunity for this. And that's when it kind of grew. The energy business, I had colleagues from my old employer and then we kind of came together and that's kind of how that started. And then also with the daycare, that's actually my family members who presented it to me thought it was a great opportunity and now they are running the day to day there. So it's just opportunity presented itself, being able to understand what I can handle and just going with the flow, especially with a great team. Yeah. So how do you determine between an opportunity and something that most likely won't work out? I'm sure people have approached you with other business ideas and maybe you've passed on those. How do you make that decision? So for me now, I mean, I am stretched pretty thin. Yeah, you have a lot going on. Yeah, definitely trying to pick my dad also. I definitely get a few proposals here and there and just the people pitching their idea just to see what I think, not necessarily bring me in, but just to hear what they think. But for me, it's just a matter of knowing, being cognizant of the numbers, understanding what are the hurdles that are gonna be within that particular business and then thinking if it has the growth potential to put in the amount of work. So when you say the numbers, what numbers are you looking at? So a big indicator that a lot of people follow is profit margin. Are you selling more and making enough revenue after costs pretty much? Yeah. So for me- What if they haven't started selling yet, but they have an idea? Oh, so it's just forecasting, seeing what industries are out there, getting a sense of their numbers, understanding what, if you can recreate something, maybe a percentage of that, what would the numbers look like to you on a local level? If you're a local business or your national level, how do you get to that level without spending too much upfront? So it's just like you definitely have to understand the language of accounting and have a basic understanding of the language of finance because accounting tells the past, finance tells the future. So knowing both together, it kind of understands how to run your business. Talk about your social presence for your businesses. How do you, what taxes do you use? Do you find that social media brings in a lot of business for you? I mean, for me, we do a lot of Instagram, Facebook ads, Google ads, you name it. We've got a lot of traction through that. Doing more referrals type of deals where if a customer brings in another customer, they'll get us some kind of special. So I believe in like creating some kind of community, creating some kind of a business where people want to bring more business to your business. That's a great idea. How do you incentivize people to bring in new customers? So discounts are always good. A lot of people love getting a discount on a membership if they bring in somebody on their membership for example, if you shop at a local store in Jersey City, maybe we'll give you a discount or SoulFresh. So it's just about creating synergy with other businesses in the area or creating an incentive for them to want to help your business. How do you do that? Do you just go business to business and talk to them and find ways that you can partner? Yeah, I mean, with Instagram, it makes everybody readily available to be reached. You can just DM somebody, DM a business and try to get the ball rolling there. In the early stages, we were picking up phone calls and offering cross promotions to local businesses, doing email blasts and seeing if they could blast out our business on their newsletter and we'll do the same. So just creating that value for other businesses and bringing it back to them. Do you have advice on how to pitch your business to other businesses to work together? As a business owner, you're looking for value, right? Value is the most important thing for a business and if somebody can provide you value and you can give value in return, I think that's a win-win situation. So when I'm calling a business, I'm not looking to make money off of them. I'm calling to make money with them. So there's a way where we can work together and for example, if I call a gym, my cryo business is in the fitness industry, that's a good synergy for both businesses. So finding that area where you can both work well together and creating that synergy is really important for marketing. Brilliant. Do you do that with all your businesses? I know they're all slightly different. So I guess you have to find ways to partner because cryo, I mean, that's a unique comparison with the gym. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, it's going back to what I said, mentioned about the blueprint. So for cryo, it might be a gym membership, getting a discount on cryo for the daycare. It's maybe it's somebody who works at a certain employer. They get 5% or 10% off their tuition. So a matter of keeping that same structure where we're trying to find people who already are a part of our business to incentivize others to come in. I mean, everything that happened, I was a learning lesson. I definitely enjoyed every part of the experience of being an entrepreneur, the highs and the lows. But I think having really trying to be active in front of a mentor, somebody to help guide, would have been along the way, just because it'll help with the learning curve. So you're not spending- Did you have a mentor? I do not. I still do not. So early on- Well, your mentor is Google, I think. That's pretty much it. Google, bunch of YouTubers teaching me different things. But I can't express the value of having somebody to kind of guide you in the beginning, just maybe starting to just help get things along. What are you still actively learning about? I mean, what am I not? I feel like I just have a thirst for knowledge. Which is funny, because when I was in high school and college, I really wasn't that big into education. I was kind of like everybody else, just trying to get the certificate, trying to get the degree, just trying to be done with it. But then once I got into grad school, got a little older, got a little more mature, I actually valued knowledge. I love learning in the classroom. I love learning on YouTube. I love hearing about people and their experiences through podcasts. So I'm constantly trying to be better, to hone my skills in for entrepreneurship and learn more about things that could help me in the future as well. So I mean, even with the lockdown now, because of COVID-19, we've had a lot of down time to just be at home, especially with loved ones and families. So I've been spending time daily on YouTube and just scouring the internet for different things that can help me grow. Wow, well, is there one piece of advice you would give to entrepreneurs that are looking to start a business? I think entrepreneurship is definitely needed. It's not maybe not as a side, maybe not as a full-time job, maybe not as something that you want to commit to, maybe just a little side hustle to bring in more income. I think nowadays I see people always struggling over financial issues and having one income, I think in today's society is tough. So I think you're looking to kind of be more financially independent. It's important to have a side hustle and go into entrepreneurship because that's a way you can generate money for yourself, for your loved ones and just be a little more financially independent. Yeah, so I can't stress enough. I really don't think I'm any special than maybe anybody who might be watching this video. It's literally all in front of you in today's society with the internet just really readily available right on our phones. We're on a 24-7 Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, even as you're scrolling through feeds, there's educational accounts, there's businesses that you can learn from, there's videos out there, so just get started. I literally started from the ground up just on Google, just on YouTube, learning as much as I can and taking the jump, taking the lethal phase to really put it into work. And that's kind of how I've gotten here today and I think most people can if they can just have the courage to do so and be willing to learn. I love that and that's true. Have the courage to just try it because you never know. I mean, you started from nothing, I started my business from nothing and now we both own successful businesses. So if we can do it, you can do it, just try it. Well, it's been amazing having you on the show, Jeff. Thank you so much for joining us and thanks to everyone who tuned in today. Now, if you wanna learn more about Jeff, CryoCentral and SoulFresh, visit cryocentral.com, soulfreshjc.com and you can follow Jeff on Instagram at jeff.esquio. That's all for this episode of School of Hostile. Keep up with our other episodes on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you download and stream podcasts. And if you like this show, please leave a review. It really helps and share with your friends. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. Bye.