Cold Open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

At the end of the day, when you as an organization are giving a gift to an employee or to a customer or whatever, you want that gift to be memorable. And, you know, a gift card that's just going to get bundled in some order or some kind of big national chain is just a lot less memorable than a gift that gets that person to go out into their community and have an experience. And it also shows the person that you're giving the gift to that you know them. It's it's a stronger signal of I care and I know a little bit about you because this gift is for you to get out and do something with it.

Theme Song

SPEAKER_02 0:36

If you wanna hear about Saint Louis, tune into the bucket list show weekly. Hear what Marissa and Luke say. It drops every Wednesday, got a dope new guest every single week. Buckle up for the ride. Who's it gonna be? Who's on the show today? They rep Saint Louis. What to do in the loo on a late night? I maybe what to do on a date night. Yeah. Bucket list as you covered, they know what's going on. What's going on? They'll give you. Hey, 18 different things to do on 19. If you need one more to choose, yeah. The city, city, city is a place we call home. A place we call home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

The STL Bucket

Royal Banks of Missouri

SPEAKER_01 1:15

List show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor and the official banking partner of STL Bucket List, Royal Banks of Missouri. Royal Banks is a full-service, independent community bank, locally owned, locally run, and proudly investing in St. Louis since 1964. That's more than 60 years of taking care of the people and businesses who make this city special. From checking and savings to mortgages, business banking, and wealth management, you get real personalized service from neighbors who actually know your name. With 16 locations across St. Louis, St. Charles, Illinois, and Northeast Missouri, there's a branch right around the corner. Royal Banks of Missouri, proudly investing in our communities. St. Louis, welcome back to another

From NYC to WashU

SPEAKER_01 1:52

episode of the STL Bucket List Show. I am your host, Luke Farrell. We've done over 220 episodes highlighting the people, places, and events that make St. Louis special. We have Bailey, her last week of her internship, recording the podcast today. You know, excited to be in the studio here. We get to talk to local entrepreneurs all the time. Mark Sawyer, thank you for joining us in the studio today.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So, Mark, I wanted to first just start about your story in St. Louis because you've been building companies here now for 20 years, uh, but you're not, you know, you were transplant here to St. Louis. So I want to learn what made you stay. What, you know, what was your first experience in St. Louis? Kind of walk me through that journey of getting here for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah. Um, so I'm originally from New York City. I came here to go to college. I went to Wash U. And I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to not only go to Washiou, but to come to St. Louis. Yeah. Um, I started my first business out of my dorm room. Uh, it was a website called moving offcampus.com, helped people find apartments, you know, learned a lot, did okay. Um, started another business after that, a small digital marketing agency. It's still around. Um, I'm, you know, uh supporting the folks running that business now. And then most recently, Bonfire, which is an employee engagement software business. Um, and you know, now Gift Better, number four.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah. So would were you did you ever take a corporate job or were you always an entrepreneur?

Startups Then vs. Now

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Um, you know, I think I was always coming up with kind of ideas and stuff as you know, I was a kid um growing up. But um I I I had had um some jobs here and there. I worked at like a you know, a day camp, um summer camp, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

But but starting your business in college, like as a sophomore, just kind of gave you those skills and and stuff that that led you to where you're at. Because then, I mean, tell me what the difference is now, because I mean, I started my business in 2019 and just the landscape from 2019 to 2026 has changed so much. And um, I wouldn't say it's gotten harder, it's gotten in in some ways easier, but also more competitive when it comes to what we're building. But comparing your startup in 2008 to like your startup now in 2026, like what are some of those key differences that you're seeing?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah. Well, um, I think, you know, for me, I mean, when I started Bonfire, I think I was 27 or 26. So I'm 41 now, so I've learned a lot. Um, and I'm excited to be applying a lot of that, you know, those lessons and that knowledge to the new thing.

Why STL Works for Founders

SPEAKER_00 4:13

But in terms of, you know, St. Louis specifically, I think there's a few uh really kind of magical ingredients that you don't really find everywhere else, not in any particular order, but you know, one is just affordability and cost of everything. Yep. Um, you know, trying to start a business is cost a lot of money and you know you're you're taking risks. And um to the extent that you can do so and kind of minimize those costs, that's a really big um advantage. I think secondly, is just the community, and I mean that in a couple different ways. You know, when we were starting Bonfire, I mean, our first customers were like Budweiser Made in America, the St. Louis Rams and Express Grips. Like the best of the best, like crop. But and you know, I think what you have in St. Louis is you've got a community of people who genuinely want to help the others in the community do well because it lifts up the the whole community itself. And so, you know, if I had tried to start, you know, bonfire in New York City or San Francisco or something like that, and cold called the NFL team and you know, uh big companies, it it's just gonna be a lot harder to break through. And so I think, you know, a big part of it is um in St. Louis is um, you know, the degrees of separation between you and your your potential customer. And then the talent uh here, you know, we've got we've got a remarkable um uh ecosystem of really smart, passionate uh individuals, uh capable in a variety of fields. And you know, technology, which is you know, sort of my area. I also serve on the board of the St. Louis Science Center here. And you know, St. Louis has so much to offer from innovations across STEM, whether, you know, in we're uh uh agricultural technology, medical technology, um, software, et cetera. So there's a lot that St. Louis brings to the table, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

For over 150 years,

SSM Health

SPEAKER_01 6:14

SSM Health has been providing hope, healing, and opportunities to the St. Louis community. With over 40,000 employees across four states, they're not only delivering exceptional care, they're one of the region's largest employers, shaping the future of healthcare. We're proud to present SSM Health as the official healthcare partner of the STL bucket list show. If you've dreamed of a career where you're truly making a difference every day, SSM Health can help you take that to the next step.

Why Mark Stayed

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Learn more at their website in the link in the show notes. It's nice to hear that from somebody from New York City because a lot of people think that, you know, obviously you can build bigger companies in some other cities, but now with like technology and now the way that how fast the internet works, it's like I feel like people are moving all over the place. Like you've seen it in Austin and you've seen it in all these other cities. It's like you don't have to be in Silicon Valley, you don't have to be in Manhattan and all these different things. And um, but that's really cool that you coming from New York in New York City. So what made you stay in St. Louis after college then? Because you probably could have the opportunity to go right back to New York.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

I got asked a lot why why I stayed. Um, you know, I think a lot of it was just like this entrepreneurial journey. And um, you know, it didn't seem to me that if I was gonna start and try to, you know, creating something and building something as as you know, you got it, you got to put a lot of heart and energy and um you know your soul into it. And I think St. Louis, the gravity that it was creating around the accessibility of these companies that I wanted to work with, you know, the cost of talent, the costs of um building something new and the resources that we had, um, not just uh people and money, but organizations, you know, uh back in the there's been entrepreneurial, sort of organizations supporting

STL’s Tight-Knit Network

SPEAKER_00 7:56

entrepreneurs. They've the names have kind of evolved and changed, but it's been a pretty steady uh theme for my experience here in St. Louis. So to me, I think that's what made me stay.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, I think that that, I mean, I grew up originally in St. Charles and I didn't have any network in the city. And when I moved to St. Louis City in 2018, um, just from like 2018 to 2026, like we've built this incredible network to where like I literally have talked to all the bit, like the Purinas, the Worldwide Techs, the Enterprises, like all these people now know who STL Bucket List is. And like when we first started STL Bucket List as a blog and as a as like this was like before reels or like videos, it was more just blogging. And that has changed so much. And now it's like you mentioned Budweiser, it's like Budweiser works with us, and it's like I could never imagine that Budweiser would be calling us to do a post on Instagram and it's like all these weird things. But I think that that's what I love about St. Louis is I'm able to call, you know, the owners of some of these companies that we work with, and and you know, even the work that we're doing is just like, you know, you being able to have a built-in book already because of all these people that you know, and then also the people that are so excited about it. Um, but no, that's uh that's true. I mean, I've only ever lived in St. Louis, so that's all I've known. But from people that move here, especially transplants, they say that, you know, even though they are a transplant, like you didn't grow up with those people, but you get to feel like, I mean, you've grown up in St. Louis as an adult, you know, and and you know, got married here and built your businesses and employ people here and stuff like that.

From Bonfire to GiftBetter

SPEAKER_01 9:21

But I want to kind of talk about a little bit about Bonfire because you've been running since 2012 and it's and it's grown into something, you know, a lot bigger and a lot different than maybe you originally expected. I mean, what are uh what are what are some of the main reasons it or the some of the stuff that you've learned in Bonfire that led you to start another company in Gift Better? Because it seems like there is some connection there of why you must have seen something.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

And um, yeah. So, you know, one of the things that Bonfire does for its customers is uh monetary recognition programs. So, you know, think you're a company and you want to uh enable your managers to give out uh points that employees can then redeem for merchandise or gift cards and uh et cetera. So uh, you know, a bunch of Bonfire's customers started saying, hey, you know, uh you got all these gift cards in Bonfire, you know, at the time, only offered 800 gift cards in 80 countries. Um and these were all, you know, kind of national or global brands. And a lot of these organizations were saying, Do you have local merchant options? Um, I think realizing one, you know, these businesses, all of these businesses care about supporting the local communities that they're operating in. And so given the opportunity to have those dollars stay in those local communities, I think they jump on it. But two, for the impact for the employee, you know, there's a big difference between getting a gift card that you're gonna bundle into some e-commerce order that you're already making versus a gift card that you get that means you're gonna go out of your house and have an experience and you know, go have a meal, go shop, something like that. So that was really the the the thread. And um, as I started investigating, you know, the the space, um, you know, there's an enormous amount of money spent on gift cards every year. It's like almost $270 billion a year in the United States. It's growing at 7% a year. Um, and you know, based on my research, I'd say about 90% of that spend is going to large global or national brands. And there's a real opportunity to help small local businesses capture a bigger slice of that.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah. And it's really the ease. And I think that the most common time that I buy a gift card is the day of a party where I'm driving and I go to a CVS and I just you look at a wall and you just have to grab one of those.

What Is GiftBetter?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And that's when we first met and you spoke about that. And so I want to learn, you know, a little bit for people that are hearing about Gift Better for the first time. Like obviously, people are gonna start seeing you guys in the market. They're gonna start seeing some more stuff on social media and obviously this podcast. What is it, you know, in your words, you know, your elevator pitch of like, you know, to explain what Gift Better is?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Sure. Um, well, you know, I would say uh a few things. One, we're at a high level, Gift Better, we're innovating gift cards um technology and the product and the experience in ways that, you know, just it hasn't been in a long time. So I mean, ultimately, when you're giving a gift to someone else, the way I think about it is it's all about the thoughtfulness uh, you know, that the that the recipient uh infers from the gift that they've received. And, you know, a big way to do that is to spend time and energy on it, you know, writing a note, um, customizing the gift. So Gift Better, uh, here's sort of the the key pillars of it. First is the gift is local. Um, so instead of that gift being bundled into some e-commerce order or going to some large national brand, um, it's going to enable that recipient to spend that gift uh in the community. It's also allowing the purchaser of that gift to keep their money in the community. Uh the second is around personalization. So um, when you're giving a gift with Gift Better, uh, you can add a video message, you know, a gift. Uh there's an unwrap experience, so you'll be able to customize. You can also order digital or physical gifts. Um, and this is, I would say, the third pillar. You know, your example of a lot of the gift cards that I buy, I'm, you know, going to something and I forgot to get something. And so I stop into a store and I just pick a card off the rack. Um, well, with Gift Better, you can order custom physical cards. So you can, I have a cat, so my cat's gonna be on a lot of them, or you know, your family, your friends, you know, what you can put any picture you want um on these physical cards, and you don't have to put money on the cards when you order them. So, what that means is you could have, you know, a stack of 20 of these custom cards you've ordered. And the next time you forgot to get a gift and you're running out to somebody's party, you can pull a card out, turn it over, scan the back, load it, and then give it to someone. So you're gonna save time and they're gonna be receiving a gift that's a lot more personal.

Swade Dispensary

SPEAKER_01 13:58

The STL bucket list show is proudly sponsored by Suede Dispensary with 11 Missouri area locations. Suede does so much for the St. Louis community. We've been working with this team for a couple of years, back since Medical was here, and we're excited to support their new product launches, events, and community initiatives. We couldn't be happier to work with this premier cannabis brand, and we're excited for them to sponsor the show. Enjoy the rest of the podcast. Yeah, no, that's really cool. I think that, you know, that's the you know, the big, the big thing that you're solving. And and when,

$2B Leaving St. Louis

SPEAKER_01 14:28

you know, people look at some of your founding merchants like Vissia, Caldees, High Point, Taco Buddha, like what does it mean for those businesses to get access to a platform like this? Because I feel like we've been talking about, you know, the gift giving side of it, but then also there's a real revenue side of it for these small businesses. You see some of the local ones do big gift card drives at the end of the year, buy a hundred, save twenty, like that's a huge part of their business.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah. Um, well, you know, in the St. Louis region, there's close to $2 billion a year spent on gift cards. And, you know, 90% of that is leaving our community. So if we can shift 10% of that, 20% of that to local businesses, it's hundreds of millions of dollars a year of revenue to those businesses staying here as opposed to leaving. Yeah. So there's a there's a massive um business opportunity for them.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

No, that's amazing. And I and I think that the biggest thing is just getting people to experience it once. So, like, let's say it is a VICIA and you do give a gift card to VISIA, it's, you know, they now people are actually going to that business. They're more likely to go back there again, whether they use the gift card or not. So I think that that's the the big culture shift of what we're seeing. And I think that St. Louis is the perfect place to start a company like this because people want to support locals so much. So, how do you guys work with corporate partners? I mean, uh, you know, I know that, you know, you had a few like Amran and other corporate partners.

Choice & Corporate Gifting

SPEAKER_01 15:45

And how do you how do you work with corporate partners to kind of help, you know, in that facilitate them getting those local gift cards as well?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

And uh just something I forgot to mention about the, you know, um gift better product. Another big part of this is choice and it relates to uh the corporate piece as well. But, you know, with a traditional gift card that you pick up in a grocery store, you're effectively making a choice for the person you're giving it to. And with gift better, you can sort of combine a thoughtful recommendation that you might make, like, hey, um, here's a gift and um I've selected, you know, Caldi's coffee or whatever. Um, that recipient of the gift can change it to anything that they want within the bounds of what you've said is allowed. So as a relate, yeah. So as it relates to corporate um in terms of kind of how we uh work with them, you know, first I think I mean, every company that I've spoken to, um when you ask them, hey, look, uh you're already spending whatever you're spending on gift cards right now and gifts and sort of these other things. I'm not asking you to spend more money. I'm just asking you to take the money you're already spending on gift cards and keep it here as opposed to having it leave the community. Yeah. So, you know, that's a that's a message that I'm finding is really resonating with um organizations. A couple other things, um, you know, one is just the time savings, and that comes in if and um compliance and sort of trackability.

Tracking & Custom Cards

SPEAKER_00 17:10

So right now, a lot of gift cards in corporate world get bought, you know, manager drives somewhere, buys a whole bunch of cards, and then hands them out. So one, you're saving time on the person driving. Um, but also then when they hand those cards out, how do you as a company, how do you know, like, well, who'd you give it to? And, you know, there's all kinds of reports.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Did you use it or does it still in your desk? Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So there's there's all this sort of like reporting stuff that you don't get with typical gift cards, but with gift better, it's all built in. So for corporate partners, you know, if you're if you're using gift better within your organization, uh we don't need someone to fill out a form about who received the card and what was it for, et cetera. That's all a part of the um the process.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, that's that's really cool because as a small business owner, like when we do holiday gifts and all this stuff, is like you, you don't, you just give all these things and you just don't like you, there's no trackability to that. And like you mentioned, you're not asking people to spend more money on corporate gifting. They're already doing it. It's already in their budget, whether it's 1% or whatever percent of their budget is that type of gifting. And this gives the HR manager, the founder, whoever is the one who does this type of stuff to just log in there, you know, a couple clicks, boom, whole team's taken care of. And then it's all places that are curated, you know, and a list that's growing every day.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Right. And, you know, in addition to that, I would say there's again the customization. You know, if you're an organization, you can order custom physical cards, you can put your logo on them, you know, holiday theme, uh whatever you want. Um, and it's also a better gift for the recipient. Um, because at the end of the day, when you as an organization are giving a gift to an employee or to a customer or whatever, you want that gift to be memorable. And, you know, a gift card that's just gonna get bundled in some order to some kind of big national chain is just a lot less memorable than a gift that gets that person to go out into their community and have an experience. And it also shows the person that you're giving the gift to that you know them. It's it's a stronger signal of I care and I know a little bit about you because this gift is for you to get out and do something

Success = Economic Impact

SPEAKER_00 19:14

with it.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

So what keeps you, you know, obviously you've been working together for a little bit now, but like what keeps you um excited to wake up and keep chasing this? I mean, like the momentum that you're seeing, is it is it working, you know, because you're I saw you on the video and the other day on Instagram, you're working with local shops and local business owners. It's just a different, you know, adventure for you. But like what is the most exciting thing about your about your day-to-day right now?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah. Well, I, you know, I guess uh two or three things. First is the team that I get to work with at Gift Better, you know, we've we've known each other and worked together for a while. And it's just, you know, it's a privilege to be able to work with them every day. I think that for me, you know, having started a few different businesses in my career, when I encountered this idea, it really checked boxes in a way that none of the other ones did. You know, not only is this um a very, very big business opportunity, um uh, but in addition to that, this if Gift Better is successful, the success quite literally equals economic impact. Um, and you know, I for me, being able to start a business that can be big, but also leave the world a better place in a meaningful way, um, you know, that's something that really um really excites me. And, you know, we we still got more road to travel here, but um, you know, the big, big initial question is like, well, we think this is a good idea, but are merchants gonna sign up? You know, are they gonna use this thing? And the resounding answer in just, you know, several weeks um is a very clear yes. So we're excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, I love that you said that, you know, and I think that that relates a lot to what we do with STL bucket list. Like our success means that our partners are successful, that businesses are successful. And that's like a good mission to chase because it's like the more transactions we have, it's not just like, oh, gift better's getting bigger and bigger. It's just these businesses are getting more and more of that two billion, like starting just in the St. Louis region, like that

Scaling & Small Biz Impact

SPEAKER_01 21:05

2 billion, it's like, can we get 10%? Can we get 200 million of that switched over? And then it's like, okay, now can we do that in Kansas City and all these other cities and make it, you know, easier for people to, you know, shop like that. So I wanted to talk, you know, obviously you're starting in St. Louis, you live in St. Louis, but this concept built to expand, you know, once you have approving ground, once you have that, um, is that part of the goal or is staying local really important to you? And 100%.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

We're gonna we're gonna want to expand this. Um, you know, there are communities all over the United States, all over the world, um, just like St. Louis that um, you know, have rich, vibrant uh local business ecosystems that could be capturing a bigger share of the gift card spend people are already doing.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

So if Gift Better, you know, when Gift Better, I I I don't like to always use the word if, but when Gift Better works the way that you hope, what you know, you mentioned some of the numbers, but on a really, really micro scale, like what would Does that mean for a small business owner? Um, you know, like what what is the real impact of them because it it's not changing? I think this is something that I wanted to make clear because I've had this question asked a lot when we've made these intros, is it's not taking away from their current gift card system, it's plugging into their squares, their toasts, their clover, all their whatever system they're currently using and giving it access to this marketplace. So, like if you know, a couple of these corporate companies like Amran and all these other big companies start using that program, not only does it give them access, but like on a very micro scale, you know, from the people that you've talked to, like what is, you know, because even just an extra thousand dollars a month could be life-changing for some of these shops. I mean, you've talked to them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah. Um well, I you know, I guess I would say, what is it? So you're asking, what does it mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, on a micro scale for these individual business owners from the con because you've been on the ground the last few weeks, just actually getting to talk to people and and hearing, like, hey, like this is what I struggle with, or here's my current numbers of gift cards.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

How can I well, you know, I think the number one kind of task for any um small business owner, I guess you could say any business owner is survive, right? Um, and especially if you're in or you're a retailer or you're a restaurant, you you know, you're um you're a business that um has a physical location and you're you're selling gift cards, um, you know, one of the best things about gift cards for you can be cash flow. Uh, you know, and um it can help you're basically getting paid upfront for services and products that you haven't delivered yet, and there's no interest, it's like an interest-free loan almost. Yeah. So one thing I've heard from business owners is just how and one of the reasons they love gift cards so much is that yeah, in terms of what it could mean for them, I mean, you know, the numbers are uh kind of staggering. Uh, you know, if we if we in St. Louis, let's just say we can get 10% of the gift card spend to stay here, um, you know, that's around a couple hundred million dollars. Uh, you know, depending on the number of merchants we have on the platform, um, that could be quite, quite a large amount going to some of these folks.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Yeah, no, that's really cool. So um, you know, I know I mentioned uh, you know, VICIA called these high point taco buddha, some of the businesses that you've already onboarded. Um, are there uh any ones that aren't listed on your website that you're also excited about? I know you've been having some great conversations as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, I mean, there's so many to count.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Um

Showing Off St. Louis

SPEAKER_01 24:16

it's like every week you're having all these conversations all the time.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Um but yeah, we're excited about everybody. Everybody joining.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Um, and then, you know, for somebody that's you know, you what what's one of your favorite things about St. Louis from being an outsider? Because you moved here when you were how how old were you? You were 18. 18. So like what's uh what's one of the favorite like when people come in to travel or people from New York coming to see you? Like what's what's some of the favorite things that that you get to show people here?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, um a few things I would say, not in any particular order. One, many are uh pleasant, like uh they're surprised at how good the food scene is here. Um I'm a big foodie, my wife is too. So um, you know, we love going out to eat and taking our friends to some of the, you know, our favorite restaurants. You know, um a second I would just say are the all the kind of amenities and um that we have here in St. Louis that are free. Like we live right near Forest Park. I'm on the board of the Science Center and you know, going to the planetarium, which has got a huge upgrade and like, you know, uh blowing people away with that. Uh so you know, we have a lot of um assets in St. Louis that are you know great to kind of show folks to like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

The STL bucket list show is fueled by Upshot

Upshot Coffee

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Coffee. My friends at Upshot Coffee have some of the best beans in town. I got some of their new packaging here. Look at this bag. Look how big this is. Um, they have four St. Louis locations, their flagship in Coddleville, the break shop over by Lindenwood in St. Charles, their Clayton location called Hi-Fi, um, and then Flyby over in Tower Grove, their newest location. Um, and they also sell their coffee online everywhere. If you guys haven't added Upshot Coffee to your STL bucket list, it's time to try it. Some of the my favorite people in the industry and some of the best coffee in the game. Yeah, I think that ever

Raising Kids in STL

SPEAKER_01 26:03

since I had little kids, I've really got to experience. I mean, I have two little kids under two, and my wife's a teacher. She's on summer break, she's going back next week. But this whole summer, she was able to create like this entire bucket list, what we called it, like ABCs, like A for this, B for magic, M for Magic House, like all these different things. And like the amount of money that she actually didn't spend. I'm like looking at this list, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be a fortune to go to all these places. But like we're members at the Magic House, we're members of the zoo. So access to all these events that we get to do with kids, have what I've really seen. I think that I hear that from other parents of like, oh, this is like one of the better places to raise children just because of those amenities that we have. For sure. I mean, every I mean, every day there's a new event, member event at all these places. I mean, the science center, my kids love that place. I mean, it's like the planetarium. I saw Britney's video of that. I'm like, I gotta go check that out. Like all these different things that are happening and like these people that are pushing the needle forward from the nonprofit scene, the art scene. I mean, um, you know, I was never in a huge end art until I became an adult. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, like the St. Louis Art Museum, I'm just walking by this. Like, I used to go to Art Hill all the time and just like walk into this world-class museum and like people, you know, I don't think people take it for granted, but I think it's nice to hear somebody like you from New York City be able to talk about these things because you had a lot of those amenities there. It's just they weren't maybe as accessible as they are here. So that kind of comes back to it. But um, so yeah, I mean, I mean, I think, you know, covering Gift Better, you know, I think that, you know, working with us and in STLB, is I think it makes sense to be able to provide a resource for these business owners.

How Merchants Join

SPEAKER_01 27:31

So I'm hoping that, you know, primarily a lot of the business owners that are listening to this, is there any limits to people? Like, I mean, obviously, we talk about the food and hospitality, but this kind of covers a lot of different businesses from boutiques and and all different, I mean, what what other types of businesses are on the platform? And is it open to kind of all different types of small?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I mean, it's really it's open to anybody that sells gift cards today. So we're not a gift card issuer ourselves. We just integrate with existing programs. Um, you know, there is a list of certain types of businesses that we don't work with, like, you know, gun stores, liquor stores, you know, that that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean, beyond the sort of standard criteria, we're open to anybody uh listening on our platform. And there's no cost um to the business owner. So yeah, uh, you know, if it doesn't work, you don't pay anything. We just charge a small fee for all gift cards that we sell through our platform, right? Like a sales channel.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that that was another question is like, you know, what's that onboarding process look like? Because as you know, these small business owners are hard to get sit down and even though it takes like this, but like the onboarding process is simple. And like you said, it doesn't cost anything either.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Right. Um, yeah, I mean, basically you go to Gift Better, you know, you put in a little bit of information about your business. Um, you know, we we verify, we do a background check on your business because we're gonna protect our users as well as our other merchants. Um, and then you integrate with your existing issuer. So, I mean, it's really a few minute um process, and that's I think one of the benefits of our approach is there's, you know, there's not new technology, there's not a new thing that the business has to like integrate into their customer experience or anything like that. All we're doing is we're just helping them sell more gift cards, exactly, you know, the and the gift cards that they sell today through their own website or when people come into their store. None of that changes. We have nothing to do with that. Yeah. Um, so it's it's pretty straightforward.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, no, that's great. So we have a lot of young listeners and we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show.

Advice for Young Founders

SPEAKER_01 29:21

What advice do you give? Because I'm sure that you have people that ask you questions over the years, but like, you know, people in their 20s that are in the startup culture, they're they're starting businesses, whether it's in tech, whether it's in brick and mortar, what type of advice do you give to people as somebody that's been an, I mean, you're a veteran entrepreneur at this point for I mean 20 years, and not a lot of people make it make it that long in entrepreneurship. So you've done this for long enough to where it probably doesn't feel the same as it used to, but I feel I can sense the energy of you now because of this new adventure, because it's like just building again. So it's like, what advice would you give to younger entrepreneurs, um, people that are really actually trying to build something?

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah, um, I guess if I don't know, maybe a couple of things come to mind. You know, building something new isn't for the faint of heart, um, but it's, you know, it's an ex it's like an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. Um and that's it's not necessarily for everybody, but you know, for me, it's just been so rewarding, not just in terms of, you know, financial outcomes, but growth, personal growth. Um, you know, you learn a lot about yourself uh when you're facing and you know, most businesses will face existential challenges and how you navigate those. Uh, you know, someone gave me a piece of advice a long time ago or, you know, framed it like the only thing you know for sure about your business plan is that it's wrong. And um, you know, in the beginning, right, the way I look at it is, and this is partly from what I've just learned doing it, um you know, you create a lit, like what are all the reasons that this thing won't work or could go wrong or whatever? And basically your goal, or you know, one of your main goals as you're proceeding forward is to uh de-risk, you know, remove those things from the list. Um, like with Gift Better, you know, in the very beginning, like there, you know, the list was really long and there's there's still things on the list, but the list has gotten a lot smaller. Um, you know, the big first big one is like, well, merchants use this thing, you know, we're answering that question. You know, now it's like, well, will businesses and consumers really use this? And we we think so. Um, but ultimately, you know, we got to see it.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the mitigating risk part is is great. I mean, I was 23 when we started and I didn't have any failure or risk in my mind because I didn't have anything to lose. But then as you grow, you know, as we, you know, the sauce acquisition is a big example of like now I knew exactly what to look for, whether it was just looking at the numbers or looking at the like, you just get better and better at looking at, you know, and it's not being pessimistic, it's just being realistic. And it's like when we're younger, when you started your first business, you're like, oh, move off camp is gonna be the biggest thing in the world. And it's like, okay, well, let's shift that. The next business gets a little bit better. And and obviously you've been able to take those learnings um into gift better. And I think one of the most exciting things about young people is we have so much more access to stuff. And whether it's AI with helping you build now, that also makes it more competitive with other people building things. Like things aren't as memorable. But I think that we've been able to, I almost wish I could go back, you know, and start again because of the things that we have access to now. We can move a lot

Ignore Vanity Metrics

SPEAKER_01 32:17

faster. But with that, I think with how fast we're moving also causes like a lot of stress with young founders too, because they see these big raises and they read these everything's on a podcast and every other person's more successful than you. I mean, did you face that when you and when you started your first business? Because you were looking at Silicon Valley and that was blowing up, and that was in the social media era too, right there, too. So I'm sure you say, Oh my gosh, like valuations and and all that. It's it's hard now because it's all over Twitter, it's all over all these things. It's like it's really hard to just stay focused.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Yeah, it's hard. I mean, I I don't think I have a you know perfect answer for it, but my experience, um, you know, one, it kind of depended on the type of business that it it you know was or is. Um, you know, my my digital marketing company grew out of moving off campus.com, my first business. And, you know, um, that's not a business you're gonna really, you know, raise capital for. Um, you're gonna try to grow that business organically. And uh, you know, the uh folks, you know, leading that team have done an amazing job doing that. So I think it really kind of depends on, you know, what is the nature of the business and what you're after. You know, in terms of like, I guess how that's changed for me over time. Um you know, uh, I think it can be very easy to sort of fall uh in uh love with, you know, the idea of like, well, let me hire my, you know, don't let the metrics of success for your business be how many employees do you have or how much money did you raise. Um, those are very kind of tempting metrics to fall into, but ultimately um they don't serve you well. The most important ones are like, what are the fundamentals of your business? Um, you know, financially from a product perspective. Um, you know, keep those at the top of your list. Um, and that'd be my advice.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yeah, no, that's great. Well, Mark, I appreciate your time and and super excited to get this product out to market and and can't wait for to be able to use this during the holidays and be able to support all of our team and and uh you know, because we've definitely been that guy that's running around before the Christmas party trying to grab things right before that. You know how that goes. So can't wait to use the platform. But Mark, appreciate you coming in, man. Thanks so much. Yep. See you guys next week.