Episode 376: The End of UGURUS - Last Episode with Brent Weaver and Jen Buzza

Speaker A: I think with just how things shook out, the renewed focus on how the digitalocean business is going to operate, um, you know, the Ugurus thing just didn't make sense. And I think when I looked at all that and we were letting all the Ugurus team go, it was like, I think I'm ready to move on to something, something new. Hello and welcome. My name is Brent Weaver, and this is the Digital Agency show, the podcast that goes behind the scenes with today's top agencies and entrepreneurs. I am really glad you're here. And once again, it's time to transform your business mindset. Hey, what's up, podcast listeners, digital agency owners, welcome to, uh, the last episode of the Digital Agency Show. I'm your guest, Brent Weaver, and today our host is Jennifer Buzza, lead mentor here at YouGurus. And we're kind of flipping the script today. So, Jen, welcome to the program. Welcome, Brent to the program. Welcome, Jen. You're welcoming. You're welcome to the program as host. Let's, let's, let's get started.

Speaker B: Let's go with that. So welcome everybody. This is Brent Weaver, our guest for today's podcast. This is the Digital Agency show and we are excited to be here to talk, do a lot of hope and explaining. So let's get into it. We have more than 375 episodes serving entrepreneurs and digital agencies for, what is it, 10, eight years now. Something amazing. And we have been able to impact thousands and thousands of digital agencies. Brent, super excited to have you here as a guest today. A guest of honor for sure. We're going to go into three parts. Brent, how do you feel about this? We are going to do, going to talk about this fact that it's the last episode, right? It's a podcast. We're going to talk about the podcast, right? Then we're going to talk about you gurus closing, shutting down. So if you don't know that, we'll get into that and explain and help, uh, you to, uh, understand what's going on. And then we're talking about what's next. What's next for you gurus for digital agencies and for Brent Weaver himself, our guest of honor. So let's talk about the podcast.

Speaker A: Great to be here, Jen. Let's do it.

Speaker B: All right, tell us a little bit about this podcast, the history of the podcast, some milestones. It started in 20, 20, 17. Why did you start this?

Speaker A: So the, like, the business goal was to create something that would keep us in front of potential people that would work with Us and, and to. To also stay in front of our customers. We knew people were using podcasts, and we wanted to develop something that really had kind of like it. It created some real unique value for the industry. So we, we knew like, long term that it would have, you know, benefits to our business in terms of attracting customers and all that stuff. But we really wanted to kind of own something that was, you know, Ugurus, the Ugurus brand. And um, and so a podcast was, was born. Um, and it was, uh, I was reluctant to say the least of committing to it because I think in my mind doing something like a podcast, you know, you kind of go, okay, well, if I, if I start, I can't stop. Um, you know, I knew consistency and frequency was a huge part of it. And so I, um, think initially that was kind of, uh, the idea of, of, of having something that people would listen to, and I think that was validated. Um, I honestly didn't know if anybody was listening until we got some of our first reviews. I think most of them were like, you know, friends. The friends of the, of the company. Right. They were, they're very positive. We did get like, one, like, pretty negative review, which was interesting. Um, but it was, it was like, oh, this is like real. We're doing this. So, um, so yeah, that's a little bit behind the why. And, um, also just growing our network and getting to meet lots of new people. I think a podcast is a great vehicle for that.

Speaker B: Absolutely. You've had so many guests on. What are some of your favorite moments, um, from having the guests on and different things you've learned from your guests.

Speaker A: For a long time, I didn't listen to any podcasts. I, um, mean, I had listened to podcasts. It's not to say like, I had my head in the sand or something, but I found that once I started doing my own show that my, you know, when I was interviewing guests and we'd have, you know, these amazing smart people on the show. And it was almost like that was my learning every week of getting to, you know, talk to somebody. And we had some, you know, people that were not well known, that had really powerful messages and really smart people. And then there's a lot of people that were, um, very well known, which I would have probably paid to see speak someplace. And they'd come in and, you know, talk for free on our show. And I'd be in, uh, the back corner of the office or my basement talking, uh, to these people. And so I felt like a lot of the podcasts. For me personally, one of the main reasons I kept doing it and putting in the energy was because I really felt I got a lot of knowledge and growth from it. Just what I was able to learn from the guests was massive. And also inspired. Right. The amount of guests we had that had some kind of ridiculous morning habit where they'd wake up and, you know, have ashwagandha or, you know, they, they meditate nine times and do a cold plunge. You know, I always felt like, oh my gosh, like I need to level up my morning. Right. Like, I always felt like it kind of pushed me a little bit. Um, um, but that, that was like, you know, it was like as I. When I knew it was good because it was good for me. And so I always hoped that whatever we were talking about on the show would also benefit our listeners.

Speaker B: So that's fascinating. So when you think about this, you started this with definitely some business goals. And in your business goals has always been to help digital agency owners achieve freedom in their lives and in their businesses. And in doing this, you also fulfilled your own freedom and your own joy. And you were sparked because I'll say, as a member of you gurus for 11 years, I was always very sparked by you. I still am. And I think you being out there interviewing people is super helpful for all the digital agencies, members and non members. So that's, uh, it's great to hear you say that, because we do, we talk to other digital agency owners, other entrepreneurs, and we ourselves are inspired. So that's very fascinating. So if you enjoyed it, you knew others were going to enjoy it.

Speaker A: Totally. And I think too, like, you have anybody that's had a podcast, um, that's had some level of impact within your market doesn't need to have like millions of downloads, right? If you're serving a niche and you have 100 people that listen every week, that's 100 people that have you, the host and the guest in their ears for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever. And so people would come up to me at our events and other events, they'd say, oh, I love the podcast. I binge listen to all the episodes. I don't hear that as much anymore. But the first year or two, you'd kind of meet people and they'd be like, oh, my gosh, I listened to every episode over the last two months. Uh, which is crazy, right? Because you think, okay, that's like 100. We used to. The show used to be closer to 45 minutes or an hour and so it's like, wow, that's like, it's like 50 or 75 hours of like me in somebody's ears. Um, I think now it's a little bit harder with like 375 episodes. I probably wouldn't recommend, um, you know, that for any anime fans, like the show One Piece that has like thousands of episodes or something. Right. Like, my kids are like, I'm gonna watch all of them. Right. It's like that just doesn't seem healthy. But, um, but yeah, it's. It's been fun and, and really, you, uh, know, I mean, this is our last episode is the Digital Agency show. We'll talk here in a little bit about, you know, the wind down of you gurus. Some of you might be like, wait, what? But it's, it's definitely been a journey and I'm not really sure what life looks like without having this podcast. Like, part of me is like, ah, finally, I want to have that interview every week. But, but there's still that component of like meeting somebody that, you know, I didn't always know who the guests were in their background outside of reading like the prep material that the team put together. And I, uh, just, I'd meet these people and learn these really cool stories and listen to like real world agency, like the ups, the downs, everything in between. And. And that was, that's something that I definitely will miss no matter what I do next.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. So tell us about that. Kind of you're going to miss the podcast. Also, what are some of the challenging things you went through with the podcast? Like maybe challenging episodes?

Speaker A: M. I think at a big picture level, anything that requires, I mean, if you're going to honor kind of your audience. I always thought having the show come out at the same time or at least the same day. Right. Like having that consistency. Because I imagine if an audience member builds a habit around listening to the show, um, whether or not the show's good or not, let's say you've passed that test and you're. They're interested enough to stay with you, uh, that if they go in on whatever Tuesday and your episode's not there, right. And they have 30 minutes blocked out, they're probably gonna listen to something else.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And then you're gonna, you're gonna lose them. Right. And so we definitely found that when we published consistently on a calendar, on a timeline, um, that, that we saw listenership go up and I think people took the show more seriously. And that was, that's hard to maintain because sometimes you have six or seven or ten episodes as a buffer, and then all of a sudden, you know, I mean, over the last, um, I mean, since we launched in 2017, I mean, I had. I had, you know, one, ah, son that year. I went from having one kid to two kids that year.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, you know, we had a worldwide pandemic. Um, my business was. I bought out a business partner during that time. Um, our business was bought. Then we were bought again. And then, um, you know, then. Now. Now with the wind down, the last, you know, last several months has been kind of crazy, uh, internally. And I think one of the challenges, like, when you think about over eight years, like, a lot of things change. Like, you know, I could maybe in 2017, I could envision, like, six months or a year out of, like, how my schedule would look or how life would look. And so the show was with me through a lot of personal changes and also business changes. And that was probably the biggest, like, macro challenge, was just making the time. You know, we had team turnover, system turnover, right. Making sure that there was always the right components in place to keep the show running. And then, like, there was definitely a few episodes. There was a handful of episodes that did not air, which might surprise some listeners, because they're like, man, I listened to a couple of bad episodes, right? And I, uh, have to say, like, I'm not saying that any episodes were bad. I think that sometimes I would leave an interview, and for a long time, my wife was doing the show notes, so Emily was doing all the show notes for the podcast, and so she'd listen to the episodes, and so I'd always, like, leave an episode, and I'd be like, at dinner, I'd be like, hey, like, what did you think of that episode? You know, it's kind of like, you know, and she always kind of knew I was, like, picking for, like, if she. If I thought it was bad or not. And she's like, oh, I thought it was good. This is the part that I liked. And there's just stuff that might have been going on in my head about something that the guest said or their approach to business that maybe I didn't agree with. Um, or maybe the interview felt a little flat, or maybe I was not in the right headspace. So, you know, I think the one thing about that kind of content is that, um, you know, you end up doing it on your good days, you end up doing it on your bad days. Couple episodes we decided not to air because I just was so unhappy with the interviews. Um, one episode we were asked not to air because I was a little bit hard on the guests. So that was interesting. And I was probably a little bit stubborn. I didn't think it was bad. Basically the guests said something about how their business model was structured and I didn't like it. Um, I didn't think it was ethical. I didn't think it was the way they're positioning things. I didn't like it and I kind of, I kind of cut into it a little bit. And, um, and I think they thought that that was a little bit, uh, it didn't feel like the fluffy, you know, hey, we're all talking about, you know, no matter what you say, I'm going to agree with it because you're on my show kind of thing. I was a little bit hard on them and, um, they asked me to, to not air it and I said, sorry, you know, too bad.

Speaker B: Oh, really?

Speaker A: Yeah. I probably could have been nicer and be like, whatever, I'll, I'll, I'll toss it. But I thought it was, um, I thought it was a good episode in terms of. I thought what they were saying was not. I didn't like what they were saying, but I thought the discussion around it, the uncomfortableness that was created, I actually kind of liked so well and then

Speaker B: such value to bring that to your audience and let them experience that. Because when we are uncomfortable, we grow. And so to bring that to them is brilliant. And I can really hear and feel your dedication to the audience and to the mission, which is phenomenal. Um. Huh.

Speaker A: Hey, what's up, agency owners? I want to let you know about a hosting platform that is giving digital agencies and creators around the world an edge when it comes to site speed, scalability and profit. It's called Cloudways and it's designed to create exceptional experiences for you and your clients that guarantees unmatched performance, reliability and choice. With 247 award winning support, Cloudways is excited to offer our listeners a $50 hosting credit in addition to their amazing benefits of their agency partner program. For more details, head over to ugurus.com cloudways or use promo code D A S C W when signing up. Let's get back to our show on that.

Speaker B: Any interviews over the past many years of this podcast that stand out or that change the way you see life?

Speaker A: M. I mean, there's. They all. They all did a little bit. Jen. Um, I mean, I was thinking about some of my favorite episodes. I mean, you know, like my conversations with. I mean, obviously you. We had several Repeat guests. So like yourself, um, Mark Gutman, uh, Aaron Rickson, um, it was fun to like kind of watch their businesses evolve. Phil Lockwood was on. He was like one of the very first. He was actually an original investor in Ugarus. So his, his whole business moved on and he finally like, I finally asked him to like come back and he like turned me down. Um, um, but he's doing like something totally not agency anymore. And he's just kind of, he, he's, he's created that boundary for himself, which is super cool. Right. There was a couple episodes, I mean like one of our first ones with Mike Gelman. I just always thought like, like Mike ended up selling Spire Media like a couple of years after his interview. Um, and Spire Digital. I'm not even sure what that company looks like now. It just like what he did with that business just always blew me away. Um, you know, he was like this, uh, kind of like a comedic, a stand up comedian that like launched a business and like he ended up running this like 20 plus million dollar, your agency. And it just like it always blew me away what he was able to create. Um, and his uh, overall style to business just always felt like really like raw and authentic and just always very help first. Um, you know, Keith, ah, Roberts also was kind of a great. I think he talks about like, ended up losing like a $400,000 lawsuit to a client and you know, almost sank his business. Um, I ended up interviewing Vern Harnish, um, and I got a big ego hit. I kind of was a little bit upset at first and I had to do a little bit of like rethinking and reframing. But, you know, I had him booked on the podcast and he ended up doing the interview like from his car, uh, while he waited to pick up his kids at school. And he literally started. When we picked up the conversation, he's like, I have, I'm waiting for my kids to get out of school. I have like 15 minutes or whatever. And I was like, okay. Like, you didn't. In the back of my mind I'm like, what? You didn't have this interview on your schedule? How could you, you know, whatever. And I'm like, hey, I'm talking to Vern Harness. He's like a entrepreneur legend. And I, uh, was like, you know what, let's just make the most of it. Let's get going, right? And he did the whole interview from his car. It was great. It was awesome. And I think we just kind of rolled with it. And um, Had a good time. So, you know, we had some of our competitors on over the years, like had several conversations with Jason Swank. And I always found for me personally, like a podcast, it almost seems like, yes, it's branded, yes, it serves a company like it served you guru's interests, it served our guests interests. But I always felt like the podcast was like this kind of semi neutral territory where I could interview people that might be direct competitors to you gurus. And then it was also a way for us to build trust with them, maybe get invited to their show. Right. It just kind of, it always had this kind of abundant feel to it,

Speaker B: which I loved, which I think is definitely part of your personal brand. You've always, uh, taught and lived that abundance and you know, you've talked a lot about, you know, know your competitors, know the people, um, that they will, they will be there in one way or another. Uh, and it's good to know them and to, to reach out and to learn from each other. And you, you've um, you've taught that for many years. So that stands on brand for sure. And speaking of brands, let's talk about Ugurus. So what happened?

Speaker A: So, uh, the short elevator pitch, the TLDR version is in 2021, Ugrus was bought by Cloudways. Um, and shortly after, in 2022, Cloudways was bought by DigitalOcean. And so you gurus kind of got swept up in this acquisition and we were now part of this very big global publicly traded company. There's almost seven, uh, hundred thousand customers at DigitalOcean. Um, I think from the last earnings call, I think the projected annual revenue, uh, or ARR is upwards of $800 million. Very big operation. Market cap right now is around 3 to 4 billion. Um, so we became part of this very big, big kind of, uh, multinational, uh, corporation. And um, it was a pretty wild ride, to be honest. Right. We grew the business. Um, for me, when I was looking to exit or sell, I was looking for somebody that'd be a strategic buyer because I thought the business could do bigger things. And I was very tight with some people at Cloudways. And that was kind of the vision that grew. And I think we did a really good job at delivering on that vision. For the last couple of years. Um, the actual core Yougarus coaching business, we more than 3x that business, um, I think we had like something like 60 or 70 pro and elite members. I think at the peak kind of, uh, Q4, 2024, that was um, upwards of 250 or 300. Um, and so we saw a lot of growth there. But you know, think about that in the context of 300 customers out of 700,000. Um, and I think probably the main decision happened, you know, a lot of things happened in AI last year, the year before that. Um, I think DigitalOcean as a cloud hosting, uh, company, it's like their primary business is like the, like literally the, the server, the server hardware and operating systems that run these like very advanced scalable server environments. And Cloudways was kind of above the server operating system level where it's like managed hosting for WordPress websites, but also very different business. Like if you were to see the daily feed of Slack messages that come through, like the meetings that I'm a part of. Right. Um, nobody in the entire business is talking about coaching or an agency community and that kind of stuff. And I think we had a really good narrative to make it relevant for a long time. But I think new leadership came in last year, got laser focused on the core business and said look, if it doesn't have to do with core, we're just not going to get, we're going to get rid of it, we're not going to focus on it. So the core DigitalOcean business is where they're taking the company. Right. And I don't disagree with that at all. I think the rationale is airtight and um, unfortunately didn't meant that I had to probably part ways. Um, I was spending about half my time on Cloudways, half my time on Ugurus. But I think with just how things shook out, the renewed focus on how the DigitalOcean business is going to operate, the Ugurus thing just didn't make sense. And I think when I looked at all that and we were letting all the Ugurus team go, it was like, I think I'm ready to move on to something, something new.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it must have been uh, a big hit. I'd say to, for yourself, uh, and the community that you've built, like this was a beautiful, beautiful, um, group of humans coming together to learn and to grow together. And um, I have to say there was a lot of uh, writing on the wall which you know, in hindsight we can all see. Uh, but I personally was, was shocked. I really didn't see it coming. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker A: I mean, you know, that's, I think the, I mean, do I have thoughts on that? Yes, I have many thoughts on that. Chad. Um, I think that um, you know, one of the risks of selling your business is that you lose control, uh, and, you know, for obvious reasons, right? Like, it's no longer your business, right? If I, if I sold my car to somebody and then come Monday morning, they go out to their garage and Brent's saying, hey, see you later, I'm off to work. Now I drive off with that car, they would literally be called theft. It'd be like Grand Theft Auto. Um, and so I think when you sell anything, you kind of lose, um, quite a lot of control over that. And so that was definitely a decision I grappled with a lot in 2021, kind of leading up to actually deciding to exit, um, the business. Now, my exit was a little bit different because part of the. I had committed to stay on, uh, for a period of time. We wanted to see the ugurus business 10x. Um, we got to 3x. Um, but we wanted to see it 10x. And so we had this whole plan of 1 plus 1 equals 11. And again, that was just like internal kind of vision speak, right? But we really wanted to see that happen. Um, and I think Post Once, once DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways, that did change the game a little bit because I think the founder of Cloudways, Akib Garrett, I mean him and Santi Costa, like, we all kind of had. The three of us had this vision for Ugurus, right? And then, you know, the Codways acquisition. DigitalOcean bought Cloudways for $350 million. A very big deal. Largest acquisition of a Pakistan company by US Company in the history of the world. Um, it was a very big deal. Um, and so a lot of the fundamentals changed, right? Uh, Akib, he became the CRO of DigitalOcean for a couple of years. He then moved on last year. Santi, uh, moved on last April. So it was like me, I was like the last flag bearer. And so it was like having to repitch the why of the business, um, over and over and over and try to advocate for why it needed to exist and whatever. And so I feel like to our customers, right, like, they, it needed to exist for them and our members, like, it was so important. And so, as you mentioned, like, so many beautiful people and humans, um, but like, internally, it just the difficulty of validating, like, the narrative because again, bare metal servers, operating systems, very technical heavy engineering stuff. And then there's this kind of like, inspiring mindset community, right? It was like oil and water to some degree, right? Uh, of why are we doing this? And unfortunately, I lost that battle internally of that this should continue, that there's A narrative here of supporting digital agencies. Digital agencies use Cloudways, Digital agencies use DigitalOcean. And so unfortunately that, um, just didn't go our way. Um, and that wasn't ultimately my decision to make, you know, so it was unexpected. And I think for me, I saw, you know, I probably saw more of it happening earlier than other people found out. But, you know, because it was like, you know, trying to keep different scenarios, different paths forward, different, you know, different ways to make it work. And um, and so that was, that was definitely weighing on me for, for quite some time. So, um, you know, it ended up going the way that it did and. And um, you know, we'll see what's next. I mean, the good part about, I mean, it's a business unit dying, but like, you know, no people were harmed in this, like in this incident. Right. It's like, uh, if a, uh, rocket ship blows up in the air, right, obviously, like there could be damage there. But I think with a services, uh, business, it just means that we stop providing the service and the agencies themselves are still there, the community. Actually, I think a lot of things that have happened that have been really positive. Uh, like Cloudways is going to continue kind of hosting, uh, our complete training library. So all of our current, all of our members that were current in their payments and such are going to basically get perpetual access to the entire Ugurus library. We also have our Slack community, which will stay open and the, uh, Cloudways team will become admins of that to kind of be, you know, stewards of that whole thing. So I feel like in some ways customers will have some of the benefits of Ugurus into perpetuity, um, but they won't have to make any investment on that, on the ongoing.

Speaker B: That's, uh, phenomenal and very gracious, I can say as a member and a mentor, I'm very grateful to have the training library which we've worked on, ah, so hard and there's so much gold there. Which brings me to this concept of. It is semi ironic that, um, or fitting maybe that DigitalOcean decided to focus and we just, in Ugurus wasn't the focus. And we do teach. Right. Your principal teaching is to focus, so you can't fault them. Right. Like, it actually is, um, in many ways a very gracious. I know it's hard and it's still hard for members, for myself and for you. Um, but I think in a way it's very gracious. Like if all good things must come to an end. I do believe this was A pretty beautiful end.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I've definitely, if I've put myself into the shoes of, uh, leadership, you know, it's almost like in some ways I'm like, surprised that we lasted as long as we did within the environment. We were like. And I think I really respect that decision in terms of focus. Um, like nobody within this organization is talking about things that relate to professional services as a business model. Right? So, like, there's no like for me internally, there's no like, mentors to like go to. I mean there's amazing people to talk about growth and product led growth and complex engineering and security problems and all kinds of amazing people to like to pull that from and amazing entrepreneurs and amazing business minds that fundamentally get business. But you know, it wasn't like somebody in the organization was running a bigger and better coaching program in some other department. Right. I mean that was kind of. And when they would look at our business, it was kind of like, you know, m. What is it? You know, it was like it was very foreign. Right. And so I think partly, um, maybe we lasted as long as we did because, because there was a little bit of, of you know, not understanding everything. And I think at some point they just said we don't want to. There's no, um, you know, they didn't see that as another billion dollar product or $100 million product. Right. Which if, again, um, I was a part of, um, a community of people called Business Catalyst. And uh, I thought about whether I'd go this whole episode without mentioning that, but the Adobe bought Business Catalyst and Adobe decided to end Business Catalysts. A lot of people were very upset and I'd almost say it's a very similar paradigm. Business Catalyst, I think at its peak was doing about 20 to $30 million in revenue, uh, per year. And the VPs that I interface with at Adobe, they were always thinking about, what is our next Photoshop? Is whatever multi billion dollar product. What's our next billion dollar product? And when they would create new products, and they created lots of new products, if they didn't see that growth, if they didn't see that market, you know, saturation and that opportunity for them to have a billion dollar product in their portfolio, you know, they'd usually kind of merge it into something else or they just get rid of it. Right? Uh, and they had to have that discipline, um, in order to move the overall business forward. And so, you know, when I look at the percentage of revenue that was you gurus, it's like, okay, I understand this, right? We're taking up a lot of resources from legal and tech and IT and all this kind of stuff and, and hr and we're just not adding enough to be distracted by it. And I think too, if we were three times bigger, would they have made the same decision? I think the answer was yes, because it was not tight enough in the narrative of cloud hosting. Um, maybe if we had turned all of our mentors into AI agents, uh, maybe that would have, maybe that would have bought some people over for the next six months or a year, but I think that would have eroded at the core of who our community was and who our mentors were. And I don't know, we started looking into some of that stuff and it just felt like it was counter productive. They kept coming to me and asking like, can this just be a product without any of the, without any of the mentors? Right? And it was like, well, we call those courses and yeah, you know, it's just, it's not. They'd be like, well, no, we don't want that. We want like the. Can we have the mentor magic without the mentors? It was like, no, I don't think so. But maybe somebody out there will do that.

Speaker B: I'd love to speak a little bit about, uh, the members and the mentors. Could you briefly, just for all of our joy, uh, explain the name you gurus and where it came from?

Speaker A: Well, I guess I always thought everybody should have the opportunity to be a guru. Um, and what I mean by that is if you're somebody that you do digital marketing for radon businesses, you know that you could take that expertise and with, you know, uh, you could take that and you could basically become like the expert, like the, the sage on the stage, um, for that market and you wouldn't. There are like radon or home services, conferences and events and masterminds, that whole thing, right? I mean there's, there's asbestos removal, there's pool cleaners, right? There's all these crazy niches out there. There's also the big ones like restaurants, lawyers, uh, in H vac companies or whatever. But, um, I always thought like everybody could be a guru. And some of the original ideas for the Ugurus business was really like I was teaching content. Users would come on, they'd buy those courses, they'd implement and then we'd kind of like recruit people from our students, from the users that were using our courses. We'd recruit and then we'd turn them into instructors. Right? And we were doing this constantly. We actually had A brand called BC Gurus before where we really like fine tuned that, where our team would produce content. But then I'd meet people in the community that were heavy users of our training and they were doing really cool things. We'd bring them in and they'd start instructing and I had like, I think I had a high bar for the quality of content that we wanted but I had a really low bar in terms of like I wasn't expecting people to have this huge body of training work or be a professional trainer. So we'd just take agency owners that were you know, doing cool things. We'd have them create content. And so our original like 1.0 business model was like, it was almost like crowdsourced agency growth content. And so we built a whole like platform for it. We ended up never actually going live with it because we didn't have like a real business model. Like it was like. And also it's really hard to get people to want to create content. If you know anything about like a um, kind of a network effect, right, like having content creators and also having the viewers, right the people that are going to consume or pay subscribers pay for the content. You um, know you have a multi sided model. It's a very difficult business to get off the ground. And so we actually found that us creating the content for at least you gurus in particular, um, kind of made the business model simpler. And um, we evolved from, started the company in 2022, uh, 2023 we were selling self paced courses. We sold I think four or five courses that year. Um, and then in 2024 we.

Speaker B: Wait, no, 14. I'm sorry, 2014. Yeah. Okay. Yes, thank you.

Speaker A: I was just like 2012 when we started the company, 2013 we sold the self paced courses. 2014 we launched uh, Bootcamp which was essentially a self paced course with weekly group coaching attached to it.

Speaker B: I can definitely speak to that briefly. I was in that first boot camp with you and phenomenal and continues to be phenomenal. I still go back to those videos in those lessons. Definitely a foundation for growing your business and your life. So I'm very and eternally grateful. So thank you for that. And as a member and a mentor I'd love to ask you, you have this following of people who, they're going to show up for you now and tomorrow and 10 years from now because you have made this impact that is uh, it's not just pivotal, it's purely life changing. You've given the tools and I want to say the tools are Important. I do believe the tools are important, but the inspiration and the support as people go through their journey of becoming the business owner and becoming the visionary and not the person doing all the work all the time, stressed out. That gift, uh, is your legend, it is your legacy. It is what you have thus far given to the world, in my opinion, being a recipient. So I want to say thank you not only from myself and my family, but from all the hundreds and hundreds of members out there who literally will show up for you no matter what you're doing. This is, uh, the stories of, um, what people have, uh, how they have revolutionized their life and lived past. I mean, Brent, it goes down to your admin staff, right? Known as virtual assistants. Having exposure to the entrepreneurs, to the digital agencies you bring in changed their lives. Mhm. Their lives.

Speaker A: Like the member success team members. Yes.

Speaker B: Member success. Yes. That. That notion of like, they're like, wow, I just to be around the mentors and the members, like, they're like, they see their lives completely differently. The members come in and it's a lot of nice to meet you, let's do this, let's do that. And then the world starts to open for them. So this is, you know, I wanted to ask you if you had any, any favorite memories from, from any members out there, because I know they all have many, many memories of you.

Speaker A: And I mean, I think the, um, in our closing speech to members, I said, you know, that, you know, nobody can take away someone's education. I learned that concept from you. Um, but also nobody can take away your network. And so I feel like I do have some good relationships and memories, uh, with members. I think that early on, I don't know if I was just younger and had more risk tolerance, but I would have these crazy ideas of, uh, some of our early events we did, we called 10k Austin or 10k Denver, and I would rent a bus we'd drive all the attendees to. Because this is back when agencies were in person at physical offices and everybody wanted and aspired to have this cool creative agency. And so it was like an agency is always look cool on the inside. Right. I feel like as a young agency owner, I'd go to these big cool agencies and it was always this really inspiring thing to see the brick and mortar, see the teams working the bullpens, the cool art on the walls, the installations. And so I take agencies, um, on these bus rides and I was, I don't know if I just wasn't bold enough to hire like an event manager. So I was like, you know, I was, like, calling the bus, you know, the person with the bus. And the bus would be late, and we're, like, loading all these people up, and everybody's sitting outside in Austin, Texas, and it's 110 degrees outside. Like, everybody's, like, sweating and, like, I forgot to buy, like, water bottles or whatever, and I'm asking to team member to go to the store and get, like, 50 water bottles or whatever, uh, for people so that nobody, like, dies in our watch. So I think just, like, some of that early stuff, I think just still kind of, like, warms my heart, like, a little. Like, literally. Jen, we did our 10k Austin event, and I guess maybe we threw it in as like, a bonus or something. We didn't charge, like, anybody for it. Um, I mean, we. We ended up spending, like, tens of thousands of dollars on, like, food and bus and, like, whatever. And it was like. I mean, we were. Fortunately, we were making some really good money with bootcamp at the time, but it was like, it was just like, there was not a care in the world. It was like, we're just having fun. We're just doing this thing, and it's just, like. It's just. It's just cool. And so I think, like, I have some pictures of, like, me sitting on a couch, and there's just a bunch of all these members, like, hanging out in Austin or in Denver or some of our youth summit events, right? We got a little bit wild with, like, our panda parties. Everybody dressed up like pandas. And. And, I mean, I could. That. That whole thing is probably. We're never going to have another episode. But, you know, the. The TLDR version is Panda became my spirit animal. I did some live content on it. Members started showing up in panda stuff. So we had a panda party. We did a Panda Strikes Back party where it was, like, Star wars theme plus pandas. And so I think some of that stuff, like, I look back and I'm like, you know, those are. Those are the memories for me. I mean, all the business. The cool business stuff we accomplish for members, like, helping people find their niche or growing their business and, you know, those stuff. That stuff is cool. But I do feel like the community, the connection, some of the bold ideas, like. And I guess a message I'd have for other entrepreneurs is like, sometimes if you have those bold ideas, and you think there's, like, no way this is going to work. Like, this is like, we're going to have a. We're going to dress everybody up like pandas. And we're going to, you know, we're going to have a dance party. Like everybody think that's like so stupid, right? I mean that's the um, thought that goes through my head, right? Is like nobody m would go for that, right? Or if I'd pushed the envelope a little bit. I remember pitching Aaron Rickson. I was like, all right, here's how we're going to open you summit. Like you're going to, I'm going to come out in my panda outfit and then you're going to come out in your panda. You're going to have your Darth Panda, you know, ah, costume on. You're going to come in from the back. Like we had like a whole like, like a play, you know, whatever you call those, like a script, right? We had all the script for how this thing was going to like, you know. And I have to say like, there were these moments where I was like, we should push the envelope even further. And I'd maybe even kind of doubt myself or not do it. And I think anytime that I kind of set doubt aside and I was like, you know what, we're just gonna do this. Maybe people love it, maybe they don't love it. I feel like anytime I did that, it always turned out um, really special and unique. And it was something that was memorable for our customers. And that's the stuff that people talk to me about. Nobody talks to me about our, you know, three part Venn diagram model and you know, this and that and the other. And nobody talks about, you know, um, how flawless onboarding is. I mean those things do matter, right? But like they talk about like the panda thing, right? And I think just if, if, if I personally, like, as I, as I reflect to take on to whatever my next venture is, is like how do you, how do you have fun with your business while you're um, while you're trying to grow it? And I think if, if anything, the last three years in a corporate environment, um, I don't want to say they snuffed out all the fun because we still had fun, Jen, but I think we became a lot more obsessed about the business growth, the business fundamentals. And there was a little bit less time for the fun. Kooky stuff.

Speaker B: Yeah. And this is such a beautiful segue into where you're going next. And this concept of uh, people matter, community matters. I uh, think you've, you've always taught that. And we're, we're living it, we're living it every day. Community does matter. Um, people matter. Having fun matters. And yes, you know, I always say that business is a grand excuse to grow who you are. Right. It's a, it's a grand excuse like oh, I'm going to invest in this business. I invest in this education for myself and coaching and mentoring and all this. And really you are growing that whole time. Yes. You have a business, yes, you have money like all this stuff, but it's you, you're growing. So um, that having fun and staying connected to humans, it does matter.

Speaker A: Hey agency owners, are you looking for a strategic and reliable white label partner to scale Your agency business? E2M is the number one white label partner for digital agencies when it comes to website design, web development, e commerce, SEO and content writing. E2M M is trusted by over 150 agency partners and has been providing white label services for the last 10 years. Their team has over 170 experts and is on a mission to help 500 agencies increase their revenue and profit margins with impactful white label services. Check out their transparent and flexible white label pricing@e2m solutions.com ugurus that's www.e the number two msolutions.com ugurus e2m is currently running a special discount for 10% off for your first three months. Check it out now it's available for a limited time.

Speaker B: So what is next brand? What is next for you?

Speaker A: Well I'm um, going to take some time off. That's that, that much I know, I'm not sure how much. Maybe it's one or two months, maybe it's a couple of more, um, to do a little bit of that soul searching and to think about kind of what's next. Um, I have been diligently working I think since I was kind of 17ish. Obviously I was going to school at the same time but I did finish uh, when I left college I, I started working full time in the business that I'd kind of incubated as a high school and college student. So I didn't take any time off, uh, minus like a week here or there. So I'm definitely looking forward to having a little bit of a break and then likely something in the agency space. I've kind of got these like concentric circles that I'm you know, looking at in terms of where's my experience, where's my um, zone of genius kind of what lights me up in and what are things that um, I also want to look at in terms of challenges. Um, you know I'VE I've delivered a lot of podcasts. I've delivered a lot of webinars. I feel like I have some of those skills pretty well developed, which I could use in future, um, future ventures, whether that's, you know, content or a YouTube channel or this or that or the other. But I also want to kind of be open to, you know, things that are presented to me. So that's, that's what's next at this point. Um, I also moved like, uh, about eight or nine months ago, um, to a little bit of land out in southeast Denver, kind of rural area. So, um, people have been asking a lot about my, my chickens and my, uh, chicken farming abilities, which is, uh, super unprofitable, um, right now, just insanely unprofitable. I was looking at getting a llama. You have to get three of them. Uh, so that was, that was a thing that I'm looking at. I was one of them. I was looking to buy. His name is Captain Jack Sparrow. So we'll see if that's in my future. But yeah, I mean, I also bike a lot, so that's kind of where my head's at, is like riding and biking. I launched for people, if they want to follow up with me. Um, I launched a substack just brentweaver.substack.com so if you want to subscribe to that. Um, I do plan on. My intention is to write a little bit about some of the things we talked about today. Um, write about some of the kind of lessons learned from helping several thousand agencies, um, which, which is. Is. I think there's probably some more stuff I have to say there. So we'll hopefully get that content out, share it with people. I think it'll be interesting. Um, I have to obviously toe the line between things I can say and can't say, um, just from our, my current corporate structure. But, you know, I'll try to toe that line as carefully as possible while revealing as much as possible, which I, again, I have nothing but great things to say about the leadership here in everything that they've done. And I have absolute respect for everything that they are and do. And I love the company as a, as a brand and as a product. And, um, I do plan on using a lot of DO and Cloudways products in the future. So that's all going to be good. But yeah, we're going to blog a little bit. I'm going to not podcast a little bit, uh, and see where things take me. You know, I mean, it's, it's been an incredible run. My first business was a, uh, digital agency, and I ran it for 12 years. And this business, um, we got to 13 years, and I'd have to go back and compare the exact starting dates and then ending dates. But it's about 12 and a half to 13 years for each business. So I feel like that's also maybe a small strength that I have is like picking something and obviously I'm staying with it for 20 years. Some people do that. Um, but sticking with an idea for like 12, 13 years, I think that's a big part of being successful in business, is like, can you stay? Can you do the thing when it's no longer interesting and exciting and it's rather boring? Can you keep doing it when it's incredibly boring? Um, so, yeah, that's where I'm at.

Speaker B: Fantastic. All right. So people can, um, follow your writing, which is wonderful. And I'm sure we're all going to be excited to read anything that you post, no pressure, and follow along in your journey as you evolve as a human and an entrepreneur, um, and a real giver. I mean, you're so gracious and you've always been very, very open with your. And vulnerable with your sharing and your support of others. So we definitely are addicted. So please, please do. When you, you know, when you have time, do write those blogs and do keep us posted, um, all of your listeners and your members and your fans, we, uh, all love you very much and we're very, very grateful. So thank you, Brent Weaver, for being a guest here today, uh, for shining light on, um, the reasoning for this very last podcast. Any final thoughts?

Speaker A: I appreciate it. Jen, uh, you've been, uh, such a hero in our community and a rock for me personally. And, uh, I think you've kind of held you held things together when maybe I was probably not the best steward. And I hope that I' done the same too. And just really want to commend, um, you for sticking with the brand and the business and myself, um, as long as you have. And maybe on my next podcast I launch, you'll be the first guest to ask you what you're doing next. Right. Um, but you've been so impactful to our members. I think just we have a customer love folder that's been fun to take snapshots of all the love letters on Slack and email that members have been sharing with us. And, um, your name is often mentioned more than mine. So, um, I think you've been having more calls with our members than I have. Um, since the wind down, and just. You've been such a tireless leader and a, uh, servant leader to our members and our team, and thank you as well.

Speaker B: Wow. Well, it's an honor, and, uh, 100% within superpower, which means, for me, 100% joy. And it is with, um, a heavy heart that we say goodbye. But, uh, no, goodbye is for forever. So thank you, Brent, for being here today. Thank you for all of these years and for the inspiration and the love.

Speaker A: You're most welcome.

Speaker B: Do you have another second to do a lightning round?

Speaker A: Uh, I do. I do. I can stick around for the lighting round.

Speaker B: All right, well, let's do it. Okay, you're ready. Is audience ready? Let's do this. What is the best advice you've ever received?

Speaker A: Uh, that's an easy one. The main thing is. Keep the main thing. The main thing.

Speaker B: All right. Which of your personal habits has contributed most to your success?

Speaker A: Um, I think probably this was if. I always wondered how to answer this one. Um, I think it's. I don't want to say morning habit because I. Or morning routine, because I really don't have a great morning routine. I do wake up early, but I'd probably say, like, having a sport like endurance cycling, um, just has been great for me to, like, cleanse my mind and my body. That there's, you know, there's few things in life when I'm doing them, and I can't think of anything else. And so, like, if I'm on my bike and I'm, like, pushing hard or doing a big climb or something like that, or if I've been on the bike for, like, five hours, like, I'm probably just too exhausted or too, you know, focused on it to think much about business or anything else. And so I think just having something like that in your life has. Has been, um. Has been very valuable for me.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Can you share a tool or an app that you've been using lately that you think the listeners would find valuable?

Speaker A: I. You know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna probably say a token answer that. I'll say two things. One, chat. Um, and specifically, I'm using chat a lot more as kind, uh, of like an advisor of bouncing ideas. Like, hey, I've got this situation that's happening. Help me kind of make sense of it. Help me understand my options. And so it's not. It's not to, like, make content, but more of, like, here's this thing, like, well, how would you approach this situation, which I Don't even know if Chad is like the, has the right certifications and the right, you know, pedigree to like provide. But I've been very impressed with some of the advice that I've gotten from it. And so, you know, I think that that's, that's cool. I mean you obviously have to kind of check, check the data or whatever, but it's like, it's like a two part thing for me. Like I get some time to kind of stream of consciousness, unpack something without it being very organized and then it kind of spits it back out to me in a very organized way and then I can kind of have a conversation. And I started thinking about the future of AI and how humans can start to really rely on AI as a thought partner and a thinking partner. And I don't know if that means it's going to replace business partners in the future, but it's exciting to me. And the other tool is just as I write a lot more, um, Notion, uh, using notion to organize just my documents and my thoughts and my to do lists and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker B: That's good to know. Um, besides your own book, which book would you recommend and why?

Speaker A: Uh, you know, I'm really digging. I spent a lot of time with this book. It's called All I Want to Know is Where I'm Going to Die so I'll Never go there.

Speaker B: Ah, yes.

Speaker A: Um, it's kind of an interesting book, but it's basically like these. It's a fictional conversation between Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and a uh, seeker and a librarian. And um, it's, it's super valuable if you're somebody that's in business or thinking about buying businesses or selling a business or growing or scaling a business. I highly recommend that is required reading.

Speaker B: Fantastic. So I, as host will ask you as guest to uh, send us off.

Speaker A: Well, thank you Jen. This has been a, uh, pleasure. Hopefully our listeners got some um, behind the scenes nuggets uh, from the show. Hopefully this gives you closure on our show. Uh, hopefully maybe it gives you some closure on you gurus if you're a customer, a member or partner. But just want to thank everyone that's been a part of this show over the last eight years and beyond. Thank um, everybody that's been a part of this business for the last 12 years. Um, could not have done what we did without our sponsors, without our um, guests, our over 375 guests, um, without the audience downloading episodes and listening to episodes and coming up to me at events and saying how much they love the podcast. I wouldn't have kept going if I didn't have that support. So I really appreciate you all and appreciate you being a part of this journey. There is no show notes for this episode. You can go to yougurus.com, it will likely forward you to a page telling you about how the business is shut down. So feel free to do that. But if you like this episode, if you like other episodes, you can direct people to the podcast on Apple. The podcast will stay live. It's hosted on SoundCloud and so, um, Apple and, um, Spotify. If you want to access the library, it will live on for however long Cloudways chooses to continue paying the annual, uh, SoundCloud membership. So if you happen to catch the digital Agency show, we hope you enjoy it. We hope you, uh, stay tuned for whatever myself and Jen do next because we will officially not be publishing any more content on the Digital Agency show. This is it. This is the last episode. No more great content coming to you to help you grow your digital agency or achieve freedom in business, in life until we launch something new. So stay tuned on that. Check me out@brentweaver.substack.com uh, look at what Jen is doing over@workelevation.com. if you want to follow up with more information about what we are up to, check out those two websites. And that is all for today. Until next time, I'm Brent Weaver.