From Brooklyn Streets to Boardroom Seats: Damian Tanenbaum's Journey through Tech, Entrepreneurship, and Martial Arts Mastery

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success, turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my co-host. Let's get started, all right. Welcome back everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast. Kyle Stevie is in studio. Damien Tenenbaum what's up? How you doing? Man, doing great, yeah, yeah. We've been trying to get you on the podcast for a while now. I know I'm excited man Working with kind of startup type companies. You've been kind of sales, customer service type of roles the whole time, yep, but you've been everywhere. Tell people about your background that don't know you I mean, kyle and I have been knowing you for a while now but tell people a little bit about where you started, how you got into the business world and how it's evolved, got it.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Well, so I was born in Brooklyn, new York, son of a starving artist, very little money, not too much education. We ended up moving around as a kid. I ended up in Binghamton, new York yeah, pretty yucky, rainy area Ended up really growing up as a kid in Chambersburg, pennsylvania, and getting in a little bit of trouble out of high school and having to live at my girlfriend's parents' house, who ended up making me go to a junior college. First day at junior college there was a job posting on a board for a Citibank customer service rep. I got the job. I was making $9.06 an hour. I was happy as hell, night shift.

Speaker 2: 1:48

But what year was this? You're making $9 an hour. What year was this 1990.?

Speaker 3: 1:53

That was decent.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Hey, that was $9 an hour I think I was making $4 something an hour at Kings Island in 1994, 1995.

Speaker 4: 2:01

In 1997, I was cleaning toilets at Riverbend during the summer for $7.25. Oh man.

Speaker 2: 2:07

So you were killing it. I was killing it First day at college. You're in Pennsylvania. How far from Philly, Right near Hagerstown.

Speaker 3: 2:13

Maryland, so I was right on the border. So I was about two hours from Philly, an hour and a half from Baltimore, an hour and a half from DC.

Speaker 2: 2:19

So you still needed $9 an hour to live there Towards.

Speaker 4: 2:23

Gettysburg and Hanover. Yeah, that area, yeah, it's beautiful yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:29

So I got a job at Citibank as a nighttime phone rep while I was going to school. It took me about four years to get my associates while I was going to school and still, you know, living life the way I could, but I was starting to make some money. One of the things I learned at that time is air fills a vacuum. So every time they needed somebody to work overtime, anytime they needed somebody to do anything, I would just raise my hand. Eventually that got me off the phones, right, because nobody really wants to be on the phones, right? No? So eventually I got off the phones. I started doing workforce planning, helping schedule the call centers and so on. And over 10 years being at the same company I learned everything I could about call centers, about, you know, customer experience, customer journey. And one day I was at a call center show and a guy said to me he's like man, I'm, I'm going to start a call center, I need somebody to run it. You interested. I said, sure, I quit my job, took my wife, two kids, to the new job and I found out it was in the Philippines. Oh, wow, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:21

So it was coast to the Philippines.

Speaker 3: 3:23

This is going to be interesting East coast to the Philippines. So I took my whole family, went to the Philippines, had a maid, had a driver, had four employees and grew it to about 250 employees and after about two and a half years I ended up having to come back to the States because my wife at the time had several family members that were sick, so sold my tiny, tiny little portion of the business, went to a company in Indiana, a credit card processing company, which I had experience with because I was at Citibank, as you know, leading their operations, and got some equity to come on board and it was a fairly small company and then, after being there four or five years, they went public. So I took the money out of that, ended up here in where am I, kentucky, getting it? Fifth, third process and solutions, actually over the river, and I was there for a while and there was some sale of the merchant side going on. So I went to a company in Canada and helped them outsource stuff to the Philippines, to India, some other places, helped acquire a few companies here in the US and ended up leaving that company and joining another company in the same payment space in Boston, massachusetts, and there I had to work with a company in Ireland and a company in the Philippines to help build our technology stack and run our customer experience team. We ultimately sold to a larger credit card processor, who then sold to another credit card processor and I had a non-compete. So I left the business for about two years, helped another company, set up operations in Bulgaria, costa Rica, columbia, and then ended up leaving that company and my non-compete was up and I joined One Inc about a year ago and now I'm Chief Customer Officer there. But along the way what I've done is I've basically taken the same job at different levels, different pay levels, different equity stakes of the company, did it over again, just did it better every time, and so it's kind of like just steps in the right direction every time and just got better and better at it.

Speaker 2: 5:30

So wait, how many languages do you speak? Do you speak multiple? Languages, or do you just speak Because it? Sounds like. Just based on what you've done, it almost sounds like you'd have to speak multiple languages to be able to do all this stuff Sounds like a CI Agent that they said you're in payments.

Speaker 4: 5:45

Yeah, this is your cover. You know what?

Speaker 3: 5:48

One would think I would be able to speak other languages and understand other cultures, but it actually isn't my strong point. I can't speak Spanish. I can't speak any other language, I just I know how to get along and street smart and in a world of what is no longer banking but is more you know, entrepreneurs, technology companies and sales guys you need an operational guy that can create processes, make things as efficient as possible and understands customers. So I'm always a low man on a totem pole on the executive leadership team because I'm the guy that gets the shit work. Yeah, yeah, right, I'm the one that always has to call the upset customers, I'm the one that gets blamed when sales can't sell and I'm the one has to deal with any problem that I T creates. But you kind of can't be replaced. That's it. And you can be replaced because I'm always developing the team under me. But it's also really hard because once you get in and you get the knowledge and you get to know the customers which is what it's about, right, it's overall taking care of that customer experience and the customer journey it's hard to find some way that can do that better until a company is acquired and then you know you get shuffled around into a bigger organization, so I tend to love these little one to 400 person organizations that are growing at 100% a year. Right, and where I am now, I think we've doubled in size in the last year and at the end of the day, there's a bigger picture of what we want to do as an organization.

Speaker 4: 7:14

Yeah, with the interest rates going up and everybody's savings going to shit, everybody's living off their credit cards now. So you may have business at infantum.

Speaker 3: 7:22

Yeah, and it's been like that forever. Right, when economy's good, everybody uses credit cards and pays it off and gets points. When economy's bad, they start to build up debt right, which is scary, especially at the interest rate going up.

Speaker 2: 7:33

So here I am sitting with a transportation guy and a credit card guy. You guys would probably know what's happening. I mean out of anybody, because I mean whenever you want to see how the economy's going, look at transportation.

Speaker 3: 7:44

Well, and I'll tell you, even the insurance industry, because now I'm focused on digitizing insurance payments through the company with one egg and you look at the cost of repairing stuff, right, and all your insurance claims now, right, the cost is much higher than it ever was before to replace.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Tell me about Miami. Yeah, they're dropping off.

Speaker 4: 8:01

Florida's getting all the other, not just.

Speaker 2: 8:03

Miami, yeah, all over Florida right.

Speaker 4: 8:05

Anything along the coast is pretty much not the older buildings mostly right Same in California, right?

Speaker 3: 8:09

I mean, there's places now that are a much higher insurance risk and if you're an insurance carrier, why would you put yourself at a higher risk? And if you can, you know, get out of there, right?

Speaker 2: 8:19

When Fort Myers got nailed right. So the insurance companies are probably like, hey, we got to make up for this. I mean, you want to live in Florida? That's fine, but we're going to charge a whole lot more. And I mean my building is downtown Miami, but it's a brand new building just going up. I mean it's a little bit further back from the water there, not that far, it's like two blocks maybe, but it's a brand new building. The people that are in these older buildings, not only are they getting hit with these insurance, their insurance going double. They dropped or doubled right, triple and sometimes. But now they're also getting who has special assessments? The state of Florida or the city of Miami or city of Fort Lauderdale or whatever. They're having inspectors go in there now and look at the whole thing and they're saying, look, you got to fix this, you got to fix that, which totally makes sense. And I don't know why they weren't doing coming down hard on that before.

Speaker 3: 9:05

Back to AI, right, I mean you look at AI now. You know they've got shots of roofs. They understand predictability of where losses are going to occur now, partially because of AI and the access to data on the internet that they can pull together and determine where the next loss is going to happen or where they're going to have a higher risk. Right, I, damien, could sit there and say I sit home and watch TV all night, but second, I post on social media that I hurt my Achilles due in jiu-jitsu. Does that make me a bigger risk?

Speaker 2: 9:37

to insure, right? Yeah, they look at your age. They look at you. Just messed up your Achilles and they're like wait a minute.

Speaker 3: 9:42

So my job at One Inc is to make sure the American moderns and all of them have a really efficient way to make payments out and to collect premiums in. Oh okay, so that's kind of my job as a customer experience officer is to make sure we make that process as easy, as efficient as possible.

Speaker 2: 10:00

And you've always been in kind of that industry and it's interesting because this is, you know, even if you don't have a side hustle, you kind of like the successful people that I know have grown up in burgeoning careers. Yes, and you know, you mentioned, your first job was like back in 90 and all that. So you were there when credit cards were becoming like a thing, really Like oh yeah, it wasn't even till 99 when people were like I remember them talking about it. Nobody's ever going to use credit cards on the internet, right, that's crazy. Fast food oh fast food. Nobody wanted to use them yeah.

Speaker 4: 10:35

They were raised. Those are emergency use Only.

Speaker 2: 10:39

You only use cash. That's exact For a long time. I mean, I don't know if people listen to this, probably don't remember any of this stuff, but I remember in 99, when the internet was a thing and dot coms were big, right before the bubble, right Before the bubble burst, everybody was talking about Amazon's. Amazon's not going to make it because nobody wants to put their credit card online. It's too much of a security risk.

Speaker 4: 11:00

Well, I was freaked out by the fact that I was actually getting unsolicited cards in the mail.

Speaker 3: 11:06

Oh yeah, you used to get all those In college?

Speaker 4: 11:08

Yeah, out of nowhere, just 90 days, same as cash, right?

Speaker 3: 11:11

Yeah, and it's so funny now because you look at the industry and they come back around and now they call it buy now, pay later. Right, it was the same as the old 90 days, same as cash stuff. Now that it's re-term to buy now, pay later you still have the same problem, right? If you don't pay it off, you have a higher interest rate later.

Speaker 4: 11:28

Yeah, and you get docked for that, all that interest that occurred in your period that you didn't have any interest supposedly being charged to you and your payment. I'm sorry. Just going back to Amazon real quick, to his point of being like the customer service, I think that's what really helps Amazon the most was that they always sided with the customer just right off, just like not being assholes right off the bat. And so when you look at Amazon.

Speaker 3: 11:53

Right. There, we're obviously a little bit before their time, right. So they lost money for a long time, but they stayed the course, right, and they evolved through the different things that people needed. They could see what was coming and what was needed and now look at them as a company, right. So I think that that's key in life, too, right. No matter what job you have, you may hate it, but sometimes you just got to suck it up, learn everything you can and eventually the right opportunity is going to come, as long as you're kind of stepping in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Yeah, you're in an industry that is growing. You were in the credit card processing industry when the internet was just becoming a thing, yes, and it was becoming popular. Not only that, retail was starting back in 90, 89, 90, those years, I mean, people were just starting to accept credit cards at a lot of places still, I mean in franchises. I was one of the tech support folks for the Yahoo Storefront.

Speaker 3: 12:43

They were going to build an online mall.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yahoo Storefront right, that was a big thing. Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 3: 12:48

I remember those days. Yeah, that's cool to be a part of right. You think of how lucky I got to be in the industry that was growing. And then, for myself, what I did is I realized you know what? I'm going to be a pinball, I'm going to get bounced around, I'm going to learn everything I can, I'm going to do whatever is needed. And in doing that, I was able to also start side gigs. Yeah, because it led to oh, this is cool, I get to travel. Well, what am I going to do when I'm traveling? I can drink, I can eat, I can work out. So I started working out more and started doing Jiu-Jitsu, because my son wanted to do Jiu-Jitsu, right. And from there I said, well, if I can do Jiu-Jitsu, I mind if I own a Jiu-Jitsu place. And then I said, okay, well, if I can own a Jiu-Jitsu place, I mind if we'll start a software company taking payments in Jiu-Jitsu. And then, you know, I also rental properties and acting. That started because somebody said hey, can you help choreograph a fight scene? I see, you know how to fight, sure, and then that led to acting and doing more choreography and so on. It's like it's it's need how things move and, like you said, you, before, the internet was even cool, right, yeah, before online shopping was cool, before credit cards were cool, you never know, but you know one of those things could have failed and I still could have been successful. Right, it turned out. All of them actually led in the right direction and and I just ride the waves and, yeah, you paddle a little bit, you ride the wave, paddle a little bit, ride the wave and people, yeah, I mean, and don't you know, something doesn't work out or whatever.

Speaker 2: 14:16

That's not. The idea is, you've spread, kind of spread things out a little bit. You've asked you don't have all your eggs in one basket. So to say, you know that's, that's a saying and that's how it goes, but you don't put all your eggs in one basket. And I think the big thing we try to get people to understand on the podcast is, when you work at a company, that doesn't mean you have security. That just means you've given up your, your future and your life and to somebody else that you think is more responsible than you, that you think they are going to look out for you better than you're looking out for yourself at the end of the day. But you're like look, I can still work at these places, I can still take these risks and go work at these startups or these companies that are, you know, just starting to grow really. And I could still do. This other thing I can say you know, you turned what it sounds like, especially with your Jiu Jitsu. You turned a hobby into a business, yes, and then you integrated your payment processing know-how into the business. So it's funny that you could do things that seem just completely disparate, but you'll find a way to bring them all together. Yeah Right, you'll find some way to tie all those things in If the opportunity presents itself.

Speaker 3: 15:27

You find a way to say you know what I love doing, that this is what I'm paid to do, this is my skill set, this is what I love. And you start to find ways to tie it together and you do things that are fun. You got to take chances, right. I went to the Philippines with, you know, four boxes and two kids in the family had no idea if it was going to work or not. Nobody in the Philippines knew what call centers were. We were one of the first five call centers there and now look, wow, now it's all call centers.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Yeah yeah, Half the calls you get are probably they're going to be from India or they're going to be from the Philippines.

Speaker 3: 15:58

Yeah, I mean. You look at the internet, right? Nobody knew that that was going to be as big as it was, and one of the companies I worked for you know they ended up making a huge profit on the fact that people were leasing credit card machines and they offered to buy the terminals online. So they cut down a middleman, removed a lease process and was able to grow drastically by offering what was called a merchant warehouse, allowing people to set up businesses online, which then led to them creating integrated products and then being sold for over a billion dollars.

Speaker 4: 16:32

And that's where it's all headed with Web 3 and blockchain is with like cutting out, you know, going back into Ethereum and stuff. I don't know which blockchain is going to be the one that replaces Swift, but one of them is going to be the one that's going to.

Speaker 2: 16:49

Probably Lightning. Probably Bitcoin Lightning, just because everybody knows Bitcoin, it's got the brand name it's a Lightning that works fast?

Speaker 4: 16:56

Does it do as many transactions as XRP does?

Speaker 2: 17:00

I don't think so. I think they're trying to get it there, but no, I think XRP does a whole lot more. I think interbank transactions. I think that's where XRP is at right. Xrp is like, hey, and this is Ripple XRP. People don't know listening and probably what we're talking about, but it's a different token.

Speaker 3: 17:14

It's a basic way of saying account to account transaction.

Speaker 4: 17:17

And what it's going to do is it's going to allow instant settlement. So Swift right now. They take the money in each transaction and they hold on to it for a day or two, three days, depending on the settlement, and then they make. I don't know 5% for 0.5% interest or whatever, and they're holding period and then they put it back into the, then they release it to the other bank and if it's billions of dollars, they made 0.05 of billions of dollars for doing nothing that day besides holding on to it and you look at real time payments or account to account transfers.

Speaker 3: 17:50

Ultimately, you'll be able to charge a. You'll still be able to charge a fee for giving somebody money within a millisecond, versus holding it for 24 hours or even 72 hours. Right, so now you have different levels of service, like Venmo does yeah. Right, you could say to somebody look, I'm not sure I trust you, I'm not sure it's you're big enough or I care about the relationship much. It's going to be a seven day turnaround for your money. Somebody else you care about more yeah, I could do this in three to five days. Somebody you really care about hey, I'm going to offer you 24 hours settlement or, even better, 15 minutes. How much you willing to pay for that?

Speaker 4: 18:22

If you're a big bank a lot, right. You know he's in a great spot then because he's got, he's got the technology right now that he's fine where he's at in the system and he's he's. He's providing a huge benefit to the insurance company by making settlements way cheaper, way more efficient and he's not stepping on anybody's regulatory toes. But in the event that regulation starts to actually give like like a clear path to tokenizing actual assets and how to trade them on secondary markets without being about worrying about the SEC assuming you later down the road, he's ready for that too. So that's like he can stare, he can buy this time, but he's ready for the next.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Yeah, the evolution. Seems like you're ready for the next.

Speaker 3: 19:08

Here's what I hope in two to three years that my side gigs are what I'm living off of, and then still be ready for whatever's next. There you know.

Speaker 2: 19:16

Well, what do you say to people? I mean, there's a lot of folks out there now who they kind of feel trapped. They've got a job they don't like a lot of times, like who likes their job? Nobody right? Some I mean maybe 10% of people I've met have ever been like oh, I love my job, I love the one.

Speaker 3: 19:32

In my head there's got to be something about their job that they like. There's got to be something that they latch on to that they find that they're good at. Yeah Right, and so I would say, whatever that is, start studying it, start being better at it and figure out a way to turn something into a side gig. That where there's some correlation it doesn't have to be a lot with what you're good at.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Yeah, I always say find out the thing that pisses you off about your job, that that's inefficient, and make it better, like just pay attention.

Speaker 3: 20:00

Just pay attention, just learn something, figure out where you can be different, where you can be better.

Speaker 2: 20:08

So explain a little bit more about the business you're in now and like what are you guys doing? What's your differentiator?

Speaker 3: 20:16

We're one of the first to market and we're basically replacing checks for the most part, right? So our premium pay process is more efficient than others because we have a wallet, we have different ways that you can connect to our modal and make payments and in our claims pay process is more efficient because we're essentially doing something before everybody else and that's enabling checks or getting rid of checks and enabling digital payments different ways. So direct deposits and stuff you could do ACH, you could do a virtual card. You can do multiple ways to pay a vendor, right.

Speaker 2: 20:48

So a vendor, insured, claimant, whoever- so we've got you know, with my business we pay people all over the place. I, like my entire agency's just made up of, of, of of. You know, nobody's attending, nobody's at W2, everybody's at 1099. So you've got people all over the world that we work with and nobody can seem to get on the same page about how to get paid. You can't do it through PayPal because it costs them too much money. They want to charge you more if you pay through PayPal, because they're going to get charged a lot. So it's like if there was like an international payment system that and a lot of them aren't going to do crypto right, I can't just send a Bitcoin, but you need some form of wallet that you can transfer money into, that has a currency conversion that puts it into their their wallet and then they can choose what they do with it.

Speaker 3: 22:06

They could leave it in there and spend it. So now you have to have people that will take that. Take that wallet, or they could transfer it to their bank account in their currency. Hmm. Right, I mean, at the end of the day it's, it'd be some kind of point to point wallet we need the WhatsApp for international payments. And well, WhatsApp has payments built in now too, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 22:25

Yeah, I think so. I think it has some kind of payment processing thing built in. I'm sure they take a huge chunk, but I think Elon's building all that shit in the X. Yeah, who owns WhatsApp? Now Is it Microsoft. Microsoft owns it Microsoft owns it Okay. Yeah, I'm sure they are charging an arm and a leg man and they've got payments built in, marketing built in.

Speaker 3: 22:43

They're doing a lot, oh wow.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Wow. So where is this explained to people? Now I want to get back on credit cards real quick. But with the credit card stuff and the problems that people are having with these credit cards and the debt that people get into, what, what is the strategy? I mean, I know there's like a side hustle for credit cards and people were talking about it for a while. You've got this points guy who's got a website who talks about travel points and which credit cards to get.

Speaker 3: 23:10

I love travel points.

Speaker 2: 23:11

You got Dave Ramsey, who hates credit cards. You never get a credit card. Don't go into any debt, which I don't think is a good strategy, because I think debt. You need debt in order to grow, in order to like, build things in the first place. But what do you do with credit cards? What's the strategy? Do you have any favorite credit cards that you like? Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:29

Yeah, I love the points cards, right, yeah. So what's interesting about cards? I'm not sure everybody understands this, but you know who ultimately pays for those points, and that's the merchants, right? So when you think, if I'm using my Delta Platinum card, it gets me, you know, 10 times points when I use it. Or if I'm using my Hilton or my Holiday Inn, whichever card I'm using, there's different point structure. If I use a general card that doesn't have points, it costs less, and so, at a merchant level, there's about 580 different price points that a merchant could pay on a credit card that they accept. And if it's a high net worth card that has lots of points, they're ultimately paying more. And if it's a card that is, you know, $50 a year membership fee and there's no points associated with it, the merchant pays less. So what you're seeing now a lot of it is that companies that offer merchants the ability to accept credit cards are enabling those merchants and depending on the state law and certain guidelines to pass on those fees to consumers.

Speaker 2: 24:28

So I hate taking AMEX because I always have some guy who wants to pay me, like I need a website and I need a logo and all that stuff, and then at the end, after I get the price and everything, they're like, oh hey, I got this AMEX card and AMEX charges so much 5 or some.

Speaker 3: 24:43

You know at least what it used to be before. One point, I believe.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, and I'm always trying to just get people to pay with checks, like all the big businesses I work with. You know they'll send things ACH or they'll send you know, just pay me with an actual physical check. Still.

Speaker 3: 24:56

So you have options there, right, you can discount for cash, you can surcharge for credit, you know. And so what you see now, like and even if gyms are doing it, many companies are doing it If you go to a government website and use your credit card, a surcharge, right. So they basically are passing on that fee back to the consumer. So now if you're the consumer and you pay off your credit card every month, that's fine, you're still getting your points right. But if you're not paying off your credit card, you're paying your merchant transaction fee and you might be paying your interest and you're not getting many points, all right. So there are challenges I won't say challenges, but you know that is kind of the thing that's happening is you've got companies offering buy now, pay later, which can lead to higher interest rates later, and you have kind of the push to enable credit card fees to be passed down to the consumer who's paying with their credit card. Oh wow. And then you know, at the end of the day, you do have the goal is, on the other end, you have the push to real-time payments. You know account to account transfers, right. So that's where you look at the Venmos and the PayPal's. They've pushed the industry forward because peer-to-peer payments are huge. Right, there's and we don't. We may not see it, but there's a whole bunch of people that are unbanked, that don't have banking accounts that are you know that their Venmo account is their bank account.

Speaker 2: 26:16

Or, which is why we love crypto because that allows people in other countries not only to hedge inflation in their country, because now you've got a global currency that is relatively stable. I mean, even though you know, we, us in America, we look at Bitcoin, we're like man. That's a crazy swing in price, you know. But in other countries imagine being in, you know, argentina, oh yeah Dealing with their hyperinflation. Oh my. God, you would have loved five years ago, oh, five years ago it was like it's gone up the inflation on that, on that currency. I don't know what the number is, but if you look at that chart it's crazy, yeah, like I mean. And the funny thing about Argentina is is they get the blue rate, so you could literally send money. If you're going to Argentina, you send money to Western Union down there, right, and don't go to a US bank, because a US bank is going to pay what 350, 350 Argentinian pesos right now, or something like that, for one US dollar. But if you send it to Western Union, it's like 600, because they've got to keep up with the street rate, right, and on the street it's actually more than that, it's like 700. But so they have to keep up with the street rate. So that's a way to actually kind of make money when you're, if you, if you leave the country. But imagine that kind of hyperinflation in your country where you're like selling Argentinian pesos on the street for dollars, like you're, you're literally you can't wait to get your hands on a dollar, like an actual dollar, yes, yeah, so in those countries Bitcoin is awesome, you know, and those kind of, those kind of currencies. Do you see what Kenya's doing?

Speaker 4: 27:47

What's Kenya doing, shit, what is Kenya doing?

Speaker 2: 27:49

I remember people were trading cell phones.

Speaker 4: 27:51

They're actually trying to put it, they're actually trying to make it so that it's kind of like El Salvador almost, where, where cryptocurrency was particularly Bitcoin is going to be national currency.

Speaker 2: 28:02

They're going to do it in Zimbabwe.

Speaker 4: 28:03

No, kenya, oh, in Kenya, yeah, they're looking at the AP. I think it's the organization that's looking into it.

Speaker 2: 28:09

But if you think about it, the more countries that do that, the more stable it gets. Like, the more money you have in it, the harder it is for you know nefarious actors to manipulate the market. You could have, you know somebody that's worth a billion dollars or a organization like a BlackRock or something that has a lot of money that wants to change the price. However they do it, they could sell a whole bunch on the open market and it drops, and then they just buy it right back because they can move the market. Yeah, you need more. It needs to have a bigger market cap. It needs to get around gold's market cap 10, 11 trillion, something like that it's harder to move the needle at that point in time. Yeah, you're what? I'm not going to ask what a trillion again, but I mean you can move the market right now and what they're doing is when everything's low, they're just buying it over the counter. They're not even buying it, so it's not making the price go up because they're doing private transactions Right. Yeah, and they're willing to say, when Bitcoin was down to 20 grand, you know you could say, hey, I'll offer you 25 right now for your Bitcoin, right? And they're like, okay, sure you know. And here you go and they give them the 25 per Bitcoin. And you know they're fine because they didn't really move the needle and it gives them more time to buy it until their ETF gets approved and then they can turn around and the Bitcoin they bought a 25 sell it to their customers for 60. You know, when it goes back up to 60, it'll happen.

Speaker 3: 29:35

Yeah, the world's interesting because it's become, in one way, a much smaller place, right? The fact that you can do transactions country to country and then, within country, you have these currencies or the same currency that you can transfer from sitting here in Kentucky, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 29:51

It is. It's actually really interesting to think about. Yeah, the world's getting smaller in a way, geographically it's getting smaller.

Speaker 4: 29:57

But dimension wise like talking like third, fourth dimension type shit it's getting bigger because now you're entering into an artificial world. That's actually that's actually going to be a sustainable and as interactive as the real world and as a real world, even without going to full VR or go metaverse just the interactions that you can create your own banking system and your own currency out of thin air, because millions of people believe that this thing has an intrinsic value. And then you start building a network where you can do settlements, millions of settlements per second, just like credit card companies, off of this thing. That no, but there's, there's outside of an algorithm that constantly changes so that they mind 21 million coins that we have to believe there's only 21 million for it to even make sense, you have to believe that. Yes, and that there was a 21, 27 or something like that. When's the last one's going to be mine? Something like that, that it changes because it's yeah, and then you take on it, take an account. There are probably tens, that's probably what over a million that have already been lost. People just got in early for the first five years and just like, screw this, yeah, or they just didn't pay attention with the hat. That's that happened. Yeah, wow, like we, we create, they created this financial institution. Like you, you, you could, the internet created a shopping mall. That like to go to your point of making the world smaller, but it is like, so the like going around the globe got smaller, but everything outside of it, just just the opportunities blew up. It's really I don't know. I got to get them more much. Levels right, yeah, totally.

Speaker 3: 31:44

Yeah, but when you think about that, I mean take it back to you. Know something everybody understands, like cell phones, right, you ask, we're one of the last to get cell phones? You look at some of the third world companies, countries they had cell phones texting oh yeah, internet before many people in the US were getting off their landlines. So it is interesting how the technology has evolved and some things have made us multi dimensional and other things have brought us closer together.

Speaker 2: 32:07

Well, it's wild, like in Japan, like you pay for everything with your cell phone, everything. Or in China you could walk into a store, like a convenience store, and just walk out with your whatever it is you have and it knows who you are, it's it. You know you pay as soon as you walked out. I mean, they've got stuff in other countries too that you're like why isn't that in America?

Speaker 4: 32:26

yet Well, just look at like the perfect confluence of convergence I'm sorry of it is if you look at where they're basically mining for rare earth minerals with a stick and they're in the sand, and then, within the next two years, every one of those ounces of lithium or whatever different type of rare earth that comes out of that rudimentary way of mining is going to be scanned into the blockchain and they're going to be able to trace that from the point where that poor woman who was making a dollar a week got it out of the ground to the point that it ends up in your cell phone as you're bitching about something on the internet with that that you didn't like that day and just like how the you talking about. The most basic, primitive type of employment that we have on earth right now is, at the same time, going to be spearheaded even further and these governments will make even more money because you'll be able to track and trace every single thing in an immutable record that nobody's going to be able to tamper with. It's wild.

Speaker 3: 33:34

And until it makes its way all the way down to the Florida, to the condo that you have in in one of the products that are being used to make your wall. Yeah, right, it's crazy, right, knowing where everything goes and where it started.

Speaker 2: 33:45

Yeah, and how it ends up here most of the time, in the biggest consumer market in the world. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3: 33:53

it's funny that with all that though, I still believe in real estate. I still believe in, you know, brick and mortar stuff like jujitsu. I mean you can't replace stuff like jujitsu. Right, you go into a gym and you do it crossfit same thing. You can't really replace that community. You can try online stuff, but nothing motivates you to do it if you're just home.

Speaker 2: 34:13

Yeah, I mean I visit my trainer Mondays and Fridays. I've been doing it for 10 years now, 12 years now. What do you bench and that?

Speaker 4: 34:20

I don't even know.

Speaker 2: 34:22

I don't even ask it out, dude Like I. You know, my trainer probably wouldn't even let me do it if I tried, so he's yeah, but it's funny you mentioned that early.

Speaker 3: 34:30

You know the first comment we had about, you know, like college degree versus hands on being able to do stuff you know, and you know AI is going to truly will replace a lot of the things that people are going to college for. People have to evolve and be able to use AI to be better, but physical things are still. It's going to be hard to replace some of those and we're talking about kids earlier. You know some of the kids that don't know how to do physical stuff are going to fall behind.

Speaker 2: 34:57

I use it my arguments now, on my online arguments. When something economic comes up and somebody's like, no, it's this and this and this, I'll literally I'll go. I'll say, hey look, I got. I'm in an argument right now with this guy and he said this and I pasted it in there. And they're like, well, that's not right, because I did it. I was like, I know, right, Tratch, EBT, it's like my buddy. And I'm like, yeah, well, I was going to respond with this. And they're like, yeah, that sounds good, but you're kind of being a dick, so make it sound like this. And then I'm like copy paste right, yeah, cause. I will. I yeah, I got problems with the way I present because of the price. Oh, and it's just, it's what happens. So where's your gym at? In?

Speaker 3: 35:33

right off the richwood exit Walton. So we just we moved about a quarter mile. Last year we bought a building, so we've got our you know our CrossFit's busy as hell cardio kickboxing and then a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. We're on a black belt under Carlson Gracie. Oh, wow, we've got him coming in July, or no, not July January, what? Yeah, we've got him coming in January for a good seminar.

Speaker 4: 35:55

Carlson Gracie or junior Carlson Gracie Jr, yeah, yeah, he's got, he's got, he's got a huge footprint in Gracie, cincinnati. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:04

He used to. He used to be here in Cincinnati. There's a Carlson Gracie in Northern Kentucky. They're in right here in Covington, actually right Newport, newport, and then we've got Mike Carlson Gracie. There's another one over in Cincinnati and there's some in Louisville, wow. So yeah, he's a great guy and yeah, it's like Jiu-Jitsu royalty, that's, that's right.

Speaker 2: 36:22

Yeah, wow, it's like meeting one of the like Royal Family almost for you guys. Yeah, yeah, well, that's awesome man. So tell everybody.

Speaker 4: 36:29

You're wondering yes, we've rolled together and yes, he's beaten me.

Speaker 3: 36:33

I've just been doing it longer man. I'm a beginner that never quit right. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2: 36:37

Well, you own a freaking gym.

Speaker 3: 36:39

Like this is like yeah. But it wasn't always that way, right, I started training with my son down at Sunsiam, you know, some different places and just continued to learn and grow and just got better over time, you know. And then that evolved into you know, it's kind of the same as business, right? I bought one rental property. A year later I bought another one and next thing, you know, you have 10, 15 of them. Yeah, same with the Brazilian BJJ Link. Right, it's a software company that you know, at first it was kind of a social media for Jiu-Jitsu, it's all it was. It was just, you know, download this app and talk about your, your Jiu-Jitsu check into a gym. So that led us to well, let's have gyms have their own version of this, the admin version. Yeah, right. And then from there, I brought well, if you're going to have a gym that has it, you have to have curriculum. How about learning management software? So a curriculum helps people go from white to blue, blue to purple and so on, right. And then you have, from there, we got to have membership billing so people check in, people can buy stuff, right, you have a stored payment method. So I want that shirt, I want that protein powder, right, so they can do it from their phone. Yeah, they can check in, instructor can check them in and of course then we can do recurring billing. So from the billing side you go back to what are the different ways to pay ACH credit card. As a gym owner, you might want to pass those fees down to your members, or you may not want to. You can offer ACH. You can offer other forms of payment. So just keeping it, making sure it evolves into something that is great for gym owners.

Speaker 2: 38:07

How do people find it? How to BJJlinkcom. Bjjlinkcom. So gym owners and this isn't just like MMA people I mean my gym owner. He does, you know, just regular workouts and things like that.

Speaker 3: 38:19

Right now. It's so got to start small, right? So right now it is truly focused on a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy owner. Now, there's not much difference from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to yoga, to anybody else.

Speaker 2: 38:31

So I'm saying, yeah, the next level. What's that Exactly? You just got to keep on.

Speaker 3: 38:34

Eventually it becomes. You know, gym link, yeah, and we offer it to other companies. But right now, when you look, you know the competition for major gyms. You know there's major players out there with billions of dollars behind them. We're starting small with a niche Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academies. We've got about 60, 65 academies right now processing with us. Wow. And you know the goal we just Sign in Florida. I don't know how many. Actually, I mean a lot or a little. We have some in Florida, we have some all over, because right now it's connected to a payment system that works around the world, so we have some in multiple countries that are doing processing with us, and we signed a deal with a company that's making us what's called a payback direct with VisaMask card, and so we'll be able to have lower rates and more options to our customers in the next month. So, our hope is that we're going to start to grow 10, 15 gyms a month.

Speaker 4: 39:28

Well, if you're going to West Hollywood, you're close enough, I believe, to Deerfield Beach and they've got a shit ton of gyms in the deer. Like from Fort Lauderdale to Miami there's a gazillion, and then in Tampa there's a I rolled in a place in Seminole and that was one of like eight within like a four block four mile radius.

Speaker 3: 39:49

Yep, I'm sure when I'm there for 30 days, at least two days a week, I'll go to Jiu-Jitsu at different places and I'll go do some kind of functional training, crossfit, high intensity stuff with my wife and other places, I'm sure. So that's the fun part about traveling, right, my real job, you know, enabled me to travel, but from that the side hustle came up, you know, with the gyms and you know, started with a hobby, right, just rolling with my son. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:13

Isn't that crazy how things work out yeah. It's like people just got to get started. It's like, you know, the first step is to climb in a mountain. Is you know taking the first step?

Speaker 3: 40:21

Yeah, so many people send a message to the gym oh, I got to get in shape first. I don't want to start Jiu-Jitsu until I lose weight. Screw that man Take the first step. Everybody's a beginner.

Speaker 2: 40:32

When, the more muscle you have, the more, the faster your metabolism is going to work anyway. So you're rolling around, you're. You know you're using your muscles.

Speaker 3: 40:40

You're Plus. Look, let's face it If you sit on the couch all day and talk about getting up, you're never going to get up. That's right. But if you actually walk into a gym and you start meeting people doing Jiu-Jitsu, you say, hey, you coming back tomorrow. You know, first you're like, maybe Come on, you should come tomorrow. Yeah, next thing, you know there's encouragement, you got a team building there and you start to have new friends, you start to have a new lifestyle. Right, maybe your old life, your old friends, maybe maybe they were a problem.

Speaker 2: 41:05

Just don't go to the bar afterwards. A bunch of MMA guys are going to get you into fights. That can happen too, right.

Speaker 4: 41:11

Most MMA guys are absolutely relaxed because they've spent the first five years of training getting their ass absolutely smoked.

Speaker 2: 41:18

Like me, they're tired of it, they're sick of it.

Speaker 4: 41:21

I'm eight years into getting my ass kicked, so I'm very but you add alcohol into it, Like how's that work?

Speaker 2: 41:26

It depends on where you're at yeah, it depends on where you're at.

Speaker 4: 41:31

My cousin's group out in San Francisco real well-known fighters and globally well-known fighters when they were younger and they did not give an F. So the moment they felt disrespected they would fight. And then they got smarter. They're like, okay, we're going to get sued. So then they would take guys from their gym that were at the bar with them and say you've got to beat, like he would do with your little brother, you've got to beat the shit out of this guy. Yeah, like that's how it was. It was all like fair fist fight. It wouldn't butt, jump or anything like that. It was just like an old school type of mentality that you really can't do so much anymore.

Speaker 2: 42:07

It was just like kind of See what happens when you got Kentucky people to see what they do. That's right. So here's what's funny you mentioned earlier.

Speaker 3: 42:12

You know the snobby people you know at the club you went to. I find it interesting because when I travel I spend all day, sometimes, you know, with my jacket on and kind of a you know bored meeting type atmosphere and everybody in some cases can be full of shit. Right, yeah, sure, yeah, I leave there and maybe I go meet them later for dinner or go meet them later for a drink. But I take some time and I walk into a jiu-jitsu place, I change my clothes, I put on a gi, I put on shorts, whatever it is, and there is no talking shit. There's no lying about who you are, there's no being fake. Everything becomes 100% real when you step on that mat and so you start to talk to somebody and there is no attitude. There's no I want to fight you or I'm better than you on this or that, and if the person really is better than you, you bow down and accept it.

Speaker 4: 43:04

You proved it, you kind of know it the first time they grab your wrist too. If they grab your wrist, you can I don't know you just you can feel you're like, oh, this guy's, this is not going to be as bad as I thought, looked by judging. Like sometimes you look at guys you're like this is going to be a rough five minutes, a rough 10 minutes. But if they grab your wrist, you're like this guy's like kind of like a fake muscle, and then there's some guys that grab your wrist. You're like, oh, this is going to suck, this is really, this is going to be terrible, Just smack your head down quick and you go.

Speaker 3: 43:33

You know, and I've rolled with, like you know, at George St Pierre. You know, gunnar Nelson, I just was in Vegas, and I did a Gordon Ryan seminar, you know, and it's incredible just to see the strength, the, the skills that the people have, you know, it's incredible when they put their life into something. But what's what's neat about it, too, though, is you never feel like, when you walk off the mat, when you go outside, that they're going to come after you and beat you up or that you're going to get into a fight Never. Sometimes it's sitting in that boardroom. I'm like man, I wish I could just hit this guy, yeah.

Speaker 4: 44:08

I like the Senator. Did you see the Senator? No, the Senator from Oklahoma yesterday, what happened? The witness that he was talking, they was talking to, had put in a Twitter, had put out a tweet that said that he would wanted to beat the shit out of the Senator. And the Senator saw the tweet and he goes. You said anytime, any place, and the guy goes. It was a, it was a teamster guy. Oh yeah, so he goes yeah, I said that he goes. The miss senator is fucking interrogate, like, like asking questions of this guy. He goes. Well, this looks like the time and this looks like the place. A goes, you guys will you go right now? He goes, why not? So the senator from Oklahoma stands up. Bernie Sanders, who's the chair of this, is yelling at him. You are a US senator. You must sit down now. This is a. This is a witness. You cannot be tempered. You cannot be trying to intimidate a witness. It was awesome.

Speaker 3: 45:06

So, but here's what's so cool about that, right? So let's take that you know that example If they really could sign a waiver, go to the gym, spend five minutes. We don't. They don't need to spend two hours.

Speaker 4: 45:17

Yeah, they will. The one guy with the teamster guy was not me.

Speaker 2: 45:20

No, there is a waiver. It's a mutual combat waiver. It's like, yeah, because I've gotten arguments online and I'm like I need to download this waiver and bring it with me. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 45:27

Sign that waiver and put five minutes and I guarantee somewhere around three, four minutes in. They're probably going to shake hands and agree to disagree on stuff. Don't be cool after that and have mutual respect.

Speaker 2: 45:38

Every time, like when I was younger, every time we got into a fight like you'd be, like I'm never going to be this cool with this person. I want to, I want to pretty much choke them out Right, and then you beat each other up. You'll all, man, you got me with that right hooker. Oh you, yeah, dude, you shouldn't hit me in my nuts, but then you're best friends.

Speaker 4: 45:54

Yeah, yeah, I know you're cool After every tournament. Once you, whether win or lose, after every match you're like, I mean, you become like blood, blood, blood brothers with every role, with.

Speaker 2: 46:03

We used to. I didn't tell you this, but we used to have a fight contest in my apartment complex when I was a kid, so all the kids would get together and there was a 16 year old kid is we just call him big Ryan because there were three Ryans there and they were all different ages. Anyway, he was the guy who would like get it organized and make sure we didn't like really hurt each other. And we would go down to this, his apartment, and when his parents weren't home and all the younger kids, he would essentially have us fight like it was like a, like a, like a pit bull fighting contest.

Speaker 3: 46:32

The original UFC yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:33

And all the kids in the apartment complex would fight until only one was left.

Speaker 4: 46:37

It was awesome.

Speaker 2: 46:38

It was the best thing. It always lost because I didn't know how to get out of a headlock when I was a kid, but I did all the way to the end, and then I just didn't know the headlock, you gotta dress the hands. I mean you gotta do this, don't you Dress?

Speaker 3: 46:46

the hands. Do I want to get your chin down? Sit out.

Speaker 2: 46:49

Yeah, but it my thing told me my gene, my the coolest thing on my genome link. I uploaded my DNA to this genome link and it tells you about your genes. It said you are likely to have higher ability in the martial arts because it says martial arts, such as karate and taekwondo, require the ability to maintain cognitive ability and to deal with psychological stress during a match.

Speaker 4: 47:10

Yeah, but you're talking like karate and taekwondo. That's like 58 year old women get black belts in taekwondo and karate.

Speaker 2: 47:16

Well, I have the warrior, not the warrior gene. So the warrior gene is like a baby You're just looking to fight somebody, yeah, yeah, but I'm not always like, I just want to like, no, but you keep your cognitive ability when you're fighting. So that's the key.

Speaker 3: 47:30

So what one thing there is is prepare for it right. So being on a mat and jujitsu helps you prepare for that cognitive being able to think through something and not go crazy, not do something stupid like give them your head stress out. Yeah, so they get that headlock right, so you don't stress out. Right, you can stay calm by training. Right, so you can train really hard. And then, when he comes down to the fight, the fight's easy, right, every competition I already had. You know, every time I go train or compete, I don't get hurt in a competition. I get hurt training sometimes right it's, you know it's it's. It's a lot harder. I think we were talking about the fighters. Nowadays, the real fighters, right, they're doing this three days, two days. They're training their asses off for that five minutes in the ring.

Speaker 4: 48:11

I mean you just don't stay injured. I mean, you know, Chris, like he's the best friends with Strickland, Strickland spars all day long, All day, all the time yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:21

I, that's. I. That's where I did the last camp, up at Extreme Couture, where Chris trains got to see him because he sent me one of his cards. It's cool to see Chris's story, right? Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2: 48:31

Well, I started training in the apartment complex when I was eight years old.

Speaker 3: 48:34

That's awesome, isn't it?

Speaker 4: 48:35

I did my first Unregulated. My first class was at. Well, my first training was my dad put made us but if they were fighting in the neighborhood way they were boxing gloves they would officiate.

Speaker 3: 48:45

Well, look, I grew up no money. I used to fight people for like five bucks, you know, as a scrawny kid, you know I was like 135 pounds, yeah. It's the most New York thing I've ever heard in my life. It's real simple, right? We're at the mall, we're like, let's go, five bucks let's go, and we go out back and fight, we go home, I'll beat up, whatever you know. I started wrestling a little bit and then I kickboxed for a while in Pennsylvania actually Raging bull man I was under.

Speaker 2: 49:09

Raging Bull.

Speaker 3: 49:10

Circuit kickbox. Yeah, you know, nice man. And then I got tired of getting hit in the head and got had a job, got married, had kids, stopped doing pretty much everything. I just worked out a little bit until my son was 12. He's like dad, I wouldn't mind kickboxing or something.

Speaker 2: 49:25

You're like I've been waiting 12 years.

Speaker 3: 49:26

I'm like this is freaking awesome. That's what I let's go kick somebody's ass.

Speaker 4: 49:29

That's like my story. Yeah, I started doing jiu-jitsu as a football conditioning during like two summers and then uh, that's job. I met my wife. She had kids hanging out with the boys going to law school and then one of them was getting bullied as an eighth grader and I said F this and so I. That's when I called Nate and I said, hey, you know, I got we, we got to do something about this. He said bring him up. I I had like a month and a half before soccer ended, so I had to for them and I was in terrible shape. I was like you know, screw this, I'm going to month and I'm going to just do it now so that I'm not in a complete embarrassment and lose. That makes me lose all respect for me when they see me huffing and puffing. Yeah, that's how I started.

Speaker 2: 50:13

Hey, they got to start somewhere, and that's what we're talking about that's the side hustle thing is you got to start somewhere and just keep at it and don't give up. And uh, so, damien, anybody who owns a gym, tell them how to reach out to you. Anybody that's interested in payment processing, maybe they they use your new startup that you're working at.

Speaker 3: 50:29

Yeah, so, if you own a gym, come see me at Damien Tanabaum and Instagram, uh, or Tripp Crown Athletic is a gym in Walton, and then BJJ Link is the gym management software. And if you need a fight choreographer or you want somebody to act being one of your movies, call me too, there it is.

Speaker 2: 50:46

Yeah, Open it up to the eight. We got like a. Are you got your sad car? You got my MDB stuff.

Speaker 3: 50:52

I got my. My house is available for filming in Northern Kentucky. So a big, big barn trying to make it a studio. Right now it's a little rigged up but you know, trying to make it a studio and then it's 10 and a half acres, so you're a nice house that you can stay at film at. Nice. So I'm excited. I'm doing a fight choreographer on a film in LA coming up in March, so it's going to be good. And the same director that I helped back in January that film is getting released in the next month or two, so excited.

Speaker 2: 51:21

It's, it's. Life is fun. Life is yeah, you just you.

Speaker 3: 51:24

You say you've got to get off the couch or you can't, you got to start somewhere. It doesn't matter, you've even acting right and nobody becomes Johnny Depp or George Clooney overnight, right? I mean, I started a background stuff, just learning the lingo, background. Stand at, you know, I was on the resident, I was on the walking dead as one of the guys just walking around for three days. Yeah, but I learned the lingo. I met some people which led to independent film guys going, hey, you want to be in this. Which led to a buddy saying, hey, come film this in Atlanta. That buddy said, hey, I could use you in LA filming something it. You know little steps, you know I. And funny, I was just in yesterday in Nashville and Reese Witherspoon was talking and she was the the keynote speaker and her words were real simple when somebody asked her how does she do it every day? And she said you know what? You just have to take steps in the right direction. Just take steps in the direction you want to go.

Speaker 2: 52:18

Quit looking at the people you envy and you hate because they are successful and hating on them, and use that energy towards like, just doing something positive.

Speaker 3: 52:28

Just start walking in that direction. If you hate that guy because he's successful, well, do a little research, figure out what he did, what he did to become successful, see if that's your skill set and try it.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Anyway, damien, thanks for being on the show. This has been awesome, man, and again, give us the URL.

Speaker 3: 52:45

BJJ link for the gym management software or just contact me, Damien Tannenbaum.

Speaker 2: 52:50

And you're on LinkedIn too.

Speaker 3: 52:51

All right, I am DB Instagram social. All right, anything, man, you got to stay relevant, Right.

Speaker 2: 52:57

That's right, Awesome man. Well, thanks for being on the show. Thank you All. Right, buddy. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests. Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, Side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.