Guests: Jordan Levy, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: August 22, 2019
Excerpt
Jordan Levy and his company, CapSource, have been making high waves with their programs and are changing the face of higher education. They spent the last two and a half years pounding the pavement developing relationships with schools, and identifying programs that they were trying to connect with companies. Still, ultimately they needed help with that process. So Jordan and his team discovered MyOutDesk and hired Melody, their current operations manager.
Education is an impact field. It’s not the field you would go into if you’re trying to make massive amounts of money, but the great thing about CapSource’s model is that they actually start with the school, not the companies. And that’s a primary reason why they are different from a traditional talent marketplace. They are really focused on the educational goals of these engagements where anything like recruiting, employer branding, and even the outcomes that the students generate are gravy. All of their engagements are built based on obvious narrow requirements set by the schools.
After realizing how much they needed a Virtual Assistant, they hired Melody, and she is achieving excellent results for them. They started Melody off on the sales side of the organization with institutions, doing a lot of the SDR and Sales work. Today, she manages their entire CRM. As a result, they have generated two to three times the amount of traction that they wouldn’t typically have otherwise just because of having Melody on the team to rely on. Jordan says that their ROI on hiring Melody is about at least three to ten times.
Serial EdTech entrepreneur and CapSource founder, Jordan Levy, has been committed to expanding experiential learning within the higher education ecosystem since he graduated from Lehigh in 2014. CapSource with birthed to provide administration and faculty with more flexibility and customizability when it came to integrating companies directly into the curriculum through hands-on collaborations.
Jordan is a serial education technology entrepreneur. He has started two EdTech companies that help higher-ed programs bridge the skills gap for their students through experiential learning. His method is to integrate real companies into the education process through hands-on collaborations that expose learners to new circumstances with real stakeholders, challenges, and outcomes.
His company CapSource is a fast-growing marketplace where educators and students can find companies interested in collaborating through specially designed project-based learning engagements. So far, CapSource has leveraged 100+ different host company partners to provide in-depth learning experiences to 1,500+ students at 25 different schools and universities around the globe, including Fordham University, UT Dallas, the University of Illinois, Pace University, and Notre Dame.
Transcript
00:00:08:03 – 00:00:09:07
Daniel Ramsey
Hey, brother. How’s it going?
00:00:09:11 – 00:00:11:07
Jordan Levy
Awesome. It’s going really well. How are you?
00:00:11:13 – 00:00:24:03
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, great to meet you. Chuck says some great things about you. I’m. I’m excited to interview you and kind of find out more about your business and see how we can serve. So thanks for being here today.
00:00:24:20 – 00:00:48:22
Jordan Levy
Yeah. You know, honestly, Chuck was a really friendly face to start off my relationship with our desk. And then, you know, we we went through a series of interviews and had an account manager to work with. But Melody has been our key kind of contacts with my desk. Until very recently we heard from you guys that you wanted to hear a little bit about what we’ve been doing with Melody and.
00:00:49:05 – 00:00:51:21
Jordan Levy
Yeah, so it’s been it’s been pretty good.
00:00:52:07 – 00:01:15:23
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, that’s awesome. And tell me so let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about what you do. You’ve got, like a cool business. It’s different. Like, I think you’re actually you might be, like, changing how colleges and students actually interact, which what a great mission, man, because my college sucked. I was like. I was like, I had no idea what I was doing.
00:01:15:23 – 00:01:18:21
Daniel Ramsey
And it was bad, man. So tell me about what you guys do.
00:01:19:10 – 00:01:46:08
Jordan Levy
Sure. Yeah. So my story really starts from back when I was a student. Yeah. I realized throughout my four years that I loved the content that I was learning. I was an accounting finance major, but the moment I got a chance to apply what I was learning to a real job, which at the time was an internship at KPMG, I realized first of all that firms structure the big four mentality wasn’t for me.
00:01:47:04 – 00:02:13:10
Jordan Levy
And also the field wasn’t really interesting, although I loved the content and I said, How are these two domains that are supposed to be conceptually similar? Just so different? And yeah, I realized that you just you don’t get any practical experience in college. And basically in the course we’ve been solving for ever since I graduated is really how do you bring real world experience into college programing?
00:02:13:10 – 00:02:18:18
Jordan Levy
And we can’t figure out a better way to do that than actually integrating companies into the education process.
00:02:19:03 – 00:02:38:19
Daniel Ramsey
That’s phenomenal, man. So I first of all, I love your mission. You and I are similar. I have a finance degree. I went to work for Barclays by Barclays Global Investors. I was a fund manager, so I’m in, you know, and I’m like, I’m going to this is awesome. And then I got into the job and I was like, Holy crap, I hate this.
00:02:39:08 – 00:02:59:07
Daniel Ramsey
I, this was dumb. I should have never been a finance major. So then I started being an entrepreneur, which is what I’m actually tied to. Do, you know, like you? Probably. So talk to me about your model. What? How does your model work? What do you do? Like, I’m super interested because I think there’s such a big need for what you’re talking about in.
00:02:59:07 – 00:03:00:12
Daniel Ramsey
In society.
00:03:01:13 – 00:03:21:00
Jordan Levy
Yeah, it’s it’s a good question. And frankly, I’m sure the same with my desk. Yeah, right. I mean, and I think one of the cool things when I when I was just speaking with Chuck, you was saying, hey, you guys started with real estate. But, you know, a lot of the skills are transferable, especially the ones, you know, we’re leveraging melody for.
00:03:21:08 – 00:03:51:11
Jordan Levy
Yeah. And yeah, I mean, long story short, we actually started a company previously which went after the case study model trying to improve how relevant, how timely that content was and video and tried to make it engaging for millennials and Gen Z. And that process, you know, I learned a lot about what is and is not experiential learning and I look at cap source is pretty much like the is the brand the like the go to brand for experiential learning.
00:03:51:11 – 00:04:18:12
Jordan Levy
That’s what we really want to be. There’s a lot of different products and services that we’ve now developed out underneath that brand to serve higher ed mostly administrators and what we call experiential learning coordinators. But basically we spent the last two and a half years pounding the pavement, developing relationships with schools and identifying programs that we’re trying to connect with companies but ultimately needed help with.
00:04:18:18 – 00:04:50:04
Jordan Levy
With that process. Yeah. So we would we actually did the kind of the facilitating of the, the relationship and the design of the collaboration. So we kind of look at that product almost as a combination between a case study and a consulting project where it’s a little bit kind of self-study. You could do it on your own, but it has a live by third party that’s there to answer questions and give feedback and kind of provide that real world element.
00:04:50:04 – 00:05:32:02
Jordan Levy
So we’ve been coordinating those for a little over two years now. It’s done about 100 engagements with 30 different schools. And after that we actually just recently launched a software platform, mainly designed originally for us to do our own process faster. And then a few of our clients were like, Hey, we actually want to white label that and use that as our as our process, as our technology and kind of the new frontier for us is really going into, you know, anything from the software that we built and kind of as a SAS solution all the way through managed services where we’re connecting companies and schools like we worked traditionally the last few years.
00:05:32:15 – 00:05:52:09
Daniel Ramsey
That’s cool. Okay. So because I’m, I’m I even though I have a finance degree, I like to slow it down. So you go to companies and say, hey, we’re going to get you some interns. And then you go to colleges and say, hey, we’re going to get you some some experience, actual experience to to kind of pair with education.
00:05:52:09 – 00:06:13:06
Daniel Ramsey
So people are really served at a high level and then you sit between them and you help them work that out. How do you make money in that? Like, how do you how do you drive revenue in that? Because colleges are are horrible about like that. You know, they’re like, I’m not in business. I don’t know. You know, it’s just bad.
00:06:13:11 – 00:06:14:18
Daniel Ramsey
How do you make that work?
00:06:15:07 – 00:06:26:10
Jordan Levy
It’s a good question. And it’s certainly not easy, right? I mean, education is an impact field. That’s not you know, it’s not the field you would go into if you’re trying to make, you know, massive amounts of money.
00:06:26:10 – 00:06:27:13
Daniel Ramsey
But yeah.
00:06:27:13 – 00:06:55:23
Jordan Levy
The cool thing with our model is we we actually start with the school, not the companies. And that’s the primary reason why we’re different than a traditional talent marketplace. So we’re really focused on the educational goals of these engagements where anything like recruiting and employer branding and even the outcomes that the students generate are kind of gravy. All of our engagements are built based on very clear, narrow requirements set by the schools.
00:06:56:05 – 00:07:19:00
Jordan Levy
And, you know, if it’s an MBA program at Notre Dame and they want, you know, opportunities for their students to work with, you know, nonprofits and social ventures, then we have to find those nonprofits and social ventures. But sometimes it’s even more in-depth than that. Sometimes it’s, hey, we want a product case or a marketing, a go to market strategy or an investment analysis for these, you know, social impact ventures.
00:07:19:00 – 00:07:44:16
Jordan Levy
And then we have to find companies that fit that mold. And that’s where that’s why the business model is actually to generate revenue on the university side of things rather than the company side of things. Because really the company is the case study know we would love to be able to charge them, but because we don’t actually intervene with any of the project execution we really the customers the is the school and the benefactor.
00:07:44:16 – 00:07:49:23
Jordan Levy
Yeah the students are the ones who really benefit, you know, after we forge these relationships.
00:07:50:10 – 00:08:13:19
Daniel Ramsey
That’s awesome. And so drive into the results that you’ve gotten with Melody and I actually she’s a wild one. I actually know her and we’ve spent time together and I helped her with a previous client. She’s not only is she an amazing human being, but she’s really good at what she does. So, like, let’s let’s how are you using, you know, our virtual professionals to drive revenue for your business?
00:08:13:19 – 00:08:16:23
Daniel Ramsey
Like what’s the real results that you’re you’re getting, you know?
00:08:17:13 – 00:08:46:22
Jordan Levy
Yeah. I mean, so I actually didn’t know how much I needed this until I spoke to Chuck. And it’s funny and my original or how I found my desk was I was reading through Facebook Forum on Morning Brew, which is another company that we’ve done some work with in the past. And they were actually asking like, where do you guys find like and admins and operators, you know, to help with executing business?
00:08:46:22 – 00:09:06:18
Jordan Levy
And there was this whole long thread and my helpdesk was actually one of them that popped up in the comments. And I went there and kind of saw, I saw how cool it was to just, you know, to leverage international talent that specialized in a lot of the things that we needed help for. And that process was pretty simple.
00:09:06:18 – 00:09:32:19
Jordan Levy
Like it was, Hey, let’s find out what you need to do, and then we’ll cross-reference that with the skills that we have with our virtual professionals and we actually interviewed three prior to melody, and one melody hopped on the combination of her excitement and charisma. I think is what got me in. And, you know, she you know, I said to her, you know, I want to give everybody a second chance to interview.
00:09:33:08 – 00:09:54:00
Jordan Levy
And then Melody had spent, I think probably the entire night looking through the website and just soaking in every piece of information that we had on there. You know, I’ve never seen anybody do before. So I was just I was just flattered by how much she was able to retain and regurgitate to me based on what she had learned overnight.
00:09:54:00 – 00:10:11:19
Jordan Levy
And I figured you could do that overnight. Then she was going to be a huge fit for our team moving forward. So I think it’s been almost six months with Melody, which is super exciting. Bam, she I mean, the cool thing about our business is that I really look at it as two sales funnels that have to have like a nice little match.
00:10:12:12 – 00:10:44:08
Jordan Levy
That’s right. Threading to needles one yard and. Yeah. And so basically we started Melody off on the sales side of the organization with institutions really doing a lot of the SDR work, sales, engineering, anything from scraping. We, you know, she manages the entire CRM all the way through when we actually closed a few opportunities. Now we have to implement and that’s a whole lot of outreach to companies trying to figure out based on this very narrow criteria who can cooperate here.
00:10:44:16 – 00:10:57:23
Jordan Levy
And it was it was it’s honestly been amazing. We’ve we’ve been able to really generate probably 2 to 3 times the amount of traction that we would normally have otherwise, just because of having melody on the team to rely on.
00:10:58:17 – 00:11:12:23
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, but okay, that sounds salesy. What have you made since you’ve hired Melody? Because now you’re not the one prospecting and being an SDR like what’s the real return on investment?
00:11:12:23 – 00:11:43:01
Jordan Levy
So I mean, the ROI has got to be at least 3 to 10 X depending on how this year turns out for us. I mean, we have you know, we have our sights set on doing about 200,000 in revenue this year. We did about nine last year, 30 the first year, no venture funding, completely bootstrapped business. And, you know, obviously, it’s very challenging to be able to identify team members, especially stateside, that would that could that could play for for these types of of of salaries.
00:11:43:01 – 00:12:05:21
Jordan Levy
And so having, you know, someone like Melody to be able to cooperate and play and play ball in our model has been just huge. So yeah, we’ve, we’ve already booked over 100,000 this year and we’re yeah, we’re coming up hopefully on a strong fall semester which will generate that kind of remaining 90,000 that we’re looking for. Maybe even more.
00:12:06:17 – 00:12:28:21
Jordan Levy
Yeah. Assuming, assuming that, that this happens, I mean, melody is really the first full time employee besides me that we brought onto the team and just being able to do any of this without a full team is pretty amazing to me. So we’re super fortunate to have her by, you know, by our side and part of our team meetings and our regular kind of day to day operations.
00:12:29:05 – 00:12:31:12
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, because you used to have to do all of that work.
00:12:32:09 – 00:12:32:19
Jordan Levy
Oh, yeah.
00:12:33:01 – 00:12:52:02
Daniel Ramsey
I what about what about how did you make it work? Like, because she had to learn everything. She had to take what was in your brain and, like, get it in her brain. And then she had all the fake news, right? Like when you say this, what do I say, boss? Like, how do I. How do I talk about this?
00:12:52:02 – 00:13:11:18
Daniel Ramsey
And I don’t even know. I mean, there’s just so much in transferring the knowledge six months and you’re still kind of in it. She probably is doing she’s probably performing at like 70 to 80%, but she hasn’t mastered it yet. She will probably in a year or two. But how did you get. Oh, you don’t even agree with that.
00:13:11:18 – 00:13:14:10
Daniel Ramsey
You think you think she’s already mastered it, is that right?
00:13:14:23 – 00:13:30:03
Jordan Levy
I think so. So we have a very like an education first model. Yeah. Training with our company. So it’s like, look, this is this is all learning for all of us. Like none of it. There is a recipe that we’re following. This is for.
00:13:30:03 – 00:13:35:04
Daniel Ramsey
Building the model. You’re building the model, you’re innovating how students learn.
00:13:35:15 – 00:13:57:14
Jordan Levy
Right. And I think the the amazing thing and it’s, I guess, a testament to the quality of training and vetting that you guys do as an organization, which is, I guess, the main reason why we would go with my Autodesk over any other, you know, outsourcing agency is, you know, melody kind of understood how to use a CRM before she ever stepped foot into the business.
00:13:57:14 – 00:14:22:01
Jordan Levy
She understood, you know, how to have sales conversation, whether it’s by phone or, you know, by LinkedIn Messenger or email. You know, she understood the protocols of, you know, when you forward, when you see, you know, who like how to actually do a series of outreach, you know, where there’s a drip campaign that needs to happen afterwards. And, you know, before we automate it, we want to test it and have somebody who knows how to do that from the get go.
00:14:22:04 – 00:14:48:12
Jordan Levy
I mean, it really felt like there wasn’t much training that we even had to do. And of course, you know, every once in a while you got to grease the wheels and kind of fix things here and there. But, you know, it’s just been it’s been a really smooth sailing experience ever since she’s got started. I think basically the results were there a week later we were booking meetings left and right, which was literally impossible to do by myself, you know, swivel chair, start with sales, go all the way to implementation.
00:14:48:12 – 00:15:04:00
Jordan Levy
No one else is focused on selling anymore. So how are you going to get those new meetings booked with Melody coming in? You know, we were we’re getting anywhere from 5 to 10 new sales meetings a week with prospects, which, you know, for us is just how we make you know, it’s how we make the sausage.
00:15:04:11 – 00:15:17:24
Daniel Ramsey
Right? Right. So it sounds like you might be ready for another one. Like, what I’m hearing is like melodies fold up your revenue pipeline and you might be ready for somebody on the execution side, maybe somebody to help with implement implementation.
00:15:18:12 – 00:15:46:16
Jordan Levy
Yeah, we’re we’re getting pretty close. I mean, I think the exciting thing is I was actually having a conversation with Chuck about this a few basic and I was like, I could really see how, you know, this prospecting that’s happening on both sides. But if we could specialize each one of our Vas to be focused exclusively on either, you know, finding the companies to fit the criteria of the schools or sales, prospecting with the schools, then we can actually probably increase our efficiency and throughput.
00:15:47:10 – 00:16:07:19
Jordan Levy
So there’s definitely, you know, beyond that, I’ve always talked about you guys ever since Melody’s become part of our team, you know, any time of speed. I’ve spoken to business owners and I’m like, Hey, you know, if you really need someone who can help, just keep things in order. I mean, you know, it just it’s a very prudent investment for the amount that you can get out of it.
00:16:08:10 – 00:16:14:09
Jordan Levy
So I think a second one, hopefully even more than that at some point is on the horizon for us at Cap Source.
00:16:15:00 – 00:16:27:02
Daniel Ramsey
That’s awesome. Jordan, what can we do to help? Like anything that we can do for you? I’m always here to serve. Like it’s part of our core values, like servant’s heart. What do you need right now?
00:16:28:17 – 00:16:46:17
Jordan Levy
You know, I see we’re always. We’re always looking to connect with more are companies that are eager to be a part of the education process. Okay. You know, I think the challenge is there’s a shifting paradigm in higher ed. They aren’t by any means at a place where I would say they’ve mastered it, but there’s a lot of trial and error going on.
00:16:48:00 – 00:16:54:12
Jordan Levy
Emphasis on the error, like there’s there’s inherent error in learning or else there’s no lessons. Right?
00:16:54:18 – 00:16:55:02
Daniel Ramsey
Right.
00:16:55:08 – 00:17:22:02
Jordan Levy
One of my biggest mentors has always said there’s no such thing as losing. It’s just winning and learning. And I think that company is going into this thinking, hey, this is free consulting, free labor. It’s going to be great. Well, it might be a great way to get them through the door, but that’s not a good way to get them to stay and also to really kind of conceptually value what we bring to the table as an organization that’s trying to innovate the way that students learn in higher.
00:17:22:02 – 00:17:51:02
Daniel Ramsey
Ed That’s awesome. Dude, we are absolutely interested, so I don’t know how we get involved, but I am like, I’m sold because I would never have spent three years of my life at that finance job had I been in your world. Like, I just wouldn’t have done that, you know, I, in fact, I since I was seven, so since I was seven years old, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
00:17:51:02 – 00:18:12:12
Daniel Ramsey
And then I went to college. And the mantra in college was, get a degree, do really well, get a job. And I thought, Oh, okay, I guess that’s what everybody does. And I forgot, like that childhood dream of like just being my own guy. And then I got woken up. I was like, Oh, this sucks. And I think your solution would have avoided all that for me.
00:18:12:12 – 00:18:24:01
Daniel Ramsey
So yeah, I’m a, I’m 100% in any way we can support. We got jobs, we need people, we need salespeople and ops people here. So you just let us know what you what you’re thinking about.
00:18:24:13 – 00:18:50:19
Jordan Levy
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s great to know. And honestly, I think schools would absolutely love, you know, thinking and mulling over the business model. And yeah, we always start by giving projects about like the broad spectrum of the business, whether it’s like looking at the product, looking at the industry and competitors, you know, really getting students a chance to sink their teeth into something because a lot of times you’re like reading textbooks and case studies about companies from like 5 to 10 years ago.
00:18:50:19 – 00:19:09:18
Jordan Levy
It’s like, just Google it, find out what they’re up to now. You know, use an active, you know, an active team that’s willing to kind of sit by and answer some of your questions. And, you know, once they have a grasp what you will, usually, you know, about a third to a half of the time it takes them to kind of get to that point.
00:19:10:09 – 00:19:38:17
Jordan Levy
The rest of it is about driving home value. And, you know, it comes down to how well it’s facilitated by the faculty and also the company because they’re a big part of this process. So, yeah, you know, there’s sales cases, process optimization cases that we put together really all about, you know, actually giving students a chance to say, okay, I’ve heard of sales, but what does it actually mean to think about a strategy or who is the target audience?
00:19:38:17 – 00:20:08:18
Jordan Levy
And is that really who the target audience should be? And so and sometimes the most valuable part of these experiences for the companies is just answering some of the questions that these students have, gets the entrepreneurs or business leaders to think about their challenges differently than they ever would have. And it’s like that naivete slash that kind of like green fields, brand new kind of mindset that hasn’t been like at all tampered with by, you know, training and an existing structure.
00:20:08:24 – 00:20:29:21
Jordan Levy
And I think that’s why a lot of companies really value, you know, participating in these engagements. And, you know, we have our one of our company is hungry, which is based in the D.C. area. They’re about to engage on their sixth project with us. And one of their and one of their students that actually went through a project with them is now an employee at Cap Sauce.
00:20:30:04 – 00:20:49:02
Jordan Levy
So he really went full circle, experienced it from a student perspective, you know, went to the CEO of that company and said, hey, I want to be a part of this team. And then after that, I realized how powerful the experience is about being able to learn before you become a candidate or even a, you know, an employee.
00:20:49:08 – 00:21:09:12
Jordan Levy
And so he’s joined our team about two years ago. His name is Ankush, and he also interfaces with Melody as our day to day kind of ops. So it’s it’s been really cool to see how this business can actually impact lives and make a huge difference. You know, for someone like you who’s back in school, how do you even know you want to be an entrepreneur?
00:21:09:13 – 00:21:26:24
Jordan Levy
Well, it’s one thing to, like, try and start a company knowing nothing about what it’s like to even work at a company. But maybe give these students an opportunity, like peek under the hood and work with entrepreneurs on their challenges, and then takes as anecdotal evidence of, you know, how do you how do you actually be an entrepreneur?
00:21:26:24 – 00:21:31:13
Jordan Levy
What’s it like to be in the field and, you know, wrestle with complex challenges that have no answer?
00:21:32:01 – 00:21:51:01
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us together. Do you guys ever do anything in so we’re next to Davis USA and then SAC State. So I don’t know if you do anything on the West Coast, but it’d be super cool to do something with their NBA. Both schools have a great NBA program.
00:21:51:19 – 00:22:21:03
Jordan Levy
Yeah, I mean, we’ve spoken. It’s a big system. The California system is huge. Yeah. So we we I’m based in New York and most of our clients are the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, tri state, New York and the Chicagoland Midwest are big client constituencies. And the interesting thing is a lot of our schools are kind of open to either remote projects or international projects.
00:22:21:20 – 00:22:31:08
Jordan Levy
Okay. You know, in a lot of cases, you can facilitate this entire experience without ever physically connecting the students with the company. But I’m there.
00:22:31:09 – 00:22:53:16
Daniel Ramsey
I might be totally okay with that. Having saying that, we have 1200 virtual professionals that work for us, like you don’t have to be in the same office, but I would encourage you to explore the California system because like you said, it’s huge. Plus, all you got to do is tell them, hey, New York is doing this and you don’t want those efforts to beat us, do you?
00:22:53:16 – 00:22:56:06
Daniel Ramsey
And then they’re like, Wait, York, you know.
00:22:56:15 – 00:23:02:13
Jordan Levy
Exactly. Those two competing states. I mean, that’s that’s right.
00:23:02:18 – 00:23:12:18
Daniel Ramsey
That’s right. We think in California, we believe that we lead this nation. And so that’s all you have to do is play on that. You know, it gets right there.
00:23:14:04 – 00:23:16:02
Jordan Levy
I hear the California ego in the air.
00:23:16:02 – 00:23:23:02
Daniel Ramsey
That’s right. That’s right. Look, I got flip flops. Like I don’t know if you can see the flip flops on right now. Right now.
00:23:24:02 – 00:23:40:24
Jordan Levy
It’s it’s it’s a Friday. And, you know, we might all be comfortable but yeah. I mean, honestly, I think you know, the truth of the matter is, you know, I think you should be very proud of what you’ve created with my out desk because, you know, I think, you know, we’ve all talked about, you know, the world is becoming more and more virtual.
00:23:40:24 – 00:24:07:11
Jordan Levy
But, you know, for you to, you know, put a stake in the ground and say it actually not only could be virtual, that could be easy. Right. It’s like actually it can be easy for you to offload certain tasks that, you know, don’t require a ton of oversight and intervention, but just need to be done. And you could just train someone who is really in need of a cool opportunity and kind of leverage those to the sun needs your market maker, right?
00:24:07:12 – 00:24:08:04
Jordan Levy
Just like me.
00:24:08:14 – 00:24:29:10
Daniel Ramsey
Yep, yep. And you know, it’s interesting, our models are really similar because we have to find the talent and we have to find the client and then we have to make sure they’re a good match. And then we only win if it’s long term. Like, you know, when if you came and said, well, you know, Melody’s cool, but she’s not hitting numbers, we’d be like, Well, you know, that’s not a win, you know?
00:24:29:10 – 00:24:38:01
Daniel Ramsey
And so we’re lucky enough to have a lot of people, like you say, melodies hit numbers, you know, and, and doing great.
00:24:38:19 – 00:24:46:20
Jordan Levy
Yeah. So I would love to hear from you. Like, how do you see my desk evolving like over the next few years? I know you’re over ten years into this business, right?
00:24:47:05 – 00:25:11:06
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, we’re 12 years old. We kind of got our foothold in the real estate space. And, you know, I’m. I’ve learned a lot, and we’re like, right now, we’re in that scale mode. So we believe 2020 is going to be one of our, like, stupid growth years. We’ve had some stupid growth years, man, like 274% one year. And that was just nuts.
00:25:11:22 – 00:25:30:20
Daniel Ramsey
But 2020 is going to be a big one. I’m, I’m pretty I’m pretty certain we’re going to be at 45, 50% growth, which is going to be 90. We’re kind of laying that groundwork right now, like Chuck’s, Chuck’s almost two years with us. We just hired a whole bunch of new people. And so the challenge for us has been we’ve been in real estate.
00:25:30:20 – 00:25:53:10
Daniel Ramsey
Now we have to translate that into five other industries, five other verticals, right? And so that’s where we’re kind of nailing up against the the challenge zone. And in the last year, we’ve been perfecting that system of finding people like you who aren’t real estate people. Right. And so it’s slowly starting like 5% of our clients. Oh, not real estate.
00:25:53:10 – 00:26:16:11
Daniel Ramsey
Good. Now it’s ten, now it’s 15. And so we think we can build this real estate one. And then just keep building these other verticals at the same time. So our world is just expanding our reach to other to other industries and, and, you know, 20 ish people in real estate and then, you know, five or six other kind of verticals, we think we can get to 1000 to 2000 in those verticals.
00:26:16:19 – 00:26:28:18
Daniel Ramsey
So 6000 people is the long term my vision for the business and 6000 lives and and people like you are happy clients. That’d be that I’d be in Nirvana right there. That’s it.
00:26:29:12 – 00:26:51:17
Jordan Levy
Yeah. And the transferable skills. I think it’s all about that. Right. So like they have, they have so much of an understanding of just generally business process and yep. You know, a lot of that can be kind of quickly interchanged with other types of vernacular, other types of processes. At the end of the day, a CRM, CRM, a sales funnel is a sales process.
00:26:51:19 – 00:27:14:04
Jordan Levy
Yeah, we, yeah, we had a really a quick experience getting melody up to speed and you know, it’s just been great to be able to leverage her and continue building a relationship. I mean, she’s, you know, part of our weekly meetings, part of our, you know, huddle and everything that we do to try to keep the business top of everyone’s mind and eager and excited to keep growing.
00:27:14:04 – 00:27:19:03
Jordan Levy
So we’re very proud to be making progress. And I don’t think it’d be possible without her.
00:27:19:18 – 00:27:39:06
Daniel Ramsey
You know, it’s crazy. You know how I said, like, wait a year or two? Like, I know this sounds nuts, but this is just just a just 12 years of experience. We have a gal and we have a couple of people on our team who have these massive. Alvin’s a great example. He you met him earlier, been on the team forever.
00:27:39:13 – 00:28:00:13
Daniel Ramsey
Like they just know things. And there’s like this, they they know what to do. They know when to do it. They know who like you’re going to. Something’s going to happen once you have a bunch of our Vas that have gotten like five years experience, three years of experience. You’re going to feel this like you like it’s going to you like that and it’s going to be growth and scale.
00:28:00:13 – 00:28:18:18
Daniel Ramsey
And you’re like, Oh, my goodness, how did I do this? I can’t believe that not everybody’s doing this. And I swear you’re going to see a massive shift. Your business, that hot, that hockey stick starts happening. And I can’t wait. I can’t wait for you to transform education. That’s I really can’t wait for you to do that.
00:28:19:11 – 00:28:31:23
Jordan Levy
I guess. I got to ask you, if you had to give yourself advice for, you know, you’re emerging out of undergrad. If you’re if you were able to give yourself, you know, a little chunk, a little nugget, what would you or would you tell yourself.
00:28:32:16 – 00:29:07:06
Daniel Ramsey
You know what I’m going to tell you? I put all of that into a book. If you got something to write down real quick, if you text 31996, if you text SVP to that number, we have I’ve all of my 12 years of experience. So it’s scale with virtual professionals SVP and it’s 31996. So it’s like it’s like 12 years of my brain, 12 years of running this organization, making every mistake that you can imagine that a business guy could make.
00:29:07:06 – 00:29:29:03
Daniel Ramsey
Like literally, I’ve made them all and we put it all into that book, man. My heart and soul is into that thing, so grab it. I love your feedback, you know, tell me what you think of it. Tell me which parts you can implement and which parts you can’t. But yeah, and I think to answer your question though, you know, just stay on purpose, man.
00:29:29:23 – 00:29:47:22
Daniel Ramsey
I think entrepreneurs, we have a I and I’m guilty of this. I feel like I’m going to start this. I’m going to start that. I’m going to start, you know, I you know, I just talked to a guy who last year his revenue was $140 million. And he’s walking me through all of his different entities. And he’s a he’s an entrepreneur on like fire.
00:29:47:22 – 00:30:13:17
Daniel Ramsey
Like he’s like working 14 hours a day, like blah, blah, blah. And he’s really successful. So he’s that weird, really successful. His brain is compartmentalized and he can manage multiple projects and probably has a great memory, great leadership acumen. He’s unusual. Most of us need to just focus on one thing and stay on purpose and like rock it out.
00:30:13:17 – 00:30:40:01
Daniel Ramsey
So my advice is stay on purpose. Be really clear about where you’re going. You know, upgrade your leadership every single day. You can learn, learn, learn, learn and surround yourself with great people to mastermind with. You need to get into. I’m in this organization called Go Balance. You need to jump in. It’s amazing. Google at go abundance. You should check it out because we’d love to have you in it, but that’s my advice.
00:30:40:14 – 00:30:42:00
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, that’s good stuff.
00:30:42:00 – 00:31:19:11
Jordan Levy
Honestly, I’ve that’s the one question I always ask entrepreneurs, especially entrepreneurs, business leaders like because the truth of the matter is, like we’re, we’re serving as a bridge. But what’s hard for students to conceptualize is that these folks were actually just students months to and they figured all this out and giving them a chance to kind of feel the connection, you know, from from where they’re at to where they could be, whether it’s as an entrepreneur or investment banker, real estate agent, they really the truth of the matter is, I always say, like, leave no stone unturned.
00:31:19:11 – 00:31:39:24
Jordan Levy
And yeah, and, you know, some storms are harder to turn than others. And, you know, if it’s engaging to you and it seems exciting, then, you know, give it a give it a shot and give it a real shot. And you got to find exactly what you said. Those mentors, those connections that can really elevate your understanding. You know, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
00:31:40:08 – 00:32:05:01
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, you’re screwed. I would. I would be screwed. Hey, Jordan, I want you to meet with our trainer. We have a mad trainer. I love your experiential stuff. I might ask that. You guys, she’s new, so I’m. We’re getting a train, but we might make an introduction and have you guys juiced together. She’s like a you know, she has an MBA and teaching and coach coached other teachers.
00:32:05:01 – 00:32:13:03
Daniel Ramsey
She’s at the school level, but it would be cool to kind of see what kind of juice you guys can get flowing together. Who knows what could happen? You know.
00:32:13:23 – 00:32:33:16
Jordan Levy
I think what the cool thing is, you’re like, we’re cooking up a storm in higher ed, but now all these students are graduating knowing that experiential learning is the way to go. And I think the next frontier is how do you bring experiential to workforce training, you know, professional development and yeah, things along those lines. So I think we’re we’re we’re excited.
00:32:33:16 – 00:32:45:06
Jordan Levy
I mean, there’s definitely a possibility for us once we are connecting the schools and students to then go into the companies afterwards and say, hey, let’s let’s revamp the way that you think about, you know, training and development.
00:32:45:06 – 00:32:56:09
Daniel Ramsey
I love that, too. I think that’s great. Well, Jordan, we’ve got no more time. What? What else? What would you like to end with? What could I do? What’s our last thing that you want to kind of touch on?
00:32:57:14 – 00:33:16:04
Jordan Levy
Honestly, I’m you know, it’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of your community. And, I mean, frankly, and we we are partners, right? I mean, we’re looking to figure out how to scale our business, leveraging you as a resource. You know, we have our engineering team and we look at that as a as a partner.
00:33:16:04 – 00:33:40:09
Jordan Levy
And same thing with our outsource, you know, other parts of our marketing. So it’s really like, you know, for us just continuing to keep this relationship going and evolving and you know, for sure, we’d love to see you guys take on projects or other companies within the you know my out this network if anybody’s interested and kind of taking a peek at some of the emerging talent and working on really cool research projects.
00:33:40:09 – 00:33:56:13
Jordan Levy
You know we’d love to to really leverage this community because frankly, I think that’s what it’s all about. You know, at the end of the day, you know, joining communities, being a part of community and building that is something I take a lot of pride in. And, you know, I certainly would recommend one of my favorite bird books is The Art of Gathering.
00:33:56:13 – 00:34:15:19
Jordan Levy
And it’s really all about like, how do you bring people together meaningfully and and create an environment where there’s an exchange of of values, information. And, you know, that’s technically like something I try to put into every one of these learning experiences, but it comes down to building community. So it’s by Priya Parker, highly recommended. I’m going to.
00:34:15:19 – 00:34:34:11
Daniel Ramsey
I’m going to read that one. Watch out, man. Maybe I’ll read that and then we’ll circle up. MAN Jordan, I appreciate your time, brother. And if there’s anything we can ever do, just reach out. We want to be of service. If you have an engagement that makes sense for us, let us know we’re. We’re open, you know? So we’re open to that.
00:34:35:07 – 00:34:38:16
Jordan Levy
Yeah. You know, don’t worry. You’re going to inbox for melody.
00:34:40:05 – 00:34:43:08
Daniel Ramsey
All right, brother, thanks a lot for your time. Appreciate it. Have a great weekend, huh?
00:34:43:23 – 00:34:44:22
Jordan Levy
You too, Dan. Take care.
00:34:45:05 – 00:34:47:13
Daniel Ramsey
Thanks.
