Justin Green: CEO and Founder of Growth Factor

^{Joe Fox 00;01;02;52 - 00;01;22;02}
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Rohtang Grow. Thrive. Jared Fox here on the president on Broadway. Today I'm joined for our first in, some podcasts, so you'll see that we've, we're in a pretty nice, fancy office, and I'm here with just a great of private sector and doing just that.

_{Justin Green 00;01;22;04 - 00;01;43;40}
Hey, thanks for having me, Joe. Absolutely. Thank you for coming on. So, just so everybody knows, I, I really, really am grateful to meet a lot of good people in this industry. People that I get along with. Justin and I hit it off straight away when we first met. It's actually at an event for Rachel Jacobs, E-commerce Partnership summit.

^{Joe Fox 00;01;43;45 - 00;02;08;33}
And, we both share a lot of common interests with both men of God. Our wives get along really well, which is always a good sign. Happy wife a lot. But. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. Tell us a little bit about prospect and your journey. I mean, you've had a very, very, very extensive journey in the digital marketing space, in the website development space, the agency space, and particularly in the niche that you love.

^{Joe Fox 00;02;08;33 - 00;02;31;51}
And and we both share a lot. Both. So can you tell us a little bit more about that?

_{Justin Green}
Yeah. So I, you know, I originally started Growth Factors, sort of a consultancy, sort of helping some brands on the side when I was a C-suite executive at another agency out of Florida and, kind of cut my teeth, you know, coming out of college, I kind of got thrown in the deep end, started up marketing role for, the moms, World Challenge team.

_{Justin Green 00;02;31;52 - 00;02;50;43}
Yeah. We worked alongside Le Manse series, but we also worked on developing marketing collateral packages, sell products through Audi dealerships. And so kind of cut my teeth. There wasn't really my thing I did. At least I didn't think it was, and to really think I was making the money as, early 20 something I wanted to be me on.

_{Justin Green 00;02;50;43 - 00;03;07;31}
So left the banking, which ended terribly in oh nine when the market collapsed, we, wound up without a job for over a year, and, kind of came out of that, went back into a little bit, automotive marketing, kind of had a little consultancy at the front line. We were helping like, aftermarket tuner shops kind of do their thing.

_{Justin Green 00;03;07;36 - 00;03;25;10}
And that rolled into me having my own business got real heavy. The triathlon kind of had to learn to cut my teeth. Failed business, how to market. Having a clients, you know, athletes that sort of thing. And then start doing some writing for triathlete magazine. Moved here, had a relationship with a company called Roka, started working there.

_{Justin Green 00;03;25;15 - 00;03;51;16}
We were like kind of the predominant, figure in the wetsuit eyewear space for triathlon. But we were starting to delve into making ballistic eyewear for a military application to go against Oakley and that's when I met a guy named Tim Kennedy. Kind of transitioned from working at Roka, going over to, shoot, our response was there for about four and a half years, kind of help grow that company from, pretty small six figure tumble to seven figure company.

_{Justin Green 00;03;51;17 - 00;04;08;34}
You know, a lot of firearms instruction, combatives instruction, civilians, law enforcement, that sort of thing. But what really kind of made me go head back into, to marketing was when we decided to go the e-commerce route to be able to sell gear, and we were present with a lot of nontraditional challenges being in that space. Right.

_{Justin Green 00;04;08;39 - 00;04;29;32}
And so it was kind of felt like an unfair uphill battle because the industry was sort of ostracized from being able to work from traditional big tech solutions. Shopify didn't play it from the all this kind of stuff. So we we really went and started to kind of figure out, okay, how do we do this? And give ourselves the best chance of success.

_{Justin Green 00;04;29;32 - 00;04;50;39}
And so kind of, you know, doing that exercise for a couple of years, got really proficient at how do I do a lot, a little bit then, you know, how do I do it holistically so that everything ties gears? A lot of people relied on one silo, one sector omni channel wasn't really a big thing yet. But we really heavily have rely on that to be able to survive and grow in that space.

_{Justin Green 00;04;50;44 - 00;05;13;19}
And so had some success there. Want to believe in there and got recruited by an agency in Tampa to come in. And they were they were really, hungry to try and grow like that. We realized that they realized that there was a large opportunity and, sort of this Second Amendment to a space to kind of go after not just, manufacturers of rifles and pistols, but even just the tactical space in general.

_{Justin Green 00;05;13;24 - 00;05;32;25}
So went there to grow their portfolio. When I joined, they kind of, you know, were pretty small. They were doing, there were small five year agency. We grew them to just shy 5 million. I was right at that point after it was like one. You know, I have done this repeatedly for other people growing businesses.

_{Justin Green 00;05;32;25 - 00;05;49;50}
It's kind of time to go off and do my own thing. So, my CMO there and I decided to leave this our own agency that was, you know, and so we took what I had already started as a consultancy, kind of on the side. We decided to actually incorporate, start a partnership, grow the brand. That was February of last year, and here we are today.

^{Joe Fox 00;05;49;50 - 00;06;08;56}
Yeah. And I mean, from everything we've spoken about, all I want you guys to see, it's really like incredible growth in such a short period of time for the audience. I just want to clarify, it's like, obviously I know a lot of people in this agency space, and I think the numbers and the growth that you're having on their clients success, it's incredible.

^{Joe Fox 00;06;08;56 - 00;06;28;02}
Like, no small feat whatsoever having an agency in Australia, as we've discussed, I know that it is not an easy feat, but the pride that you're having is is insane. Which is which is a testament to the work you're doing. I want to dive in a little bit more, you know, kind of some of the points you mentioned.

^{Joe Fox 00;06;28;07 - 00;06;50;04}
We know that, you know, traditionally Shopify hasn't played too nicely in this two way space. We've seen that that the world is changing. They're opening they're getting rid of those some of those restrictions in like a short term tactical space. How is that kind of working with the merchants that you work with in this space that you find it to be?

_{Justin Green 00;06;50;09 - 00;07;14;49}
You know, it's exodus from, you know, platforms that have traditionally been, trade friendly to now everyone's sort of saying, hey, we want to go on to Shopify, or is that more of a slower kind of a cascading effect or. I think it's a slightly slower cascading effect. I think what you're seeing is there's still a lack of trust, you know, because for a long time there was this kind of career you got to Shopify early on.

_{Justin Green 00;07;14;50 - 00;07;31;56}
Yeah. Let's say you were a holster company, for instance. There was, you know, you would see a lot of companies come in. They would operate for a little while. And then all of a sudden, like Shopify was sort of my burden, I shall find a lot of different platforms and it's not it's not the technology's fault. You know, it's it's the I think the paradigm shift.

_{Justin Green 00;07;31;56 - 00;07;52;09}
You see politically every four years of changing administrations and the pressure was put on them from the political side to, to operate in a certain way. Yes. You seen even like, you know, we run digital paid media, you even see it and ad space, right. Like, so you're seeing a big shift in the way Zuckerberg and Meta handle ads right now.

_{Justin Green 00;07;52;13 - 00;08;09;59}
You they're starting to kind of ease off the pressure on companies. So let's say you have a tactical company that sells accessories. Well, previously you couldn't even show firearms. And they run those ads. Now you're starting to see they can be present as long as they're still not part of your catalog right now.

^{Joe Fox}
Okay. And so it's in the world right now.

_{Justin Green 00;08;10;00 - 00;08;27;28}
Yeah. So so you're starting to see some of that. So I think a lot of it is just knowing how, and having been in this over the years is understanding how to kind of watch those trends and cycles and, and being able to adapt. I think that's the big thing is being able to adapt and and always having solutions.

_{Justin Green 00;08;27;28 - 00;08;46;50}
So if we have a e-commerce brand in that space, we want to work with, there's some options and platforms out. And some of them, they may want a fully custom solution, you know, built not on Shopify because maybe they are just like be the guys over the government. Yeah. And they're not concerned about having something like Shopify because they're not a consumer driven company.

^{Joe Fox 00;08;46;55 - 00;09;10;59}
Yes. Yeah. No. Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think from, from, you know, the way that I view it as someone who's immigrated here and gone through all of that process, I think, to a growing industry really is such an important industry for America. It's, you know, most of the time it's American manufacturing, it's creating jobs.

^{Joe Fox 00;09;10;59 - 00;09;35;31}
There's so much cool creativity that comes out of that. And it's part of the, you know, so I don't think it's ever going to, you know, go like, oh, shoot the way. But I'm glad that organizations like Shopify are really enabling this American manufacturing in a way which I think hasn't necessarily been, you know, how things have been in the past, predominantly being, you know, your Magento roots or your e-commerce.

^{Joe Fox 00;09;35;36 - 00;09;54;48}
I think that's we're going to see more of them open up even more tomorrow. So potentially, from the sounds that maybe you've made opening up a little bit more as well.

_{Justin Green 00;09;54;48 - 00;10;20;48}
So we have a number of companies in that space. But then we also have, you know, some quick service restaurants with, you know, over 100 locations. We've got apparel companies, Men's Health companies that kind of stuff that we're working with. It makes that that much easier, because you can solve the problems of the hardest regulated companies and still help them navigate growth, find customers, provide a good user experience.

_{Justin Green 00;10;20;53 - 00;10;38;30}
It's that much easier to do, the what I would call the low hanging fruit. Like the things that we know everyday needs that are not right.

^{Joe Fox 00;10;38;30 - 00;11;01;03}
It's very impressive your skill set up. Tell me a little bit more about what that looks like. You know, being someone who has a high skill set knows what people are looking at, looking for from a gear perspective. And, and, you know, an accessories perspective or any of that sort of front and then marketing to more of that audience that you're probably teaching as well.

^{Joe Fox 00;11;01;03 - 00;11;24;43}
Right. But did you find that, off line kind of interaction with people in these classes and in this teaching environment really can be more ideas around what products and everything should be marketed and, and sold.

_{Justin Green 00;11;24;43 - 00;11;43;22}
I was like the guy that got very lucky to work with, like, you know, a lot of, you know, special operations guys, a lot of, you know. Operator. Yeah, I've, I've worked with guys like Tim Kennedy, Luke Pilgrim camera tours. Yeah, a bunch of other guys, and a bunch of different passes, both in business and and in training.

_{Justin Green 00;11;43;22 - 00;12;08;33}
And, the thing that's always been interesting, being the civilian, is that, like, and a competitive shooter is that I come to it from a there's this disconnect sometimes between the guys that come, from the military world that come in and they try to do training, run training businesses and all that kind of stuff. And then when you're trying to create products to an end user, do or, law enforcement implies a little bit more of it.

_{Justin Green 00;12;08;33 - 00;12;32;58}
But the civilian market, there's a lot of considerations you have to make, you know, when you're, you're trying to determine how do I how do I educate this consumer on what they're buying, why they want it? Maybe there's even be designed differently. There's different use cases. And then more importantly, it's it's it's developing that trust. Like, we're not just selling you this thing because we use that.

_{Justin Green 00;12;32;58 - 00;12;51;42}
We're we're going to sell you the thing that's best for you. Because like, the reality is, like you're going around the world as a civilian. You're not in a war zone. So, like, what do you really need? Is it just, is that for any so that when you're the dad at the beach, you have, like, your wallet, your keys and maybe your personal carry whatever to protect your family?

_{Justin Green 00;12;51;48 - 00;13;24;57}
Yeah. So, yeah, I've been real fortunate that, you know, I had a number of years. You know, I've shot competitively for about a decade now, have been, you know, instructor now since 2018. Done combatives and firearms instruction. And you been able to kind of tie some that world into this role in how do we help brands, how do I take my expertise on that and, and help these brands figure out how to engage their audience and build trust and make sure that they're listening to what that audience actually wants.

_{Justin Green 00;13;24;57 - 00;13;45;02}
But at the not just giving them what they want they need and finding that that kind of middle ground.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the interesting thing, since moving here, you know, in my life, you know, I attracted, you know, people like self who become friends, and I got friends with ex Rangers and, you know, a couple of seal buddies in the gym and stuff.

^{Joe Fox 00;13;45;05 - 00;14;11;39}
Yeah, I think the one common thing, and I'm sure you've seen this a lot, is like, those guys apply the absolute highest levels of insurance and most of the arts to business, and I don't think I've ever seen one of them set their mind to something and not congruent, like the level of, discipline and the level of like, business acumen that they tend to have.

^{Joe Fox 00;14;11;44 - 00;14;29;38}
It's just incredible. And I think you are pairing up with Growth Factor in yourself for an example, is like the perfect match for Barney because it's like you have you can translate all of that to your skill set. You understand their world to a degree, and then you can help them push that to, you know, even further down.

^{Joe Fox 00;14;29;38 - 00;14;50;22}
Civilians such as myself, you don't necessarily have as much knowledge on that. So it's really interesting to see that. And, that seems to be a really common kind of like personality trait with these guys, right?

_{Justin Green}
Like it totally is. My business partner on camera tours, a pretty well known former Ranger started a well known knife company called tour nine years ago.

_{Justin Green 00;14;50;37 - 00;15;09;55}
His exit that's got two other business ventures now that we're partners. And that's the one thing I've learned was working with all these guys at that level. Is that quitting is not an option. And they're really great at problem solving. So, like, they may not have all the answers, they may not succeed at everything, but they're sure as hell not gonna quit.

_{Justin Green 00;15;09;55 - 00;15;30;18}
Yeah. And that that I think in business will outpace 90% of competitors because the majority of society, things get real hard. They don't want to stay up to one am and they don't want to give up their surveys. They want to go have fun. Yeah. I can't even tell you how many nights last year I've worked until 1 am.

_{Justin Green 00;15;30;18 - 00;15;46;17}
Yeah, get it done. And and I have a responsible to my clients, like. And I have a responsibility to the people that we employ. And I have a vision that my partner I have built up for the next 3 to 4 years that I value is just not an option. Just like, you know, we we just don't quit.

^{Joe Fox 00;15;46;22 - 00;16;05;11}
Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, on the left side, we're not on the west side. I mean, my, my dad had like an incredible workforce for a military career in Australia. I think from my side of things, I was always invited to that side. You quit. If you quit what you're doing, you have to live with the consequence of that.

^{Joe Fox 00;16;05;11 - 00;16;21;47}
And it shouldn't be something you do it. But I think for me it's like when I feel why I see that was what came first. In every aspect of my life.

_{Justin Green}
I think quitting becomes easier. Yeah, yeah. Second time, the third time. Because, yeah, that that valve is back there now and. Yeah. But you know it's easy to get into it.

^{Joe Fox 00;16;21;47 - 00;16;52;32}
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that I have those values instilled in me with my agency with my career now in SAS, I think it's like I've always been, you know, Growave is great example with the time difference. Like our headquartered office. Everyone there can attest to this, I'm on the line at three in the morning. Then I'm going to the gym, that I'm doing everything that I need to do on an American timezone, then I may even job on in the evenings, to be cater to a APAC with the head office.

^{Joe Fox 00;16;52;32 - 00;17;13;10}
So it's like, I think that sort of like thing is very common, obviously, in that world that we talk about. But also an agency like in agency land.

_{Justin Green}
Our old agency we had three offices. One was in Warsaw, Poland, so we had some funky hours to get projects done.

_{Justin Green 00;17;13;24 - 00;17;30;10}
Yeah, just just kind of the nature of the beast that I wouldn't have it any other way because it's it's a new challenge every time. It's fun. And yeah, honestly, I love working with people. So yeah, it's it. I consider it a privilege, like at this point, like, you know, it's, you know, a lot of people don't understand like, yes.

_{Justin Green 00;17;30;10 - 00;17;49;22}
Is it stressful? Is it is it a lot of late nights? Is it a lot of giving up? Is there a lot of sacrifice to to build an agency and grow your own thing? Absolutely. But it's also the level of reward. Seeing the like, you know, building something where you're seeing you're helping provide for other families, other people.

_{Justin Green 00;17;49;33 - 00;18;11;37}

You're helping other businesses succeed by by providing them good service. That's something that makes you sleep good at night. Even if it's only 5 hours.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like quality sleep, not long sleep. Absolutely. Cool. So one other thing I kind of want to, you know, chat about is obviously we're hearing all sorts of stuff in the market moment around tariffs.

^{Joe Fox 00;18;11;46 - 00;18;30;26}
All those sorts of things I know that, you know, being a lot of the brands that you work with American manufacture obviously you ITAR which you can you explain ITAR really quickly for everyone just to wrap up because I know you work with ITAR products.

_{Justin Green}
Yeah. So a lot of it's just keep it very simple.

_{Justin Green 00;18;30;26 - 00;18;58;41}
It's it's the restriction of export of certain goods and items that are regulated. Yeah. Specifically typically like, you know, the body armor, the weapons space, that kind of stuff. And, and following a court with a set of rules that restrict what you can and can't send out of the country.

^{Joe Fox}
Yes. Yeah. So on that note, and the reason why I wanted to bring that up is like, I know some of the branch you work with, doing, I toss and stuff and it may be direct to public, but a lot of it direct to the government.

^{Joe Fox 00;18;58;45 - 00;19;33;47}
So it's a lot of, you know, coming back to this American manufacturing that we got spoke on. So sometimes tariffs won't necessarily affect those margins as much if it's all going to be American, like, what do you what what is kind of the the main thing that's happening in the industries that you work with at the moment, particularly around e-commerce, is that, you know, that's more of an opportunity because things like Meta are are opening up and Shopify opening up, for example, and of things that are just happening in your market in particular.

_{Justin Green 00;19;33;52 - 00;19;52;41}
So, you know, I am seeing like, there's an ability to do more advertising in the tactical space now. But if we look at it in a broader sense right now, you know, speaking of tariffs, like so thing is kind of getting ahead and having an understanding and having a plan in place and being a strategic partner to companies you work with.

_{Justin Green 00;19;52;46 - 00;20;15;30}
So it's not just, you know, a lot of agencies, you know, I think we saw a lot of these agencies during Covid actually sort of fall by the wayside because they were set it and forget it shots. They weren't really strategic partners, and they weren't really serving their clients. They were just like you dollars, and running ads unsuccessfully and kind of, you know, those agencies that I think often are no longer business.

_{Justin Green 00;20;15;30 - 00;20;33;34}
But, you know, tariffs, for instance, like, you know, we've seen that loss in 2 or 3 months. Well, that's been big talk. A lot of it's getting had reaching out to partners, having a very transparent conversation with them. Hey here's what this looks like. If these tariffs hit we know that we're bringing our products in from this country.

_{Justin Green 00;20;33;34 - 00;21;00;38}
This is what the increase in cost is going to be. Here's what it looks like on your return on ad spend. Here's how it's going to impact your bottom line. Let's talk about some strategies we could like. If we know that we have these campaigns coming up in the next like six months. Yeah. Why don't we figure out if we can increase, our order quantity on the next couple of PO's and instead of slowboating to save a little cost, let's get them on a plane get them here quick before any of that takes place.

_{Justin Green 00;21;00;41 - 00;21;25;41}
Yeah. Kind of hedge yourself against any of this. What may be occurring. It's just having those plays and being able to provide some recommendations and guidance there outside of what would typically be your scope of work, maybe on that engagement agreement and understanding how you can help solve a problem in the bigger picture?

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah, I like it said, it comes back to, I think the ethos that I'm hearing from growth factor aside, we really are a partner in your business.

^{Joe Fox 00;21;25;41 - 00;21;48;17}
It's it's not just, hey, we build websites or we run ads. It's like you are offering all of your strategic guidance and spirit that, yes, maybe some of those functions may exist, but it's the overlying level of support and guidance that really is the key growth factor, part of the problem.

_{Justin Gren}
Yeah. So we don't pretend that we're not a full service agency.

_{Justin Green 00;21;48;17 - 00;22;06;20}
We don't pretend to be we do say that are for competencies. But that doesn't mean we're not willing to work to find solutions or find other additional partners to bring into the mix if we need to find a solution. Yeah. Because we really believe in a holistic omnichannel approach, because in today's competitive environment, it's gotten more competitive than ever.

_{Justin Green 00;22;06;32 - 00;22;35;35}

Yeah. And, the ad space is more saturated with the dollars in ads network. There's more channels now than ever. There's more consumers now than ever. And it's becoming, you know, ever increasingly more difficult to get attention. Yes. And so and then find solutions like, you know, you all have a brand at 30 doing 20, $30 million a year if their conversion rate is, for whatever reason, taking a hit and they're down 0.1 percent, that's real dollars.

_{Justin Green 00;22;35;35 - 00;22;54;12}
They're losing day over day. How do we help find a solution to that? How do we how do we answer that call and make sure that we're serving them? If we can't do it, we will bring somebody in to help with that solution.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's cool. And I think, you know, it speaks volumes of your ethos and the way you approach things.

^{Joe Fox 00;22;54;17 - 00;23;17;53}
Tell me a little bit more about like, you know, what's one standout watch and that your, you know, we've spoken a lot about this problem solving things you're working on for the you don't have to name names if you don't want to give us a little bit more insight into, like, a relevant kind of merchant that you're working on at the moment and the way you're approaching the problem solving aspect of it.

^{Justin Green 00;23;17;58 - 00;23;40;42}
Yeah. So I'll give you a really good example, actually, that kind of came out on Friday. So I got the an email from the president of a quick service restaurant that we, we work with. We're partners on the website development. We had all their digital infrastructure maintenance, we run all their digital paid media as well throughout the US, for all their stores and franchisees and stuff.

_{Justin Green 00;23;40;46 - 00;24;03;10}
We got asked to provide sort of a two pager on us and the deliverables and the results we provided them of like the last 12 months, because they're going to the Loyalty 360 the Expo in Orlando, Florida at the end of this month. And they wanted to showcase us in the work we had done for them because they had really good results, which humbled me a lot because I'm like, you know, compared to this $200 million conglomerate, I don't feel like it anybody.

_{Justin Green 00;24;03;10 - 00;24;34;51}

But the fact that your have reached out to me to recognize our agency, on our people's work, spoke volumes. And so we're that kind of came in as we originally met them. But February of last year took over, maintenance of their website, and then strategically proposed a new website build to be able to better represent the brand because they've been working with a company called Norton to sort of do a rebrand, on the company side, throughout the United States for all their storefronts.

_{Justin Green 00;24;34;58 - 00;24;58;24}
Yeah. And so we thought that was a really good time to take that, that brand image that they were kind of redeveloping and then figure out how to build a whole new digital infrastructure and, digital presence. Yeah, to really optimize and put themselves in a position to be able to scale for the next like three years. They are one of INC 5,000 fastest growing.

_{Justin Green 00;24;58;26 - 00;25;22;05}
I think they're in the top 100 something in us. And they've got about a 160 store locations now. And so one of the areas where we were really strong is we were able to sky skyrocket their domain ranking and and really grow the organic side, which allowed us to then, be much more strategic and conservative with their ad dollars because we.

_{Justin Green 00;25;22;05 - 00;25;48;15}
Right. There's this balance between like the more organic traffic we can drive through, a better digital presence. Yeah. The less reliant we have to we can use ad dollars to scale. Yeah, we don't have to depend on them. Yeah. And so it's finding finding that balance. And that was a win for them and a win for us. Because then we were able to take some of the the emphasis off paid ads to create brand awareness in the market they existed in.

_{Justin Green 00;25;48;20 - 00;26;11;18}
And then sort of shift some of those dollars, allow those existing markets to like, be, driven by organic traffic and then shift those dollars to brand awareness in new markets where they didn't have a presence in other states. Oh, it's hard to get franchisees franchise development. Yeah. And new customer traffic.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. We, back in my days, we worked with orange theory business.

^{Joe Fox 00;26;11;20 - 00;26;41;15}
Yeah. On their launching to Australia. I worked directly with, you know, U.S head office to do that. And, the franchisee stuff is always fascinating to me from a marketing perspective because it's like the approach you take on a paid ad campaign. It's going to be so different as opposed to, you know, attracting pre signups for that versus they're trying to find, you know, sophisticated buyers to then become franchise boards.

^{Joe Fox 00;26;41;20 - 00;27;00;38}
In that. So it's a really interesting space and space.

_{Justin Green}
Yeah it will and it becomes even more interesting. So during that process, we found that one of their one of their ask was, hey, okay. We we feel like we've kind of stretched and thin on you getting the mom and pop like one single store franchisee. We want to go after a more sophisticated investor.

_{Justin Green 00;27;00;38 - 00;27;27;13}
Now that maybe was franchise three five stores at a time. Right. So that's now we're talking at totally different, you know ideal you know apply right. So they're looking for somebody that's got substantially more liquidity that wants to then you have to come much more like dialed in on who exactly you're going after. And so now we've gone as far as like we're working on that offer on the digital side with a company called Hot Dish that they work with their their sole deal is, franchise devolvement.

_{Justin Green 00;27;27;13 - 00;27;46;08}
And so, yeah, that comes back to like, that's that's a great example of working with multiple different agencies to, to serve the client the best way possible so that they have the best outcome at the end of the day of the client's winning. They will stay loyal to you, you'll continue to work with them, and you reduce your churn, big time as an agency.

^{Joe Fox 00;27;46;08 - 00;28;13;21}
So yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And I like that, you know, once again, it comes back to that really. You know, key factor that growth factor has were we like. We partner with you. We problem solve. We figure it out. And we used that network to do so as well. So that's awesome. Justin tell me a little bit more about sort of like what your future plans are with the business, what you see kind of happening this year growth wise.

^{Joe Fox 00;28;13;21 - 00;28;28;17}
I mean, you know, I guess that I have a good banter in which we obviously do. I want to, you know, I think that we're going to be out to record another one of these in 6 to 12 months. So I'd love to sort of be able to look back at this and say, hey, can you reach those goals.

^{Joe Fox 00;28;28;22 - 00;28;47;49}
So what that, you know, I think also you're comfortable sort of sharing out loud with the audience for growth factor.

_{Justin Green}
Yeah. So we're, it's kind of funny. We're actually at a pretty what I would think is a aggressive, growth curve right now, without taking on debt or outside investment. We're at around eight person team right now.

_{Justin Green 00;28;47;49 - 00;29;07;49}
Our run rate right now, we're on track to be about 1.5 million this year. My goal is to go from 8 to 15 people by the end of the year. That may accelerate that that revenue growth plan. We really want to focus, like, right now, we currently have our pipeline on dev backed up to about the end of Q3 on our commitments already.

_{Justin Green 00;29;07;51 - 00;29;36;23}
Yeah. So we're slowly, strategically trying to roll out the right developers. But the one thing I am very committed to, it's getting the right people on the bus find people that fit that culture. Yeah. My business partners and I, Cam and Kate are very adamant on, slow to hire and quick to fire. So, like, we can slow roll the hiring process to ensure that the right fit, they're committed to the vision and that we want to be able to give them an offer that makes it compelling and be able to them on and keep that right.

_{Justin Green 00;29;36;28 - 00;30;02;27}
Because it's expensive to hire people, right? So our goal would be to have 15 people by the end of the year. We want to try to double are ad spend our manager right now. So we're just here over 5 million. That's been our management. Our goal is to get to about 10 million. Yeah. Because that siloed business provides us a pretty decent margin that allows us to, to go off and bring in some other revenue streams, focus on, you know, building some internal SAAS solutions and stuff where we can take an area of risk.

_{Justin Green 00;30;02;27 - 00;30;21;25}
More importantly, it just gives us the cash flow to, to really, you know, look at our our 24 month plan, which we've already sort of built out. Yeah. And know that we have the cash flow to go and try to recruit top talent. And so that's kind of our goal. I mean, strategically, our goal is to build this up about five years and be in a position where we feel like we have something that's attractive to a potential buyer.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah, nice. Nice. That's awesome. That's awesome. I've no doubt you're going to reach those goals. I mean, in our offline discussions, I know that you're well and truly on my growth trajectory, so congratulations on your success. And, and lastly, I'd like to ask everyone, this is kind of like, you know, obviously in the shot and tactical space, you travel a lot or just talking about, you know, Montana and how beautiful it is up there and the trips you're there and Vegas and all of this.

^{Joe Fox 00;30;53;37 - 00;31;17;22}
And then obviously on the e-commerce world and agency world is so much for travel as well. So we're spending a lot of time on the road in each of our, you know, our relative spaces. What's something? And you can't say a person because I know you say your lovely wife. What's something you can't live without? You know, when you're traveling, when you're here in the office, when you're at home, like, what is the one thing? Yeah, it could be a book, a personal item. But what's something you can't live without when your traveling?

_{Justin Green 00;31;17;27 - 00;31;40;28}
Yeah, when I'm traveling. So I'll say, like this time. Like, that's a that's a tough one. Honestly, like, this may sound ridiculous, but I'm a connoisseur of really good coffee. When I travel, I like to find the best coffee shop in town and try it out. Yeah, and that sounds ridiculous.

^{Joe Fox 00;31;40;28 - 00;32;06;42}
No, no, no, no, I'm from Australia. We're all coffee snobs, so.

_{Justin Green}
Yeah, well, for me, coffee is, for me, coffee is conversation culture, people like it's they it's it's not about the coffee itself. It's like everywhere I've traveled. Like because I came from a cycling background growing up. I raced until I was 22, and did so at the Pro amateur, pro level right out of high school.

_{Justin Green 00;32;06;47 - 00;32;25;47}

And for me, it's about the experiences that you like. You sit down, you listen like I love watching other people and meeting people and some of the best interactions and some of the best people I've ever met over coffee. Yeah, yeah. So for me, that is it's the experience.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love I love that. And, Yeah, you'll never get in the crap for me, being a coffee snob. So I had to, It was interesting when I, when I was, you know, making the decisions about who comes to us, coming from Australia. That's one of my biggest fears was, you know, obviously, over the years coming to the US, the coffee's gotten a little bit better over the years.

^{Joe Fox 00;32;45;23 - 00;33;08;01}
And I would argue that this amazing coffee, coffee, particularly where we are now because we are in the Hill Country in Texas. But I was a little bit worried about that, you know, because in Australia, you know, I'm sure you will see when you go, it's just the streets. The streets spot every major CBD. It's just rows and rows and rows of coffee.

^{Joe Fox 00;33;08;01 - 00;33;28;58}
Right. It's only marginally better in some places, but the standard is so high for so far in the US. There's some places that are incredibly good, but it's because some of the places are so good.

_{Justin Green}
Yeah, it's, it's, it reminds me of that scene from ELF. Who goes into that, that little crappy cafe. It's like world best cup of coffee, right? Not really.

_{Justin Green 00;33;29;03 - 00;33;49;36}
Yeah. That that. Yeah, it's it's kind of funny. We live in an area that's really unique for, you know, craft distilleries, craft beers, coffee. Yeah. Craft experiences. Yeah. I will tell you, though, I live in San Francisco, the Bay area, for about ten years, where my daughter was born. And, I miss going and sitting in North Beach.

_{Justin Green 00;33;49;40 - 00;34;06;21}
If you've ever been there, its the Italian district there, some of the best cafe experiences I've ever had in the United States hands down.

^{Joe Fox}
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be sure to check it out for sure. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much. As always it's great to be on and have you on.

_{Justin Green}
I appreciate you having me on.

^{Joe Fox 00;34;06;21 - 00;34;24;30}
Yeah. Appreciate our friendship. Appreciate our partnerships. I'm sure there's going to be, you know, a lot more of these episodes and obviously, you know, Growave and Growth Factor, kind of makes sense that we're working. Yeah. Appreciate the similarities in the name. So I'm super excited for this partnership. And thank you so much for coming on.
_{Justin Green}
Excellent. Appreciate it.

^{Joe Fox 00;34;24;30 - 00;34;41;40}
Thank you. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Retain, Grow, Thrive. If you want to connect with Justin and the team at Growth Factor, all of the links that are relevant are going to be in the show notes. Thank you again for tuning in to another episode, and I'll see you again soon. Bye.

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