Michael Casey: Developer and Inventor on How to Design a Billion Dollar Product

Introduction (00:00):
From the bowels of uncertainty and fear, from the mountains of euphoria and success, from the faraway lands of China and the Far East to the warm glowing sun of California coast and the top of the Freedom Tower, we bring you the GlobalEdgeTalk. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur or a hardened enterprise global executive with an edgy story of winning war defeat, entering new markets, or getting out of the old ones, we want to talk to you. We want to share your story. We want everyone to be on the edge, and because of you, we want everyone to have the edge, the global edge, and now the GlobalEdgeTalk host Alex Romanovich.

Alex Romanovich (00:42):
Hi, this is Alex Romanovich, and welcome to GlobalEdgeTalk. Today we have a wonderful, wonderful guest, Michael Casey. Michael is a well-known Ted speaker. Michael is a well-known entrepreneur in sports equipment and fitness equipment. Michael just recently wrote a book which we will talk about some more. I don't want to disclose the title of it just yet. Michael was also the CEO and president of the next generation dating cycle 8dates. We'll talk more about this as well. And Michael is a wonderful, wonderful friend. Michael, welcome to our studio.

Michael Casey (01:25):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Alex Romanovich (01:26):
Michael, welcome to our studio. First and foremost, I'd like to ask you to talk a little bit about yourself. You have such an amazing background. You're kind of a multicultural and global guy. You've come from a family that is multicultural. Please, say a few words about that. About your childhood, about your growing up, traveled the world. You've been all over the place: in China, and Europe, in South America everywhere. You've done some incredible, incredible things. You've met some very famous people. You've made some money with very famous people. So you have a very decorated career, and we'd love to learn more about this. Please, say a few your words about your childhood, about the early days of your career.

Michael Casey (02:11):
Well, thank you for the nice introduction. Let's hope I can live up to that. I grew up in a small town in Youngstown, Ohio, a small town in Ohio, Youngstown is blue-collar, all steel mills. And I had one of the few fathers that did not work in the steel mill. He was a fireman. So I learned at a very early age about serving and giving back. And I had a very unique family. I had a mother who was from Lebanon and at the time Lebanese married Lebanese, they didn't marry Irish men who liked to drink. So my father's family comes from the West coast of Ireland his mother and father. So we had a very unique set of backgrounds on both sides. One side goes along, everybody was happy, drank, smiled. The other side, everybody fought all the time and wanted to kill each other. And guess what side that was? I'll let you guys figure that out. But the Lebanese taught me, I believe how to be a merchant and my dad's side taught me how to be humble. So that combination pretty much set me on a path that I knew I was going to do something entrepreneurial and I knew I was going to try to help people.

Michael Casey (03:24):
So I remember in high school I played sports and I really enjoyed working out in the fitness products. And I always thought, why are these things so archaic? It was like 1960 and then it was 1970 and we're working on our 1950 equipment. And then the '80s came and I started to redesign things, and people started to want to buy it. And that's when I knew there's a business here. And I thought it was a global business. And with the background, I had from my family where my uncles and my cousins were all merchants from Lebanon and all of them were entrepreneurs. And then my dad was always helping people from his farm. And back when I thought, well, I don't want to sell cigarettes and liquor and bad things. Fitness is a good thing. So I figured, let me go into this business. It'll help people, I could have fun doing it. And more importantly, I could make money at it if I do it, right? So that's what I did. I started in 1983 and I'd been doing the same thing ever since. And it's 2020 right now.

Alex Romanovich (04:27):
So, Michael, that's great. So let's talk a little bit about the product itself or the products that you've designed and built in China, the Ab Circle Pro and the Ab King Pro. My understanding is that it's a very successful line of products and a lot of famous people are using it. The Bush family, the Obama family, even president Vladimir Putin is using the Ab King Pro, which is incredible. So what's next, or first of all, the impact of coronavirus, the tremendous amount of shift in thinking, in manufacturing potentially, or will it stay the same? Will it stay in China? And what are you planning to do to diversify your manufacturing capabilities? Are you going to move manufacturing? Are you going to stick around, what are you going to do in terms of planning? Tell us a few words about that.

Michael Casey (05:23):
Well, there was a couple of questions in there and they're all great questions, but the first thing I did was start on a local basis. Before you can think global, they always say start locally. So I literally in the early 80's, we didn't really have access to know who's making what around the world. You had to wait for these big, giant catalogs of these global trade shows and they would take, here is exhibiting, and here's some pictures of what they make. And then months ahead of time, you would plan to go over and meet with these people in these different trade shows, trade shows where the way that we all did business back then, and I didn't have a lot of money. I was a young guy. I was 22 years old. I just hired local manufacturers.

Michael Casey (06:07):
And when I mean local manufacturers, I mean a guy in a garage with a cutting blade in a welding torch. Because I was making exercise equipment and it's really bad metal. You're just taking steel, put it together, adding some vinyl and some cables and here you have a pull-down machine. So I started to make that locally and then putting it into a facilities like high schools and gyms for football players we use kind of get one of these from my home. Well, that's when the light bulb went off and I went and opened up a sporting goods store that sold nothing, but weights. Imagine telling your parents you're going to sell dumbbells. They're like, what? Nobody's buying these things. And I'm like, well, noone's buying them because there's no place to buy them. So I identified a marketplace that I thought existed, that didn't exist.

Michael Casey (06:57):
It's hard to convince your family and any investors that you're going to sell these things in a marketplace, that's not there. Well, I said, when I create the marketplace, I believe I will create competitors and build a business based on that. And that's exactly what I did. I was one of the first retail stores in all of America that sold nothing but weights, dumbbells, barbells, benches. And then fitness stores became a huge thing in the '90s. And I built it up to five stores before I was able to sell it. I'll speak later to why I moved on. But that's how I started. I took a sketch on a piece of paper to literally a guy in a garage with a welder and said, what do you think of this? We went and bought a steel. I mean, I'm in Youngstown, Ohio where all the steel is made, in the rust belt.

Michael Casey (07:47):
So it's easy for me to find tubing, naked it, cut it, painted it and started to sell it. And then there was a popular magazine in the '80s and '90s called Joe Weider's Health and Fitness Magazine. And the readers were the bodybuilding publishers of the last century. And I would put little black and white photos in the back with an 800 number. And while they were calling, I was packaging it up on the back of a truck and shipping it to people and waiting for their check to clear. So this was way before swipe and all these things now that an Amazon where everybody can be in business, you had to make all the different channels for your business. They weren't just sitting there waiting for you. So that's where I started from that to where I am today, where I just FaceTime with the factory and we're up and running. So, but we didn't have fax machines when I started. So I really, really built a product distribution business from scratch, literally, from scratch.

Michael Casey (08:54):
And I grew at this speed of technology and money. When technology came out, when a fax machine came out, I no longer had to mail my orders and I can now fax them. And on and on when computers came out, I could email that, so you grow at the speed of tech and I think you've done the same thing in your business. When we get new technology, we try it, we use it, we call each other. We're like, this is cool. Or sometimes we call and say, I don't like this. It doesn't work for me. But for the most part, I was able to go to 160 countries with products because technology allowed me to, I started with a product line that was gym equipment. And then there was a kind of a merge to waiting on everybody in a retail store to becoming the manufacturer supplier, to people that own stores like mine, to even going one step further to going directly to consumers on television.

Michael Casey (09:46):
And you can't go directly to consumers on television with big bulky gym equipment. So I started to design unique products for the abs, for your buns and tighs, products adjusted sports specific and body spark specific moves. And so I started developing this Ab line and figuring out ways to move people. And if you look at the Ab Roller Plus you're laying on the floor and it's carrying your shoulders forward in the rocking, and with the Ab King you're going below parallels, if there was a hole in the floor, and with the Ab Circle you're going side to side in the lateral side flection move that you can't do on any other product. So I would come up with these exclusive moves and I would come up with some type of a really nice, beautiful infomercial that had entertainment.

Michael Casey (10:35):
Because it's 30 minutes, and you want people to not be able to change the channel. They're really liking what they see. And then at the end, you want them to buy it. Well, in regards to the world leaders and presidents that have bought my products. I mean, they lay in bed with their wife just like we do and watch TV at night. And if I can get them to pick up the phone or tell them in the case of the presidents, they're probably not the ones ordering yet, but if I can get them to do it, I can get anyone to do it. And they're consumers just like us, before they were an office, they were just raising their family and buying stuff. So, but interesting I have one product called the Ad King Pro and then I see Putin on it on a CNN interview working out. And the joke was he only buys products with the King name on it, beause that's what he thinks he is.

Alex Romanovich (11:26):
That's great.

Michael Casey (11:28):
Well, we supply dictators whether we want to or not. But I knew I sold a lot in Russia. Most of them unfortunately were counterfeit. And I'm not sure if he's on an original or a counterfeit, but it was definitely my machine, but that's a whole another podcast on how to defend yourself globally, right?

Alex Romanovich (11:44):
Absolutely. That's a great topic as well. Let's talk a little bit about the coronavirus. The impact of this is we still have no idea what's going to happen. The disruption to the logistics, supply chain, disruption to businesses, small, medium--sized and large enterprises. What do you think is going to happen first and foremost? And what do you think one should do when they're dependent on manufacturing in China?

Michael Casey (12:13):
I almost don't want to answer this question, because I don't want to be prophetic and I'm afraid it's already happening. And I want to avoid this from happening, but there's no way we can. And I don't even want to think about it, because it pains me to think about. I'm already affected, for instance, it's awesome that we can give your listeners the real-world examples that are like in day on. I sent a sample, this is two weeks ago. I sent a sample of my new item that helps people get up, it's called the Pro Rise. And I sent a sample to my designer, leaving the factory and DHL refused to deliver it to his house unless he submitted a temperature check from a physician that he doesn't have the flu, which could be the coronavirus.

Michael Casey (13:09):
So, he was allowed to come pick it up after a week of phone calls. And you and I hadn't talked about this offline, so this is the first time you're hearing this. They set it outside and he can get it, but he couldn't come in. And that's how paranoid that DHL delivery guys are. And there's one place where he gets his morning biscuit and coffee from, it's not a Starbucks, it's a knockoff, obviously it's in China. And the lady took a slide from the playground next door and put it on the drive-through window. And she slides the food down and you pick it up. She won't even hand it to you. So she kind of duct tape the slide to the drive-through window. And now here comes your bag of whatever you're getting for breakfast, but that's what's happening on the ground there.

Michael Casey (14:05):
And the fact that my guy couldn't even pick up the sample, so it took him a week to get the sample. Now he has it, and he can't go to the factory because nobody's come back from Chinese New Year, because they can't leave the towns they're in, beause they closed all the trains in airports. So China's not really, we're not going to know the financial hit to them until their next reporting period. But I can tell you right now, it's going to be severe. It's going to kill the world markets, and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And I don't want to be a doomsday, but I'm telling you I can't really get anything built right now, because nobody wants to go to the factory. Chinese are already a culture that lives in fear of the rumors.

Michael Casey (14:52):
And if you go anywhere, you see people, the Chinese here have mask on, even though there's no threat for them in Austin, Texas. I was in the airport last night and people, only the Chinese people had mask on. So they're so cautious of the culture as it is. So imagine now that it's hit their country, I mean, people are afraid to even go outside. So, I think it's going to be severe and I'd be interested in your take. I'm sure your users will be as well, your listeners, because you're a global traveler.

Alex Romanovich (15:27):
Michael, so the impact of, and I totally agree with you in the impact of the coronavirus is going to be incredible. And it will be felt worldwide in a very major way. As we're recording this podcast on February 24th, and then adding more to it later on the April 4th, almost a month to month and a half later, we have thousands of people dead. North of Italy is devastated by it, the entire Italy is kind of under lockdown. Half of the United States is under lockdown. The stock markets are completely devastated. So the impact of coronavirus is going to be pretty incredible. It will be felt for many, many months to come. The relief packages will need to be pretty significant in the United States and the rest of the world. So it'll be interesting to see how this is going to impact the various businesses, especially in manufacturing in China and so forth.

Michael Casey (16:34):
Yeah, this Italian thing over the last 48 hours that's come to light in the media is very, very. it concerns me because I mean the Italy there's and if they're saying there's 143, what China has said is where they tell you there's 143, there's really 500. And then by the time you read that it might be 800.

Alex Romanovich (16:58):
Michael, I want to talk about a different topic for a moment. We'll get to the 8dates, which is an amazing platform for dating that you've come up with. We'll talk a little bit about your book. But before we do that, I would love to talk about another virus that is upon us and has been with us for quite some time and as viruses ages, you're a guy in your fifties, you're a successful entrepreneur. You made it, you've given away so many different things for different generations of people. You've coached, you've invested money, you were a speaker, a trainer and so forth. You traveled the globe, but not everybody can do this. Not everybody is as dynamic, as energetic as you are. A lot of folks in the fifties and the sixties are facing a very different type of experience than you are experiencing, than you are facing. So let's talk a little bit about that and how you feel about this and what do you think can be done about this? If you let's say in your fifties or sixties, and you want to pursue a career, or you want to change your job, or you're looking for a job, say a few words about that.

Michael Casey (18:17):
Well, I believe, that is not a thing anymore. And I don't believe that if I was 80, maybe, but there are so many startups that have 50+ and 60 or something CEOs in them that you're as good as your idea. If you're 110 and you develop Facebook, do you think the investor wouldn't give you money because you had 2 million users and you're trying to grow what is now 2 billion. I think you stand behind your idea and nobody at this point has really said anything about my, the fact that I'm 57 and I shouldn't be doing this new startup. But my co-founders are 40 and 30, and that probably helps, right? It's showing that there's some young blood in the company, but it's impossible to be in a startup without having some millennials in there, because if you really want the skillsets that these guys are fresh out of school and know how to do Kubernetes and tech stacks, you're not going to find 60 years old who know how to do that.

Michael Casey (19:28):
So you surround yourself with skillsets that you don't have, but what we do have. And this, I speak to you and me both, we have global experience and you can't, they don't teach that at Harvard, they don't teach that anywhere. I've been to China 126 times. That's 252 times flying over the Pacific for 16 hour lays. The people I've met, the people I've sat next to and learned what they do and got ideas from, that can't be taught. So I bring a lot of experience, more probably than I cared to admit to, but that's okay, and I'll still make mistakes. I'm not trying to say to the listeners, I'm perfect because I'm 57. I'll still have failures, products that are released then won't work, but not as much as a guy that's 25, that's just started now.

Michael Casey (20:30):
So you bet on the jockey and in these businesses, because we all need help with venture capital. And it's good to have a good horse, but nothing's better than a good jockey. And I think I've earned the right to be considered a good risk when I'd come up with these ideas. So I don't want to do this forever, but I can't imagine the way we can work from home and we have access to the world with FaceTime and Zoom. And I can't imagine not doing it for a very long time. I was fortunate enough to be asked to do a Ted talk last year on the topic of how to take an idea from concept to consumer, basically a sketch on a napkin, when you're sitting with your buddy saying, Hey, we should do this, to walk into target. And there it is sitting on the shelf.

Alex Romanovich (21:20):
Well, how does it go from that to target? How does it go from a napkin to target, basically? And that goes for anything, it can go from an idea to the app store, that doesn't have to be target, but a product is a product. You want consumers to either come in and use it, buy it, take it home. And I did my Ted talk on how I was able to figure out a formula to get somebody, to respond to what you've created. And I talked about how timing is so important. Cost is very important. Testing is very important. And the competitive landscape is very important. And I put that all down in a 12 minute, you have 12 minutes on the Ted stage, you have 20, but they tell you to take less.

Michael Casey (22:06):
So I took 12, I listened and I'm out of that. And publisher who happened to be in the audience said this would make a great book. And then we'd like to put you on all the shows and have you be the kind of a guru of teaching people that have ideas of what to do. I mean, there's shark tank and then there's, what else do I do if I can't get on shark tank, who's going to help me. So I've been fortunate enough for the last 30+ years to be able to do from concept to consumer, financing, manufacturing, global distribution and as these new mediums came on with Facebook advertising and targeting, and Amazon keywords, and Google keywords, and I moved, what's it, what the industry, wherever advertising was going, I went, what's up.

Michael Casey (22:56):
And when the customers stopped watching television, where did they go? Well, they went to Facebook, so, okay. The 40 year old with two kids and the Range Rover in the suburbs no longer watching Discovery on Saturday morning, she's on her her iPad and her iPhone. So I better be on there. So I followed the customer and that's what the Ted talks all about is how to adapt, how to develop, adapt and distribute globally. And that's what the book's about. And in the book is a three series: how to create an idea, how to make the idea and then how to market the idea. So it's the billion dollar product, the billion dollar prototype and the billion dollar marketing plan. Because if you can come up with ideas, but if you can't make it, what's the point?

Michael Casey (23:45):
And definitely if you can't identify who your customer is before you do all the other things, who are you going to sell it to? And what were the inventors fail to do, and big companies do this too, is they'll develop a billion dollar product, and they never decided who their customer was before they did that. And then they have trouble selling it. So all these things have to be a perfect storm. And luckily four times I've had products that have hit the billion dollar sales mark globally. And I went back and looked at the characteristics of what they all had. And it was all that I knew what I was making. I knew how I was going to make it, and what price, and I knew beforehand, who I was going to sell it to.

Michael Casey (24:29):
And that's my story, basically, in a nutshell, my whole life. And where I learned those skillsets, I think it was just by hard knocks, right? We go out and we fail. And then we say, well, why didn't that work? Well, because you're the only one that wanted it, you dummy. You ask your mom and she said, it's beautiful. Don't ask your mom. They're going to not hurt your feelings, they are going to tell you, sweetheart, it's the greatest product ever. What you have to do is that someone that doesn't know you and because when you ask your friends and family, they will lie to you. And then when you go out and lose money, they'll say, well, we didn't really like it, but we didn't want to hurt your feelings. So thanks, but no, thanks. So now with the beauty of this Facebook targeting, you could test anything and find out if she should be in the business before you start.

Alex Romanovich (25:18):
Mike, I love the fact that you're so razor-sharp focused on this and you already know what the target audience is going to look like. You already know the use cases, the solutions, how it's going to behave in the market and so forth. So it's an incredible asset that you bring to the table in terms of your experience, in terms of how you're able to conceive the product, conceptualize the product, and then take it to market manufacturer, obviously tested and then roll it out, scale it and so forth. By the way, for our audience is that we're going to post a number of different links to great resources, online resources for Michael, the links to his different online properties, his personal website, his personal bio site and so forth. So stay tuned for a lot more great information about Michael Casey and how to succeed and how to build and design and launch a billion dollar product. Now, Michael, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about your baby, recent baby, which is something called 8dates. And from what I understand, it is a dating app. I was not necessarily involved very deeply with the project, but you told me about it early on, but let's talk a little bit about this product and this app. Why another dating app? What is 8dates all about? Why is it called 8dates and so forth?

Michael Casey (26:52):
Well, thanks for bringing it up. The reason I did this is because I saw, the reason I do all my products is I see that there's a marketplace is not being properly addressed. And if it's something that I feel like I have the extra teach on, I'll go out and I'll attempt to try to find if there's a marketplace. And if I see that there is, I go for it. And in this particular case, I was using some of the products that were out there in the App store. And I was amazed that they were leaving you with incomplete service. They were actually hooking you up with people and then disappearing. And I come from the fitness space where when you call me to buy an Ab machine or any one of my fitness products, you're calling me for a reason. You want to change your life. You want to lose weight and you're probably eating wrong, you're probably drinking too much, you're not sleeping.

Michael Casey (27:49):
So it's an opportunity for me to sell you a lot of other products on the back of my product. Now, why are you calling why I want to lose weight? Well, what are you doing for fitness vacations? What are you doing for what are you eating? Are you drinking a supplement, meal replacement? So it's called affiliate marketing. When I booked my ticket last week on Southwest airlines, they know I'm going to be in San Diego. They know I don't have a car there and they know I don't live there. So sell me, grab me a car and get me a place to stay. And maybe even tell me where I should go to dinner.

Michael Casey (28:24):
So all that money the Southwest is collecting on top of the ticket, the ticket purchase. So why are dating sites sending you to dinner? What are you doing when you meet someone? You're going to dinner. When you buy an Ad machine, you're drinking some supplement or taking a pill or drinking a new replacement. So I know the affiliate market so well, I went out and I contacted open table and I contacted Eventbrite, and Facebook Events, and Fandango, and Ticketmaster, and datings.com, and all the hotel chains and airlines. And I said, if I were to go and get a million dating couples were giving me interested in giving me some discounts for them to show up at your venues. And they said, well, why isn't anyone doing that yet? And I said, well, good question. I'm going to change that. And so I went out and I built what I call 8dates.

Michael Casey (29:17):
And the reason we called it 8 was because the studies show that out there, already before I even came up with this concept, that if you make a date, you probably found somebody special, And it gamifies and gives the woman control on the app, slow it down, buddy, we're going to see if you can get to eight, if you're worthy, then maybe we can do an overnight. So we made it fun. And we actually helped the guy. If you've ever seen the movie Hitch or any of our listeners, I saw the movie Hitch with Will Smith is telling them what to do, trust me, take her here, she'll love it. That's us. We're hitch, we're like, hey, send her these two recommendations, because we already know she likes pasta and we know she's a fitness enthusiast, so there's this vegetarian, healthy pasta place down the street. And so he says, hey, it's nice to meet you, I enjoy coffee. Would you like to go here? And then they book it right in app an open table. And I think it will disrupt the dating space because it doesn't leave me alone. It basically helps the couples have a successful relationship and that's what we built. And it's not fitness, but it is healthy relationship type. And I make products that are good for society and make people better.

Michael Casey (30:42):
So I felt like this I sold a makeup product back in the early 2000s, Pure Minerals that I developed, which was healthy makeup. And it was better for women. So it wasn't a stretch for me to go out and do something outside of actual fitness. Because even though the App store is not target, it is a store and it does have products in it and people need to go in there and buy them and use them. So, sure, it's not something you could touch, but it's something you could download and enjoy. And I felt very comfortable being the CEO of that company. I'm very proud of what we built. And we currently got approved. We're in the App store, we're closing out our seed round. So if there's any investors listening to this podcast I'm pitching you right now. So feel free to call me.

Alex Romanovich (31:33):
I love it. I love it. And this is a little bit of a Texan in you, right, Michael? I mean, you live in Austin, Texas, which is a hotbed of innovation, investor, community startup community and it's a great place I've visited many, many times. Say a few words about that. So that attitude, that Texan attitudes, your attitude, what separates you from a few other folks out there who are trying to do the same thing, who trying to build a billion dollar product, to build a unicorn company? Talk a little bit about attitude. Talk a little bit about your advice to our global audience as to what you have to do to win? What do you have to do to go global and so forth?

Michael Casey (32:24):
Well, I think you have to believe in yourself first, right? We're all told that by our parents and by our teachers. And you have to put yourself in a place where you have the support, that it's one thing to believe in yourself, but it's also another thing to have skillsets to make what you believe in happened. And I'm in Austin, Texas, which is Google, Apple, Facebook. Apple is building their largest campus outside of Cupertino here. Google's building their largest outside of where they're located. And Facebook is building their largest campus here. And I believe this is a Silicon Valley, the future of tech, product development and the resources I have here are amazing. Like the team I put together on 8dates, unless I was in Silicon Valley, I don't think I could have put a team like this together.

Michael Casey (33:27):
And I didn't come here because I wanted to be in the tech space. I came here because it was an emerging market and I knew it would help me, but once I arrived and after a few years of going to these conferences and the big one, we all know is South by Southwest, one of the biggest in the world. It just fires you up and it makes you believe in yourself and it makes you believe that you can pretty much conquer the world from here. And so I jumped into the tech space and I love it. And 8dates is my first, it won't be my last and I believe it's my next billion dollar product. And I speak to that in the book. And I'll stand behind that and maybe our next, if I'm lucky enough to be asked back on podcast, maybe a year from now, we had an exit and we're off to another startup.

Alex Romanovich (34:24):
Well, I cannot imagine not doing it at all. I think I'm probably going to be doing this until I'm 85 because it is we live in such interesting times. It's incredible. I'm always learning. I'm learning from people like you, I'm learning from myself, from others. And it's incredible as to what's happening in almost every aspect of our life, in almost aspects of our business, whether we're in healthcare, or financial technologies, or travel and tourism. Yes, we will always have coronaviruses. We will always have obstacles and issues and so forth and so on, but the world is such an amazing and interesting place in terms of business, in terms of personal relationships, in terms of learning different cultures. And as you pointed out different foods that I look back when I was 20-30 and I have not had that much fun that I'm having right now in my 50s. So I totally agree with you. But obviously when we talk about the issues of ageism and we talk about what ARP is doing in terms of raising the issue and helping with the issue. You have to admit that some level of this exists in corporations, some level of this is real, when it comes to the recruiting industry, when it comes to HR and so forth.

Michael Casey (36:02):
If you and I right now were to apply at IBM, we'd be put down at the bottom of the list, right? Because we're in our 50s, of course, they don't want to build a career with a guy who's already had a career,

Alex Romanovich (36:12):
Not to pick on a IBM, who is my Alma mater, but I'm not sure why you picked them, but I understand stereotypically, I guess we would say any large organization, any large corporation.

Michael Casey (36:27):
But the business that you and I are in of creating and developing and working with global partners, I think we're okay. I think we're positioned perfectly. And the money's nice when it works, but I do this for the money, obviously, because we have to pay our bills. I forget sometimes it's about the money, because I'm enjoying it so much. And it's like, even if I didn't need the money, I'd still would do this because it's creating and change something. Work is nothing's better than that, do what you love and the money will follow. And that's something I'll always live by in. And the second thing that I could tell the listeners is never lose sight of your goal. What I mean by that is if you're about to make a decision in a company, go back and say, well, will this get us to where, what the goal is? And if the answer's no, then don't do it. And those two things do what you love and don't lose sight of your goals are what I try to constantly think of every day when I'm making decisions.

Alex Romanovich (37:33):
Are you saying that, I mean, and again, we're going to use this cliche type of a statement, do what you love and the money will follow. Now, you're in your 50s, you've amassed a tremendous network of contacts and business associates and investors and so forth. You have gone through all of these amazing experiences. What would you say to a 20 or some years old individual who's entering the work workplace, and there are no jobs, there are no jobs out of school and they have to pay the bills. They have to sustain themselves. Some of the gen Zs and millennials still living with their parents, they cannot necessarily afford to do what you're doing. They maybe cannot afford to do what they love at the moment. What would you say to them?

Alex Romanovich (38:35):
I would say you have to get, you have to innovate. You have to, if you know that there's a category that you're in love with, study that category and find out what's missing and try to still avoid of what's missing in that category. And it doesn't have to be that you got to buy a bunch of inventory. It could be a service. It could be maybe there's an app solution to it. You could get some tech buddies to help you build it. But if you a lot of the very successful people, they were doing things that they knew and they understood, and they liked, Bill Gates liked coding. He liked software and you look at him now.

Michael Casey (39:18):
If you look at the Bizo story, he saw a need for people to buy books over the internet. And everyone thought he was crazy. Well, he identified in market that nobody knew existed. So innovation will get you out of off your parents' couch or out of a basement. That's what I did, saw market. I actually grabbed the yellow pages. We used to have big thick books, anyone in millennials that are listening, I used to drop them on our front porch. And if you needed a business and you went to the back and you found that was our Google, right, Alex? I looked up exercise equipment, and there wasn't a category. Imagine that if you went on Google right now and type in fitness, and it was a blank screen. So talk about being ahead of the market. So when I asked my landlord, a big mall developer, if I could run a space and he said, what are you going to sell? And I said, I'm going to sell fitness equipment.

Michael Casey (40:18):
And he goes, is anyone doing it? And I said, no. He goes, how come? I said, because they missed the market. And I remember when I got the phone book, it's almost like in the movie, the Jerk, Steve Martin, when he's in the phone book and he's running down the street, I made the phone book. That was me. I was exercise equipment and one location, one listing, it was Casey's Barbell City in Mentone, Ohio. So I actually started a category and all the yellow pages in the United States. And I innovated and that got me out of steel mills, firemen. I would have a noble profession and I loved it, but I was offered all these positions at the point on iron or working at the fire department and I decided to innovate and take a different road. And that is why we're here, because I met you at a conference pitching my app. And I was able to see 60, 70 countries around the world and do a couple hundred global flights. So I've been blessed.

Alex Romanovich (41:26):
It's an amazing story coming from steel mills and very humble beginnings and making this what a tremendous success. Now, Michael, we're getting close to the end of this episode, but we would love to have you back in some future times, but I would like to ask you final question for the audience and for yourself as well. What's next, you've done so many different things. I know you're anxious to launch in a big way, the 8dates platform. You're going to continue to sell the sports equipment. You're going to continue to do some philanthropy work and to give back, but what do you see yourself in 10 years? For example, when you're, I don't mean to call the age, but when you're 67-68, what is Michael Casey going to be like in 10 years?

Michael Casey (42:20):
Well, great questions. And I don't usually think that far out and maybe some people do. I usually think, well, what am I going to be doing in six months? What am I going to be doing in a year? But my next venture that I'm finishing launching of course the dating platform. And I'm hoping for an early acquisition on that because there's a lot of opportunities for much larger companies to grow it. And I like to build things and sell them and have other firms that are in that space, grow that. Beause I think that's smart for the ambassadors and it's great for the product, you have the product of chance. My next venture is in the wellness space and it's actually very simply helping people get up and down. And I have a work with the design firm out in San Diego that has helped me develop about five or six different products to start with another endless 10 to 20 to 30 products to follow that just simply help people that can't get out of a chair and the population around the world, as we all know, is there's a huge amount of, we're living longer and people have to take care of themselves.

Michael Casey (43:43):
And that's a huge problem in India, and China, and Japan, and the United States. I mean, you start looking at all these markets and you just get so excited as a product distributor and developer, but I'm going to help more people get up and down. And the first item is called the Pro Rise. And it's an item that we would sit in your Barca loung and get up without help. And I think that solves a huge problem. And these are a 100 and $200 solutions, not caregiver, $11,000 a month in a nursing home solutions. I believe in economical solutions. And when you start to get into our parents and our grandparents, they can't afford a $10,000 arm of caregiver picking them up and sending them down, including in the bathroom.

Michael Casey (44:30):
And just in a simple Barca loung. $150-20 solution, $99 solution could be a market. So there's not a current marketplace for that. The current marketplace has send a big guy over to your house and he picks you up or have your sister or brother do it and hurt their back. So I believe there's an untapped market to help people get up and down and so much so I'm willing to invest the next couple years, finding that out. And that's my next project.

Alex Romanovich (45:05):
Oh my God. What I love about you is that you focu in such a razor sharp way where you know the pricing, model. You already know who's going to buy it. You already know probably who's going to do it. Who's going to manufacture it, how you're going to ship it and so forth and so on. And again, our audience is going to benefit from a lot of links, a lot of references to your success stories and your resources online. So we're very grateful to you. We're beneficiaries of this incredible experience. We'll post some links to your assets, to your information. And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being our guest and we will definitely get back to you in the next three to four months and catch up with you to see how things are going with the product. Hopefully by that time, the coronavirus we'll be done with, and we will be able to jump on the plane like you and I used to and go travel again, meet some great people and do some great business. Thank you so much.