22-Year-Old CEO Revolutionizes Bar Service | Ethan Karian DSH #1268

Speaker 1 Big change. Yeah, big change.
And it's like, it's great in summer and spring break, but like outside of that, it's just like a month. Slow, yeah.
And

Speaker 1 you're not going to go out and make those connections. And that was the biggest deal for us.
Like, we, we don't want to keep ourselves in a bubble to where we can't grow.

Speaker 1 So moving out to Austin, we've made so many connections. I bet.

Speaker 1 All right, guys, we got Ethan here, CEO of Sip Skip. Thanks for for coming on today, man.
Thank you for having me. Yeah, can you explain what Sip Skip is for people that don't know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so we're a first of its kind mobile application. We allow users to get drinks faster at busy bars.

Speaker 1 Basically, walk up to the bar, you buy a Sip Skip, hold it up, and that signals the bartender to come right to you first.

Speaker 1 We're actually having bartenders sign up through the app, connecting themselves to their bar, and they earn per skip that they are redeeming, just like a DoorDash driver would.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's a win-win because the bartender is making more money somehow, right? Yeah, it's actually a a win-win for everybody.

Speaker 1 So there's a SIP skip fee, which goes directly to the bar, and then there's a bartender service fee, which helps the bartender gets compensated for their efforts.

Speaker 1 So, and then it helps the user as well. So all three parties win.
Damn. And you are a young business owner.
How old are you? 22. Holy crap.
So you had this idea super young. Yes.

Speaker 1 So I actually went to LSU for four years, just graduated last May.

Speaker 1 And those bars are super busy, super packed. And I've spent a couple of years just waiting there.
And one night I was at the bar, a couple of my boys had a pool table reserved.

Speaker 1 And I was at the bar with a couple of my friends. They were just standing there for like 20 minutes.
And I was like looking around. And I was just like, there's so much money going through here.

Speaker 1 Like, there's got to be a way to stand in front of it. And

Speaker 1 the first idea that kind of came to me the next morning was like, you know, the game like heads up. Yeah.
Like where you do that.

Speaker 1 I was like, what if there was something that was like that alluring that draws you in to where you could hold it up? to where a bartender could see it.

Speaker 1 And that was kind of like the first concept behind the Sips Kit Pass. That makes sense.
What did you major in at LSU? Marketing. Okay.
Yes. Was it useful? It was.
It actually was. Wow.
It was.

Speaker 1 I mean, I mean, I wouldn't say that you learned like entrepreneurship in school. You got to kind of self-teach that.

Speaker 1 But I've definitely taken some like from my professional sellings class and some marketing, like digital marketing as well. So definitely helps.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I know you've read a lot of self-development books, right? Oh, for sure. So you were doing that on the side.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So

Speaker 1 actually, my first book that was handed to me in, it was in ninth grade by my father, Think and Grow Rich. If you don't have that book, you should go get that book.
Classic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, that really just changes your perspective on life. I mean, there's so many things in there that just shifted my mind, especially as a 14-year-old.

Speaker 1 He was like, you have to read this four times in your life. And I actually just started it for my fourth time, like two weeks ago.
And it just, it's just to refresh the mind.

Speaker 1 And it's just bringing back so many things from when I was younger that I needed to touch up on. And

Speaker 1 it's just really good stuff. Yeah, that one's a classic.

Speaker 1 How to win friends is a classic how to win friends yes sir yeah there's some bangers man uh especially at that age like if you know that at that age you're just standing out from people your age yeah and it was actually it was kind of like a shock so like i'm like 14 then like 15 i started like getting into doing instagram accounts growing the like little niche accounts like started started getting out of the whole video game aspect of it and like my mind was like okay how do we how do we get into the world of like the entrepreneurship and then i was like 16 and i was like i was like let me try drop shipping like let's try some that's a classic drop.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's try some good. Because this is back in like 2017.
That's how I started too. Exactly.
Exactly. Everyone.
So that's how I got into like making websites and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 And that was kind of like my first preneur, I would say.

Speaker 1 I learned a lot from dropshipping. Really? I'll say that it was like, I would never do it now, but like I learned a lot at the time.
100%.

Speaker 1 You learn like how to find a winning product, how to build a website. I mean, you're not coding it, but you're doing it in a way to where you're putting the pieces together.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're optimizing it. You learn the back end of all that stuff.
Yeah. How to market too.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Instagram ads, Facebook ads.

Speaker 1 And I kind of like Think and Grow Rich teaches you.

Speaker 1 I kind of learned, I was like, if I fail, fail, fail while I'm in school, I can, I can front load and kind of find something that's going to be successful early. And that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's why I think it's smart to start businesses when you're young. Yeah, and it's, there's also some, some downsides, which, I mean, if you can take them, you can take them.

Speaker 1 But it's just like you're growing up around people that are like, haven't read those books and they're just like,

Speaker 1 they're just normal kids, you know, and like in your head, you're like, oh, like, I have this vision. And like, they're just like, oh, let's play video games.
And I'm like,

Speaker 1 like, it's just, it's just, it's like a battle, but you know, you got to find balance. Yeah, yeah.
Did you go through that phase, video games? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I used to love, I was playing 2K.

Speaker 1 First time I read Thing and Grow Rich, I was, my dad gave it to me. He was like, you have to read it on paper.
I remember me and my friend.

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Speaker 1 And we would sit on the got next spot and I'd take my headphones off and I'd like read a couple pages and then uh put it down, go into the game, go to the next game.

Speaker 1 Um, and that's kind of how like I got started. And then the year after that, I couldn't even really think about video games.
Yeah, I play a little Fortnite, but I took five years off. I had to.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man, got to get it, got a grind, you know? Yeah, Fortnite's lit, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Fortnite is is lit my uh my best friend or one of my best friends in my roommate now he owns the biggest fortnite page it's called fort fourth night i think i've seen that yeah you you probably follow it to be honest yeah um and like it's so funny because he's in like these fortnite group chats with all these little accounts and they think he's like this big corporation but it's just one dude um and he just he just posts like eight posts a day he's just on his phone he it's funny he likes to say he's like he wakes up at like 12 gets out of bed at like 2 30 and like all his work's done for the day damn and he just works works from his phone.

Speaker 1 That's impressive. Um, but yeah, so like, that's how we got into niche, or that's how like we started our niche Instagram accounts together.
Yeah, and his first one just hit.

Speaker 1 You'd be surprised how much sleep's pages make. My boy owns Banger Buddy.
Have you seen that one? Um, yes, yeah, with the red solo cup, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, I think he makes, I don't know if he even wants to be sharing this, but he makes good money, man. Yeah, seven figures a year.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, no, they're, they're bringing in, they're bringing in cash, yeah. It's just like it's the eyeball business, you know.

Speaker 1 Um, I want my product in front of these eyeballs in this market, you have it, and And then, especially with Fortnite maps now, he's killing it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dude, I heard some of those map creators are crushing.

Speaker 1 He had this one kid reach out to him. This kid's like

Speaker 1 19 years old. Yeah.
And he posted a bunch of his maps. He made 32 million last year.
What? At 19. Selling Fortnite maps.
Off of his map. Oh, my God.
I want to get that kid on the podcast.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 32 mil. That is me.

Speaker 1 I can connect you guys. But yeah,

Speaker 1 yeah, I mean, You create the right map, you get it in front of the right eyes.

Speaker 1 How does it work? So you make the the map, and then do you get paid based off how many people play it? I have not gotten to that.

Speaker 1 I really don't know. That's all his forte.
He doesn't, he doesn't even make the maps, he just pretends. Damn, yeah, because I know we just dropped mine today.
You have a fortnight map? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's sick. It's a prop hunt.
Oh, do you know what prop hunt is? Uh-uh. It's hide and seek.
Oh. So you pretend to be any object.

Speaker 1 And we got the digital social hour chairs, the mics in it, the TV screens with our. Oh, I did see that.
I did see that on your story. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So that's sick. Yeah.
But yeah, I can connect you to my boy. Dude, that'd be cool.
He can promote you. Yeah, I love crazy stories like that.
You can make money in the craziest ways these days.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
And the tech game, man, I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 I mean, dude, I had a girl come on here selling her bathwater.

Speaker 1 No way. Yeah, you can make money in all sorts of ways.
Oh, especially girls. They can make money really easy.
They make money easier. Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's easier for them. They'll probably hate us saying that, but it's facts.

Speaker 1 If you're attractive. Yeah, I mean, I mean, if you're a hot girl and you got a little bit of ambition and

Speaker 1 you want to get on social media, you can really do something. Yeah, it's easier.
You can really make if you're an attractive guy, that won't get you like

Speaker 1 much.

Speaker 1 There's a lot more you got to do.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's, and it's a grind.
It really is. You got to fail for a very long time.
I like it, though. I love grinding.
No. Oh, yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 Like, people always say, like, when you relax, working is relaxing for me. Oh, sane.
It's like a meditation. It's, it's wake up, rolling over, checking the phone.
Okay.

Speaker 1 My app guys texting me, blah, blah, blah, what's next? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's, I've kind of fallen in love with the process. I've been doing it since a young age, but like when you have your mind set on a vision and

Speaker 1 you're just a full train of steam headed there, it's just there's nothing that can stop you, man. Have you had a job before working for someone else? Um, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, my, my parents, they were entrepreneurs, and I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but when I was young, my mom, she made it, she made it, she was a stickler.

Speaker 1 She was like, I want you to work all like the jobs that like a normal like kid would work. So, like, my first job was, uh, you know, like those escape rooms?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love those so like i was like i worked at the escape room

Speaker 1 and actually

Speaker 1 it's actually a you have to be really smart because you have to know every single game you have to know where every single piece of the game goes to reset it wow um and then you actually have to sit behind the computer and like as a game master so like let's say someone's in step five of the game you have to know what step six is so if they ask for a hint you have to give them right yeah you got to be watching them the full hour oh yeah yeah so there's a whole bunch of stuff you have to like bring them in the room explain it um I worked

Speaker 1 one of my most fun jobs.

Speaker 1 It was a tough job, but worked as a dock boy at a marina.

Speaker 1 That's rough, man. Why is that one out? That's rough.
I mean, rich people, 100-foot boats, they have trash out the wazoo. Oh, you got to clean it up?

Speaker 1 Oh, it's like, dude, there's just like 13 trash bags. They just throw it out.
You got to throw it on your golf cart. Damn.
You got to fill up these boats.

Speaker 1 Filling up the boats is nice, but like, I mean, I'm talking fire hoses of gas. I mean, three pumps.
This boat takes 30 minutes to fill. And then some of these guys are great.

Speaker 1 They'll tip you, tip you nice. But we had this, we had this one, we have a fishing tournament every year.
I'm from Destin, Florida. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And in San Destin, we have this fishing tournament every year.

Speaker 1 And this boat won, they won 1.2 million for winning this tournament. Wow.
The next morning, they come in the slip, me and my friend, we fill their boat. It takes like 45 minutes in the pouring rain.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they push off and they're like, hey, no tip.

Speaker 1 No tip. And this is like, and that's we work on tips, you know? Oh, so you don't get an hourly? We barely, but like minimum wage.

Speaker 1 But like these are like, it's the type of business where like you fill some, you fill someone with like ice chests with a bucket and then they'll slap 100 in your hand. Like these are big money boats.

Speaker 1 It's like a caddy kind of,

Speaker 1 these are big money boats. But then they win 1.9 mil and they just push off and they're like, oh, yeah.
And

Speaker 1 one more thing, make your slips bigger for next year. And we're like, oh, you guys are crazy.
Damn. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then I've, I've worked as a bar back too, behind behind a bar and done a little bartending as well.

Speaker 1 So like, so like, I, I, um, I'm happy I worked those jobs because like, like now, like, when I go out to like restaurants and stuff like that, like, I, I know, like, like, I have to tip those guys because I've been to those guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you could appreciate it, right? Yeah. And then you can, you can also see the people that have never worked those jobs.
Oh, you could tell. And it's just like, it's, it's kind of like

Speaker 1 almost embarrassing to, to, like, when they say some sus stuff.

Speaker 1 Like, and you're just like, uh, like, like, bro, you're embarrassing. Like, these guys are just trying to work hard man it's not even in their control yeah

Speaker 1 and take it out on them exactly it's the shot like little of that or if they mess up an order i mean um but yeah i know so like working those jobs um and then especially sports being young i played baseball basketball football growing up year-round just all that just instilled like that yeah that grind like what were you the best up uh basketball oh yeah i uh i played basketball since i was four i was four years old was my first love and the the league the first league you can get in was a five-year-old league But my mom like brought me to the coach, and she's like, He's super passionate, and like, I tried out.

Speaker 1 He's like, He's like, All right, we'll sneak him in

Speaker 1 because, like, yeah, no, basketball is my first love. Um, we're gonna have to play, bro.
Oh, yeah, we gotta hoop for sure. Yeah, bro.
Um,

Speaker 1 I haven't hooped in a while, but I'm ready to get back. Next time you're out here, I'm in the leagues out here, lifetime leagues.
Oh, do they have lifetime in Austin? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, are you a member? Um, so we were a member, um, and I'll actually shout him out right now, but we switched to another gym called the Collective. Oh, God.
Um, the Collective is a great concept.

Speaker 1 It's like a gym and a social club.

Speaker 1 Interesting. So like you really can't go to the gym without making a connection.
So it's like gym. They also have like a chill space, like a really big chill space where you can just go.

Speaker 1 They have a kitchen where you can bring your lunch. They have whole rooms to set up your computer, work.
They also have meeting pods. So if you need to take a meeting, you close the pod, quiet.

Speaker 1 They got obviously saunas, ice baths. They have hot yoga rooms where the room's like hotter.

Speaker 1 wow and it's it's it's a really cool concept dude that sounds awesome yeah and ever since we joined there i mean obviously the people are so so awesome so so nice and then every every time we we work out like uh my friend with the fort fortnite account he comes home and he's like He's like, dude, I just met this guy that lost 300K in crypto today.

Speaker 1 And he's like, happy. Like, he's like, oh, the market's going down.
Like, I'm like, dude, like, these are the people we need to be meeting.

Speaker 1 And me and him, we actually, we moved out to Austin on a whim and uh so i graduated college and he did three years he did a little bit faster but same age and we book a trip out to austin we tour a bunch of houses and we actually met other guys with an app and we're like okay this is our sign so we signed it we signed a lease on a house and that was the only time we'd ever been to austin no what we said screw it we're moving out here holy crap city of young entrepreneurs we can't i mean we both were born and raised in destined florida it's a little beach town big change yeah big change.

Speaker 1 And it's like, it's great in summer and spring break, but like outside of that, it's just like a normal town. Slow, yeah.
And

Speaker 1 you're not going to go out and make those connections. And that was the biggest deal for us.
Like we, we don't want to keep ourselves in a bubble to where we can't grow.

Speaker 1 So moving out to Austin, we've made so many connections. I bet.
Like,

Speaker 1 oh, what's the guy's name? Banger.

Speaker 1 the guy who interviews people. Oh, James Duel.
The School of Hard Knocks. School of Hard Knocks.
Yeah, he's coming on the show next week. Okay, sweet.
In Austin. Yeah, that's sick.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So he, like, we were at the bar the other night and my boy ran into him and they were just chatting it up.

Speaker 1 That dude's built an empire, man. Exactly.
And these are the people you're meeting. I, I was at the bar one night and I was just

Speaker 1 walked up to this girl because I thought she was cute. Yeah.
Started flirting with her and she's ended up, she does marketing for this other app in Austin, which is huge.

Speaker 1 And she runs all their socials. And I was like, oh my, this is a business conversation now.
So now I was like, now she's our socials girl. Like, no, like, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Like, you're not, you're not getting that in Destiny. Nah.
Like, in little towns. So, like, being in those big cities, I would say, if you're an young entrepreneur, move to a big city.

Speaker 1 If you have to, do it on a whim. If you have to, do it by yourself.
You have a friend. It's easier.
Yeah. But, um, but yeah, I mean, don't, don't keep yourself in a bubble.

Speaker 1 That's how I was in Jersey, man. Really? You moved out from Jersey? I had to, man.
I was the only one doing entrepreneurship in my town. My whole town.
Exactly. No one else was doing entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 And you feel like, and you're like, I can't stay here here because they're just, they're no growth.

Speaker 1 I was making 50K a year for three years straight, no growth. And then as soon as I moved to LA and Vegas, boom.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I know you hear it all the time, but you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.

Speaker 1 So like if you're spending time with people that are eating Cheetos and playing Xbox and you're trying to become the next podcast, you know, like it's, it's going to. be an inverse effect.
100%.

Speaker 1 So yeah, we kind of created this environment. We call it the house of killers.
So it's, it's me, my friend Matthew, and one of my pledge brothers from my fraternity, Peter.

Speaker 1 We live in this house, and it's like, we have one more room left in the house. We actually had to kick a guy out because he wasn't killing it.

Speaker 1 He didn't meet the revenue requirements.

Speaker 1 Revenue was an issue, but it was more of the mindset.

Speaker 1 It's like when you have one bad apple and everybody's on the same path to greatness and somebody's just kind of chilling. 100%.

Speaker 1 It's kind of a cancer that needs to be cut out. So we created an environment to to where, like,

Speaker 1 if someone's kind of chilling for a little bit, we're like, what are you doing? Like, let's figure it out. Accountability.
Accountability.

Speaker 1 And it creates that,

Speaker 1 it says it in Think and Grow Rich when you have more than one mind that are focused on a fixed goal, there's a third mind that becomes formed. It's called a mastermind.

Speaker 1 Again, if you don't have that book or you've never read it, go read that book. I suggest everybody go get that book.

Speaker 1 And all the books you see that are out right now, like the 48 Laws of Power and stuff like that, Atomic Habits,

Speaker 1 it's pretty much just a chapter of Think and Grow Rich that someone took and made a book about. Like the 48 Laws of Power are literally listed in Think and Grow Rich.
I didn't know that well.

Speaker 1 And someone just said, oh, these are great. Let's make a book.
Like,

Speaker 1 it's the sauce. It's the sauce.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Napoleon Hill spent 20 years interviewing 500 of the world's richest men, made a book.
That's nuts. To do it back then was way harder than it is now.

Speaker 1 Like now I could do it on the podcast, but back then. Yeah, he had to by train.

Speaker 1 Even now, actually, I was researching billionaires that go on podcasts. There's only like 10 that actually go on podcasts.
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 Wow, because I was trying to rack up some billionaires on the pod, and they just don't want to do it. They're low-key, man.
A lot of them don't even have social media.

Speaker 1 I think they do try to stay low-key. It's just like, I mean, when you're on a level like that, it's just there's no point.

Speaker 1 You kind of want to stay out of the lamp, you know, because you start getting calls. Oh, yeah.
Start getting, yeah. I'm into all those conspiracies.
Yeah, I don't know. You're talking about that, but

Speaker 1 yeah, I mean, I mean, when you hit a certain, when you hit a certain number, they want to bring you in. It's just like,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of stuff that. Yeah, there's levels to the game.
Levels to the game. Exactly.
Exactly. Is becoming a billionaire one of your goals? For sure.
You want it? Yes. Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to sacrifice a lot if you want to get there.

Speaker 1 And I'm ready to do it. Really? Yeah, I just...

Speaker 1 So my business partner, Sage,

Speaker 1 we just kind of met recently through a mutual friend.

Speaker 1 And i i've never seen eye to eye with a person like we see he wants to build cities wow and like and he was just like you have this look in your eye that like i have in my eye and it's just like whatever you put your mind to you're gonna do it and we have that we have that same thing so now we just kind of put our heads together we have that mastermind like i was talking about earlier and and when you have two people or more than two people that have a goal to do something it's

Speaker 1 And they're like ferocious. It's unstoppable.

Speaker 1 You can't stop them. That's impressive, man.
You got a good head on your shoulders for your your age. Thank you, man.
Like, I wish I had that at your age. Thank you.
22.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was getting right coming out of my party phase around that age. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. I'm not going to.
Yeah, I went to LSU for four years. So,

Speaker 1 uh, definitely know how to party. You guys have fun there.
Definitely know how to party. I thought you were in a frat.
Yeah, I wasn't, I was in a fraternity.

Speaker 1 Um, they're one of the best party schools, right? LSU? The best. Allegedly.
Yeah, it's, it's the best, bro. I mean, it's, it's a different type of partying.

Speaker 1 It's like a degenerate fun, but like, like

Speaker 1 nobody cares about class or anything. Everyone's just like, let's have fun.
Damn. Yeah.
And so like, this is my first Mardi Gras I'm not at.

Speaker 1 Like all my people I know from back there, they're all NOLA right now. I've never been to

Speaker 1 one of those.

Speaker 1 I heard it's cool, though. Never been a Mardi Gras? No.
Oh, my God. Dude, you got to make one.
Yeah, what goes down in something like that? Dude, it's just

Speaker 1 the only way I can explain it is just like,

Speaker 1 it's just, it's like three or four days of just straight up drinking every day. You got floats coming through.

Speaker 1 And if you're, if you go with your fraternity, the way that kind of works is like, they set up, like each fraternity from, there's a bunch of different schools that go just set up tents.

Speaker 1 So it's like tailgates. Wow.
And it's just like all day, every day.

Speaker 1 And they all bring their own, we all bring alcohol. So it's like, if you're a girl, you never have to worry about paying for a drink.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if you're a guy, it's like with your fraternity, it's in the social budget. So everyone's drinking.

Speaker 1 and it's just beads and fun and then after the parades it's bourbon and it's just like do it again but it's it's a marathon it's it's something like i did it for three years and i'm like okay with not doing it for a very long time i feel that you got out of your system oh yeah oh yeah and um and like i have some friends that like they they missed it last year and they're going back and they're like yeah this will be my last one you know but um

Speaker 1 but dude mode girl you definitely got to make one of those um yeah that's a bucket list thing for for sure. Yeah.
I want to try the food mainly. You never rid of NOLA? No.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I almost went for Super Bowl, but I was filming too much. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, it's good to be on the ground. We were out there for Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 One of our investors, his name is Maddie Beckerman. He has an app called IR Code.

Speaker 1 And he was doing Super Bowl ad week.

Speaker 1 Great software, super cool concept. And he brought us out there and he was like, yo, I want you to come to all these events and stuff, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 Fly out with me on the PJ. Damn.
And

Speaker 1 you guys can just chill with me and come do the Super Bowl stuff. So we basically got a free trip to the Super Bowl.
It was great. Those tickets weren't cheap, man.
No, not at all. Not at all.

Speaker 1 And I mean, obviously the game was not it, but

Speaker 1 it was a really cool experience. Like, dude, we were rolling craps with John Hamm from Mad Men.
That's sick. Like, everybody was in town.
That's sick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was, it was nuts. My first time on a PJ changed my life.
Yeah. I never wanted to go commercial again.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's so expensive, but it's expensive. Yeah.
Once you get a taste of it, you're like, dude. Yeah, dude.
This, this guy's funny. He plays, he has this thing.
He times up.

Speaker 1 He plays Freebird in the air. What's that? Like, like the song Free Bird.
Oh. Like the, like, free.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, so he plays it in the air, times it up, and then like gets it to where when the plane stops at the gate, the song stops. What? So when we landed in NOLA, he, it's like a six-minute song.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We're in the air, starts a song, and he got it so timed up that the pilot could perfectly stop at the gate and the last drum hit it no way we all went crazy like it was just nuts he's like i swear i've only done that one other time that's nuts but yeah no um super cool guy super you you you might you might want to have him on yeah you got a good network man um yeah and part of that is is my new business partner sage he's he's connected to the world

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 but yeah so i'm just i'm really just trying to Foster my connections, use Sip Skip.

Speaker 1 My main passion in life

Speaker 1 since I was little is I wanted to find a disruptor to disrupt an industry, change it forever, like Uber, who takes taxis anymore. Yeah.
So I've been trying to find my disruptor for a very long time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I had a couple of different preneurs. I started another company.
It was called Hot Mess. It was a fitness company.
My main passion is fitness. I love teaching fitness to all of my friends and family.

Speaker 1 And I fully believe in that.

Speaker 1 like a healthy body is a healthy mind. And it's more mental than it really is physical if you do it for for long enough yeah um

Speaker 1 but with that being said it's just it's just if you stick to your regimen and you know that like if i can do something day by day or stay on a week-long um regimen

Speaker 1 if i can do a fitness plan what can i do weekly daily or monthly and that can ripple across my life so it's like it's really just putting in the repetition so it's like i put in the repetition in the gym

Speaker 1 what else can i do yeah and that ripples across business because it's all repetition when it comes to business.

Speaker 1 If you, um, like, I had a business for two years, it was a fitness business, and it was doing

Speaker 1 all right, did some numbers. Um, but I mean, fitness clothes is a saturated market.
Oh, yeah. Um, I started in apparel, I would never go back, never go back either, dude.

Speaker 1 Um, tech is the tech is the way to go, yeah, higher, higher marketing. Um, and then I remember, uh, Sipskit popped in my mind, and uh, it was like a moment.
And, um,

Speaker 1 called my mom the next morning and I was like, oh, like, I just got this idea. Like, I have to do it.
Like, if I don't do this, somebody's going to do it.

Speaker 1 It's going to disrupt the world and I'm going to miss out. And I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she was like, oh, like, maybe let's wait. Like, let's do hot mess.
Like, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, a week went by and I was like, nah, screw it.
I literally just said, screw it.

Speaker 1 I didn't trash everything. I still have it, but I just kind of paused it, dove head on into this because I just could not get this idea off my mind.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the best decision I ever made. I love it.
Best decision. How many locations are you guys in so far? So we just launched at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 1 We brought on two test locations in September 1st when we went live to work out the kinks for a couple months. We just launched at the beginning of the year.
So we have five locations right now. Nice.

Speaker 1 And we really want to start this in like the bar industry, the nightclub industry, but where we really want to see SIP skip is stadiums, concert venues.

Speaker 1 venues imagine it's first down and you don't want to miss the game for too long but that drink line's 20 people long you're going to pay the ten dollars to skip the line and then you're going to pay to get your drink as well and all that is is creating an extra revenue source for the venue completely free of cost yeah it costs them nothing to implement it's a win-win it's a win-win for everybody um this first year we're bringing on venues just to kind of test it out um we want to test it in environments we want to see it in and then moving into 2026 we're going to start charging venues to put this in their venue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love the name too. Oh, thanks.
Yeah, it flows well. Sip skip.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the it's the alliteration. Yeah.
The tick tock, the door dash. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then also the red cup is

Speaker 1 when I came up with the red cup,

Speaker 1 we're trying to make that like the iconic. Like the

Speaker 1 whenever you see the red cup, like I want Sip Skip to be the name, but like I want you to see the red cup and be like, oh, it's iconic. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I miss beer pong sometimes. Yeah.
No, and we're trying to, we actually did another launch last week and uh people were like

Speaker 1 where can i buy these hats like where can i buy these shirts like and then we were just like oh we need to put this online so we're we're getting a merch store up here might as well

Speaker 1 these days you could do made uh print print on order right yeah yeah and uh and it's all high quality merched as you could well this isn't this is more for us is that embroidered oh yeah damn yeah that's clean we uh i got these for our sales guys um i'll probably start selling these soon but i'm keeping these in the vault hell yeah so uh so we're we'll probably just like put the hoodies and shirts.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I got you a shirt.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 They're pretty sweet golf hats too. I love them, man.
You play any golf? No, I'm going to play this year. Yeah.
Because I'm getting invited to so many good golf events and stuff. Dude, you got it.

Speaker 1 You got to get it. And I'm missing out on money, to be honest.
Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 There's so much big money in golf. Dude, the richest people play golf.
Yeah, and it's such a good business day, too.

Speaker 1 Like, let's say you go out there with some business connection guy and he's like, hey, let's go play some golf, but we can also talk about this project we can start.

Speaker 1 You know, it's like it's a good way for you guys to have fun while kind of shooting the shit, yeah, because it's a casual sport, you're not like huffing and puffing. No, not at all.

Speaker 1 And uh, I'm kind of new to golf as well, I'm terrible at golf,

Speaker 1 but I love going out there, drinking some brews with the boys, yeah, and uh, hitting some golf balls, especially if it's a if it's a nice sunny day, yeah, it's one of those sports that takes years to get good at, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. My uh, my roommate, he he's pretty, he's his dad was a ex-uh-pro golfer.
And so he's. He's nasty.
He's nasty. He's been playing golf since he was 10.
What is he?

Speaker 1 I don't even know what to call it. Was he shooting? Is that what it is? What does he shoot? So

Speaker 1 I think he's like in the 70s. Holy crap.
The best he's ever shot was a 69. Dude.
Yeah. That's insane.
He's a dog. He's a dog.
Because you're probably like 100, right? 100 plus, bro. 100 plus, bro.

Speaker 1 I think the best I've shot in my life was like.

Speaker 1 Like 105. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, and that's, and that's like, and that's like, if you've,

Speaker 1 if you've like played golf a couple of times, like you're,

Speaker 1 if you've never played golf, you're probably shooting a 150. Yeah.
Like 150 at least. Probably, yeah.
But yeah, no, it's like, yeah, dude, I remember.

Speaker 1 I've probably played golf like 40 times in my life. Jeez.
Yeah, not enough. Not enough.
I want to get good at golf and bowling. And bowling.
Yeah. No.
Do you ever bowl?

Speaker 1 I have a, I have a, a friend actually. He lives in Colorado.
He's in a bowling league. What? And he loves it.
I mean, it's like a flex low-key.

Speaker 1 Every Monday night, he's like, yeah, dude, like, it's a whole tournament like dude my team just won the championship

Speaker 1 we all go drink and get pictures and play and just bowl like but no bowling bowling's fun to be good at bowling is a flex yeah like if you could bowl like 150 200 like that's insane yeah dude i and like when people are like doing the spins and stuff yeah that's nuts i struggle to find people that can hoop man oh yeah yeah

Speaker 1 in the entrepreneur space there's not many hoopers yeah i mean they're they're more desk guys you know but i i've been you're nice though were you gonna play in college so yeah that's actually um so i um i was doing drop shipping and then i made it a point to myself senior year i was like um i was like you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna throw like like i'm gonna go full in the basketball just to give it a shot um see what offers i can get and that summer going into senior year put myself on a plan i was shooting like 500 shots a day damn um i'm I'm shooting from 30 plus.

Speaker 1 Damn, you're Steph Curry on here. Yeah, I made it a point.
Like, when I was shooting on the gun, like, I wouldn't shoot from the three-point line. I'd shoot from like the NBA.
Holy crap.

Speaker 1 so that in high school though like when you when you can shoot that deep it really it draws out the defense so you just like sling those passes or like if they're too short boom you're busting it in face but um so like i made it a point to myself to grind that grinding that for a year i got a couple d twos couple independents and then i like business has always been my main focus and i was like

Speaker 1 yeah i want to have fun yeah but i'm i'm so happy i did because i always like always loved basketball and i know my whole life i want to be great at basketball so like that whole year, like, and I've always been pretty good, but like, that whole year is set a fundamental for me.

Speaker 1 So, like, now, like, throughout the rest of my life, I'll always be pretty decent. That's cool.
Yeah. Comes the hoots.
Because the muscle memory. When you're shooting 500 a day, you don't forget that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, I can't wait to see you play then.
Yeah, dude. It'll be, it'll be fun.
Were you yamming on people too? Dude, yeah, I had a point.

Speaker 1 So I, I, like, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm a little white boy, but, but, uh, I had a, um, I went on this dunk program and it actually was like six. Which one? It was called uh airvert.

Speaker 1 or No, it was called Boingvert. I haven't heard about it.
It was like way long ago. It was way long ago.
But did it 16 weeks and I actually was able to dunk. Wow.
Like I like, it was crazy.

Speaker 1 Like I was, I was pretty much just able to do this on a rim. Yeah.
And dude, 16 weeks. Yeah.
Holy crap. How tall are you?

Speaker 1 Six foot. Yeah, that's impressive.
And I, and I mean, I got to a point where, I mean, I've hit two windmills in my life. Damn.
I've hit two. Windmill on six.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was a, it was a perfect storm, obviously. It had to be like the adrenaline rush.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, I did that. I kind of like sat there.
I was like, whoa,

Speaker 1 whoa, whoa, what just happened? Yo, Mac McLung. Oh, my God.
That dude's a beast.

Speaker 1 He's not that tall, too. No, no, he's, I think he's like below six foot.
What? That's insane, man. He's got balance, jumping over cars and stuff.

Speaker 1 I can't believe he's not in the league. Wait, what is he doing? He's in the G League, but like, no team will give him a full spot.
It sucks. It's tough being an NBA player, only 450 spots.
Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's the difference between like the NFL and like the NBA. There's so many different NFL, there's thousands of spots, right? So many spots.

Speaker 1 You got five starters on the court, and then you got

Speaker 1 three bench guys that get minutes, and then the rest of the bench is not. No minutes.
Like, not playing. Yeah.
So, like, that's probably the toughest sport to go, pro.

Speaker 1 You have to be the best in the world.

Speaker 1 And it's like, and the thing about like, I guess you could say this with baseball as well, but like, basketball is such an art form to where, like, like when Kyrie Irving is is

Speaker 1 like like sizing someone up and like plotting those moves if his hand goes this way I go this way yeah that's an art form man it is it's it's like it's not like I'm just tucking the ball and hitting you you know like it's it's there's more skill I'd say there's it's like a it's almost like you got to be like a ballerina yeah there's always that debate like which sports more athletic basketball I think it's basketball I think it is basketball.

Speaker 1 I think you have to be like more of like gritty and like

Speaker 1 and be able to hit someone like in football athletic wise, but like

Speaker 1 you have to do those like agility movements to where like your calves and your ankles are so strong that you can you can like dance on your feet almost. Yeah, I used to roll my ankle all the time.

Speaker 1 I had to strengthen them up. Our coach, our coach senior year, he made us all get ankle, ankle braces.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I used to wear those, but I hate wearing them. I hate wearing them.

Speaker 1 I feel like it slows me down a little bit. It slows me down, messes me up.
And I'm like, I was always the kid who prided himself being the fastest. Like, I played baseball from when I was nine to 16.

Speaker 1 I never got thrown out.

Speaker 1 Damn, you were that fast? Never got thrown out. Holy crap.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I was like the guy, like, if I got on base, the pitcher's throwing balls because I'm messing with them. I'm like,

Speaker 1 toying with them. Like, that was my favorite thing to do.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so like, like having those ankle braces, I was like, oh, bro, like, you're messing me up here. Yeah.
I feel like you lose a stub. I know, yeah, for sure.
Who's the GOAT of basketball?

Speaker 1 Oof, that's tough man but i mean i go with jordan bro okay i go jordan bro i thought you were gonna say lebron for a sec

Speaker 1 he's i mean stats wise he's great but like i mean

Speaker 1 the three p man yeah

Speaker 1 you think if lebron gets a few more he could catch him

Speaker 1 that's a crazy debate i just think i just think it's different times yeah i just think it's different times i mean if if lebron has time to hit a three p i think that would solve the issue but i don't think i don't think he'll play it three more years i don't think he will either.

Speaker 1 He might get one this year, though. They're looking good this year.
Yeah, dude, Luca. Yeah.
They're the fourth seed right now. That was a crazy trade.
I saw that.

Speaker 1 My friend was like, yo, Luca just got traded. And I was like, haha.

Speaker 1 And then he's like, no, look. And I was like,

Speaker 1 yeah, I couldn't believe that one. I was like, oh my gosh, how did Mark let that happen? He's not part of it anymore.
Well, he's got a little bit of say in there.

Speaker 1 But I think he didn't even know about it. Really? Yeah.
I think he found out when everyone else did because he wouldn't have let it happen. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Shout out out to Mark, though.
Wow.

Speaker 1 That's the one I look up to. Yeah.
Oh, he's my favorite shark. 100%.
Oh, yeah. I used to watch every episode, and I only cared about what he said, to be honest.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, the other ones were okay, but whenever he spoke, everyone looked. It's facts.
You know what I mean? You can tell when

Speaker 1 the presence shifts in a room with somebody when they speak. You can tell, like, who's really...
like the power in the room. I mean, he was.
I agree. Yeah, he was the billionaire in the room.

Speaker 1 I agree with that. 100%.
Like, whenever he speaks, everyone's listening. Yep.
And yeah, he's a dog, man. Yeah.
Shout out to him. We'll do it.
We'll ball next time you're out here.

Speaker 1 Any, anything you want to close off with here?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So actually

Speaker 1 doing Sipskip allowed me to

Speaker 1 make a lot of connections in the technology space. And

Speaker 1 I actually started a tech company called Austrix with a couple of my coders. And we've hired, we have a team of 15 senior level coders.

Speaker 1 And we make apps, websites, and we do all of the maintenance, the SEO for all of that as well.

Speaker 1 One thing that happened to me, so I was making an app for hot mess, and I made it through an app company. And I had never been in the app space before.

Speaker 1 And I

Speaker 1 got a quote, and I was like, okay, it's cool. Like,

Speaker 1 I can make this app for this much.

Speaker 1 Took way too long, took like a year and a half. And then I get a letter in the mail, like when I have my beta saying, or like an email saying, Hey, we went out of business.
Here's your code.

Speaker 1 Never got on the app store, like

Speaker 1 32K down the drain. Damn.
And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 I got scammed by an app company. And so when I went on Brad Lee's podcast, a lot of people reached out to me with their app ideas and saying, hey, like, is this a good quote?

Speaker 1 Hey, can you make this app? Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And one thing I found across all of these people is that they were getting scammed by the big app companies is because these big app companies have a lot of overhead to cover. They have office spaces.

Speaker 1 They have big teams. They're working on 70 projects at a time.
If they want to do one meeting, they got to bring 10 different people into the meeting. So

Speaker 1 they're basically making an app the cheapest way possible, pumping and dumping. And we at Austrix, the reason why me and these guys started it is because

Speaker 1 I basically, it brought me back two and a half years to it being me. And I was like, I want to help these people.

Speaker 1 We at Austrix, we're cleaning up the app industry. And if you have an app idea and you want to bring it to fruition, go to austrix.com or you can just reach out to me on Instagram.

Speaker 1 And you can talk to us and we'll give you the real quote. Perfect.
And we'll give you the real time. We'll link that below.
That sounds useful, man.

Speaker 1 And we'll link your social, SIP, skip socials as well.

Speaker 1 Perfect. Thanks for coming on, man.
Thanks for watching. Thank you guys next time.
Peace.