1. Joy Gendusa and How an Art School Dropout Started a $100M Business

Why do people actually start a business? 

When do they think they can start a business?

What kinds of internal doubts, fears, and uncertainties do they overcome? 

Is there a magic formula to get started, or, is it simply the gumption and action and the putting of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other to get a business off the ground?

In this inaugural episode, Joy Gendusa, Founder and CEO of PostcardMania, shares her story about how she got started. This is the first of a three-part series with Joy that covers her starting, scaling, and building a $100M business.

From $0 and one person in a small one-room cottage to ~400 employees in a 68,000 sq. ft.  manufacturing plant, she's grown her business to amazing heights. 

Learn the first stage of how she did just that....the Origin Story!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I don't remember what we're talking about. And he looks at me and he goes, Why don't you have your own business? That's about I was 30. I was 30. I'm thinking to myself, are you insane? I don't have no idea how to have my own business. But that stuck with me. Robert Schwartz, Mr. Successful, Asking. Why I don't have my own business. That stuck with me.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Welcome in to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast, where we speak with owners, leaders, and marketers from the world of small business. Look, there's a lot that small business owners can't control. But what they can control is how they grow. And one way to grow, well, it's by learning from other people who have actually done it, who've started businesses, group businesses, and scale businesses, from the folks who are actually doing the work. My name is Chris Foster, and we are going to be speaking with business owners and leaders on their stories, how they passed from fear into focus, how they go from uncertainty to unwavering commitment, how they go from doubt to desire, how they balance all the things that are against them and turn that into energy to fuel their business growth. Brought to you by Postcard Mania, where we're on a mission to help one million small businesses grow through education, marketing, and technology, each episode is packed with insights, real conversations, true stories, and lessons you can learn and apply to your business so that you can grow too. And in this episode, we're going to be speaking with Joy Jindusa. She is the CEO and founder of Postcard Mania, and this is episode one of a three-part episode of how she started her business and her origin story, and the next how she scaled her business, and the third episode about what's next. Look, I've never met anyone who started from scratch and then has built a $100 million business with almost 400 employees. So I want to learn. How did she begin? How did she get started? What was the motivation? What did she have to overcome? We're going to talk about all of that in this episode. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait for you to listen to it. And welcome in to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast. So glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I'm happy to be here. I'm super happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

That's awesome. And I'm really privileged and honored to spend some time with you to learn more about you as an executive, more you learn about the growth of the business. So tell us a little bit about Postcard Mania and how you got very quickly what it's about, and then we'll jump in.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Postcard Mania is a marketing company. It's a marketing company specifically geared towards small businesses. I'm I was a teeny tiny business at one time, and everything that I learned, I really felt like I wanted to share that with other small businesses because I know what the struggle is like. And so we basically cater to small businesses. We do have plenty of clients that are in medium-sized businesses and even larger businesses, but they can they can go. I don't care if they stay or go. Sorry if you're watching. I love you too. No, I just I just feel like the small business owner is my jam. Yeah. And we have about 400 staff here. I think we're at like 389 or something like that. And we've been doing this for 27 years. I started the business in 1998 with really just a phone, a computer. You know, there really wasn't any, I didn't have any formal education or any idea what I was doing, to be honest. So it's been quite a journey and I love it.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Wonderful. Um, I want to talk about that beginning of the journey, right? That everyone loves a good origin story. And so you started the business and you were a designer first, coming out of fine arts school. So talk to me about that moment where you decided that you were going to create a business under your own name.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

It wasn't like one day I said, I'd like to have my own business. This is how it started. I was working for a printer, and I was, he handed me a computer and said, here is a software program. I forget what it's called. It was a Microsoft, it was like Photoshop, but Microsoft's first one that they made. I can't remember what it was called. And he said, please figure out how to do this and figure out how to do some layout using it so that we could help our clients. So I did that, and then I gave birth to James, that's my 33-year-old son. And I said, I have to bring my baby to work because I can't afford a nanny. And so he said, Great, bring the baby to work. And his wife worked there, his ex-wife actually worked there. They worked together for many, many years. And I brought James to work with me every day. And you know, babies take up time and attention, but she was lovely, Betty, his wife, uh Larry and Betty, and Betty would feed him sometimes, sometimes I would, but then he got sick. And the smell of the ink, which I love the smell of ink, was not great for any newborn baby's lines.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

So I said, I'm gonna have to do this from home because I can't bring my baby to work anymore. And Larry said, Do you want to do it freelance? I went, okay, I'll do it freelance. And I was thinking, how do you do that? I don't even have a computer. How am I gonna do that? Because he didn't want to give me a computer.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

So I called my dad and I said, Dad, I need a computer. And it I mean, this was this was a long time ago. This is before 1998. This is pre-post-card mania. This is probably 1992 or three.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Wait a minute. James was born in 1993. So this was 1993, yeah. So my dad bought me a computer. It was a 400-megabyte hard drive.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

It was $5,000. Right. And, you know, fortunately, I grew up with wonderful, wonderful, wonderful parents. Sure. And I would probably want to say that my origin story, I even have an origin story because of them.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

My parents, best people on earth. Wonderful, wonderful parents. I was the big problem in the family. I was the loud, annoying, rebellious, dropout, blah, blah, blah. But whatever I decided to do, my parents would back me up a thousand percent. So my dad said, okay, I'll buy you this computer. Five thousand dollars, you know, you owe me that money. Right. And then I'll just tell you this, and you can cut this out if you want to. He made me pay him back that $5,000. He didn't want the $5,000. He wanted income for the rest of his life. So he said, I want interest only. And I was paying him for such a long time. And finally, years and years later, after I was married to Sam, who was cutting a check, you know, because Sam does all the bills, he wrote blood money on the check. And my dad got a little upset. And he goes, Well, Bernie, I added it up. She's paid you like $10,000 here on $30. You know, like, do you you know, can we call it even now?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

You know, but that's I think that that's an interesting place to start because, you know, um when folks begin their own business, the question, you know, so many go in with uh a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt, and you know, they they might leap before they look, right, in terms of starting something. But you had at least a foundation from your family to say, okay, I've got some support, I've got someone who's going to help me get started and launch. Um I think, and we'll talk about that later, but I think that goes into how you try to pay forward that maybe team as well, because that lesson learned. Yeah. So so you start, you're at home, you decide to freelance, and then you had the idea for creating a postcard for people.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

No, that was way later.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

I was freelancing, I was doing whatever graphic design work I could do. I was doing it for Larry and Betty. And um and then other people found out that I was freelancing. I didn't do any marketing for myself. It was like, oh, do you know Joey Rockwell? I was Joey Rockwell back then. Do you know Joy Rockwell? She can she can do that for you. And I had a gal living next door to me, and she was a real designer, but not no computers. Everything was layout and cut and paste, right? This was the very early days of doing anything on a computer. And she taught me so much more, even than I learned in at the High School of Art and Design, which I dropped out of, but I did learn a lot there. Um, but she taught me more. And I loved my time with her.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And I helped her. I would do layout for her. So instead of her having to go to a typesetter, which is in the old days, you had to go to a typesetter, because she would illustrate designs for like she did dishes for dance and like real design work, and her s her designs and illustrations were put on rugs and dishes and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Did you did you find that she was kind of a kindred spirit in terms of applied arts and applied design?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yes. She was a total inspiration to me, complete and utter inspiration to me. Love her. Her name was her name is Sudy McCullum, which give her a shout out if anybody wants to look up her beautiful, beautiful art online. Um So you know, she she was there for me in the beginning, and she would, she was probably my first freelance client because she and I didn't charge her anything. I was learning from her.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

That's that.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

And I would say, Oh, I can do that for you. You don't have to go all the way to the typesetter. Now the typesetter was this gal, and her name is Joy Milford, and she wound up being my very first employee.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Aaron Powell Okay, so I was gonna ask you who your first employee was, because it's interesting, even now as the start, there's this energy exchange between you and Sudy. You're learning, you're giving, she's giving you, you're giving her, and you're kind of both feeding each other what each other needs.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Aaron Powell I think that's because we're girls. I'm just gonna be straight with you. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Sure. I feel like girls are more nurturing. I feel like um we do have some very nurturing fellas here at Postcard Mania, but it's it's the women I feel like are more want to help.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Aaron Powell Well, and you know what's interesting, I want to talk about that later when I talk about you as an executive. But the idea, and I don't want to lay too much on this, but there are gender differences between female or male executives, ones that are nurturing and collaborative versus ones who are dominant and competitive, right? I think that there is a difference. I think there is a difference there. Um and so your first employee. How did you make that lead? How did you decide, A, you were going to start a business, but B, hire someone?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Good question. So I was freelancing, and then I had some clients that didn't know where to get what I was designing for them printed. And I understood print because I worked for two printers. Sure. I worked for one when I was pregnant with Zachary, my 35-year-old, and then this other printer went with James. And um so I understood print, so I understood how to quote print. So I said, I will get this quoted for you, I will find you the best price and the best place for this particular project for the amount of pieces that you want. Because printer does not equal printer, does not equal printer. They're all different. And I will mark it up 20%, whatever the price is. I'll show you all the prices I get, and then for my time, I will mark it up 20%. Well, that became much more profitable than doing design work for whatever per hour. Sure. Or even I didn't even do hourly. I would say I will design that for you for X, because people are very emotional about their design. So if you as a designer are charging them by the hour and you spend a number of hours to get them something you think is beautiful, and then they hate it, and then they have to pay for more hours. Now that c customer is feeling not good about the whole process.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So I decided since I was new at this, I would just do a flat rate design because I was new at it too. And this computers were new, and I, you know, I bought Photoshop, or my dad bought it for me, um, Photoshop and Illustrator and and um Quark. Remember Quark? Quark Express, I sure remember Quark Express. So I was I was learning these softwares, self-taught, and I said, I can't charge these people by the hour. You know, so that and that turned out to be a really good thing for me. So let's say I charged someone $350 to do a design, but then the printing, the 20% on the printing, I sometimes made like $1,200.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

And I went This is this is where this is all the money from. Yeah. So and I was very, very, very transparent about it. Yeah. So I I couldn't do everything. I couldn't do the design work and get quote, getting the print quoted and follow up, follow up, that everything was produced correctly. I couldn't, yeah. So but I said, Who's gonna do the graphic design? That, you know, that's like an art, you know, so who's gonna do that? And Joy Milford had the she was the only typesetter in town. She had the big typesetting equipment. And I wound up actually, it was my mom. My mom said, Why don't you see if Joy wants to help you? She was already my friend. She goes, Why don't you see if if Joy Milford wants to help you? And I went, that's such a great idea. So I, because I was using her for certain things where it had to be really crisp. I don't really remember exactly why I was using her, but I reached out to her and I said, Hey, would you want to come work for me? And, you know, I can only pay you X, and da-da-da. She was like, she goes, sure. That's great. Okay. And she worked for me 14 years. That's all she retired.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

14. Yeah. So what's interesting about even that choice you made, right, where the dual role of design and then also fulfillment production, et cetera. At that moment, instead of hiring someone to manage the production, you wanted to hire someone to manage the design so you could focus on the production and the quote-unquote business side of it, which was an interesting choice coming at it from an artist's perspective. What about that business side of it excited you?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I don't know. That's a really good question. I don't know if it excited me. It was, I don't even remember being excited. I remember being hungry.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And feeling like, okay, like I now know how to quote this. I understand the marketing. I understand the consult with the client. I've been doing that. They know me now. So I'm good at that. I'm good at communicating. So I didn't have that would be much harder to turn over than the design side of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So that's why I kept it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

That makes sense to me. And also I think what's interesting is when you roll that even origin story out to policy, at postcard Mania, we don't charge by the hour for design. It's a flat fee. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's actually a lost leader. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. It's a lost leader, right? And then you also have or we also have consultants like that inner that really work with SMBs. So the core of what the very first founding of the business is now played out at scale. True. X number of years later, which I think is an interesting through line. So, you know, so you hired your first employee. And then when did you decide or think that this was going to be a going concern, that this was going to be a quote unquote business that you could do?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Trevor Burrus, I I landed a really big client that became like 90% of our revenue.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Uh-huh. That's not unusual, by the way, for businesses to start that way.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah. And um I watched other vendors of that business. As that business grew, it grew I I grew with that business. They were tiny, they grew really fast. And I watched other vendors go by the wayside. And one day the owner of that business, you know, came to me and he was like being real bossy. Oh, he made me get a cell phone. That was my first cell phone, was one of those big fat ones. Because he wanted to tell me. The big brick. Yeah, he won PrimeNet. Remember Prime Net? That's awesome. And he like got it for me. He was like, You you need to I need to be able to reach you whenever. So that that was the first thing where I was like, ugh, I'm not that into this big company telling me what to do. So anyway, he was 90% of my business, and I watched these other vendors go away, and he wanted to, he was putting the squeeze on me for pricing or something. I mean, we were doing all kinds of crazy stuff for him that was not just printing, but like really being a solution for him, almost like a division of his business. We were packaging up the product into a box that we designed and printed. And I go, Oh, we'll do it, we'll do it. And I just got people, hands. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I was doing piece, I was charging by the piece and I was paying by the piece. You could do that back then.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And um, so I was just really um resourceful. And I would say, how can I charge for this? How can I charge for that? And so I already forgot the question. Where were we going?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Well, at the there was a point in that where you decided that you're gonna make this your business. Like because you're gonna you're gonna commit to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I wanted to get to the transition of postcard mania. That's where I was going with that. Um, because that wasn't Postcard Mania yet. That was Joy Rockwell Enterprises.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Roger.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

And and actually it was Joy Rockwell Design. My name was Joy Rockwell and it was Joy Rockwell Design. And then I started selling print, so people were making checks out to Joy Rockwell printing. And then the guy at the bank said, just call it Joy Rockwell Enterprises on the account. And then that way anything, Joy Rockwell, anything we could put in the account. So that's how my that's the Postcard Mania is actually Joy Rockwell Enterprises, DBA Postcard Mania. And so I didn't, in terms of scaling, I was just very, very resourceful, but I didn't like being owned by one big client, and I didn't like not having time for other clients, and I didn't like I didn't like someone giving me a cell phone so they could call me whenever they want. Sure. You know? So, you know, I I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I'll let you take it from here. Well, no, but no, there's because there's a moment where then you say, yeah, I mean, I can just do this myself, right? And I feel comfortable and I know my business, I know how to do this. And so then you you started postcard mania, you had a person, right? Joy is your designer. Who is your second hire, or your third hire, I should say? No, actually, it's your second, your second. Who's the other person?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

I have to remember who the second person was. God, I wish we had Melissa in here because she was not my second hire. But I hired her. I started Postcard Mania in June of '98, and I hired Melissa in October.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Of of '98. Yes. All right. So Melissa Bradshaw is the president of Postcard Mania.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yes. She was 19. So she's 47 now.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So so the idea though is that you you brought X number of months, right? Kind of first employees. So I love this moment and this story where you've got a handful of people.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, we I we as Joy Rock will enterprises before we were postcard mania, I probably got up to a ton of temporary people. Yeah. And I can't remember who my second I can't remember who it was. There was a guy, David, who worked with me for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, but but Melissa becomes part of the firmament. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Melissa is like my right arm. She's she's like the most solid, loyal, like she's like, I could not have done any of this without Melissa.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Because I I can't do anything by myself.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Well, and well, also too, as a collaborative person, you want that those other people to be a part of it. But but also too, I think that um as she came in, there's a part of her that believed in you, but there's a part of you that believed in her.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Well, this is a cute story, actually.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

So she Is this like a meet cute, like a rom-com?

SPEAKER_00 20:48

This is a cute story. She so Joy Milford, and Joy, if you ever see this podcast, I she was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I love Joy Milford. Her son, actually, David, is our electrician now. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So Joy Milford was like a bit of a curmudgeon. She wouldn't disagree. She would not disagree with that. And she was became the production manager. Like Joy Milford was the designer, but then she was also handling the clients. And designers don't want to talk to clients because clients don't like what they did or they have changes and they're artists. And Joy would just get like annoyed that she had to wear this hat. So I said to Melissa, I need you to become the production manager, and I you will be Joy Milford's boss. And Melissa's looked at me with these big scared eyes, and she goes, I can't I can't be her boss. She's like she's like 87 years old. She goes, How can I be her boss? She's kind of like in a bad mood all the time. I go, You can and you will, because I need you to. Because I could see right away Melissa was special. When I hired Melissa, I hired her as an assistant. And she took my kids to school and she answered the phones, and the phone. We had no receptionists, and we were tiny. So she answers the phone the first time, and she has this little tiny voice, and she's like, Joey Rockwell, and I'm gonna say how can I help you? So cute. I just would imitate her all the time. And she would put the person on hold, and we were in this, we were in a little cottage now, not at my house. And she would put the person on hold and she would shout, Okay, I've got so-and-so on the phone, and they have this question. Somebody answer it. Like she was a boss. Right. She was a 19-year-old boss. So she was fantastic. So I knew that like she would handle the customers great. She, I would hear her on the phone with customers after that. She was always the one who could get more with honey than vinegar. Right. Like, you know, she just was good. And one time she gave me probably one of the most special gifts I've ever gotten. And it was this little handmade pot with script writing around it, like some thrown pot, you could tell by the way it was painted, that somebody wrote around it and it said, I believed in me because you believed in me. And I don't know where it is. I think it might be in my pantry.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

But it's also in your heart and your mind.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

It's in my heart and my mind. Yeah. She she really was just so good at assimilating what was correct and what was incorrect, so that she would know what should be done and what shouldn't be done. And to this day, she's exactly like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Sure. You know, but it's interesting too that, you know, you f saw that in her where she might not have seen it in herself. You know, and then as you started to then hire more people, um, did you realize that that was a trait and a characteristic of you to find talent?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I discovered that. I mean, I, you know, I'm I never really thought that much of my abilities back then. I didn't think poorly of myself, but I wasn't like, I am really good at this or I am really good at that at that point in time. But I discovered that I am really good at hiring. And even better than that, I'm really good at keeping people wanting to work for me. Sure. And that is a craft. That is an art.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

And and I'm probably more proud of that than anything else in post-gradia's history is the people, the amazing people that I have that stayed with me all these years.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Well, it's a gift. And I think that that, you know, what's interesting to me is that as just looking at the business as a whole and as it grows and matures, there's a moment of of scale where you have to um hire more people. And then then suddenly at some point of time, you're not the one hiring. The person you hired is hiring. So there has to be this sensibility that's passed from you know one person to the next in terms of what you're looking for. Like you said, Melissa knows kind of what to do and what not to do. And so as the business scales then, um, you know, what did you A, the business started to grow. But then my question for you, Joy, is how did the business grow you? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

I mean, I am such a different person than I was when I started this business. I didn't know anything. I mean, I didn't know anything. And it amazes me how much I know. And I mostly learned everything from my customers. I mean, I learned about all these different businesses. Um, first of all, I'm a salesperson. I don't like not every artist is a salesperson. And but every business owner is a salesperson, or they're not going to be in business for very long. You really have to be able to sell. And I feel like I had this job. I had this job where I was selling vacation packages over the phone. I mean, this is so long ago. They would send out direct mail and somebody would get this thing saying, You won this vacation package, and you have to call this 800 number. And then I would be one of the people in this big phone room picking up I love it. I love it. And basically I had a script, and I would do the script, and then if the person had an objection, we sat in these little tiny cubicles and they had these um objection answers. Yeah, yeah, all over the wall. And you basically only had to memorize where each one was because they had this down to a science. Right. And it was $400. We weren't trying to get $400 out of the people to go on some kind of cruise.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

And so they did win, but there was, you know, taxes and this and that or whatever, and it was $400. They didn't really win. I mean, everybody won. So I was like, this is genius. This is freaking genius. And I got really good at handling these objections because I was really good at memorizing where they were on the wall, and I was really good at saying them in a tone of voice that was sincere. Sure. And at the end of the objection, at the end of every handling, I should say at the objection handling, you ask for a credit card at every one of them. You might do 10 objection handlings, and at the very end, you have to say, how would you like to pay for that?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Visa or MasterCard. And we were trained to say this. But a lot of the guys didn't feel comfortable. They went, Oh, I can't say this again. I can't possibly say this again. It's so it sounds so canned. I can't, you know. So I was like a top, top producer. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Because you habitualized. I did exactly what I was told. I figured you figured this out. Right. You have a whole business here. I'm going to do what I was told. So I became a top, top producer. I wound up hiring the person who hired me to be a salesperson at PostgreMania years and years and years ago. Yeah, yeah. Like she's not here anymore, but she did wind up coming to work for me at some point. Trevor Burrus, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

But that's interesting because, you know, as that creates a that not creates it, that requires a discipline. And it requires a humility, and it requires the recognition that someone has worked something out before me. They've given me a formula to follow. If I just follow this formula, I'm going to be successful. So, you know, sure, you can be nervous and you can be nervous. I'm going to follow the formula and I'm going to win. I'm going to be the top producer.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

100%. So when I started my business, I had that sales experience in the background. Because all I'd ever done before in my business is I was a server, but and I worked at the vacation package.

unknown 28:32

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Which was which actually, though, was a critical experience.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

It was a critical experience. And another one was I worked for this guy, Robert Schwartz. And I love Robert. Love Robert. And he had a business that was he put 300 kiosks in malls at the holiday times, at Christmas times.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

And he sold fake gold in these kiosks. 300 of them. And I was hired for a seasonal work. And I was doing my freelance work at the time, my my graphic design freelance. James was a baby when I worked for him. And but it was always seasonal. You know, it was like October, November, December, or something like that. And the and maybe we started a little early because I was on the hiring lines. I had to hire people to man these kiosks. And I wound up meeting Will Thorne, who you don't know. Will Thorne passed away. July will be two years. He was my VP finance. He was with me 24 years. And I met him there. We became great, great, great friends. But I digress. I worked for Robert Schwartz, and when Robert But you were hiring for Robert Schwartz. I was hiring for Robert Schwartz.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

So so here's another piece. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Another piece, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

That you learned how to hire.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

I did. I learned how to hire. He didn't necessarily teach me the things I how I how to choose. Maybe they did teach me that. I don't remember that necessarily. I don't remember like taking anything with me away from that job except this. Robert was driving me home. I guess my car broke down or something. So Robert was driving me home. And we were sitting, and he was like in his like BMW convertible, like he was a successful guy. And he's driving me home, and we were sitting talking in in front of my house and we're chatting about something. Such a such an affable guy. You'd love Robert Schwartz. He's very much like you. And we're I don't remember what we're talking about. And he looks at me and he goes, Why don't you have your own business? How old was I? James was born in 93. So James was a baby. I was born in 64. So it was like 30, almost 30. Yeah. I was 30. I was 30. I'm thinking to myself, are you insane? I don't have I have no idea how to have my own business. But that stuck with me. Robert Schwartz, Mr. Successful, asked for me why I don't have my own business. That stuck with me.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

You know what's interesting too is I, you know, I've never met the man, but I commend Robert Schwartz for making that as a question and not a statement. Instead of a you should, it was why aren't you? Right? Which is a really interesting way because a you should is easy to be dismissed. Like don't tell me what to do. But why aren't you plants that question in your mind that you can't help but mull over.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Yeah, he really, you know because it forces an answer.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah. It requires an answer to that question.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

And I was kind of like a like a low on the totem pole, you know, he had employees that worked for him for years, that the whole year through, whatever. But we're still friends to this day. And he he said to me, like he told me about me that I didn't realize about myself was that I take a hundred percent ownership of my role. And that that's like the ideal employee.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

And that he didn't, you know, that he really admired my how I took full ownership. And so I didn't ever think about that of as myself. I just thought I was a ne'er do well that was going from job to job and had two little babies and was married to a guitar player.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

So Yeah, but that was that was a previous definition you had of in your own mind of kind of who you were as the maybe the label or the surface of kind of how you might appear to other people, but it really wasn't you. I mean, I think that, you know Clearly. Clearly. But at the time, I mean it was you had to kind of peel away some of those things to figure out, you know, I this this is the thing that I can do and I understand about myself.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, I wasn't, I was never very self-reflective person. I'm not now either. I was never one of those introspective trying to figure out why I do certain things. I mean, I I was more like busy, busy, busy, sure. Busy trying to survive.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Well, we are gonna have to leave it at that for episode one. Right as the cliffhanger. She's busy, busy, busy trying to survive. I love it. Great work, Joy Jandusa. Just fantastic. So, what did I learn from Joy? You know, I learned that when small businesses start, they don't have all the answers. Right? It's a leap of faith. An entrepreneur makes this bet on themselves, and someone asked her, Why don't you have your own small business? Why don't you have your own business? And she's like, you know, why don't I? I guess I don't know how to do it, but maybe I do. And she started. And you know what? Without a grand design, without the vision of, I'm gonna be a hundred million dollar business in 20 years, she couldn't know that. She just started the work. She just started the business. You know, and as she starts moving along, putting one foot in front of the other, making improvements, and just getting started, suddenly the business begins, and she has a business to work on. So in the next episode, we'll talk about how she scales postcard mania. Make sure you listen in for that. And thank you for coming in and listening to the Everywhere Small Business Podcast.