Boot Krewe Media: From Passion to Profession with Ross Thevenot

Alright, good morning everybody. Welcome to the Overruled podcast brought to you by the Scott Vicknair Law firm. I am flying solo this morning in New Orleans. I don’t have Brad or Caitlyn as a guest host, but I am really honored to have a good friend of mine and the founder of B-Crew Media, Ross Stevanot, in here. And, you know, Ross, I’m really excited to get into, to learn a lot about how you all started B-Crew Media and the different aspects of what it’s doing. Obviously, we’re in our Scott Vicknair shirts, our matching. Our matching Scott Vicknair and, B-Crew Media shirts. And, sometimes, I like to joke whenever I wear this shirt, I feel like a professional golfer. But if you came to the, city park driving range and watched me hit about four consecutive chili peppers, you would know that it’s only in my mind. Well, you would look like the rest of us. Alright, so I just want to dive straight in here. Ross, can you tell our listeners a little bit about B-Crew Media, like what it does, what the goal of the company is, and just kind of, let’s just jump straight in.

Yeah, so we started B-Crew Media three, four years ago. And really, you know, the genesis of it was my partner and I wanting to talk about the Pelicans. You know, at the time, podcast and sort of digital media as a whole, things happening on YouTube, all of that is, is, has gone, has come a long way, I think, over the last four or five years. When we were, you know, really starting to talk about this, you know, we were season ticket holders and, you know, the team had ups and downs and, and what we were really looking for was like, man, I kind of want somebody just to talk about the team the way we talk about the team or cover the team the way, like we would want, you know, people to talk about it. And there wasn’t a lot of that happening. Obviously, you have your traditional local media outlets and, and newspaper guys and stuff. And they, they do a great job of, of covering the box scores and all of that, but we were looking for something a little more passionate, a little more, you know, every day. And so we, we cranked up a podcast and, and the next thing we know, it, it, you know, kind of took off and, and what it, what really happened was others were seeing, oh, wow, you know, you can do this and maybe you can get some things off your chest or, hey, we’ve got, you know, a little, a little following, we can talk about the Saints this way, or we can, discuss business things, or, we really like the Bachelorette and a lot of other girls watch the Bachelorette, like we can go and talk about that. And it’s kind of just become a fun platform, I think, and it grew from there.

That’s interesting. So tell, tell our guests a little bit, please Ross, about a little bit about you and your co-founder Justin, where y’all are from, like, because I think that is inherently kind of part of the business, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Justin and I, both from Louisiana. Justin from here, me from Lake Charles. You know, I played football at Tulane and we kind of, you know, became friends through other New Orleans folks and, and kind of bonded over, I think a love of sports. He’s, he’s played sports his whole life. And has been a local basketball coach for a few different high schools here for, poof, ten plus years now. And, and same for me. I’ve really, I’ve really had a love of sports, like I said, played in college. You know, at various times we’ve both been season ticket holders for the Saints and Pelicans. So it’s just something we’ve been passionate about. And, it’s been really fun to watch the growth of, of this little business that we started together because it, you know, it’s both a passion project and it’s something now that, you know, we’re able to do a little more with and we’ve developed some relationships and, you know, now we’re covering the teams in the building every day and it’s just, it’s been a lot of fun. What, tell the audience a little bit, please Ross, about like the different umbrellas y’all have as far as what y’all do cover because it’s not just the Saints and Pelicans. It’s really kind of, and I’ve been watching the, you know, we have a close relationship with B-Crew, but been watching it as it grows. I was hoping you’d just kind of give the lay of the land for all the different sports and different programming that y’all have going on right now.

Yeah, so it, it, it’s gone in a lot of different directions. But what we really wanted to tap into was kind of the essence of Louisiana in general, right? What are things that the region is interested in? You know, obviously, you know, food and culture and music and all of that stuff is really important to folks that live here. And so we’ve got, I think a variety of topics and social media accounts and podcasts that cover the things that people are interested in. You know, we’ve partnered with, with, you know, local foodies to do, food reviews and to do, you know, cocktail ideas. We’ve got, like I said, some, some girls that do a big Bachelorette thing every week. It’s a lot of fun. You know, we’re covering the local sports teams. We’ve got folks out there at Tulane doing things. So it’s, it’s been fun to, for not just to be sports, but also to have all of these community aspects because, you know, as we know living in New Orleans, there’s a million things going on at any, at any given time.

And I think it’s interesting, something that you said right at the beginning and describing B-Crew Media, and personally, I think it may have an application to anybody who’s thinking about starting a business and why y’all have been successful. Just from my perspective on the outside looking in. You know, it’s lots of lots of sports coverage here locally, lots of coverage of stuff here. But when I stumbled across B-Crew Media, the thing I immediately sensed about it was that it was local and it had a sense of itself. And it was almost as if it wasn’t like you were watching this national brand, like a Barstool Sports. Nothing against them, they do a great job and I love Barstool, well, I’m sure a lot of people who follow B-Crew also follow Barstool. But you really almost had a sense that it was somebody who was talking about the sports that we grew up following and loving. And how important has that, that been, do you think to the company’s growth?

It’s, it’s been the most important thing. I mean, I think as, as Justin and I have sort of talked with other folks, the most important thing for us is that, like, we’re not trying to grow outside of this. And so it’s understanding both who we are and what we want to do. I’m not looking to go, expand into Missouri. I don’t care about Missouri. We want to cover the things that we know, that we like, that our friends and relatives and, and business associates know and like. And so, I think that’s been, that’s been why this has stayed sort of refreshing for us, is that it’s, it’s the things we want. It’s the things that we see every day. It’s, it’s the things that our friends talk about over the lunch room or sitting on a bar stool. And so, that’s kind of why we wanted to do this in the first place and I think it’s, it’s, it’s really the centerpiece for, for our growth. Did you ever think that you would, when y’all, you said you and Justin were like talking about just wanted to talk about the Pelicans. Did you ever think you’d like now be running a digital media company?

Oh god, no. God, no. We laugh all the time that we still don’t even have a clue what we’re doing. No, it’s, it, it has been an incredible journey, I think, because we really had no idea that this is where this would go. We, you know, we started our little Pelicans podcast, the next thing we know, COVID hit, everybody went home and was playing on their computer. And, and we were getting calls weekly, hey, like what are you guys doing? This is cool and interesting and fun, we like watching y’all, but like we have this idea. So after you feel that phone call like 10 times, we kind of looked at each other and were like, maybe we need to like, figure out what’s going on here and maybe there’s a broader base or a way to grow this to where we can, you know, let other folks sort of have in on the fun, if you will. And it went from there, but no, I, I say that in jest, but I’m being serious, we, we really do, we, we learned something new, we are not IT guys, we are not media guys, we are not marketing guys. We have had to learn every step of this from, you know, how to grow a social media account all the way to, you know, the very beginning of, hey, what microphone do you get? And that’s kind of a, you know, a really, really full circle, big picture and there’s a lot of steps in between there. And, and there’s certainly been some growing pains with that. Yeah. I mean, and the content just seems to, how do you, you know, explain the, the content just seems to keep getting better. From my perspective, I’ll give you a small anecdote, a story is a couple of my friends separately text me. Since the law firm has done a lot of collaboration with B-Crew Media, hope to do it forever, and grow with B-Crew, I’ve got some, a ton of friends who now are Oden and followers and, a couple like texted me separately the other day and like just really loved the, laughing at and loved the AI, dressed, Brian Kelly in Kim Mulkey. Kim Mulkey clothes gear. It’s just, Brian Kelly’s there with the Boas and all this stuff. It’s just funny, it’s hilarious and also, you know, people are like, especially here we use AI a lot in our business. But what is the content journey been like on improving the content and making it constant and better for your followers.

Yeah, well, I’ll tell you this and I think, one of the things that has helped me and in basically everything I’ve done is just being honest with myself. I’m awful. I can barely use a phone. I’m serious. I’m I’m not a computer guy. I like I think my wife wishes I was better at text messaging and, and, you know, posting pictures and all that. I’m not good at it. And I think understanding that has allowed Justin and I to say like, hey, we’ve got to go find people that are passionate about this part of it, that are better at this. And so, the good thing is, there’s this whole generation of folks that are, that are, you know, even younger than you and I, that really, really understand the algorithms and the type of content that folks want to see and the stuff people care about and, and are able to help us thread that needle, if you will, of, hey, how much is, you know, what is too much? What is not enough? What is, you know, the best editing option for this type of stuff. And so, we continue to, I think, bring on really, really talented folks, you know, either part time or freelance, and, and some of that is just us looking around and saying, hey, I really like what that person’s doing. Let’s, let’s see if they want to do some stuff with us. So, understanding your skill sets, and, and, and finding out how best to, to utilize what you do and what you don’t have to help you grow. I think it’s important. I mean, that goes for any business, right? Yeah, I couldn’t, you know, I, I try to say it all the time, especially around here, is like, a lot of what you’re talking about is humility. Which I think is like the most underrated but most important leadership skill in life. Humility makes you realize you don’t know everything because we don’t, we’re trying to get better every day, right? And learn new things, but it also helps you do what y’all have done really well, is find the people in the areas that you need to find them and let them excel. I call it like finding the right person and put them in the right seat. Sometimes you got, sometimes you have the right person just in the wrong seat, right? And you got to rearrange them around a little bit. That’s right. And see if they can be do something in a different area. But I think that has definitely contributed to you and Justin’s success. No, I mean, just like allowing yourself to not be arrogant and thinking you know everything and find the people to help the company excel and grow. Yeah, and again, it, we stumbled upon this. It wasn’t, you know, I won’t say it was by accident, but it sure wasn’t on purpose, right? We, we wanted to just do this one little thing and, and next thing we knew, it kind of expanded and so we were forced to find people and, and others, that just knew more than we did about this space because we knew nothing. Right. I mean, we, we really are. We learned something new about this every single week and that’s what makes it fun and refreshing. So, you start, covering the Pelicans and just wanting to chat about the Pelicans with Justin, right? And then, what happens next? Like how do you get to from that was back in what 2019 when y’all started, kind of launched it? Give us like the progression, like how did you, I mean, now you have full Pelicans coverage, which I think y’all have, I think y’all have Pelicans players come on y’all, y’all shows and stuff now. And then, and now you’ve got full Saints coverage and, and really good Saints coverage by the way. And so how do you, how do you get it from like, walk us that journey and our listeners for that journey to like Justin and I want to talk about the Pelicans, or into where you are now.

Yeah, so it, you know, it started exactly where you said and I think one of the tricky parts for us in this process has been finding the alley of what you can and can’t say and what’s right and what’s wrong because when we started it was, you know, I don’t, we don’t know anyone, anything, we have no relationships with anyone. If we thought the team stunk, we got on and said the team stunk, right?

And you would have probably been right a lot of times.

And at the time, yeah, at the time we, you know, we were going through coaching changes and it, it wasn’t very good. And so I think a lot of people took to that because it was honest, and it was, you know, at times it was raw, and at times it was, you know, the truth that you don’t normally see, I think maybe on your six o’clock news, right?

And that helped us grow at the time. But what we, what we really kind of started to realize was, hey, there’s there’s like another level of this that requires a little more access, right?

You, you know, you can pick up so much going to a game, but, you know, it’d be great to maybe ask a coach a question after a game or, you know, it’d be great to catch a player after practice. And so over time that led to us building, I think some really strong relationships and the team seeing that the teams, seeing that we were serious about this and it was something that we wanted to do, but in a different way.

But that takes a while. They’re not, you know, the owners of these teams or, the general managers or the communications folks aren’t just gonna let anybody in the building with a press pass.

So it took time, but now we are fully credentialed with the Pelicans, the Saints, LSU and Tulane. And so we’ve, you know, I think we’ve been able to continue to have our honesty and continue to have that sort of edge that I think a younger viewer wants to see while also having the respectability, and kind of the legitimacy to go in the building and have folks that are professional that ask questions that cover the team in the right way, that do some of that traditional, you know, box score analysis, who’s starting, who’s out, who’s hurt.

And we’ve been able to sort of, I think merge those into one big thing that has allowed us to kind of become, you know, one of the major players here locally and in this space.

Okay. One thing you just said made me think of something, I was thinking about it the other day, I was listening to a podcast. I listen a lot to law firm, growth podcast, which anybody who’s not growing a law firm could care less about.

But, one of the thing discussion items on that podcast was really kind of, one point, right?

And something similar to what you just said was talking about social and digital content creation.

Right? So if we have somebody listening right now and like thinking about creating digital and social content for their company and one of the, one of the things that this discussion kind of kicked on this podcast was how so many times people trying to make the content perfect is leads to inaction.

And that many times people just kind of relate to imperfect content because it’s raw, it’s real, it’s you look goofy. I mean, I’ve get uncomfortable. We’re talking about the pizza reviews before we start the show.

I mean, Kyle’s like sitting back there, Kyle’s an actor and he’s really comfortable on the camera. I’m not. And so I have to get used to it, right?

But I wonder if not there’s something to that with y’all and I was hoping you could talk to that. It’s like, how successful is digital content that y’all do? Do you think because it’s just real. And it’s not perfect, but you’re putting it out there constantly and you’re giving people something they can relate to.

Yeah, no, that’s a good question and it does play a little bit to our strategy and I think it again, you know, it goes back to how we started of not knowing what we were doing.

We have now learned how to edit and do a lot of that stuff, but we really don’t do very much of it.

If we go on for a podcast or a live show, what are you going to do, right?

If you’re if we’re live at a bar, right? We’ve we’ve done some, you know, some really great live shows where we’ve had, you know, hundreds of people. There’s no going back. I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got 100 people sitting there, you figured it out or you don’t.

And I think what you get is that people don’t expect it to be perfect. Like they don’t want it to be perfect. This isn’t, you know, us putting in a CD when we were, you know, in high school and listening to, a song being recorded. It’s like, they know what they’re getting.

And that’s again, that goes to that sort of honesty. It’s, we’re not faking it. Like there are times a cuss word slips out, well, well, like, right? I mean, it just, things, things like that happen and I, again, I think it is, it’s the audience that we’re looking for and I think we are what that audience is looking for, both from a content, creation perspective and from, you know, what they’re wanting, from content coverage.

So at some point, you, you start, y’all started the company, you’re doing it as a passion project and a hobby, but I’m assuming there’s maybe a fulcrum point or two or three where you’re like, okay, we’ve really got something here, we really want to go all in and we want to commit our time, the most valuable resource is your time, right?

The time that you allocate to this or your work is coming away from your family, coming away from your personal, you know, pursuits. So you can allocate your time and money to grow in this business. What are, walk us through, maybe through a couple of fulcrum points where you were like, we’re going to jump off the ledge and we’re going to kind of put all our chips in the table and grow this thing.

Yeah, it’s, you know, the, it’s not different than you guys, right? I think, you know, in certain cases, maybe from a law firm perspective, it’s, it’s wanting to chase bigger cases or something like that. I think for us it was, you start to see that listener base and the and the subscriber base and things like that really grow and it’s like you would do something and the next thing you knew, you had five hundred new subscribers or not 500 new followers or something. And we haven’t really like chased that in the way of some other people because we’ve wanted to stay true to sort of what we’re doing here and if people like it, great and if they don’t, well, there’s, you know, somebody else you can, you can get your information from.

But it, it has been sort of, I think the, the part that’s important and it’s that we want to create things that people want to see.

And so yeah, there’s been a lot of points like that, I think, but it, it happens over time because I’ll tell you, as many, as many times where we’ve said, hey, we really have something here, we’ve had just as many of those moments where Justin and I looked at each other and then like, this thing might be dead in the water.

And because we’re passionate about it and because it’s local and because it’s things that we’re already doing, we’ve stuck with it. And we’ve stuck with it and we’ve stuck with it. But there’s been a lot of times where we’ve said like, I don’t know what else to do.

You know, we’ve, we’ve sort of, we’ve hit a snag or whatever. And then as soon as you do that, you kind of stick with it. Next thing you know, something pops, right? You get a player that wants to do an interview or you get a, a, you know, something happens.

The Saints go on a run or whatever. And it and it kind of reinvigorates everything. But it’s like everything else, there’s ebbs and flows. And we’ve certainly made a lot of mistakes. But with us being small and having a you know, a relatively small team, it’s allowed us to say to stay nimble, to stay agile, to, to, you know, change to the market, kind of in real time. And that’s again, these are not things that are specific to Boot Creek Media or to the media industry or anything like that.

I mean, it, every business, you, you’ve got to stay agile and you’ve got to, you know, you’ve got to change as your market changes.

We’re, you’re talking about kind of, I’m just giggling in my head, listening to it because it’s like the constant journey of a business owner, right?

I mean, it’s like imposter syndrome mixed in with like the struggle of like consistent consistency. And I just kind of always come back to like, you know, success is always achieved, from a perspective of like being consistent and working hard because the imposter syndrome is always going to creep in, right?

Where you’re like questioning whether the company is really viable, is it really as great as you think it is, right?

The joke for us is, you know, the whole everybody uses this thing, but right, fake it till you make it. And for Justin and I, it’s, it’s kind of been, if fake it till you make it. And then, you got to make it till we have to fake it again, right?

Because we know at some point that’s coming. And it just, you’ve got to fight through the valleys and realize, hey, if this is what you want to do or this is what’s fun for you or this is what you’re passionate for you.

You stick with it and, you know, you find new ways to, you know, to evolve. Yeah. And I think something, we’re talking about y’all’s content earlier and especially feeding through the peaks and valleys.

I’ve noticed over time and following y’all, that the content has become more voluminous and more consistent.

What tips or tricks can you share with our listeners who are thinking, you know, not in a digital media industry, but in any type of company, like what are some tips that you have as far as like the things that you’ve seen succeed in digital content?

Yeah, follow your data. I think is the most important one. It, if you are following the trends and paying attention to what parts of your own content are succeeding or what pieces of your own content are excelling or getting more eyes.

It, it’s very honest. I mean, the truth is sitting right there in front of you.

You’ve just got to be willing to take an honest look at it and say, hey, we got to do more of this and less of that.

Right? And, you know, maybe that hurts some feelings, maybe that, maybe that forces you to change something that you didn’t think you were going to have to change kind of on the fly, but as opposed to some other things I’ve done in my life, that’s what’s really, really refreshing about this is that we’re at a place with data and analytics that it’s just so honest.

And it’s and it’s so, it you get it so quickly. You know, you don’t have to wait a month for feedback.

You, you really, really get it quickly. And that I think for me is the absolute biggest part of understanding strategy and figuring out how to grow. It’s right there in front of you.

Yeah, that’s such a good, good tip. And I mean, I, I have to highlight it because I do feel like a lot of small businesses when they’re starting out, really just struggle because everything feels subjective.

Like decisions on employees and whether you need to fire them and make a change or decisions on different things are all there’s not enough sophistication and data analysis to really make it objective.

And I’m just like you, I’m like, I love now in different areas of the firm, which we’re not where we need to be, right?

But I love having objective data to make decisions because you can’t make intelligent decisions without completely objective data, no subjectivity left to it, right?

And that’s one of the benefits of digital media. Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s, you can combine that, you know, and any business owner will tell you, you got to trust your gut too, right?

It, you’ve got the data, you’ve got the analytics and then you’ve got to, you’ve got to trust your gut. Because yes, it’s, yes, it’s honest and it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a truthful look at sort of where you’re at and that period of time.

But the truth is things can change too. And I think if your gut is telling you, ah, need to stick with this strategy for another week or two, or month, you know, you’ve got to make a choice.

And that’s the hardest part about being a decision, I mean, a business owner, right?

Is that, you know, there’s a lot of choices to make, some right, some wrong and that’s why you get those peaks and valleys that we just talked about.

And no doubt, and you’re also, I’ve, I’ve just kind of become accustomed to and accepted that in the marketing sphere, like we’re going to lose money and we’re going to make a lot of mistakes. But put them in marketing is just that gumbo, I call it a gumbo pot of like you throw some ingredients in there that just aren’t going to taste right.

And you just don’t put them in the gumbo anymore. Right? You just set learning curve. And you’re, so much of y’all’s business is marketing. So if you’re not open to that, then you’re probably not gonna have much success, right?

Oh, that’s exactly right. Yeah, it, finding what works is not a, it’s not a straight line.

Yeah. It’s sometimes you got to go backward a little bit, just like you said.

So tell me, a little bit about as far as like, I’m a big fan of stealing ideas from other people. One of my role models, Barbara Corcoran on Shark Tank, business role model. She’s, famous for

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to find that information. What are some of the other potential digital media company, I mean, did y’all think about modeling yourself after somebody else or a group of other types of companies? Can you kind of tell me a little bit about that? Who are you following and seeing what they’re doing and trying to do similar things or achieve those types of results? You make a great point, with Barbara’s quote there and it’s a really good question. I think it’s probably the first thing that most business owners do when they have an idea, right? Well, who’s who’s doing this well? Right. Or who’s doing the type of thing that I want to do in an interesting way? For us, it, it, it kind of fell back to a handful of different, you know, digital media companies. They don’t all look and act the same either. We really like, I mean, you can’t ignore Barstool in the space. They’re just so big. I, I think in a lot of ways, they were really the, they were first. And not only have they, you know, because they were first, they’ve gotten so big, but they’re really, really good at it. And there were things that they’d do and have done that we thought were really interesting. Now, we don’t love everything Barstool does, but there were some things, especially when they started and it was really hyper local to Boston, and we thought that was really cool. Because it again, for us, it was never about even in the broader region, but definitely not from a national perspective. We never have ambitions to grow like that. It’s just not what we want to do. And so I think we took a look at, you know, where Barstool was 10 years ago when it was just really hyper focused to Boston and they, you know, Portnoy was doing the Patriots stuff and they were really focused on the Red Sox, and they were just doing local community stuff, doing live shows from bars and stuff. That appealed to us. And then another one that’s really interesting that you may not have heard of is called DNVR. It’s basically the Denver version of us. Now they’re a lot bigger than we are. But we really, really liked the work that they do. They, they seem I think most similar to us from sort of threading that needle of honest coverage of the teams, covering, you know, local culture, events, festivals, food. They really cover the gamut of Denver and they do it in a way that’s both that kind of traditional media, but the honest look of it too. And then I think just from a, a kind of a content perspective, they’ve stayed on that front end of it, it looks really cool. They do a great job. Interesting. And a couple of things. I appreciate the honesty, right? Like, because you can’t, like, ignore Barstool, they’re like the first one in y’all’s space. And, and the elephant in the room, but at the same time, in any industry, when you have like a giant, and now they’re a giant, right? Of that size. They have inherent weaknesses that, you know, that y’all don’t. They’re not local. You know, I mean, they don’t really like, they’re not hyper focused on the local focus that y’all have, like DNVR. I, I had not heard of DNVR. And so that gives you some inherent strengths competitively, right? Yeah, and you, you fight less, I think, you know, the bigger you get, the more, well obviously the more dead weight but there is, right? It gets harder to pay attention to everything. But then you have to fight harder for where’s your focus? Is it just purely on getting as many eyes on as many things as possible? For us, it’s not really that. It’s, it’s about getting as many eyes on this very, very specific thing that we want people to watch and sort of join in with us on. So, I don’t know. Yeah, that there’s, there’s certainly, benefits to being that big. But for us, it’s, it’s more about this hyper local thing that we’ve got going on. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about as far as, so once, I mean, not to go back to Barstool, but they, they did really well on merchandise. And that was a big, plan of theirs and strategy. How important is merchandise to the future of, of Boot Crew or is that just not really something that’s a high priority y’alls? I mean, I know y’all offer some of it on the website. Go to bootcrewmedia.com. If you’re listening to this, check it out. Yeah, so if you, you talked about inflection points earlier. I would say when we got into merchandising, that was when Boot Crew Media really took off. We had, had kind of gotten a pretty big foothold in the, the, you know, the Pelicans and Saints space and we were growing, from a subscriber base. And then we offered the not on herb shirt. And it, it went absolutely crazy. Yeah, we drafted herb Jones and then he became a starter, you know, it just, it just took off. And then it was like, whoa. And as you’re going to games, you kind of see it, right? That the Saints, you go get a Saints polo shirt and you wear it for every game. You only have to wear it eight times a year. Right. You get eight home games. Well, for the Pelicans, there’s 41 home games a year. You’re not going to wear the same red Pelicans polo shirt to every game. And I think we thought to ourselves like, man, if we can offer shirts for 25 bucks, you know, it’s a great way for us to get our brand out there. And then it’s also a cool way to do, to sort of funny stuff that people can wear to games. And so, it, it is a big component. I won’t lie to you and say that it’s not without headaches. I mean, we didn’t, we fulfilled every shirt ourselves. Right. And when I say fulfilled every shirt, I mean, if you walk into our office, there’s a massive room with shirts everywhere and boxes and Sharpies. And so that’s shipping and it’s all kind of stuff and you don’t have to do it that way. Right. But for us, again, it was important for us to, to sort of do it because we put in a picture. And we put in a c a coozy. And we put in a little about Boot Crew media into every single thing. And it was if we’re going to do this and we’re going to grow this way, you know, we can’t farm this out to some drop shipping thing and God knows where. It really needs to come from us. And so, I think we still are kind of waiting in these waters of how much time can we commit to this? Do we need to partner with someone locally that can kind of fulfill this for us? I think it’s a, it’s still a big piece of where we want to go because people really love it. And it’s not a huge cost. And it’s a great way for us to get our brand out there and it’s a great way to, to sort of build relationships with the teams, because you’re doing things that promote their players and their teams and, and it’s a lot of fun. I mean, when you walk in there and you see a lot of, you know, you see your brand on the back of a lot of people’s, you know, shirt, it is really cool. But it’s not without a tad x. Yeah.

Well, and but I do think something, I can’t, I don’t want to move on to the next topic without really following up on something you said there because I feel like it’s something I constantly am going through, which is like the juggling act of making sure that you don’t outsource the things that you can’t outsource. And only you as a business owner can know in your particular industry, right? I cannot outsource this because if this doesn’t get done right, then nothing else is going to work. And it sounds like y’all have really had a sense of that, right? Yeah, I mean, it’s just if your logo’s on it, right? And, and, and, you know, in some cases, your logo is the name of your company. And in your case, like your logo is your actual name. Yeah. And it’s so you’ve got to make a decision on how important is that to you? Like how much, you know, you can’t protect everything, you can’t touch everything. But at the same time, it’s like you own it. And, and in certain cases like, I mean, it’s your name. And so yeah, you’ve got to just make that decision on what, you know, what can be outsourced reasonably. I mean, look, we could have probably saved a ton of money, I’m sure, by outsourcing this and drop shipping it, but it wasn’t, it just wasn’t what we thought was important at that time. Gotcha. So, I was visiting and Boot Crew Media dot com, plug number two, the, in preparation for the show, Ross, and I was struck by the amount of podcasts that y’all have under the umbrella now. I counted nearly 14 podcasts. One of them in particular, I just find to be hilarious. This thick in the trenches, the Tulane football one, and especially the other day, they were all eating, there was some content that the guys had up from Tulane. They had up and it was they were all eating, murals. And one of the guys, one of the lineman was going around asking who was the biggest shrimp gobbler. And I must have sat there and laughed for 10 minutes. It was just so hilarious. Like, who’s the biggest gobbler, and you have the same players come up over and over again. But it was just hilarious. How, how big do you intend to grow the podcast or now you, is the umbrella the size you want it and now it’s more of a focus on consistency and quality? Well, I’ll tell you, I think that’s been the biggest, well, it was the first and I think it’s also been the biggest learning curve for us was that we took on too much too quick. And we thought, hey, let’s give everybody this outlet to, you know, do whatever they want. If you want to have a podcast about anything, come on, Boot Crew Media will take you on. It didn’t take long for us to realize that was both a bad strategy that was going to lose us money, take away from our core demographic, and just be a total headache. And so, I mean, at one point, I think we had more than 25. To your point. Whoa. And so when you start talking about editing and providing the type of service that you want to provide to the people under your umbrella, it just became, it there was no, benefit for the value. And so I think we, you know, over the last year, we’ve really found the size we want to be. One of the big things that Justin and Lyla and some of our internal team do is they try to teach podcasters like, hey, here are the basic things you need to understand if you’re going to do this, right? How to use equipment, basic editing tools, things like that, to where, you know, I think we can empower those folks to, hey, go create content and if it’s just a minor thing, just go ahead and knock it out, right? Everything doesn’t need to run through, one person. But yeah, I’m with you.

That, I can remember that exact, you know, clip where they kept saying the same, I think it was the defensive lineman’s name and I was like, man, you guys better when this thing comes out, yeah, everybody better duck this guy for a few days. That kind of stuff is really, really fun because it, it, it’s just an inside look at some of the relationships and how much fun those guys have. I mean, those guys obviously play football for Tulane. How much fun they have, the type of camaraderie and that I think that is exactly what we’re wanting to show people. Like a little behind the scenes look that they don’t normally get for things like that. And it, it, I think it just really helps you relate to your local teams and your community. One other thing, and this is just for me. I mean, you, you played football, I played football and going, it takes a lot of your listeners who probably did play sports back to those times, which were so much fun that we took for granted. And all the inside jokes and this, the dry humor with those guys, what I just dig. And, I don’t know about that one. That one stuck in my head, but it was just, I was laughing the whole freaking time. It was a good one. It was a very, it was a very fun. Who was the biggest shrimp gobbler? And it was like, you guys like every two times like somebody’s getting their ass kicked. When this comes out. So kind of wrapping this up on Boot Crew. What are, big picture or a couple of lessons that you would impart to our listeners, maybe that would be applicable like lessons you’ve learned in growing a digital media company that maybe weren’t specific to digital media company growth, but just business growth in general. Yeah, and I, I think we’ve talked about them throughout, you know, throughout some of this the questions that you’ve asked. But being honest with yourself and being honest with your business about which direction you want to go and how quickly you can change things, I think is important. And the other is understanding your strengths and weaknesses and reacting to those. That unquestionably, especially that second one, is just so huge for us because we just came in from such a novice place. And I now have just a different appreciation, I think for folks that are just a lot better or understand something in a different way than then we do and, you know, there’s an avenue to let people show their strength. And, and I think to the extent that you can that it’s going to help everybody on your team because everybody gets better whenever you bring in someone that’s really strong in something, right? It’s no different than you guys, right? If you bring in somebody that’s a specialist in something. Well, everybody benefits from that knowledge, right? So, I think just creating, a team of folks with different skills, different backgrounds. I I you just can’t, I mean, I know you hear it a million times, you can watch leadership podcasts and you know, how to build a team and all this stuff and they’re gonna say the same thing, but it’s, they’re saying it because it’s true.

You’ve got to build a team of different skills from different backgrounds because all of that stuff really will come together under the right leadership to create something that’s valuable. Yeah, and it’s funny too, people don’t like the business cliches and stuff like that, but the longer I operated a business, the more I come to find that every single business cliche is true. They really are. They really are and the longer you’re absolutely right. You get into it and in some of those things, even, you know, going back to things you heard when you were a kid, talking about teamwork and everything else, it’s like, you know, that stuff goes in one ear and out the other when you’re a kid and then you start, you know, hiring and firing and promoting and this that and the other and it’s like, and a lot of that stuff is really applicable to more than sports. 100%. And so on the inverse, what is one or two thing you wish you knew before you started the company? Well, I wish I knew how to work a computer a little better. But no, I think I wish I had, I wish I had the foresight not to try to grow too fast. Because we, we really hit some bumps on the road and it’s tough. You know, telling somebody that they can’t do their passion project under your umbrella or something they’ve invested in it. It’s, I think not growing, not trying to be bigger than we wanted to be and we just, you know, you get excited and you start doing things and then you realize it’s not going to work. It’s the cost of being a leader, right? The cost of being a business owner, anything like that, the cost of being a captain of a team, anything is that you’ve got to be honest with people about what’s going to be best for the team, for the business, for the company. And so I think that’s a big one for us was just understanding what we wanted to be earlier, may have saved us some growing pains, but, you know, it’s part of the process. Yeah, definitely. I think it definitely is. And I think in law, more than anything, interestingly enough, is you see these attorneys that hit one big case and all of a sudden they’re on 10 billboards on TV, and then all of a sudden three months later, you just never hear from them again.

Because, you know, it’s just, you can’t be everywhere immediately and growth, right, is just this journey of understanding what is sustainable growth. Exactly. What is consistent sustainable growth that I can support as a business, but that does not put me out above and ahead of my skis, but to y’all’s credit, you recognized I think that maybe you had extended the platform a bit too far and back towards what we’re talking about, humility, pulled it back a bit and just refocused on where you wanted to go, right? That’s exactly right. What’s your favorite book? Yeah, that I’m again, I’ll be honest with you, I’m I’ve never been a huge reader. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a favorite book, but I, you know, I feel like I’ve been asked that question. It’s sort of like conferences and things over the years. And I sit there and I always feel like an idiot because everybody else has these like, you know, super in-depth, like, oh, fiction or non-fiction. I’m like, oh man, I don’t really have a, you just, I’ll give you two though. We talked about data and analytics, and a book, I’ve I’ve loved baseball my whole life. My dad’s a huge major league baseball fan.

There was a book called trading bases by a guy named Joe Poto who’s a, a, a Wall Street hedge fund analyst who took his love of baseball and his knowledge of analytics and how to look at numbers in a different way. And, and kind of crossed over into to sports gambling a little bit using data and analytics. It’s a very interesting book. The guy has a really, really cool story. It’s a, it’s a really easy read for somebody like me that already is like a little bit of a stats nerd. It really played for me and then the other, which is a book that either everyone should read, which is, second win by Bill Russell. Which he wrote, gosh, back in maybe the seventies. And it’s just such an honest look at his life, at leadership, at basketball, at some of the things from a civil rights perspective that he dealt with over his life. It’s a, it’s a great book. That’s them, that’s my next Amazon order because I had not heard of. It’s a very, very good one. Yeah, it kind of gained a lot of popularity again, maybe, oh gosh, 10, 12 years ago, Kobe Bryant mentioned it in an interview when he was talking at the time, I think he was speaking to Bill Russell and he was telling him, hey, I learned this thing from reading your book. And Bill Russell looked at him and said, what? He goes, to scout my own teammates before I got here. So, what’s one of the thing Bill Russell talks about in that book is that he, you know, before he ever joined the Celtics, he did as much research on the players that were already there as he could. He watched film, he did all this stuff before he ever got there because for him to be his best self and to contribute to the team enough, he felt like he really needed to learn as much about those guys before he ever got there. So that so that you weren’t there and you didn’t base your opinion on maybe somebody’s personality or, something you had heard, but to really watch as much as you could watch, so that you could identify, hey, I think this guy’s best skill is this. So, I’ll try and contribute to that skill as best I can. It’s a really good book. It’s not just basketball, but that was, that’s one little tidbit that you hear about a lot, just because Kobe Bryant sort of mentioned it in an interview, but, it’s a great book. Interesting.

And last question, what would you say and I know you’re getting to know you a little bit, you’re a super humble guy, by the way, a very common characteristic of all these very successful people that we have had on this show thus far. All humble and don’t like this question, but I’m gonna put you on the spot. What is your superpower, meaning, what do you think, from your perspective, is that maybe one unique trait that you have, we’re all unique, but one of those, one unique traits that you have that you’re really strong at that’s helped some of your success with Boot Crew? Laughing because I, I wish Justin was here to answer this question because I know exactly what he would say. And it, but it’s true. And I don’t know if it’s, maybe it’s the background in athletics and, you know, some of the names you get called by coaches or, you know, some of the things you just get used to, but being in the digital media space, you, like, you’ve got to have incredibly thick skin. Because people, you guys know, I mean, things get said on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called now, or on Instagram, or somebody will respond to something on YouTube, you know, and just say, hey, that, you know, that dude doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about type of thing. Right. That’s, it affects me none. I, I laugh it off. I think it’s hilarious. We have some, you know, some, some guys that work with us and girls, that it’s really, really hard for them to see that criticism and, and for it not to affect them or they want to respond to everything or they want to engage in these back and forth with people. I, I think I have an ability to sort of either accept criticism from a, a useful perspective and grow from it, but really to laugh it off. Because you just get so many opinions on the internet. I mean, just so many. And you’ve got to be able to just sort of handle that and say, that was funny. That was someone’s opinion that means nothing to me. You know, it’s not like getting criticism from a parent or something like that. You just have to be able to kind of thick skin, you know, and forget about it. Wow. Interesting answer. And I think such a good one. And, and like if you’re just honest as a human, right? Because I’ve, I did it the other day on LinkedIn, I saw a defense attorney, like making all these comments about, we have this big controversy going on with MMA and this, you may have heard a little bit about it. It’s a horrible situation. I mean, it’s really not been a good look for anybody in the, legal community, candidly. But all these comments and kind of, and I’m like sitting there and I’m like, getting ready to respond. I’m like, you know, like, come on. That’s not who I, I don’t ever get sucked into those things, right? Because, but sometimes you get tempted because it’s like, it’s just, but it’s just this toxic tunnel that doesn’t if you just can consciously realize, like this doesn’t affect me. Like, type and delete it. Record it and never and never submit it. There’s there’s a lot of different avenues. But yeah, you just, you know, big part of it for me and I think for anybody’s, you have mentors. You have people that you respect, people that are important to you, whether that be a family member or, you know, somebody that’s helped guide you, like, their opinion is important. Their opinion matters. That relationship matters. Somebody random on the internet doesn’t. You know, it just, it’s like, okay, that’s, yeah, cool.

That you got that, they got that off their chest. I think, and so you’re just figuring out, you know, who’s opinion do you care about? I don’t, I don’t care about little Billy’s on Twitter. It means nothing to me. And so, yeah, I don’t know. It’s fun, but, yeah, that it is. It’s something that I’m glad I’m that is built into my sort of psyche. Interesting, interesting. Well, this has been a fantastic discussion, Russ. Once again, I really respect everything that you and Justin are doing and building this business and it’s a super fun business, right? I mean, how cool that you guys get to be in a space where you’re talking about the Pelicans, the Saints, Tulane, LSU, and different cultural things down here in South Louisiana. And I and I’ve really been, I know everybody at the firm, we’ve all been excited to be a part of that journey with y’all and looking forward to many more years about it. And really appreciate you being on the show. No, it’s been fun. Thanks for having me. All right, thanks to all our listeners for listening. We hope you found some interesting tidbits and today’s show, obviously tons of interesting things to talk about with business growth, digital media, and please make sure you go check out Boot Crew Media. They are across all channels. You can check them out their website, bootcrewmedia.com. They have some merchandise there, some really good merchandise. And then across all mediums, Twitter or whatever it is now, X, Instagram, Facebook. They’ve really got a ton of great content, following these sports teams in Southern Louisiana. So please go give them a follow and a like and a share. They’re a great local company.

Once again, this has been the Overruled podcast, brought to you by the Scott Vicknair Law firm. We really appreciate you all listening and we’ll see you next time. Scott Vicknair Injury Attorneys, we fight for the win. Information is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute tax investment or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified investment, legal or tax professional before taking any action.