Informer Live! With Ryan Rubertazzi and Sarah Lane - Vodafone's Just Ask Once Programme

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Chat GPT can do more than answer questions. It can help you get real work done. With Chat GPT work, you bring the goal and the details. Like notes, files, feedback, calendars, project plans, or data. Then it can help create things like a brief, tracker, analysis, deck outline, or workflow. You stay in control by giving direction, reviewing the work, and choosing the final result. But Chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro Plans. This is Lava Erington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Running a small business means keeping track of a lot. But your finances shouldn't feel complicated. Let me tell you about zero. That's X-E-R-O. Zero brings accounting, payments, payroll, and analytics together. Giving you one clear view of your business. With easy-to-read dashboards, you can see your cash flow and understand exactly what's coming in. And what's going out? Zero's AI can save you time and provide insights to help you make smarter decisions while keeping everything simple and accessible. It's powerful enough for an accountant, but simple enough for you. Zero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at zero.com. Autodesk invites you to make something. A big thing. A smart thing. A fast thing. A magical thing. After all, this big world we call home is yours for the making. So, make what matters. Learn more at Autodesk.com. With Autodesk, you can make anything. From Pumpkin Patch to pre-game tailgate, don't miss the fall sale at specs, wine, spirits, and finer food. Cheers to savings. Crown coins to zero! Winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you won big? At Crown coins casino, real people win real prizes every single day. Hi, this is Michael from Dallas, and I won 40K and finally renovated my home. Visit crowncoins.com. Sign up in seconds, intercode crown, and get a free lucky wheel bonus. Only one of the 10,000 sweeps coins. Crowncoins.com. That's C-R-O-W-N coins.com. No purchase needed. Code valve for new users on Void. We're repeated by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Crown coins to zero! Welcome to my show. I'm Richard McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass. When we encourage people to stop reading other people's success stories and start planning your own. Now, you don't want to miss an episode, so please take a moment right now to follow or subscribe to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. It's free. You can follow me on iHeartRadio app, Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcast. New Money Making Conversations Masterclass episodes drop daily. I want to keep you on alert because my guests provide tips on how you can uplift your community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be successful entrepreneur. Now, let's get this podcast started. My guest is one of those people I'm going to check progress on. He is one of the co-owners of popcorn remix. That's a Georgia based gourmet popcorn brand has more than 60 innovative flavors ranging from king crab legs, to Charlene's, banana pudding, to chocolate-cover strawberries. Together, they share their partnership. It's two of them. The origin of popcorn remakes, the explosive growths, their brand, how they build a powerhouse fundraising platform called wepowerfundracers.com and their expansion into major sports. They went from a storefront in Kanye's, Georgia to Mercedes-Benz stadium, truer's part, the Georgia World Congress Center, the Atlanta dreams. Please welcome the money making conversations, the one and only Ryan Richon. How you doing, Ryan? Hey, how are you doing today, Richon? Ryan, what you're not going to do is this low key voice on my show because I know who I'm talking to. You're not going to church over me, brother. You selling popcorns, you get activated, Ryan. Get activated, brother. You're not going to make conversations masterclass. How you doing, brother? Well, you know I'm shy. And I'm a little underweather, so I'm shy and I'm some nightwheel. And I'm some nightwheel too, so. Well, nightwheel will take you out, brother. And I use it all the time. You know, when I interviewed you last time, Ryan, you said, "Richon, if somebody would told me I didn't mean it over a million dollars." I think the number was $1.5 million selling popcorn. I would have thought they were crazy. So you're not crazy. So tell us how you're doing this or how you're accomplishing this on a dream that started in a snow storm in up north. You know, honestly, it's just God. You know what I mean? If God didn't have a good people around you, my other half, my brother, you know, we call ourselves the King of Pop 4. Sounds like a bad thing. We're the King of Pop. You know, when they come to this popcorn thing, but we just found a niche and we just took it to the street. And when you take something to the street and people love it and like it, then everything just turned out to be incredible. And we're here. You know, people like you, you know, would trust and believe in us. And the same for the Falcons and the Dream and everybody else. And it's such a small amount of time. They just love the popcorn. And we're here. You know, interesting is that I enjoy, first of all, a nice guy. And they're the dream. And they approached me about the dream and every shun and what are your thoughts? And I sampled the popcorn and the popcorn was incredible. It was really incredible popcorn. And it was different. And it was, it was different because when you come into any area, you know, you can't have the same hamburger. You can't have the same fried chicken. You can't have the same. And you can't have the same popcorn. How did you envision these flavors, Ryan? So, as you stated, you know, this all came from being known into a, you know, a grandfather passed away. And I got to know them to a popcorn shop about four years ago. And amongst sitting there with them, I said, I want to do what they did, but do it different. So just like anything else, we wanted to reinvent the wheel. So we came up with the crab legs and jerk chicken and all this other stuff. You know, we just want what we think people are like. We want your mind to be blowing to be blown when it is. We come up with something. So we just hear what the people say. You know, we working on the chicken and waffles right now. It's a mother stuff, but we want to do what people think could not be done. And everything has to take the taste of the name as our brother says. So everything got to taste like exactly what it says. Okay, get it from the people. That's not right. King crab legs. King crab legs, jerk chicken, hot wing and lemon pepper, jambalaya, chilis and hog malls. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, right, right. See, Brian, you're in that night. Well, now you don't have no chitlin popcorn. We did have chilling popcorn for Thanksgiving. We had and we had color green and cornbread as well. Yes, we did. Thanksgiving edition. That was the popcorn remix Thanksgiving edition. Now these are flavors that taste exactly like you wouldn't expect. Like so if somebody eats your popcorn, it's going to taste like King crab leg. That's what you are accomplishing with people. I'm sure there's a level of disbelief when they actually sample your popcorn, huh? Hey, you're a witness. What's that multiple context like? Hey, man, you know, that is a popcorn I cannot resist because it tastes exactly like I expected to taste. And that is the accomplishment. And that's what I'm just trying to not so much narrow down because, you know, these ideas that you set down, you and Greg, I cannot dismiss Greg because it's a Greg is kind of like the music component and then Ryan is kind of like the energy component. And so you put those two together and see them in public. It's an actual show. Tell everybody about this activation that you guys do when people are sampling your popcorn for the first time. That is what causes people your videos to go viral on social media. Tell us about that. And how did that concept come about? Yeah, Greg is the energy. Greg is the remix as I say. Greg is the one that go out to the streets and everything else, but we just, we come up with these things. And so the lemon pound cake in order for it to work, you got to activate it. So, you know, you got to put it in your hand and you got to shake it. A lot of people will be nervous to do that in public, you know, like, you know, but you got to shake it. You know, whether you're in Vegas, whether you're playing left-right center, whether you're playing crap. But you got to activate it and when you activate it, you put in your mouth. You wait five seconds and then a lemon hits you and then another three seconds and an icing on the cake hits you. Just like, you know, just like your grandma. As a matter of fact, just like we're signs lemon pound cake will hit. You know, now you guys just came from Vegas. And from Kanye's Georgia to Las Vegas. Tell us about the purpose of going to Las Vegas and what did you accomplish in going to Las Vegas? So we went to Las Vegas in January first for Shark Tank. But they didn't like our proposal because we didn't really want to fail too much of our company. Okay. So we didn't want to tell us how that works because I didn't know that. So you went to Vegas in January for Shark Tank. Tell us about it. that works. A lot of people watch the show, but they don't know how it worked. You know, I mean, you know, it's was anything else. You know, they go there. You have a, you have a cast of people, you know, who ask you questions and things of that nature to see, you know, if you're, if you're a fit for the show, right, one thing about us that we know we didn't want to sell a part of our company. We wanted somebody to, but quote unquote, have to work for, you know, equity in our company. So we, we wanted to say that if you, if we sell, if we give you something, you get what you, you eat what you kill, you know, you're not able to get anything that we've already done. They can't get any of the fundraising. They can't get any of the risks. We've already done that. But anything moving forward that you bring to the table, we're offering, you know, whatever it is that you may get that. So that's how that happened. So we didn't get selected for sharp pain, but we were highly respected. They said we were one of the best. And, you know, we didn't really need them. But recently we just went to, it's called a sweet and snacks expo, which is like a super bowl of snack. So we went and we met with the likes of Hershey's and Little Debbie and Netflix and all of the other huge conglomerates of snacks. And we're actually in talks with several of those companies right now in regards to getting our popcorn and, you know, in further and airports and retail stores and on new platforms like, you know, maybe like two move and things of nature. So it's a lot of things, a lot of stuff for all right now. Stay with us more money making conversation masterclass coming up next. Chad GPT can do more than answer questions. Chad GPT work is built for bigger projects with multiple steps. You bring the goal along with the information it needs, like notes, files, customer feedback, calendars, project plans, or data. Then, Chad GPT can help turn that into a useful work. A marketing grief, a sales tracker, an investment update, a deck outline, an analysis, even a workflow your team can use. It can also work with approved apps and connected tools to help move the project forward. And you stay in control the whole time. You give directions, review the work, approve any access and decide what the final result should be. So instead of spending all your time figuring out where to start, you can start making progress. Put Chad GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at Chad GPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on plus and pro plans. This is Lavaire Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Running a small business means keeping track of a lot, but your finances shouldn't feel complicated. That's X, E, R, O. Zero brings accounting, payments, payroll, and analytics together, giving you one clear view of your business. With easy-to-read dashboards, you can see your cash flow and understand exactly what's coming in and what's going out. Grab a sweater and a cocktail shaker. Cozy season starts at specs. Discover big savings on robust reds, bold whiskeys, seasonal sips, and more, all month long, during specs, all sales. With the lowest prices on Texas largest selection, specs makes it easy to celebrate. Choose to save me. Crowncoins.com. That's C-R-O-W-N-Coins.com. No purchase needed. Code Val for new users on void. We're prohibited by law. Welcome back to Money Making Conversation, Masterclass. Hosted by me, Rashad McDonald. Let's get back into it. I'm talking to one of the owners of Popcorn Remix as PopcornRemix.com. Correct? Yes, it is. Popcornremix.com. PopcornremixFundraiser.com. That's our fundraising platform. Absolutely. When we talk about what you're trying to do with your brand, again, you guys are hustlers. A lot of people use the word hustle as a negative, but your partnership with Greg is based on hustle, trust, and alignment. Talk to us about that business model you created and watch it grow in such a positive level. The biggest thing about about life and about business, getting somebody that believes in you as much as you can. Even when we first came up with Popcornremix, that wasn't honestly something that Greg was a part of. Greg came and approached and said, "Man, I believe in you and I'll do whatever I need to do in order to be a part of this." He went to the streets and he said, "I'm going to come back." He went and when we came back with $22,000. Next week, he was in Barbershops, came back with $2500. He showed that he believed in the brand at that point. He became the remix, man, and we just bought and do it. Based upon what it is, we go out to the people, we go out to the stadium, and we bring everything back home because we never know when we're going to need something. I can't wait until the day that we can fully be rewarded. He can't fully be rewarded for all the I believe that he's brought to the table because he put the remix and the remix, man. He works harder than anybody I've ever seen in his life. It'll be worth it for both of us, but I can't wait to be able to do something for him just because of his belief in me. Congratulations on that because of the fact that both of you guys are really good people. But again, there's a lot of really good people in business out there that don't make it. Now, popcorn is all popcorn created equal. No, all popcorn is created equal because it don't talk the same to make it all. Right. So you got to mean, but the thing about us is that we are trying to become the epitome of popcorn. What we are born made popcorn is Greg says, we're the roles, the roles of popcorn. You know, other people have other flavors that they call a gourmet popcorn, but when someone tastes us, example, we were in Las Vegas and we had Hershey's, the people that Hershey's taste our cookies and green and say taste of theirs. And that was like, oh my God, yours is light years better than ours. But, you know, they have the platform for the world. We don't have that, but they can taste the quality in that. As you say that the butter popcorn has pecans in it. Yes. The banana pudding has vanilla wafers in it. Everything that you get with us tastes like a premium product. And that's what it is that we do. If you if you're trying to get something for a dollar here, dollar there, go to dollar tree, even there's a dollar, even there's a dollar 50. But, you know, if you want something, you know, as far as that, you know, that go get that. But if you want something that tastes like what it is, and that's why our people are loyal to us, they love us in the stadiums because they know when they come and get it, it's going to taste like what it's called taste like. That's popcorn. That's interesting, credible to say that this major corporation with Hey, you're popcorn. When they said that, what was your thought? What thought ran through your mind? Well, let's switch y'all's off. And then because that's the goal, but here's the thing that comes up all the time with small companies. You get the big opportunity. How do you prepare yourself for that opportunity, Ryan at popcorn remix? I think one thing that we've always done well is moved on the need. You know, we don't go, we don't go too fast. We know how to say no. If something is too big, we had a deal. That's your 4.5, 4.3 million dollars. We said no, because we're not just in business, just to be in business. We want to be in business to be profitable higher people and do what we supposed to do. So with that, with that being said, you just got to do it. You know, we're going to be moving properly to back soon, gourmet bags, opposed that because there may be a need for these airports and things of that nature. But we won't do it until we know if there's a need. So we're not jumping too far ahead of ourselves. We're standing our lane. We're not going too fast. But when they start, you know, when it's time to put a little gas on the accelerator, that's so we know, you know, we know we already got something in the pipeline that's already signed. Still delivered that we know will pay for it and kind of cover that. You know, let me let me talk about that. You know, like you said, going too fast because you're not going to be new, you're not going to be new, but also you have another business. So you are in you understand the ups and downs and seasonal businesses and how to market a small business and also the frustration when it doesn't generate the revenue that you expected it to generate. With that being said, how do you continually motivate yourself to believe in its product, Brian popcorn remix? That's a good question. Once again, I think it's having people behind you. I've had a lot of sleepless nights, like, like, why did I do this? Right. I have done this. I had taken as money out of my home, you know, got this third, you know, this home equity line of credit to do this and so forth. But, you know, you got to be prepared for it, man. And you know, you got to prepare yourself up front for it. You know, don't start a business that costs $4,000 or $5,000. Make sure that you have enough. So that wouldn't own rainy days or things. Don't go right. You can do it. Make sure that when somebody calls into work that you can go take the place of it if it comes, you know, if it comes down to that. Make sure that you can do whatever is needed because it's yours. It's your baby. So just as you would treat your children, if something was wrong with you. them you got to treat the business the same way because it's your money on the line you know it's I mean kick to the thigh it's you know the notoriety and what people will think but you know it's you stepped out there so if you're going to step out there to give it to all so that way if it does though no doesn't work out the way you want to be you can say that you know you put your all into it and that's what it is that we do every single day that's why you still see us any bit not just at our employees all the time you still see us I don't want to give you that experience and sometimes you know your employees don't have the passion that you had right so sometimes we got to step out so that way they'll see us you know and know that everything is still good I always say showtime when these two gentlemen show up because you will find they love their product they love seeing you happy eating their product and it was funny the other day I was on the plane on the train plane train the plane train and I looked at my right and I saw somebody eating popcorn remix in a small container I didn't want to bother her and say what did you get that from but I just smiled and said that's my boys that's my boys Greg and Ryan what you know what we're in the airport now and so I haven't even we just yeah we just dropped off our first order and I haven't even talked to them since we delivered it because I'm just letting everything just marinade you know what I mean to see how it's going but if that is true that yeah that is from that we out I don't even honestly know what time course we in but I do know that we have a a kiosk that that the airport company in the airport has purchased and that our popcorn is featured there with five of our flavors I would tell you that is so cool because I saw her eating the popcorn and I looked down to my right and I go this popcorn remix and I just smiled each mile back but I didn't want to disturb her you're telling me now you guys are in a kiosk at Hartfield the busiest airport in the world now has popcorn remix that's what you're announcing on my show today yeah popcorn remix and we're going to Baltimore this Thursday in order to meet with all the airports in the United States about being in every airport in America hopefully because we want that we want we want an award for the basically like the most innovative snack for the airports and we wanted Lancia we wanted the whole style so I want to four people and now we're going to Baltimore is one of eight people to I guess to battle to get our popcorn and airports all across the country is eight of us please don't go anywhere we'll be right back with more money making conversations masterclass not need for you to do me a favor right now to follow or subscribe to money making conversation it's free and you can find it on the iHeart Radio app Spotify Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts please do me that favor follow or subscribe money making conversations welcome back to money making conversation masterclass hosted by me reShawn Mcdonald money making conversation masterclass continues online at moneymakingconversations.com and follow money making conversation masterclass on facebook x and instagram it all started with an idea in a snowstorm of north he walked inside he saw this popcorn and he asked him how he did it and then he came back south and guess what he's one of the popcorn the king of popcorn him Greg Bowman and rivalry but I got I couldn't tackle the other king but I got one king on the call he kind of sick well every time he talks his story gets bigger and bigger and bigger and congratulations right I'll tell you man just watching you guys grow you're such a nice guys but you know the power of fundraisers that's where that's another because everybody wants to do things on multiple streams and you want to be an apple you want to be Mercedes Benz you want to be here but you also want to have multiple streams of income and the fundraising how does the fundraising works for people who want to have popcorn remixes part of their campaigns what is the fundraisers works that basically we set up everything for you you sell popcorn and we can use 50% of all sales we handle all of the shipping we handle all of the packages all that you do is sell popcorn so whether you sell one 50 or 500 you get 50% of all sales know up for a money required and nothing to do for you so it's really a win win wow now the big thing is happening now these celebrities eating out popcorn man so the celebrities really have an impact oh it's just like a brand association when they tell you popcorns good I want to always wonder how that worked in your world you know because I represent celebrity people they pay a money to sell cards they all but you have popcorn how's that working and is getting a celebrity endorsement important to your brand I'll growing you brain you know what's funny it's nice and we appreciate you know to know that somebody like this celebrity loves our popcorn but when we go viral it's not that it's the regular person it's the regular mom and pop lady that's eating the popcorn and the last one 10.6 million views right now in the last month just a regular lady that's a teacher in a little bit of country city in Atlanta had the crab leg popcorn and she just lost her mind so it's not just I mean we appreciate it and you know it's nice to know that somebody of the you know who they are loves our product but it's really when we have that regular person that loses their mind or their eyes pop or they just go crazy that's what the world love I'm days around did you say 10.6 million views 10.6 million views in the month of April we were the number three snack on TikTok in the world okay I'm sorry so much stuff is going on see you casual about that man 10.6 million views now are you guys able to keep popcorn or popcorn remix now what happened was so it's 10.6 million views and that was it for that that was a five days right that it went but yeah so it almost shut it down and because we have a new warehouse but there was a water main break during that week that it because you can never you know you can never justify when you're going to go viral right so we did everything from one shop so we had to kind of cause the things down a little bit in order to meet the demand because everything we make is fresh you know I mean my staff everything is box fresh may you know every single day and so forth so yeah we weren't able to keep popcorn that weekend we never and we have a we never even throw out popcorn because it goes somewhere somehow we made we made it happen now now that that this is first of all congratulations and so you know for I've learned things about you right now you're you're hard for that poor okay you got a video with 10.6 million just regular every day people now when a video goes viral let this is just I'm just trying to get a sense of it for popcorn remix how do you can you sense that it's something going wrong or your phone ringing or emails how do you know there's something's out of the ordinary right it's so funny because I termined off Greg keeps his only but it you'll just be sitting there and you'll start hearing being being because what happened people start going to your website people start going to your TikTok shop and we get notification so when the lady went viral we knew what we knew what it was not to happen because we we had a thousand people on our TikTok at one time we had 400 people on our website at the same time so that's that's how we know because once we start seeing them views going up people on the website people on the TikTok you get notifications and that's when you're like oh my god and Greg loves it but it scares me to death every single day well I knew you got a story I knew you guys doing Kanye tell everybody about the store if they're listening in in the Atlanta Georgia area and what can you expect when they get to Kanye store the store in time 18 20 highway 20 sweet 132 Kanye Georgia 3013 please come in free samples of all of the things we discuss the jerk chicken the crab legs all of that also as the shine stated by the set Mercedes-Benz stadium we also just acquire UGA so we'll be for gold dollars we'll be a UGA stadium in all of their kiosk and our own kiosk and their possession stands as far as well for for UGA football the Falcon the Brage the Atlanta Dream Atlanta Airport we just we just Atlanta man so we're just all around and so forth and you could order at poppourimics.com or poppourimics fundraiser.com if you'd like to a fundraiser with it cool again ladies and gentlemen this is the one of the owners and next time I come back I gotta I gotta let you listen to Greg he is justice captivating and just a different spin on everything but thank you congratulations man I am yeah he's a shy one everybody he's the shy one it can sing it's hard like great gospel voice again Ryan thank you for getting out your sick big man to come on my show to let everybody know popcorn remix is growing and you're one of the catalysts along with Greg blowing this up in the gourmet popcorn arena thank you for coming on my show brother and thank you the real quick I got one second thank you man for believing in business like us all the other business you believe in you know you're you're a blessing to the world man your your world we're now just a mere factor I can call you pops uncle whatever it is I may want to call your any given day it's a blessing thank you for everything you've done for us and you know I love you brother I really really do man and thank you for that compliment I appreciate you I love you too brother and that's another episode every ladies and gentlemen um popcorn remix out there gourmet popcorn who would have done it well they did and guess what they're about to be everywhere thank you for listening to this episode not need for you to do me a favor right now to follow or subscribe to money making conversation it's free and you can find it on the iHard Radio app Spotify Apple podcast or wherever you go get your podcast. Please do me that favor. Follow or subscribe, money-making conversations. Keep winning.