What I Learned From 100+ Young Entrepreneurs in France

(soft music) Hey, it's Andrew here and welcome to the Econ Fuel Podcast. These show dedicated to helping seven and eight figure bread owners build incredible businesses and amazing lives. And I always love the episodes that kind of focus on the amazing life side of things. It's obviously a half of the tag one for the podcast here. I have no one to blame but myself, but probably hits maybe 10 to 20% at least in terms of the focus of the episodes. Not gonna be the case today, I'm joined by Evan Bryce, who's the co-founder of Art of Mondays. He co-founded along with his business partner, Jay Howett. And Jay used to be a part of the ECF community back in the day, reached out to me this last year. And invited me to come out to speak at an event they were doing for a hundred late 20s, early 30s founders in France. They were in at this French small little countryside village. Had a week long event there. And it was an easy sell for me. And he said, "Yeah, come on out, we're gonna talk business. Are you gonna hang out with a bunch of great people? We're gonna do a bunch of sports, eat good food. Be outside." I said, "I'm in. Let's do this." So I got back from that about three or four weeks ago. And the Art of Mondays community, we talked a little bit more about that. Well, we talked a lot about it in the episode today, but it's a community focused on entrepreneurs in that demographic who value travel, who value lifestyle, alongside building something great and meaningful in the entrepreneurial space. So in the episode I talk with Evan about how they built the community. I talk about some of my learnings and just kind of reflections and observations from being in this group. You know, it's always good to the things you learn and the perspectives shifts you have. When you go to a different geographical location to talk with people in a different industry, also in a different demographic than you normally probably hang out with the most. It's pretty amazing. So you talk about kind of some of the different things around how businesses are being built differently. The mindset of how Evan and his team puts on an incredible event, being in the event space. I thought it was fascinating how they thought about this and some of the cool touches that they had. We talk about Instagram marketing. They've grown their business in their community almost exclusively through Instagram. How they think about doing that. Talk about leadership here in his partner, John Evan, have a really good yang and yang. It works very well. And I think that's not always, that's not a given. In fact, I'd say the minority of partnerships work out really well from what I have seen. Yeah, and we just talk about also lifestyle business too. Like I feel like lifestyle business. There's a bit of a stigma with that term. We kind of talk about that a little bit and why that may or may not be justified. Anyways, fun episode. And I really enjoyed it. And if you were in your late 20s, 30s looking for people who deeply value entrepreneurship alongside relationships, travel, being very intentional health, fitness, things like that. This is a, I don't think I can recommend a better group, but I think you'll get a ton. I'd listen to this and the community as well. Anyway, had a lot of fun on this one. Hope you enjoy it. Before we start, here's a question. Most e-commerce owners can't answer honestly. Are your numbers actually good? I compared to last year, but compared to other businesses at your revenue level. Every year we survey the members of E-Com Fuel. It's our private community for seven and eight figure store owners. And this year 300 of them shared everything. Margins, growth rates, traffic mixes, team sizes, inventory turns. How much they're pulling out of the business, favorite channels, it goes on and on and on. And we built a benchmarking guide that breaks it all down and compares everything and puts it into revenue cohorts. So you're comparing yourself against businesses of your actual size. So it's an Apple to Apple's comparison. It's free. You can download it as a listener and just go to e-commerce fuel.com/blueprint to find out where you're strong and where the real opportunities are to improve your business. All right, let's get into it. (upbeat music) Evan, welcome to Toronto, outside of Toronto. - Hey, Andrew, so good to be here, man. I've been looking forward to this chat for a while. - Yeah, SFI and Poggie's. You're being a good sport here, rolling into town, hopping on the mic probably three minutes after getting into your place and putting together an audio set up. But yeah, similarly, very excited to talk. I teed up at the very beginning of the episode, gave people a sense of art of Mondays and a quick little background on the event, which we'll get into more in the discussion here. But if you would do it yourself, how would you describe art of Mondays to people who don't know it or familiar with it? I feel like I've mastered this over the last few years when answering questions from my friends and family back home who are so outside of the entrepreneurial world, but it's still always a working progress. I think the simple way to explain what art of Mondays is, is a community for lifestyle founders, the term that we have coined, which essentially refers to people who run their online business, so primarily online, but also, and arguably more importantly, share the same values that we do as a community and those values stem from me and my co-founder, Jai, which are things like health, wellness, travel, mindfulness, selflessness, learning, and a constant pursuit of growth, just to name a few. So it's a community, not just for business people, but for people people, if that makes sense. Yeah, I had you, that term that lifestyle founder, or lifestyle business probably is a more, one thing I have always, I've always agreed with many of the values of the lifestyle business, right? But the thing, I feel like a lot of times it gets poo-pooed by people, like you're not a serious entrepreneur, if you're making a lifestyle, a meaningful part of what you're trying to build, which has always annoyed me, right? I want to be able to build the most ambitious thing I can within the confines of not having it ruin my lifelong term. Anyway, does that, is that something that you feel like you've had an issue with at all, or is that kind of maybe something that is of an older generation, or what are your thoughts on that term, the baggage that may or may not come with it? I think my thoughts on this, or my thoughts on a lot of things that people might disagree with, which is that frankly, I don't really care that much. This comes up a lot with, with copycat businesses or competitors, or similar style entrepreneurs communities who are more about the hustle culture and the status of the Rolexes and the Lamborghinis, and those kinds of things. And where I always come back to, and I would share the same for us for years, that we have just always been building for ourselves, for the two of us as individuals, and over the journey of attracted people who share our values and share what we want out of life. And to speak for myself personally, I don't want to have a billion dollar company. I don't want to be stuck in enough office every day and not see my friends and my family. I really respect you, Andrew, for the lifestyle that you've created, where you can take time off and spend a gap year with your family, traveling around to then come back to the business. Those are the kind of things that, that way you value. And I think if I'm just constantly working towards that pursuit of building the business that I want, then I'll attract the people who want the same thing. So to those who say, "You need a hustle to be successful," we're trying to reimagine that, and design a business that you don't need to take a break from, because it's built on passion, then it's built on inspiration. And I mean, that comes back to the name Adam Andes, as the origin story is that a lot of people have the Sunday scary, so have you ever had those in the past? - I have had those. The first job out of college didn't love Sunday night, yes, yes, I have. - Yeah, you'll certainly not the only one. I've been there, we've all been there. We think that how you feel when you wake up on a Monday says a lot about how much joy you have in your life, and the reality is most about days that's spent working, and for us specifically, it's on the laptop. So we just wanted to create a community of people who, one of the same thing, which was to build a life that we don't need to take a break from. We don't need to cross the days off the calendar and wait till the annual leave comes around, because we're genuinely excited to wake up and build this thing. And for us, this thing is a community. For you, it's also a community, but there's so many other people out there who are building things that light them up. - Yeah, and I think it's interesting. My thoughts on building a passion-based business have evolved a lot, and people who listen to the podcast probably for those few times, but I started very much as a mercenary, a mercenary approach to E-Com, right? Like, "Hey, what's gonna work? "What's gonna just get me, you know, "running a business don't really care about it so much?" But I do think like, in the world we live in, with AI starting to take more things, more tasks, more work with more slop and more, just for me, like, things being out there. And also just the criticalness of, at least in the E-Com world, product, a really good product making everything so much easier and being instrumental. Building from a point of passion helps with your marketing, helps with your product innovation. We did a podcast that people didn't listen to the podcast with Edward two or three weeks ago from Road ID. I would strongly recommend. I feel like he is one of the best examples in the E-Com world about building something deeply your passion about over 20 years that can become just a month. I'm a very meaningful business, but one that he didn't have to, you know, sell a soul to do in his based on passion. So, yeah, I think it's become much more advantageous for people to live out of that. Always fun, but tactically, I think it's even more of an advantage today than it was before. - Well, I think it's what separates those businesses that succeed with those that don't. It's the ability to show up on the days where things aren't working, where systems are breaking, where all of them are. animations are failing where you have a poor customer review or a fire you have to put out for people who aren't as invested into the long term. Then it's probably something that can wait until tomorrow or wait until the next day. But for those kind of founders out there who live and breathe this thing and want it to succeed at all costs, then they're going to go the extra mile. And I think grit is a really important quality, not to be confused with hustle, which I mentioned before. But that ability just to understand that sometimes we're going to have bad days and it's going to feel like we're in the trenches. But because we believe so passionately in what we're building, then it's all for the greater good in the long run. And for me, it's that what is that greater good? What is that long run? It's to build a lifestyle. A freedom. And freedom to me means location freedom, which is geographical freedom, to be able to move around because I love to travel. But more importantly, it's time freedom and freedom of choice. And of course, financial freedom allows for those things to happen. But I think fundamentally it's creating independence, the ability to choose what we work on to choose who we spend that time with. That's a big principle of my days in general is the ability to choose who you spend your time with because you can change the people around you. You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. The old cliche and the other cliche. But I guess cliche is a cliche is for a reason. Is that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So that's why we decided that Adam and I are in the first place is selfishly to surround ourselves with people who have the experience, who have the learnings, who have made the mistakes, so we don't have to make them and who we can source inspiration from and grow as a result. So I'm not sure if that really answers your question, but hopefully that gives a little bit more insight into what we're all about. It does. I think I'm not sure if you coin this or if you found this from someone else, but I think it's a very fitting way of describing your community. An entrepreneur's mind, an athlete's body, and an artist's soul. And that was a very good magnification of the event of the people there. You know, I came back from that event. I found myself reinspired to do our own events like you and and giant your team put on such an amazing event. You put so much care and love into it. It was your first, you know, you do a lot of events, but this was probably the biggest event you've done. Yeah, we usually do 10 to 15 people events that go for 10 to 12 days and this one was 112 people, so a 10x by all means. You guys nailed it. And seeing the care and the love you put into that and just the passion. And also, you know, I mean, you're talking about how passion based businesses aren't just, you know, passionate 100% of the time. Like, you know, I've been there, man, I do events. I recognize the look in your eye at the end of long days, right? Like, it's hard. You carried it really well. Hard times, but you did it out of a, you know, in service of something you really love and passion. But anyway, coming back from it, like for me, I came back and was really inspired to invest more in our events. I found myself picking up my camera a lot more. Like, you had a lot of a really good blend of artists as well as entrepreneurs there and filmmakers and photographers and you guys do creative so incredibly well. And it's also good to like, if you're in an industry like Ecom, I go, traditionally, been to a lot of Ecom events. That's good. But going to an event that's completely outside of that, or at least largely outside of that, whether it's something like Art of Mondays or maybe it's, I remember, went to a word conference or a word press event one time. It's so refreshing to meet people. You get different perspectives. You get outside the rut of the normal event kind of thing. And and that was amazingly helpful too. A few things that changed for me coming, coming back from what you guys put on was really was very noticeable. That's right. It's really refreshing to hear that. And we've got a lot of great feedback all around across the board to be honest. So I think first of its kind, great success. And in fact, for your listeners and much of that, I would know this already. But we actually pre-launched Camp Mondays 3, which is going to be the same place similar time next year. And we had 15 people sign up before Camp Mondays 1 had even finished. So I think that was just a bit testament to the fact that we were able to create this feeling. And if we could put that feeling in a bottle and sell it, which in a way was what the pre-launch of the next event was, then people would get really excited about it. But I think a big reason for that is not just because we brought like-minded people into the room with the business focus actually more so the opposite. I'm not sure if you'll recall this, but we didn't really have any formal, hey, what's your business, what do you do? Conversations in the first couple days. It was all about connection, all about understanding that there's people like us out there, especially with online founders, which is who we usually have as part of our community. It can be pretty lonely because typically they're solar founders. I think I've got the good side of the stick if that's in the expression, that we're having a co-founder that we get along really well. But for most people, the solar founders are doing it alone. They don't have someone to bounce ideas with. So a big focus for us was just creating that sense of community and connection and allowing people to understand that actually, you might come from different countries, you might have different businesses, different upbringings, but everyone is on the same journey one way or another, so we're not really alone. And I think once that side is syncing for people, then the business conversations, the AI workshops, these kind of things happen naturally because there was trust built, there was an understanding built between everyone. Okay, this guy, he's an absolute chiller, but he runs a 10 million dollar business. I want to listen to what he has to say. And that was reciprocal all around. So as you would have seen throughout the middle part of the event, we start to have a lot of member-led workshops and conversations come and board. But that wouldn't have been possible if not for the connection, focus at the beginning. How do you think about, how do you think about selection of members and maintaining culture? I think this is interesting in the community space, which we're both in, but also if you're building a team or you're hiring people or so it's pretty broadly applicable. How do you think about selection to shape that community? It's the most important thing that we do by far. We believe that our people are our product. So we would rather grow slowly and maintain the quality of people. And I don't mean quality from the business sense, I mean quality, first and foremost from the value sense, then grow at a rapid pace and let in the wrong people, because one rotten egg can spoil the bunch. How we actually go about it? We've got a process that's pretty dialed now. In the early days, it was me and Jai jumping on calls and just getting to know them and thinking, would we hang out with this person? And I mean, that's the benefit of being a fan of our business is a lot of the time we can trust our intuition. So if it was a, yeah, I can see myself hanging out in France with Andrew for a week. Let's let him in versus, I don't know. Andrew talked about himself quite a lot. I asked him this question to see if he would get vulnerable and he kind of just pushed it to the side and talked about his numbers. So it's not to say anyone is right or wrong in how they answer the questions or how they approach business or life. It's just that if you're peeled to everyone, you're peeled to no one. So we're peeled to people who are like ourselves and naturally, therefore we're going to connect and resonate more with them. So that was the early days. And then over the years, we've got a bit more robust in our process where we have an application form that is deliberately quite lengthy because we want people to buy in, not financially, but at farically buy into the journey, put in the effort to show that they're committed. And then if they pass the filters, so we have revenue filters, we have the online business benefit as well, then they will go to have what we call an alignment chat. So in a typical service business, this might be where the sales call comes into place, but we've taken that part of the process and turned it into like almost reversed it. Like we kind of want you to sell yourself to us rather than us selling ourselves to you. And this is where we get to know them, ask them just about who they are as a person. And yeah, we have a bunch of criteria which I might get into in detail right now. But if we feel like they're a good fit, and one of the questions also is would I actually be this person's roommate for a week? Because we go on residencies, we go to camp Mondays, we are in like rooms with these people. And if Andrew, if you're talking too much, man, I'm sorry, like, then I'm probably not going to want to hang out with you. But if you feel like a good fit, then what happens is our alignment team will then say to me and Jay, hey, I think Andrew's a great fit. And the team will then vouch for you. And then we'll do like a final screening, check out your business, check out your Instagram. Instagram would say a lot about a person actually. And then we'll like get Andrew's a great fit. And then we'll let you in and show you what's behind the closed doors. I mean, it's hours and hours of work. I 100% think you take the right approach and we have a lot of commonalities here, although I think you either you are even more thorough on the kind of the personal screenings, especially given there's such a large personal element of the communities. And I mean, I noticed that too in person, the level of ease with which you were able to talk to people was was very high. It was great. Like the interpersonal and the social awareness skills were were really high, which was awesome. The on the is totally understanding the area on kind of following your own scratch your itch on the marketing side. But when you think about creating content, but also you can create content in a way on Instagram or anywhere, but we're talking about Instagram that resonates with people that pulls them in that gives them an easy, pulls up a seat at the table to build that trust. But you have to kind of, you know, you've got to catch their attention. You've got to create stuff that's interesting. It's compelling. What are you trying to tell primarily stories? Are you trying to capture it? by feeling and you're like, what are some of the two of the things you're most apart from just kind of being authentic that you're tactically trying to do to engage and be able to connect with those people? - Cool, I'm excited for this plot 'cause we can get into the nerdy marketing tactical stuff. - That's one, yeah, that's one. Thank you. I try to get into the nerdy marketing tactical stuff. That's what people love. - Okay, well, you have your ad approach, your paid ads, which is all about hooking attention and then building trust, solving the problem, having the call to action at the end. But on the organic side, a lot of it comes down to creating content that is either one relatable, two aspirational slash inspirational, and I think if you can find the balance or the middle of the vent diagram of those two things, that's when people see, oh, this is attainable. And this could be me. I think there is sort of a tipping point where you go past the level of attainability, where it's founders living on Greek islands, having the best time in their life, whereas you're sitting at home, grinding on your thing and you're barely making a profit. Well, how am I gonna get from where I am to where those people are? That often can hook people in, but then how do we bridge that gap? How do we go from attention and hook to, actually, yes, that can be me. And I think that that's where Instagram just plays one part of the funnel for us. We have our weekly Monday, Mail, Newsletter that goes out, and this is very educational, sharing insights and tactics that anyone radiant can actually implement into their business. So that gives people the how to get to that level. And then also combine that with YouTube, where we're sharing more about behind the scenes. And I share a lot about the realities of building businesses and the fact that it's not always rosy. So you might see an Instagram post where it is feeling pretty rosy, but then you might see a Instagram story that links to a YouTube video where I'm saying, actually, I'm burnt out. And there was one day we got scammed out of $25,000 and should hit the fan. And all the realities, and once we share the realities, coming back to that authenticity point, then I think it becomes relatable and when it becomes relatable, then people are like, okay, I can connect with this. I wanna follow this journey. How can I get involved? How can I let more about it? - How much, what does your team look like, too? 'Cause when I look at your, all your social work, yes, a lot of what you're saying is true. You're very open and real about things. But the production values phenomenal, right? Like it's just professionally shot. It's very tightly cut. One thing that was really fun to watch was at the event. You had these daily content drops where your team would put out these little mini reels. Like we were playing a basketball game one day and they put together this awesome mix-up edit of it. They've probably sent to like 10 people and they would drop photos and they were, it's really well done. So, what does your content team look like in terms of who's in house, where are the roles, whose contractors, and then how much are, it's safe to say that you're spending very meaningful amount of money on content production, too. Maybe you can start with the, you know, the budget you allocate to work and what that team looks like. Shooting with intention is where this all starts. We've probably gone down the road of shooting too much content in the past and it's been sitting in a Monday task, waiting for someone to do it, but it's never the highest priority. So, I think always coming to the table with an idea of what we wanted to look like and that's what you saw at Camp Monday. This is, we knew what had worked and what had not worked at the 30 residencies that we had run, 30 give or take. And what we loved was, okay, we know that members want content to share day off, day after because that creates a flywheel. While the vibes are high, while people are in this feeling of magic, they want to share it, they want everyone in their circles to know about it. It's classic human psychology. We want to feel like we are doing well. We want people to see us. Maybe there's a little bit of subconscious ego to it. I don't know if we won't go down that route, but we knew that that's what our members wanted. So we thought, okay, what team do we need so that we can have daily photos, daily videos that people can share and also at the same time get those long form YouTube videos out very shortly after, which should be dropping very soon. So get excited. That can tell the actual story. And I say the actual story because there's what people see. Like on the Instagram highlights on the reels, but then there's also the behind the scenes. So Jai's video is gonna be a little bit more, well, it's gonna be his perspective. And he was more of a member in that way, showing what it was like, the kind of people he was speaking with, whereas my story is gonna be as the hoaxed, which is me running part of the event, and then going back to the room and saying how I just like, I just need a nap I'm exhausted. And so those two different stories are gonna be really interesting to two different types of people. So summarizing that, we wanted to understand what do we want and then we work backwards, who do we need? But that being said, that's a big event. That's not our usual output. The usual output is we have a couple of remote editors. We have a content manager and then me and Jai pinch it because we're both into marketing and content ourselves. In the past, we've both had personal filmmakers who have gone with us and traveled around and made videos documenting the highs and lows and everything in between. And we took a bet on that. That was something we're like, okay, we're gonna invest in content and we're gonna see if this plays off. It didn't really play off in the way that we hoped. So we reallocated some resources into different areas, just to see what would work and what didn't. And that's really what business is all about is taking bets and hoping that one of them pays off. - When you look at the reach, how much of the reach and customers and new members come from just the organic stuff you post naturally versus the stuff that you amplify with paid on Instagram? It's maybe hard to say, but. - Yeah, hard to say without the numbers in front of me, but these days it would be top of funnel it would usually be ads. So, but we've made sure that our ads maintain the essence of our content. We've been described by members and non-members as a very wholesome community, not just within the community, but the way it's represented online is always people smiling with people hugging, there's no business cards, no name tags, things like that. And that can bind with the editing style, which is a little bit more vintage, a little bit more nostalgic. I think the style is a huge theme for us and you saw that at camp where it was all about bringing it back to what was that joy that we felt as kids. If we can combine that nostalgic feel with the authentic representation of what we do and the aspirational side of things and the relatable side of things, then that's kind of where we'll get it together. But in terms of the actual numbers, these days, top of funnel with the ads, people get curious, what is this thing? And then they dig around to our page. Usually, of course, there's a million different avenues to get involved with one of the common ones is then they dig around the page. They see the different residents who have hosted. They look at our tagged videos and they say that actually members are tagging us a lot and sharing their stories because they're having a good time. They wanna tell people what they're up to. Then they'll go down the rabbit hole of landing on landing page and saying some testimonials, building more trust, eventually maybe booking a call. - I think it's also kind of crazy. And maybe speaks to kind of the world and the air we live in online. You guys do some of the best online creative lifestyle content I have seen in terms of just the production quality, the interestingness, the I would love to go do that factor. And yet still the majority of top of funnel is paid discovery versus organic, which is just kind of crazy and wild to me. But it is what it is. - Yeah, it's always ebbed and flowed along the journey. Some people don't like relying on paid ads. We don't rely on them, but we do see the benefit of them because if you can put a dollar in and get $2 out then the basic business principles as well, you just put as much money as you possibly can in. But again, I think that just comes back to the background in both giant I have, which is marketing, specifically digital marketing, individual content. And it's things that we really like to do. So as we were talking about before, if you like to do something, not just the business as a whole but a part of the business, then you're gonna put more effort into it and you're gonna wanna say it's succeed. - Yeah, the wholesomeness stuck out to me as well. That was one thing I thought was also notable and cool about the community and the people you've gathered and the way you guys led. And I mentioned this to you on site, but from a, you read a lot of headlines, I'd say the average age was probably late 20s, maybe early 30s. You read a lot about people drinking less, right? And in the States, you're Australian, a lot of the members, we had some Americans there, but there was a lot of Europeans, a lot of Australians, a lot of Brits. And you go to an event in the US for business and kind of just the bar, kind of the open bar is usually just kind of, it's just a given, it's gonna be there. And I think people, there was very little alcohol at this event and even despite their being not very much, like people were still having an impact. amazing time, the energy of the opening day was incredible. The last night there was a big dance party people were having the time of their last. And I don't say this to someone who's a T-toler. Like I enjoy a good beer. Like a lot of people do. I'm not anti alcohol or strictly no drinking. But to go to an event like that and see almost no one drink for five days or six days, there's a little bit, but not much like just, it was very different for me. And maybe speak just a little bit to that, if you would, because I think a lot of people would, if they weren't in that demographic coming, would see that would be surprised by that. So is it a healthy, what's the mentality partner? I think we're going to come back to the value of health, just probably where it all begins. And echoing something I've said before, it's also a reflection of who, Gianni, as R as founders, we'll go out and we'll have a drink every now and then. But we don't believe that you need a drink to have a good time or to connect. So what we like doing is saving the wine for a night of celebration, which usually happens at the end. Once people have gone on their respective journeys and pushed their comfort zones and used it as a way to acknowledge progress and growth. So I think health is the main thing, but also, yeah, as I said before, we don't think that you need it to connect. And hot take, but it's kind of like a cheat code to get people to open up. And if you're relying on it, it probably means that you don't have systems that allow people to open up or don't have a space where they feel safe enough to open up. And that comes back to having one, like a beautiful and inspiring space where people can feel and be themselves. But to the hosting team that can encourage that openness and that connection, because you can have a beer, you can go out and party and get blind drunk if you want in your hometown. But when you're going to be able to play drama games, like Space Jump and bang and all these kind of things with adults and just let you in your child out, you can remember those moments because either they were just super weird and unusual or they were, because they were unusual, they made you feel uncomfortable, but growth comes from discomfort and we're committed to values growth, but business and personal. Yeah, no, I thought it was very cool. Another thing that was different too is a camera of attention on this at the top. But people's willingness to be, people's willingness to put themselves out there to connect with people. There was a night where everyone could have sat together and sat apart and kind of like you had these 101 sessions where you talk to people about something fairly serious in your life or in your business or sessions that take, that are just comfortable, right? Like some people might feel like they're a little silly or they can't be as serious or they have to let their guard down. I really appreciated the willingness to kind of be a little less self-conscious and put yourself out there in the service of connecting with people, which I thought was really cool. And that takes, I mean, I think it takes leadership from the people who are leading those small groups, kind of being the moderators of that. But yeah, it's something I don't think you see a lot and it was very cool to see a lot of people buy into that and being related to take the plunge. It usually only takes one person to be the first governor to fall and one-to-one person opens up and shares something that they wouldn't usually share with their friends back home who don't run businesses, who don't understand the realities. Then it clicks for other people and then they feel comfortable. Oh, yeah, Andrew said that this thing keeps him up at night. His stress about the pay-in-elf. Then this other guy over here is like, dude, I've been stressed about the pay-in-elf. I thought that was just the me thing. I thought it was being weird and anxious. And then this was a private event. Okay, this was all private. It was to be quiet in West. Cut it, cut it. No, it was very cool. One little icebreaker that you had and a lot of icebreakers can be poorly done. You had a lot of great ones. One that I loved the most was he had everyone sitting in a circle and sitting on chairs and somebody would ask a question. Like who here came from over 2,000 miles away and then you'd have five people stand up and those people have to change chairs and sit back down. And the questions got increasingly funnier and funnier but also deeper and deeper about things. And it was a very cool way. You were talking previously about how it drives you crazy when people, or if somebody talks too much, they may not be a good fit for a group. That's one of my huge pet peeves when people go on like seven-minute monologues in a group because they just blow up the ability for everyone else to be able to connect. And that, that icebreaker was so cool because you got to learn a lot about a lot of different people very quickly in a very compressed amount of time. And it was fun and it was interesting and there was movement involved and it didn't feel forced, which is I think a hard thing to pull off in an icebreaker. To your point about someone possibly talking too much, not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a sign of a lack of self-awareness. And self-awareness is really important quality because if we can't regulate how we show up, then we might actually be impacting others around us without knowing. So that's something that we look for. But also it can be taught and it can be educated. And that's what I'm looking at an events for about is helping people find the thing that's that's holding the back whether they realize it or not. And then allow them to move through it and become an expression of themselves. But I love that icebreaker as well. It's called Change Chairs if very creative name. What I actually think makes that game really great is that it doesn't go from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye. It's very gradual. So as you said, start with something very simple. Change Chairs if it's your first time in the USA. And then those people move around by the end of it. Slowly increasing the depth, slowly increasing the vulnerability. Change Chairs if you actually felt anxious to come to camp on these. Change Chairs if you've ever felt alone as a founder. And then you see everyone stands up or on this. Everyone they're like, "Whoa, you guys feel that?" I guess I'm not alone. So yeah, it's powerful. But it's also simple. And it's something that we've tried and tested over the journey. We've got so many different games and a lot of them just come from, honestly, just my childhood and Jai's childhood. Jai's dad made an app for all kinds of different games. I went to drama school and something happens as a kid. And then as a teenager, as a leader myself. So a lot of them recycle from there. But it's always fun to learn new ones as well. Also encourage our members to like, "Hey, if you guys want me, you want to bring like, let's hear it." And then allow someone else to lead and step into that version of themselves that they want to. Can you talk a little bit about the resencies? So the resencies are smaller. They're seven to ten days. They're 10 to 12 people in kind of out of the way places. Either cool spots or Airbnb's where founders will live together, get to know each other. More intimate format than what you did recently. Talk a little bit about those, if you would. And how you structure those, what people get out of them and who might be a good fit. Who might be a good fit? That's the easy one. If you're an out of them and they's found a family. Remember you're a good fit for a residency. What they're like depends on what kind of style we're running. We have the OG style, the original, which is what we run most of the time. And this goes for typically 10 to 12 days. And it's a much more intimate group of founders between 10 maximum 15. And we have four simultaneous goals of these resencies. So the first is to, of course, we're going to a great destination to see the destination and make the most of your trip. But that's not the most important. The second is create relationships that last a lifetime. The kind of person who you can call up at 2am. And a couple years from now and they answer because they know you're calling for a reason. The third is personal growth. Leave as a different version of you than the one that arrived. And the fourth, of course, this business growth. Because we're in a room full of smart, intelligent founders. Using the collective wisdom of the room to level up our businesses. So those are out for North stars, I suppose. And the whole run shape, the whole schedule is built up to kind of achieving those things. The first few days is usually centered around connection. So break everyone's rules, walls down, take them off. Like, who are you? Who are you really? Because once we show who we really are, then it's a lot easier to form those bonds. Then the middle part is typically more about collaboration. So that's when we'll do business, help sessions, problem solving sessions, do like a founder hot seat. A really popular one is something that we call help me help you. Where I'll ask the room full of founders, what's the one problem that you're facing? What's the biggest bubble they can do business right now? Write it down on a sticky note. And someone might say, yeah, my sales funnel isn't converting. And then the go around and say, okay, great. Who has an amazing sales funnel to convert? And then we put Jack and Jill together and they go and chat for an hour and a half and one of them solves the other person's sales funnel. And that happens in like a bunch of different groups. So that's typically the theme of the middle few days. And then the last few days, it's all about celebration. Celebrating the connections that we've made, the obstacles have overcome, the business upgrades that have happened. And that we also like to do something, not necessarily every residency, but definitely become an out of Monday's tradition. It's something called the best day ever. And the premise of this is forget what society tells you you should do. Forget what you need to do on your computer today. Just like close the laptop, put the phone away, and take it back to like when you're a kid and what made you feel alive. So we go around the room and we ask like, what would be on your best day ever? And there's little things like I would have pancakes for breakfast. And there's bigger things like I want to climb a mountain or I want to ride a jet ski. Some are more capable than others. We've had some helicopter requests and things like that. But what ends up happening is that we get this, this day, that is a run-chate of everybody's most like wholesome activities that they like to do. And we do it all together. So we'll have pancakes all together in the morning. And then we'll go to a lake and we'll read our books and play board games or every best day ever like turns out differently. But the premise is just don't worry about your responsibilities for a day, just like have some fun. Because as adults, especially as founders, very rarely do we get the chance to do that. That sounds like a really fun, surprising way, too. You're going to have leaders that are resourceful enough to pull that together on the fly. And obviously, you're not going to get the whole thing, but to build a pull, an element, and a version of that together. And I'm sure you don't tell people until the end. That's super cool. Yeah, we've worked out the right way and the wrong way to do it. That's pretty much everything that we've done in business. But the secret to making it work is how it's framed, how it's positioned. Because if we don't put the right context around it, and people will shoot for the moon, and it won't be possible sometimes or in remote parts of Canada, where we're surrounded by nothing, but farmland, and people want to go cliff jumping. How is that logistic if possible? It's not. So I think that something I've learned is not only facilitator, but also as a leader, is understand what you want as an outcome before you start any conversation. But on this point, if you can write that outcome on a sticky note, so it's really, really simple, and then work toward that. So understand what are the restrictions we have to put in place? What are the motivations we have to understand from people who are in the room? And to use this example of what we're talking about, I would just always say, the purpose of this day is not to try to do anything and everything and spend all our money on the wildest experience. The purpose of this day is to come together as a group and strip it back to the things that we love deep down, the things that we don't get the opportunities to do very much because we're too focused on our business, the little things that brought you joy growing up. And then I would give some examples, pancakes or breakfast, ice cream, before dinner, even little things, and then people like, OK, it's clearly not a, let's go get a helicopter and go skydiving kind of thing, although we have done skydiving in the past, but that way the expectations are set and then the frame, the box in which people can play is set. So there's no room for disappointment. So what I've just described, Andrew, is our original residency, the OG, but we do other formats as well. We've done Residency X, which is more experienced, adventure. For example, we rented a handful of camper vans and drove through the South Islands of New Zealand. But we're also really interested in doing other kinds of residency themes. So incubators, which is when people would arrive with an idea for a product or a business and then ship it live by the time they leave, we want to do offline residencies, which is fully on recharging, resetting the nervous system. And then, of course, I think, which is really relevant to you, we're in the process of building out some industry-specific residencies. So residency for agency owners, residency for creatives, and of course, residencies for econ owners. So I'm down to keep that conversation going. Maybe there's some sort of event we can collaborate on if your members are interested. But then the goal would be, of course, to achieve all of the residency magic, but have a really tailored focus on econ and building that business to the next level by the time people leave. Yeah, I love it. We will definitely have talked more about that. And we'll keep people posted. And if that's not as interesting to you doing like a 17, 10 day, 15 person, destination, econ, residency, especially if you're in the ECF community or listening, let me know, drop me a line somewhere. And that would be great feedback to get. Last thing I want to ask you about is you and Jai, your co-founder, you seem like you work very well in bringing different skills to the business that help it really thrive and succeed. Why do you think you work so well? And what are your different lanes in the business? How do you break up responsibility to decision making? Are you 50/50 partners? How do you deal with conflict? Maybe give us a little bit of a peek into a partnership that seems to work very well? Because I think that's a hard thing to pull off. It is, I feel very fortunate that we have an experience. Any of the horror stories that I've heard from many different founders who've gotten to relationships with their own people. I think fundamentally why it works for me and Jai is because we have such a deep level of trust for each other. And we developed that trust before we started out of the Mondays together. In a way, we just built that subconscious trust and appreciation for each other because we were following each other's journeys. In a way, Jai is a visionary. In a way, I am the integrator. When you-- OK, we're not going to be competing for the same things. We're going to be complementing each other instead. And then I actually flew across the country, slept on his floor for four days. And as a sign of commitment to, like, yep, I'm in. Let's do this thing. We scribbled down some values on a piece of paper. And those values are still what we used to do. So that's why I think that's why it has worked really well is because we put in the work at the beginning. And we didn't rush to commit to something. And that's only the beginning. They could have been other sizes of Jai. They didn't know who or vice versa. But I think I know all of his sides by this point. What we did was implement a system where we would chat every single week and go through the numbers, of course. But we created our own sections of this spreadsheet that we would go through. One of them was for feedback, both positive and constructive. So we created a positive routine of feedback that was encouraged. And then also a section for vulnerable thoughts. And the prompt there was, say, the thing that feels a little bit uncomfortable to say because that way we never in the bud and no resentment can grow. In the weeks where we've had to skip these meetings for whatever reason, that's when things have never got negative. But that's when maybe confusion has come up or a deadline has been missed because we've lacked that routine. So I think just creating a system is what I set us up for success. But above all, because it's shared the same values because we want the same thing, because they're both hell-y as 100% all in on out of Mondays. And I think that's why it works. And then for people who are listening to like, man, this aren't the money's thing, sounds pretty cool, how I learn more about it. Where can people go to get more details, to join, learn how the process works for potentially coming on board? Well, you've been chatting about our Instagram. So I can plug that if you like. It's just the art of Mondays. Or if you want, you can go to our website, at mundays.com. And at the moment on there, you'll see the founder family, which is the community that we've been talking about, as well as a couple of other products, the Founder Sports Club. Amazing. Well, Evan, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for hosting me out in France for a really amazing week. Like I mentioned it earlier, but you're the team put on an unbelievable job. It's taken a lot of notes. Been doing events for a while. And I got a ton of things that made me want to overhaul the way that we do. I think it's very excited to be planning ECF Live, which is coming up for us in about six months here on the heels of this. So definitely breathe some life in the planning process. And the level you're doing with the art of Mondays, like the group of people you've assembled is really-- it's really special. They're ambitious, but they also aren't selling their souls, and they're loving active, and they are self-aware. And it felt very-- I loved being a part of the group, even though I've had a few years on most people there. It was just an absolute blast. So thank you for having me. And hoping to be able to do some-- I still have a few things in the works, but try to potentially do some collaborations on maybe smaller events in the future between ECF and art of Mondays. We'll see if that-- if we can make that happen. But yeah, man, really appreciate you. And thanks for letting me be a part of your group for that week. It was amazing. You fit in perfectly. And yeah, also, thanks for getting on stage and sharing some of your journey. I actually read the psychology of money book that you recommended, and within a week, I had read it, and had built my own network, TrackO, with Corden Code. So yeah, shout out to the inspiration that you gave to us as well. And if there's anything that I or we can do for the ECM fuel and for your community, then just give us a shout. And I'm always happy to help. And looking forward to one of those collaborations on our future. Hey, amazing. Thank you. It was fun talking. Always fun talking. It was a lot of times when I talked with-- with folks, actually, I think I told you, this had to come. And I had to have a talk prepared. And then as I got to know the group, I had to rewrite it about half of it. because often I'm in the room where I'm like, "Hey, yes, work hard for a period." like modulate back and don't just sell your soul for work all the time. Like have some fun too. And this group, I was like, oh, they get the fun part. They definitely, that's not gonna be the problem. So, let's go work hard. (laughing) So here's the things to make sure you're doing so you can keep, you know, having a really rich life outside of work long term. Love the group, incredible group you've assembled. So yeah, man, looking forward to more stuff in the future and thanks for coming on. - Thanks Andrew, absolute pleasure. Let's do it again sometime. - And hey, one final thing before you go, my research and data this year's surface something I did not expect. Store owners who pay themselves a salary plus small regular distributions or dividends posted the highest net income scores and growth in the entire survey of store owners, 45% growth, above average margins and the highest hopefulness of any group. Turns out that taking small, consistent bites out of your business doesn't hurt your growth. It actually seems to improve your efficiency while also diversifying your net worth away from your business a pretty smart move. That sounds like the kind of thing you'd like to get right. The financial mastery series breaks down exactly how to think about distributions, cash reserves and building wealth alongside your business. It's free at ecomersfeel.com/mastery and for seven and eight figure owners who want to be around people operating at this level and thinking about this regularly, check out the community at ecomersfeel.com. Work hard, adventure often, but I'm looking forward to seeing you again. next Friday.