Ep. 19 Jess Chan | Diary of an Entrepreneur: How Jess Generated Over $300 Million for DTC

Andres Sanchez [00:00:00]:

In this day and age, we have almost endless opportunity with a computer and a phone. So if you don't like what you're doing, pivot, go do something else. I'm not gonna pay you to make my clip. for my podcast. If you have 20 followers on social media and you're telling me that you're a short form editor. How does it actually feel in your day? Being entrepreneur? I think a lot of it is is such struggle. and a lot of it is very challenging. It's really just you versus you for most of the day. You have on your Twitter bio that you generated over 300,000,000

Andres Sanchez [00:00:27]:

in D2C. Well, that's kinda dive into that. Where did that 300,000,000 come from? Welcome to the Virtual Ventures podcast. Episode 19. I'm your host, Andres Sanchez. and today's guest is Jess Chan, a marketing and e commerce powerhouse. She's the founder of Longplay Brands, a retention marketing company, and the mastermind behind back bone, an email strategy automation tool for D2cecommercebrands. Jess has generated over 300,000,000 for her D2C client. Get ready to be inspired as we explore the world of marketing and entrepreneurship with Jess Chan. Let's dive in.

Andres Sanchez [00:01:11]:

Hey, Jess. Thanks for coming on the show today. How you doing? Thanks for having me. I am so excited. Yeah. Really excited to talk to you. for some reason, you've been popping up on my timeline a lot lately. So it must mean that you're doing something right, but I'm really excited to have you on the show. I'm excited for people to know a little bit about you, your background, some of your successes, and even some of maybe your failures. I always like to just get right into it Who is Jess Chan? How have you evolved over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur? Let's hear all about it. Oh, man. We're coming in hot events. So,

Jess  [00:01:43]:

I guess, high level, I am the founder and CEO of Longplay And Backbone. So Longplay is a full service retention marketing agency for direct to consumer ecom brands. We've been around for Boris shares now, and we've seen about 25 to 30 ish fully remote. And the backbone is our new email strategy automation tools, such as SaaS company, also targeting ecom brands to automate the job of an email marketer, and we just launched that out of our beta, like, roughly 2 weeks ago. So definitely from an entrepreneur journey standpoint, very new, diving into the tech space, but also I have a few years under my belt just in building businesses And prior to all of that, I was the CMO of, best self co, which is a DSCE conference. So that's really kind of where most of my, I guess experience lives and starts. Awesome. So all of it very marketing oriented. Did you go to college for marketing? Was marketing something you always passionate and excited about, or did you naturally just kind of fall into that path? I could not have gotten to university for a more different degree. So I actually wanted to University of College for actuarial Science And Economics, and then also did a minor in political science. So it was, like, a very nerdy nerdy mathematical number based degree. I did 4 years of multivariate theoretical calculus, where we did see a single number. Wow. Lots of essay writing. So just very theoretical, like, pure math type stuff in actuarial Sciences like, very like statistics heavy, like, risk modeling, and the the dream for an actuary is to end up in, like, a corporation typically insurance where you're pricing out, like, life insurance or, like, car insurance, things like that, which, I mean, 2 or 3 years and I was like, I don't really see this as my ideal life path, and I actually went down probably a period of, like, year and a half ish of, like, panic attacks, depression, suicidal thoughts, all the things. and kind of in that darker period, I moved just to some point. I was like, you know what? I'm over this. Like, this is not working for me. and we're gonna have to find our way out. And that was actually kinda when I started diving into, like, self development, the Tim Ferris, like, Seth Golden Strves, concept of, like, how do you design your perfect life? I'm designing my perfect day, all of that, and all that actually led me to find, best self, which they sold, such as productivity journals and productivity tools for entrepreneurs. So I remember seeing an ad for their self journal when I was like, cathon. And as a college student, I was like, I can't pay $30 for a journal. That's just like so much money. So I downloaded their free PDF and joined their email list and 2 weeks later, I think they had a job posting for a marketing assistant. So I applied for that, and I remember feeling like this feeling of, like, there's nothing more I want in this world than this. Like, I've never wanted something more. And at that point, at 0 marketing experience, barely knew what ecom was. It just felt right. So Pied for the job. Got this marketing assistant job. I was working there part time in my last year of college and then also part time at another company as well. And when I graduated, they, promoted me to chief marketing officer, and I remember thinking this is the world's most unqualified motion that we're get elected. And then was there for three and a half years, and it was freaking amazing. So much fun. Amazing team and also just the perfect time in ecommerce also the business stage where it was a very early stage that just launched a Kickstarter or a very early traction, but it was still that, like, really fun period of, like, you have traction, things are working, but it's so gritty. You can just try everything. So it's great for just kinda getting my hands dirty at the industry. And from there, I started loam play. Awesome. I mean, that's, what an amazing, like, journey so much to unpack. And I think I wanna start, like, all the way at the beginning. I like to kinda learn a little bit more about the guests. Like, we always get to see the fun version of you online, successful version of you online. Let's talk about the darker part of it. Like, where did that all come from? Why was it rough? did it have to do with you just not being motivated about that major? And then let's highlight the amazing growth. Like, the person you are then to the person you are now. So the dark period, it was I just remember thinking, like, at that time, like, mental health wasn't, like, people didn't really talk about it yet. So I just thought I was going crazy, honestly. If I remember, like, just I would wake up with these, like, insane panic attacks. I don't even I've been calling them panic attacks, but I honestly don't really know what they are. And I just felt like I was going crazy. Like, everything just is, like, dark and hopeless and, like, everything just there's, like, really no light. And I remember, like, just the world and, like, life just looks differently. So for example, simple things like, hey, this amazing group of friends, and I had a lot of people who loved me. But when you're kind of in that mental state, you've it feels super isolating. It's like you're having this panic attack. can't reach out to anyone. Like, no, I'm actually a burden on everyone. I'm an inconvenience, everyone. So that is just interesting. Like, I've been calling it kind of, like, experience of having, like, VR goggles on and you can't take off. And all of reality looks really different. And that's something that I've been not struggling with, but just like a recurring theme and, like, periods of my life where, like, that was kind of the start of it and would come back every once in a while. And these days, you know, it still comes back, but, like, I handled it a lot better. It's more of something I know that kind of passes through versus this. The first time is really terrifying because you're like, oh my god. This is just gonna be my life forever. and, like, I don't know what to do about this. So I think looking back, it was really this feeling of, like, stuckness of not quite just knowing that, like, the path of mom is the one I want but I also don't really know what's next or what I do want. And I think that's why self development and just this idea of, like, designing your own life and being able to switch career paths. And, like, you can create anything you want. You can develop any skills that you want. You can start a business. You can switch your lifestyle. All of it is up for grabs. I think that was really powering, like, way out of that particular head space. That's awesome. And some people might be listening and thinking, like, why would you bring something like that up? Like, why would you wanna dive deep into And I do it because I think a lot of people go through these struggles. And I just think that, like you said, it used to not be so openly spoken about, but thankfully, now it is So I think it's important for people listening who maybe aren't feeling great about themselves or are struggling to hear somebody like yourself just explain, like, hey. I was there too. Like, and I was able to grow out and start these amazing companies and have this amazing journey. Like, I think that's really helpful to people. So I always try highlight that when anybody says that they went through a little bit of a dark time. I think it's important to talk about it because there might be others who are thinking the same thing that might listening and what you just said might be the reason that they wake up tomorrow and go to the gym or wake up tomorrow and get on Twitter and try and make more friends on line and build something they're passionate about or transfer to a new job or new major that they're excited. So that's one of the reasons why I always like to highlight something like that because I think it's really important that people because you think you just made an amazing point. It's like, you can really decide to do whatever you want. Like, in this day and age, we have almost endless opportunity with a computer and a phone. So if you don't like what you're doing, pivot, go do something else. And I know it's tough. I know it's scary, but that might be the reason you're in that rut or the reason that you're feeling down. Go make a change in your life, and you never know. That might be what brings you, like, joy or what gets you past that point in your life. So, 1, thank you for being willing to share it. And, 2, I hope this even if it affects one person listening, I think that'll be a success. How did we go from super mathematical to marketing? We didn't really dive too deep into that. I know that it was the gig that Like, did you feel when you took that marketing role that you had wasted your time doing all that math stuff, or was it just like, I got my degree. Let's move on. And this is the path I'm taking. Yeah. It's funny looking back. It it's funny how, certain dots connect looking back. And, like, at that time, I felt like I was just kinda, like, flailing and doing a bunch of things that didn't make any sense. But, way I kind of got out of it, also, I agree with everything you said fully. And that's kind of also why I started this diary of an entrepreneur series on Twitter is, like, people need to talk more about the emotional and psychological call experience of being an entrepreneur and the numbers of revenue growth, like your team size, like, that's all on paper stuff. Like, how does it actually feel in your being entrepreneur. I think a lot of it is is like struggle, and a lot of it is very challenging. It's really just you versus you for most of the day, and I think that's that's really what people should talk about more. And I love that we're having this type of conversation. And, yeah, I was thinking back on kind of how I got out of that rock. And, honestly, the first part of it was really just starting with just doing things, with no particular plan. I'm like, I don't know what I wanna do next, but what I can do is, like, I can make a plan more where I'm gonna wake up at 6 AM and read for an hour. And I'm just gonna I'm like, that's the commitment, and I'm just gonna keep grabbing books to, like, just keep reading. And there's no particular plan, but I can to that. And I can commit to I used to go on, like, 3, like, hour a half to 3 hour long runs to just listen to, like, random tim ferras podcasts. And all this stuff was like, I am depressed. I have no idea what I'm doing there next. A little bit suicidal sometimes, but also I can commit to doing these things. Just don't think just do. That was kind of the opening of, like, okay. When when you're listening to podcast reading books and ideas start happening, and you start seeing pathways. And I think that's one of the biggest, not mistakes, but, like, areas that people get stuck on is, like, you people try to determine what their path is going to be and the outcome of it in order to get started. And, really, the trick is, like, just started, don't be afraid of wasting time, and the solution will find itself. So I actually started in kind of that process. I started doing, like, as a tinkering around with UI UX design. So I was, like, out start random challenges for myself. I'm like, I'm gonna deny the logo. I'm gonna rebrand this website. Like, I'm gonna write a blog article. It's like, what is this for? Nothing. Am I gonna make money off of this? Definitely not. But let's just create random challenges for myself and, like, essentially being your own boss or, like, being your own mentor. I'm just gonna create things for me to do. I played around with, like, development. I remember I landed a job as a JavaScript developer having no no JavaScript, and I was like, I got the contract. My some point, my parents were like, you you can't take this job. You don't know JavaScript or like, but they, but they think I do. I landed this job, but that was good. That was a good parental advice. Like, you you don't even have enough to, like, start your first day. And in that whole process, I was, like, blogging every day and just writing. And in that, when I started applying for marketing assistant jobs. It was mainly the best cell phone and another one. I would just do I said I applied with a five page report on, like, what I would do if I was their marketing manager. I love that. in that, this is like the world's greatest, like, hack of, like, if you wanna get a job, just apply and do the job before you get paid. I'm like, what would I do if I was a marketing manager? And in that, that forced me to Google what does marketing manager do? Oh, there's content marketing. Oh, there's SEO. Oh, there's an email marketing. How would I build this plan? And if I were to do content marketing, like, what five blog topics would I write on and, like, what influencers would, you know, make sense for this particular brand. And it's funny I looked back on it, like, probably a year ago. And I was like, you know what? As now as a CEO of a marketing agency, I would a 100% hire this person because no one submits things like this. So it's both like a learning process. You also find out very quickly whether you really enjoy that particular role. Like, for example, I did some for, like, B2B marketing and I was like, yeah, like, in this process, I don't really like this as You know? So that's kind of how I landed that first marketing assistant job, and then it was kind of just continuing that that mindset from there. Yeah. There's two things I wanna highlight there. 1, and I've said this on other podcasts. I love that you took the extra initiative when going to get the job, and you just did it before you actually got it. told them what you were gonna do. I think so many people, everybody nowadays thinks, oh, you need to pay me for this. You need to pay me for that. And it's like, I'm not gonna pay you to make my clips for my podcast. if you have 20 followers on social media and you're telling me that you're a short form editor, which I'm using that because I'm sure that's in everybody's DMs. They think the new cool thing. And it's like, okay. Great. Like, do you wanna do this for me? Make me 10 clips for free. Show me that they're good, and I'll post them. And if they do well, then I'll hire But it's so many people think like, oh, like, no. You need to pay me. You need to pay me. And it's a little bit not the same as what you did, but somewhat the same. It's like, hey. I want this job. Here's a detailed report on how I would do that job. And here's my resume as well. If you like what I wrote that I'm gonna do, it's Okay. I'm gonna hire this person. They already know what they're gonna do with the job. It's not gonna be a 6 to 8 month ramp up period here where we're gonna have to teach this person What is this? What is that? So I love that. I think that's super important. And then another thing I wanna highlight is just do something. Like, just take that first step. And I suffer from this so much. Like, I'm like, I'm like, oh, I wanna get back in the gym. It's like, alright. I gotta wait for the first because I I wanna start at the beginning of the month. Like, no. Just go to the gym the next day. Like, just get started. so many people read these self help books, read these entrepreneurial books, take notes, talk about it, but they don't actually do anything about it. Like, they don't actually start and get going. And I think that's the key to so many things. Just lean in. Put your foot forward. Start. And so many things will start to happen that you couldn't even imagine. So two just amazing points from your end there. Let's talk about CMO. That's a big position. You're a c level executive. Like you said, most unqualified job promotion ever. How did you do in that role? What were some of the challenges? What were the some of the things you learned? Like, let's talk highlights. Yeah. We had it was so much fun. It's funny. Now, like, owning my own company, I'm like, oh, I missed those days. when you take out the anxiety of, like, will I fail? It's like, oh, man. That was, like, 3 years of just, like, let's just test everything. You know? And, I mean, I think I did pretty well. I definitely think they were, like, looking back on, like, there was a lot of opportunities that we missed, and, like, I could the veteran and all of that type of stuff knowing what I know now. But at that time, I was like, I think I was 20, like, 20 or 21 when. That's amazing. We grew into, like, just under a $10,000,000 ARR agency or my agency e comm company. I remember some of the highlights. We launched a Kickstarter for Anadrius a hourglass and we were fully funded in the first, like, I don't even know, like, a few hours. And that was really cool. Like, we filmed the whole video, launched a Kickstarter. Like, that was a really good experience, a fun experience to get under my belt and to be fully funded very quickly. And we raised, I think, just under a $100, within, like, like, 1st, like, 48 hours something like that. We had, like, a really awesome Facebook group that we did a lot of content marketing, and that was, like, we really figured out, like, UGC community marketing at that time. And I think also selling their, like, the products that we're selling, they were all there's no moat around it. Right? So for example, for selling supplements, or like a product like that, like, people cannot really make it at home. You might have competition, but you're really selling, like, the product itself in this very clear direct benefits, whereas we were selling, like, journals, and we were we were actually giving out the templates for free. So really, like, there was no reason anyone really had to buy anything from us. They could always just take screenshots like, duplicated out in their journal. I could not pattern or anything like that. And that really I think that's just, like, one of the hardest marketing things. to get your feet wet in very, very early onwards. Like, you are fully marketing off of brand. You are fully marketing off of community and relationship building. You have no product to lean on, not that the product is amazing, but everyone can duplicate their product. There's no reason to buy from you. So that was really fantastic just as a first experience back and we what else did we do? We did, like, a live event at some point. We hosted it at a WeWork space, had, like, a hundred people, brought in speakers. We launched I don't even know how many products, and we did it all with a relatively small team. Like, we stayed at we stayed at a team of, like, fifteen people. I don't think we ever cross twenty people. I'd say like the Kickstarter and the live events and all that were probably like some of the most fun parts that I'm excited that we got to do time. That's awesome. And, I mean, I'm sure there was so many invaluable things that you were able to take from that into

Andres Sanchez [00:16:48]:

your companies that all around marketing now. You're the CEO of both of them. You have on your Twitter bio that you generated over 300,000,000

Jess  [00:16:56]:

in D2C Well, let's kinda dive into that. Where did that 300,000,000 come from? What has the experience being the CEO of these companies been? And then we'll kind of dig a little bit deeper because I always like to highlight what the experience looks like from a customer because you never know who's listening. Yeah. For sure. So long play kind of started, honestly, quite organically. I was still to see on what self. I did I loved it there. I didn't have any desire to leave at that time. And I was really just going to events. People were like, hey, like, well, how are you doing email marketing for best self? Like, could you consult? So I just kinda start saying yes to things kind of in alignment of what we said earlier. I was like, just start saying yes and, like, it'll all figure itself out. So I just have a bunch of consulting gigs. And, honestly, very early stage beginning of one play before. It was really an agency. I was doing consulting for, like, branding and content marketing. I was, like, writing scripts for videos and writing books and, like, all this stuff. And we really honed it on email marketing because I was like, 1, it's a hard remote for freelancers. You know, you have to know strategy and copywriting design, implementation, all this type of stuff, and also it's a little scalable. It has a business model, whereas, like, branding is a little bit more challenging, for example. So I started building out that company, and it was really just kind of like a shark taking off. And at some point, I was like, I can't do both these, both of these, like, very extremely intensive positions anymore. And that was kinda what I left best self, but it was on great terms and was long played 300,000,000, and most of it comes from email revenue, more recently in the last 6 years. So we've expanded more to like SMS, direct mail, other channels, but We were really just doing email marketing for 3 years, and I'm I'm a huge proponent of, like, double down on one thing, get really, really good at it rather than expanding to, like, a full service suite and this day, our strategy is always like, we are going to double down retention marketing. Like, you will not I can guarantee you will never see us offering paid ads as a service. That's not what we're gonna do. I don't think everyone can do all the stuff right and no one really does retention marketing well. So that's not -- Can you explain sorry to cut you off. Can you explain retention marketing a little bit better? I personally, like, wanna learn a little bit more what that is specifically. And I'm sure there's probably people listening to just what retention marketing really is. Yeah. It's a great question. So retention marketing really is just how do you actually pain your leads and customers after you've acquired them. Right? So Facebook ads, Instagram, TikTok, those are all fantastic channels and very necessary channels at generating brand awareness, getting your customers on your site, making their first purchase, you know, dropping in their email address or SMS, but how do you actually keep your customers for the long term? How do you cross sell them into different product categories? How do you get them to make repeat purchases? How do you get them to refer? talk about your brand online, how do you actually get them to start a subscription or reduce your subscription cancellations, win back your customers, all of that back end stuff. we're finding now with Facebook ads being more challenging. Metasheous. It's a whole a whole new world. iOS 15, TikTok might get you know, canceled in the US. I don't know what what what the update is there, but acquisition is getting more challenging. It's also getting more expensive, and more rated. And now it's the brands who are able to retain their customers to actually increase the lifetime value of the customers, get more repeat purchases. Those are really the ones that are going to win in the long term and have a scalable sustainable business. because, really, if we're looking back, like, 5 years ago, you could build a business just off of, like, 1 or 2 movie Facebook ads. Like, if you could nail the Facebook ad, then you could scale as many figure overnight. Now that's just not at anymore. Like, everyone's talking about lifetime value. Everyone's talking about retention. So retention marketing is really just everything that tackles that part of the business and typically, like, email SMS direct mail or some of the big channels, but also things like Tapcart or setting up a great referral program or setting up a good strategy around reducing subscription churn, like how do you keep your subscription customers, how do you cross sell customers, how do you win back customers, all that type of stuff, is kinda what we focus on. Awesome. Yeah. I think, like, for me, I built some companies during college that were all discord and community. And they went really well, but I just could never nail down, like, a solid marketing strategy. I was able to bring in a ton of customers, but it was always up and down. and up and down. And honestly, for my other brands too, like, before this one, I always struggled to find, like, a credible person who was gonna help me with my social media credible company who's gonna help me build out my marketing strategy. Has that been a little bit of an issue? Like, do some people, some kind of sharkey people whose claim they do marketing or claim they can get you followers, make it a little bit tougher in this industry because that's just me personally. I just remember having to go through, like, many different people claim they could do this or claim they could do that. And is that a challenge in your business, or has that been a challenge? Just out of curiosity. Yeah. Honestly, I mean, we lose clients every once in a while where we because we do, like, a hour a half to 2 hour long audit and charge you a back development for free. before -- Hey. I never got that. We are, like, we are, like, committed to long term partnerships. Like, we we wanna keep clients for years, and I'll wave a lot of clients just downfully. 3 over 3 years. You know? So that's that's kind of like how we work with clients, but every once in a while, like, we go through this entire process. Clients love it, and then they like, well, like, do you have a guaranteed ROI or, like, we have this other comp, like, agency that promises what they've been, like, 3x or revenue in the 1st 60 days. And we're always the first one to say, like, we don't promise that. Like, that's just that's not how marketing works. No one else can guarantee growth for your business except you. Like, that is a CEO's job. We can master retention marketing. We're gonna tell you exactly how we're gonna do it. We will show you everything. And, also, at the end of the day, it's a CEO's job to decide, like, is this gonna generate ROI is the best expense for us. Like, how is this gonna work with the rest of our channels? so every once in a while, we lose clients for that, like that, and but also a lot of the time to come back 3 to 6 months later where they're like, well, like, they they got started really quickly and it looked good for 2 weeks, and then they kind of burnt out her list, or like, then they just like, like, start running much flash sales and like then it they're kind of tanked and like and we're getting a bunch of customer complaints. It's like, honestly, we're like, that that's the trade off. Like, if you want these quick fix results, you will have to deal with the consequences of that. And if you want long term sustainable success, you will have to deal with the trade offs that is going to be a longer onboarding process. us. Like, it is going to be a slow burn because we're trying to do it right. we're trying to do it in a way that your business is gonna exist and be able to be sold in 5 years, not that you're gonna hit your, you know, 10 x revenue goal in the 1st 3 months. and those are the decisions that, like, as a CEO or a founder, like, that's your decision to make and where the service provided to tell you what we can or can't do. Yeah. I can definitely confirm that nobody got on a 1 a half hour 2 hour call with me in mapped anything out. So it was probably just me looking for the quick fix and not knowing enough at the time, but thankfully now I've educated myself a lot more met a lot of amazing people in the space like yourself. So let let's talk about from a customer's perspective, like, that works with you just in case we have anybody who might want to work with any of your brands. What does it look like when you're onboarded? What is the experience like? What can you expect? maybe a little highlight on that. Yeah. For sure. So I'd say if you're a DTC econ brand who needs any help with, like, email marketing, retention, marketing, we have something for you. Longplay is best for typically, like, brands at least 5,000,000 annual revenue, but we have some exceptions. We've worked with brands up to 500,000,000 annual revenue well. On the long play side, background's a little bit better for, like, branches kinda getting started with email marketing with a smaller team, smaller budget. That's really what we backbone for. But for long play, if a brand comes on, they're interested, we always do a quick 30 minute discovery call. That's really just to kinda get a sense of where you're at what you need. Some brands are like, I just need the basics of email marketing set up, and then I wanna be able to run it internally. Some brands are like, I need full service management. We've already worked with a small agency. We need to level up. That's typically where where most brands come to us for. It's like they've already worked with a freelancer. They've worked with an agency. Now they're looking for, like, next level. And that's really just gives a sense of, like, where they're at, what they're looking for, how it can help, and then we do it an hour a half to 2 hour long. audit and strategy development where we dive into, their accounts, look at all the the numbers, but also see where the opportunity is gonna be, how we'd approach strategy for them, them examples of, like, exactly what we would build out. Here's the game plan. And by the end of these calls, typically clients are like, wow. This thank thank you. And I'm like, I think I always say this is a good sign. Like, if people are thinking us after quote unquote sales calls, like, that's how we wanna -- That's a good thing. Yeah. We're like, we're not selling you. We're gonna tell you what we do and how we do it for an hour a half to 2 hours. And then at the end, we will tell you what the price would be for us to do it for you. That's really how we've always approached are are, like, quote unquote sales. Like, let's just approach it how we would want to as a partner and how I would want to receive it as a CMO. And everything that we do is, like, our entirely team has in house e commerce experience. So everything we do is built towards, like, how would we what would we have one hub seen when we were in your position? And then from there, we do a 4 week onboarding process, we become like complete brand experts on the brand, copy tone, voice strategy, we build everything, and all of our onboarding is built be as hands off as possible to show up on the calls. We interrogate them with questions, then we present back what we heard as well as the actual strategy. And by the time onboarding is done to full steam ahead. We could just focus on execution, but every our entire onboarding process and our sales process is built towards partnership first, providing value, making sure we're aligned and then be able to move quickly rather than most agencies or freelancers where it's like, wow, we can get get set up so quick. Like, we'll start sending emails within the 1st week, and it's like, that's that because you're trade off because you're gonna have 6 months of back and forth that you feel like they're not aligned on your brand or you have to give all this feedback something goes wrong because it wasn't done properly to begin with. and that's why we that's why I named my agency long play. It was like, hey, we're here. Play the long game. We're gonna do this right Rock to do things fast. We're moving fast forward. That's not that's not what we're optimizing forward. We're optimizing to do things right. And what should a brand expect to pay monthly for, like, what should they have budgeted for their marketing spend? And then typically, how long do you think it takes to see results because I know some people are like, oh my god. I didn't make any money back in my 1st month. Like, this is not working, which, come on. Let's be real. Things take a little bit of time. But what's like a fair estimate somebody who's, like, going in, maybe doubling down on marketing for the first time. Like, what does that look like? Cause I know just from a lot of friends who have built brands, like, I'm scared to spend money on marketing. Like, I don't know who I'm gonna see the return. I don't know how long I'm gonna have to wait to see the return. So, yeah. so most of our clients are do come on to, like, a full service hands off like we're just managing, as a retention partner now. That starts at 66100 a month, and we start, and we do a minimum 6 month contract. We do also have some starter packages for, like, brands who are like, I just need you to, like, set up all my basic flows for launch and then kind of it's just a one time project. So we do do packages like that that are a little bit cheaper and and optimize for that. And then, typically, from a result standpoint, like, obviously, the 1st 4 weeks is onboarding, so we don't start sending emails out until, 4 weeks later. And then typically within, like, the 1st, like, 2 to 3 months after that, you should be starting to see some results. And we always say, like, with flows where we're building those things out, like, you start seeing the hockey stick curve around that, like, 3 month mark. You're still still starting to see revenue coming before that, but, like, the hockey stick starts compounding after that 3 month mark. And then campaigns, obviously, it'll start seeing revenue coming right away. But in that AB testing and the strategy, like, we start getting the data points to really scale your campaign revenue at as well around, the 1 to 2 month mark in. So we always say, like, think of this as, like, compounding where the 1st month you're starting like, you put in your $100, you're starting to see some some come in, but the compounding doesn't hit until like 3 months in, and that's also like the the lower risk because we're we're confident that it'll continue compounding there. Awesome. What's it like being a CEO? What was it like hiring out your team? I know you have you I think you said you had, like, thirty people. You mentioned you have leadership people within your company? Like, what is it like in that role? What is it like managing all these people? Did you ever think that it was gonna be a team this big when you launched? How how's that been? Yeah. Oh, man. I definitely went through a period in with building a long play where I was like, god, there's so many people. I hate all of this. Like, this company is killing me. Like, I this is literally taking years off my life. I hate all this and, like, definitely went through that process of, like, should I just shut this thing down? Like, I don't even wanna go through the process of selling it. So I I just wanna share like, it's a very real experience. No matter how great the company is. Think the very real experience that a lot of entrepreneurs go through, like, this burnout. Like, I hate this thing that I've created. And what actually got me out of it hiring Rachel, my COO, who is freaking amazing. We run off of the EOS, like, visionary integrator model, so I'm actually quite out of the day to day of long play at this point, but took a few years, but this point, I spent, you know, 5 hours a week on long play with team of 30. It kind of runs itself and, like, most of the time I spend in that company is sales and marketing, which is amazing. And it's funny. I would say, like, long play has kind of become, like, my version of a 9 to 5. Not that it's clocking and clocking up as like that is a safety net to allow us to do bigger things. Like, we know we are profitable and keeps me out of the day today that is like our baseline. And that also has allowed us to fund back own, which is our software company work, which is where we spend most of our time. But the EOS visionary integrated model has been fantastic, and I actually don't do a lot of our any of our hiring or anything like that. These days it's for C Suite or the Kyle level director, type positions. And with building long play, I was very much like, I want, like, an in house full time team. Like, everyone is, like, fully in this. No contractor. Like, I didn't want to do, like, part time type people who are, like, kind of been kind of out doing side gigs or anything like that. So was really the culture we created for long play. I think it's perfect for an agency because, like, we really wanna build a team that feels taken care of that can take care of our clients. This is a people based company. On the backbone, I'm like, I've had one tinker around with, like, what would a different culture look like? And what is the different approach to building this business look like? So we're back when we're actually going a lot of So we have, like, a web agency, social media agency, development agency, and then I kinda wanna just do that and then go straight C suite hiring and let the C suite build out their own teams and, like, for me personally to not have to deal with hiring junior or middle manager type people. And that we experiment of, like, let's just see what it looks like to build the business a different way in a different order. So let's see how that goes. Awesome. And then you said something in there that I I don't really know what it is, so I wanna ask I'm somebody who's always like, I don't really care if it sounds dumb. If I don't know, I gotta know what it is. And you said, I think, EC 2 visionary model. Oh, EOS. Yeah. I I did -- Yeah. -- do that. Yeah. I'm happy to jump in. I also think that is the greatest secret to, like, all of entrepreneur successes. Like, just don't to ask, like, this quote unquote. So there's never any stupid questions. So EOS, I think it stands for entrepreneur operating system. but you can literally just Google EOS. There's a book called traction. And, essentially, the concept there is that the company has a visionary, which is typically the founder and CEO, and they also have the integrator, which is typically like the COO, but they don't they have have to be given that c suite title, but the visionary is the one who's, like, typically, like, big ideas, a little bit more scattered. The job of of a visionary is kinda, like, set the course, like, Get the lay of the land, figure over steering towards where the integrated job is to put all those ideas that can actually have a game plan. They're the ones doing all of the management. So all of our C suite for for long play. All of our C suite reports into Rachel, my COO. She runs the entire day to day of the company, and she is my only direct report. And that was something I learned like, deeper in where I was like, I hate management. I love the management. Hate management. I'm not also not a great manager. Like, I'm like, I don't like following up with people, you know, I don't like hand holding. I'm I'm not the person to check-in. That's just, like, not what I'm great at. And that also does this service to our team who deserves great managers. So, learning when to back off and realizing that, like, I, maybe too much in the day to day actually causes more chaos than good was a big big learning experience that, like, made me happier and also made our team happier. Whereas I think a lot of entrepreneurs of myself included went to this phase of Like, oh, it's my job to suffer. Like, I'm supposed to be in there. Like, that's a steamy hustling. They have to see me grinding. Like, they should see me everywhere, and it's actually not it makes things worse for everybody and you're miserable as a founder as well. So this this has really been a make, like, absolute life changing from, like, a quality of life and also the success of our business as well. I think it's great that you were able to realize that because I am totally agree. And think every entrepreneur experiences his experiences this at one point in their career, you feel like you need to do everything but you might actually be doing your team and yourself a disservice

Andres Sanchez [00:32:49]:

by inserting yourself into a role that doesn't work for you. You're not gonna be amazing at everything. And I hear that all the time. It's like, my business was going pretty good, but there was a lot of hurdles. And then I hired the right person and we thirty x. I hired the right person and the culture completely shifted. As a CEO founder, you're not gonna be amazing at everything. And I actually think what will make you successful is being able to step back and identify what you're great at and what you're not and then go in and hire the right people for it or insert the right type of coaching or team environment, that's where you start to see the results. And then so many people just get wrapped up and like, I need to do this. I need to do that. I need to be in front and I need to run the show. And it's like, you really don't. You hire amazing people. You work in the back end and power those individuals to go out and crush it for you and do what they're really good at. You will start to see so much more success, so much more of a well rounded company that you're running. So I think that's an amazing highlight. And I know we we've just been going a million miles an hour here diving really deep. We've talked about you or a math Genius all the way through college, then you got to go get a marketing assistant job parlay that into CMO, C suite level role and then want from that to a CEO of 2 amazing companies and are just continuing to succeed with a team of over thirty people, like, What an amazing story? What an amazing timeline of experience? Because you've really just been going up from the first time you went and joined that marketing assistant to right now. So kudos to you for continuing to succeed, continuing to push yourself, and it has been an absolute pleasure to hear it. towards the end of every episode, I always ask the same question to kind of take us back, slow down, and ask something super simple that you can answer however you want. And that is just What are you excited about in the near future? I love that. And also, but even before I answer that, I wanna say, it always sounds so impressive when you, like, say it in this, like, summary view of, like, wow, look highlights, like, I'm freaking amazing, and I just wanna say to anyone who's, like, starting a business or in the middle of it where I'm like, it doesn't feel that way. It never feels that way when you're in the process,

Jess  [00:34:57]:

the imposter syndrome is real. Like, every day I wake up, I'm like, oh, man. Like, I need to be doing more. Like, there isn't. I feel like a failure. Like, this this is all a dot and That's the very the very real experience. So just don't compare your your lived experience with, like, everyone else's highlight reels because the highlight reels don't feel like highlight reels when you're the person living in But I think what I'm excited for, really, is just to continue, like, learning and growing. I think that's one of the most exciting parts of starting a new business is, like, just being, like, fresh again of, like, entering the SAS industry. I'm like, I don't know anything. This is all so new to me. Like, I know how to build a business, but I know nothing about the software industry. I'm I'm wrong. Celine. I really enjoy the process of learning. I'm also doing a 5 meo DMT trip bit later this week. So I'm really excited about that experience and just kinda continuing to create content, creating the diary of an entrepreneur series on Twitter has been like funny everyone's like, this is a great strategy. I'm like, honestly, I think I just kinda did it because it was, like, fun for myself, and it was, like, very therapeutic for me to, like, remember what I did all day because I would blunt blackout and just, like, work. I'm excited to hopefully, like, publish a book in the future around more of, like, the emotional and psychological experience of entrepreneurship, share more blog content and things like that, but really just kinda continue producing and creating. I love it. Where can people find you? I want anybody listening to be able to go connect you, get in touch, read your content, anything that they want. Where's the best place for that? Yeah. Twitter's probably the best place to see kinda what I'm up to. So that's Jess Chan with 2 js, on Twitter. Same thing on Instagram as well, which I which I post on. And then I also have my personal website, jesschandot CA, or, you can also visit long play, and backbone@longplaybrands.comorgobackbone.co.

Andres Sanchez [00:36:40]:

Amazing. Jess, has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. This conversation was great. I can't wait for this episode to come out and I can't wait to continue to stay connected and see what your journey has for you. Right back at you. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome.