From PC Gaming Geek to Tech Entrepreneur with John Esposito | Episode 005

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with John Esposito, a tech enthusiast turned entrepreneur, to explore his fascinating journey from building computers for gaming as a kid to founding a innovative loyalty rewards app. John shares invaluable insights on career pivots, the art of pitching to investors, and the importance of resilience in the face of rejection.

Meet John Esposito: Las Vegas native, tech enthusiast, and co-founder of Loyal Unlimited

• John’s early start in tech: Building his first computer at 12 and dominating video games.
• The unexpected path: From journalism major to IT recruiting in Chicago.
• Mastering the art of translating tech-speak for non-technical clients.
• The birth of Loyal Unlimited: A game-changing loyalty rewards app.
• Securing startup funding: Leveraging networks and learning from rejections

Key takeaways for aspiring entrepreneurs and job seekers:

• The power of networking and building relationships
• Embracing failure as a learning opportunity
• The importance of clear communication in tech
• How to handle tough questions during pitches and interviews

Quotes: “Learn from those noes, that’s all I can say. There’s a reason why people are saying no. There’s a reason why someone is going to say yes. Go through all the noes and then implement the yeses and then you’ll eventually win.” – John Esposito

“Technology is another language in itself, right? So trying to translate that is definitely a skill.” – John Esposito

“Just because someone has money doesn’t mean they’re going to like your idea or just throw money at you, right? You have to find someone that’s going to, I guess, like the idea that you have and continue to go with it and be your mentor and try to make sure that the money that they’re giving you is actually going to get a return on their end in the long run.” – John Esposito

Resources Mentioned:

• Loyal Unlimited app

Connect with John:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/espo702/
Espo Consulting (espoconsulting.com)

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Manuel: Welcome everybody, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is Career Downloads where I basically hit the refresh button every episode, bring on a different guest to really learn about their background, their career, tips and tricks that they’ve probably learned along the way through their journey and really get a chance to learn from them how they’ve managed their career and hopefully you pick up some useful, actionable advice as part of the conversation. So for today’s episode I have with me John Esposito. So welcome John.

John: Hey everybody. Thanks for having me.

Manuel: Hey, pleasure to have you. So we’ve been talking earlier and you’re kind of curious like why I would want to go through and interview you and once I started looking at your resume, right, I knew a little bit of kind of what you had done, asked you before and once I saw your resume I was like, oh my gosh, there’s so much that I was curious about, so many items that I was like, man I could learn so much me personally. So I think that hopefully other people will get benefit out of this as well. So to kind of start off, can you just give me, again, we don’t have to go into super detail, but just a brief description of kind of where you kind of grew up and.

John: Yeah, born and raised in Las Vegas, went to Bishop Gorman High School, I got three siblings. Actually none of my siblings grew up with a tech family at all. So I kind of had to learn the kind of tech around on my own just by being familiar with computers growing up. I grew up with AIM and AOL back in grade school, absolutely loved coming home from school every single day and trying to figure out how to type 100 words minute after I just got done talking to all my friends for a couple hours a day. But by 12 years old I built my very first computer from scratch and that was like a hands-on learning experience for me, wanted to understand exactly how computers worked, got into video games when I was younger and just kind of snowballed from there really, got into high school and I had a better computer system than all my friends. So it was like one of those things where everybody wanted to come over to my house and try to see what kind of equipment that I was using and why I was always better. My parents didn’t really understand anything until I kind of got addicted to the whole tech field and the computer went out the window because I was spending 10 hours a day on video games. Well, now I had to build another computer at 16 and that’s where I guess the tech spark actually ignited. Went off to college, actually have a journalism degree in media studies and educational technology so I kind of got a minor in teaching people how to do specific things within the technology sector while using technology so it’s kind of a convoluted subject but it actually kind of worked out. With the journalism major, I found out that technology and content rule the web and I didn’t really understand it myself until I realized that Google on how you get ranked to get any single website up on the high algorithms is you must have relevant content. And I started my career right after school with a company called Ultius Incorporated and Ultius.

Manuel: So when you picked up your understanding of, you know, content and journalism, what year was that? Was it while you were in school? Was it after school? Kind of when did you learn that part?

John: It was actually definitely after school. Honestly, I went to college not really understanding exactly where my future was going to bring me. I went to San Diego State. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s a party school, I’m a desert kid myself, grew up in Las Vegas. I wanted to go someplace warm but I knew I wanted to get away from Las Vegas. So I went to the beach, picked a major which I thought kind of interesting, but I kind of want to go into sports journalism, grew up playing baseball, volleyball, and didn’t really knew where I was really going to go. But it wasn’t until after I graduated where I realized that content really rules everything in regards to the web sites. When I graduated in 2011 from school, 2012, I started working for Keller Williams Realty as a lead generator for a realtor. He wanted to be able to post specific things online to generate lead sales for the housing industry. Well, coming out of journalism, I had no idea what I was doing. This realtor, he also wanted a website, hired somebody to come into the office where I was doing these lead generations. I saw him building these websites for this particular player that I was working for. I was really interested in it. We ended up sharing the same office, we started talking back and forth, and the next thing I know, I started working for this guy.

Manuel: Building websites.

John: Building websites for a company called Ultius Corporation. And Ultius is Latin for revenge, that’s what it means. But the person who I was working for, he ended up being a college dropout, didn’t really have a, I guess, direction, but he was extremely tech savvy, he was a coder, a developer, and he built a platform that allows college students to be able to submit their papers towards you can have that paper written for you and then turn it in for a grade. Well, next thing you know, I’m a journalism major, next thing you know, he’s got a website that caters to this kind of service, and next thing you know, I’m writing papers for college students.

Manuel: Making a little extra side money.

John: Little side money, right? So, not only now am I starting to learn how the website content creation works, but I’m also learning how actual content is actually relative in the industry where people will actually pay for it. It’s not just for college students as well, it’s for businesses that want to do blogs, it’s for social media posts, for companies that actually want content out there so they can get recognition for their brand or company or whatever it takes. Yeah, that was really interesting for me to know that I was writing college papers, not knowing exactly what I was doing in this so-called journalism field that I went for for sports journalism and ended up in the realty and housing market.

Manuel: That’s pretty crazy. It’s funny, I’ve had a couple of guests on and each story, I was like, I thought, oh okay, it’s pretty straightforward, someone likes tech and they get into it and that is definitely not the path that everybody is taking. So I thought, especially when you mentioned that you got into computers at such an early age, I thought, okay, that’s what’s driving it, not so much the sports part of it.

John: No, yeah, the whole early age kind of thing with sports based on video games. Sports video games, I love Madden, I love all sports games basically.

Manuel: And you were just playing on a computer as opposed to a console.

John: Exactly, exactly. And back in the early days, we had Xbox One and I grew up on N64, I’m a millennial kid, so an N64 with the 16-bit operating system doing pixels and then all of the 3D world comes out and I get this awesome skill set in GoldenEye of all games, and then you’re playing with all your friends and the new consoles come out and the new consoles come out and everyone’s saying, yeah, you got to switch to PC to get so much better. Okay, well, I built a PC when I was 12, I mean, why not build a PC now? Next thing you know, all my friends are now coming over to my house and playing on my PC because they couldn’t figure out how to do it themselves, so it is what it is. But yeah, that’s how the tech interest started, but it wasn’t until I became after college and working for Ultius where the tech field that I was striving to be actually became into fruition when I was starting to build websites for Ultius and then obviously dealing with content for the websites that I was building, not necessarily writing papers for college students.

Manuel: Got it. So did you spend a lot of time working for Ultius doing a lot of this website building and content generation, like how long did it take you to pick up the skill of creating a website? So again, I know back then it may not have been as, I’m just kind of thinking back to when I was using it, right? There’s a lot of HTML, basic HTML, Dreamweaver, things like that, so what were you using? It was the same thing and you’re just, you know.

John: Just like every millennial started with the whole MySpace thing, you know, MySpace started with the whole HTML, you can make your own backgrounds, your own images, your own, you know, your top six or whatever and like kind of choreograph it in a way that is a personality trait to you. Style sheets with CSS and it became really interesting to me. From there, my brother and I, we’ve always been in the tech field together kind of doing the same kind of interests in regards to computers. He was really into hardware and then once I started working with Ultius, I started getting obviously into the software. We made Espo Consultants or espoconsulting.com, it’s still live right now, it’s a digital agency where you can get a website built, have digital ads out and actually get recognition for whatever business you have and that’s going really well.

Manuel: And how did you go through, so, and I know I’m going to get a little bit into the weeds but I’m very curious as to how you picked up the skill of building websites. So I know it’s, hey, you know, you’re putting your own spin on it, but what did you, I guess what’s the method that you used to learn how to write an HTML and CSS and style sheet and all that, you know, did you just, were you reading books, watching videos, reverse engineering, like what was that process?

John: Yeah, so the process was, I wasn’t even into it at the time. I just saw once the company I was working for, Ultius, started seeing a nice contract with a realtor who was spending $50,000 for a website and I’m thinking to myself, well, I can do that, right? I can really, I can easily do that, I can get clients, I have so many, I grew up here in Las Vegas, I have so many people out here in Las Vegas that don’t know how to build websites and I can, if I cater this and develop a software as a service, that way I can get that residual income build it one time, cater to these clients forever and then have residual income. Next thing you know, I split up Espo Consultants from hardware that my brother was fixing with networking and configurations and laptop builds and software repair and virus removal, spyware removal, things like that and I went into just website creation. Both sides of business are very good. Tim’s still, my brother, he still builds custom computers and then here I am still building custom websites. Yeah, so 10 years down the line, started with writing papers and understanding how content rules the web. Next thing you know, I’m building websites and then writing content to make these websites be found online.

Manuel: And then I saw that after, so you found that you’re doing that, but then you also kind of moved on and you still continued working for other employers, right? So what did you kind of move on to next? So I saw a couple different areas, so I just want to let you.

John: Yep, so from 2012, I graduated in 2011, so from 2012 to 2016, I was building a lot of websites, doing a lot of hardware and I just got burned out, to be honest. I wasn’t really gaining much more traction, the leads kind of ran out and I was just getting tired of Las Vegas. So I got an opportunity out in Chicago, I got a phone call saying, hey, you have an awesome opportunity to be an IT Engineering Recruiter, didn’t know anything about the engineering field at all, but they liked my IT background, understanding the hardware knowledge plus the software knowledge and understanding what it takes to actually know what a Developer skills are for specific industries to actually hire those people to actually do the jobs they’re looking for. So I went out there on a whim, I had like, I don’t know, $50,000 saved up, I had a Dodge Avenger, 2006 Dodge Avenger, I packed everything into that car, took one trip, drove to Chicago, I found a garden basement apartment in the suburbs about 40 minutes outside the city and started recruiting for a company called Espo Engineering and that was a very lucrative job. I had no idea that I was getting myself into a position to where I was able to make some real money, not just necessarily on my own, but through the works of people who knew what they were doing, selling people basically, in a legit way.

Manuel: And when you say you got a call, how did they find you? Did you put out resumes on a public job board?

John: So I didn’t really actually put out resumes, how did that go down? It was basically a Thanksgiving dinner and I basically told my dad that I just didn’t really want to be in Las Vegas anymore and I was thinking about moving out and my dad’s been here for 30 years and he has a reach of networking that spreads from Miami to the Midwest all the way to California. So he actually helped me out. He reached out to some distant relatives who created Espo Engineering about 35 years ago. They were solidified in their process, they were looking for recruiters and salespeople and he said, hey, I grew up in Chicago, it’s a big city, I know you’re going to thrive there because I have family there, I know you’re going to get taken care of, you felt okay with it. The base salary I was getting was trash, let me tell you, it was like $35,000 to move to Chicago when I was already making probably relative to the same, just my own business with Espo Consultants. So then I’m thinking, oh, $35,000 plus $35,000, that’s $70,000 a year, that’s some real money. But I didn’t realize that the base salary of Espo Engineering didn’t even come close to the commission rates that I would be making, which was well into the six figures selling IT individuals to companies, which made me feel real good, to be honest, it really did. It made me feel important, made me feel like I was actually doing something in my life. But I’ll tell you right now, dealing with people, it’s not as easy as you think it is. Building a website, it’s very static, it’s like A plus B equals C, but with people, it’s more like A plus B might be C, but it also could be D, E and F, some really funny stories in the recruiting industry that we can definitely get into. But that might be a different subject.

Manuel: So that’s pretty interesting, and that’s one of the topics I wanted to get into is just kind of what are some of the, I guess kind of like a peek behind the curtain, right? So I’ve worked with the recruiters, they’ve been reaching out to me, I’ve reached out to them when I’m looking to move and things like that. So what are some of the things that you learned in that role? I know you mentioned some of the stories, you’re dealing with a lot of people, and I’m assuming that the workload, you mentioned there’s high commission rate, but I’m sure it’s also a lot of work. It’s not just like, hey, I’m going to call, I’m going to call Manny and just be like, hey, you want a job? Yeah, boom. And it happens, right? You’re probably dealing with hundreds, maybe even thousands of individuals that you’re dealing with, right?

John: So finding the individual is obviously step one. But to be able to find that individual, you have to really understand what the company is looking for. And to understand what they’re looking for, you have to understand the company culture, you have to understand the actual ins and outs of how to coach the person that you’re finding on how to actually land that job, because I don’t get paid unless that person gets hired, right? So it’s my job as a recruiter to find that individual with the skill sets that they’re looking for, but also make sure that their personality traits match, the company culture matches, that it will be a good fit for both the candidate and the client. Let’s just say the skills are most of the time there, because that’s easy, you can find it online, easy searches, LinkedIn’s great, Monster, Indeed, there’s a lot of job boards out there where you can find people. However, when you bring in people for an interview, let’s say, some people just aren’t as, I guess, gumptious as you would think they would be when you’re trying to fill a position that’s a load of responsibility, I guess you could say. So if they can’t show up to a 9:30 interview, two days when you schedule it, what makes me think that they’re going to show up for my client? Obviously not. So then you’ve got to keep the ball rolling and go find new clients. You’re always filling the applicant tracking systems, constantly following up with people to make sure they’re on time. Man, you get the craziest stories. From I had a tire blowout, oh, it just happened to be this day, at this time, at this interview section with this particular client where your tire blows out, or someone will come in to my interview, perfectly dressed in a nice suit, and then show up to the interview with blue hair and a tattooed neck, and just not fitting the dimensions of what I actually presented to the client. Funny, I had a full-stack developer one time show up, this great interview, thought he was absolutely amazing, presented himself well, talked articulately, and usually in the tech field, the tech jargon is kind of complicated, you don’t really understand, they’re usually socially awkward a little bit, but this guy was good, right? Shows up to the interview, he passes the interview flying color, his client calls me up and he’s like, yeah, man, I really like Dave, let’s call him David, really like David, he’s a great guy. Two days later, he calls me up and he’s like, hey, John, is David all right? What do you mean is he all right? He clocked in, we’re paying him. He showed up on time, what’s going on? Well, he fell asleep at his desk and we’re just wondering if he’s okay. I don’t know, I’ll get to the bottom of it. So I left the next day after hours, I called up David, I’m like, hey, David, just talk to your client, the client’s a little worried about you, is everything okay? He’s like, we’re sleeping at your desk, I’m sorry, but I have to let you go now because you literally fell asleep on the job without letting anybody know what was going on. The next thing you know, he has narcolepsy and didn’t want to tell anybody. If he just told us prior, I wouldn’t have to fire him, but since the fact that he didn’t tell anybody and he was just sleeping on the job and not doing anything, I had to let him go. You can’t fix stupid, you know what I mean?

Manuel: Right.

John: These smart individuals just don’t understand how to work the system sometimes.

Manuel: And now, is that something that’s pretty common or do you find, especially with the recruiter, right? Like, hey, maybe in the interview, you’re very cautious on what you want to reveal or not reveal, but with the recruiter is kind of the best path forward, is just be as open and straightforward as possible?

John: Absolutely. Your recruiter is actually going to represent you the best of their ability to make sure that you land the job in the long run. So as my recruit, I want to make sure that you’re successful, you’re happy, you’re career-driven forward, and that you’re going to be in a environment in which you’re going to excel and succeed at. However, if you don’t give me all the information to be able to represent you in that way, it’s hard for you to be able to totally impress the client if you’re not giving me all the information. And if you want to go blind, just see what happens by all means. But as your recruiter, I would expect you to let me help you as much as possible to make sure that you’ll be happy in the position that I put you in.

Manuel: That’s awesome. I mean, it’s interesting. So I’m sure, like you said, had they just told you, hey, I have narcolepsy, you could have let the client know ahead of time.

John: Exactly.

Manuel: Hey, this is the problem. This is the thing. This is the condition. It will happen. But guess what? When he’s up, he’s productive.

John: Exactly.

Manuel: It makes up for it.

John: Exactly. And obviously, you can’t fire someone based on a medical issue, right? But you can fire someone for not doing their job.

Manuel: So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see apart from not being straightforward with the recruiter, right? And I’m going on the recruitment standpoint, not so much the job interview, but on the recruitment standpoint, what are some of the biggest, I don’t want to say mistakes, but it could be mistakes. It could be faux pas, things of that similar to that, like, hey, one, not being honest.

John: Not being honest.

Manuel: Another one I can think of when I interview, when I’ve been on the interviewer side, is putting something on your resume or on your skills that you don’t have. So what are some of the things that you’ve come across like that that would be good to know for someone that might be looking to use a recruiter?

John: Show up to interviews dressed nice, right? Act as if. Act as if you already have that $100,000 job, that six-figure salary. Act as if you are going to be the best interviewee that this company has interviewed the past four months. Show confidence. A lot of people come in with a lack of confidence, which makes them timid in a sense of the company is just trying to get to know exactly if it’s going to be good for them. But yeah, just be honest, basically. Understand who you are, understand what you’re applying for, understand the job roles that it takes, and for the most part, you’re going to be okay. Confidence goes a long way.

Manuel: Nice.

John: It really does.

Manuel: Okay. And what are some of the things that you see that people do well, especially for you, when you’re searching. So if I’m going through and I’m putting my LinkedIn profile together and maybe putting my resume up somewhere, what are some of the things that you see and probably as a trend or just something that stands out like, man, I found it easy to find this person or this person really stood out out of all the candidates because they do these types of things.

John: Absolutely. I’ll tell you right now. As a recruiter, if I see a resume, I’m going to look at this resume for 45 seconds. That’s about it. I am not reading every single line. I’m not reading every single heading. I’m looking at your job history. I’m looking at a couple of small little details that I know would fit the caliber of the role that you’re applying for and basically your name. If that all fits and comes together, you deserve a phone call. If you have a six-page resume and it looks like a novel from the 1800s and you’re trying to sound smarter than you actually are, I’m sorry, just not going to happen. I’m looking for real people. I’m not looking for a robot. It’s cool if you have the robot mentality of how you work, but in a sense of communicating and understanding how to land a position, you need to be social, you need to be articulate, making a resume that’s 10 pages long is not going to get you there. You want to be short, sweet, concise, understand exactly what kinds of skills you should put on your resume and don’t repeat yourself. If you did the exact same role in two different positions, don’t write the same description for both job entries. Make sure each one is specific so your skillsets grow rather than just stay static over time.

Manuel: This is going to be one of those ones where it’s more for my information. You mentioned 45 seconds, you put this together, and when you’re going out and you’re contacting these candidates, is this something, and I don’t know how recent you were doing this, is that an automated process that goes out? Are you actually typing out? I know things have changed now, especially with AI and there’s a lot of automation tools, but when you were reaching out, is it very much like, hey, I see you, I’m actually going to type something up based on something, or is it a template and you’re just like, boom, boom, boom. The reason I ask, and I want to preface this, is because I have, LinkedIn is a common one, recruiters reach out, hey, I see this skill, or I have, and they ask questions on certain items that I’m like, well, if you say you looked at my LinkedIn profile, that answer’s already on there. Like, hey, how many years of experience do you have with KVM virtualization? If you looked at it, I have zero, right? So I’m just curious what that looks like.

John: If it goes back to just being honest, like, you shouldn’t be putting something on your resume if you can’t articulate it back without actually referencing your resume. So asking those questions to say, hey, do you have these experience, yes, we did look at your resume, and yes, we probably know that you have that experience, but I want to hear it from you on exactly how much experience do you have, when did you actually have it, how long did you work at the company for, where you did get those skills, and how does it translate into the company that you’re working for, or applying for now?

Manuel: Got it.

John: Yeah.

Manuel: So it’s not so much that you are automating it, it’s more that like, hey, I just want to make sure that what I see is really what you’re saying.

John: Exactly.

Manuel: Oh, okay. So that’s probably a filtering mechanism that you used to understand and.

John: Correct. And we’re going back to the automated templates and how I email people, yes, there were templates and obviously I’m going to put my own personality into those templates and I would send them out to individuals, you know, as I would see fit. But I wouldn’t necessarily type out each individual email, there’s way too many candidates to go to, way too many jobs to search through, way too many things to filter out for that kind of manual, intensive labor based on the admin side. I’m trying to call people, I’m trying to get their skill sets, I’m trying to send them off to the client and have that client make the decision after I represent them in the way that I know that gives them the highest chance of getting hired. But tech industry is hard because there’s tests involved, let’s say you’re a Developer, we had in-house testing where you have to come in and, you know, drop this landscape and this, you know, IDE, Internet Development Environment and, you know, I’m going to send this off to the client and if the client doesn’t like it, you know, you have an hour to do it. You know, well, the client takes an hour and 10 minutes and then I have to cut them off and then I send them, you know, 80% of the work, hey, client, this is the test results, yeah, pass, you know. Again, skills have to be there but, obviously, confidence needs to be there, too. So if you come in thinking as a recruiter, hey, you want to come in and take a test and they’re like all apprehensive in things, it’s probably already a red flag for me to even push forward with that considering they’re not confident enough to come in and actually showcase their skills to me and then not necessarily to the client, right? So.

Manuel: Okay, that makes sense. And for someone who’s maybe just starting off and doesn’t have those skills necessarily, is that something that they could obviously, you as a recruiter is probably not going to find them, right? You see their LinkedIn profile like, hey, it’s very limited but what are, is it common for candidates to reach out to recruiters and say, hey, I’m looking to get into the industry, you know, I’m just starting out, let’s say, I’m just coming out, I know that I want to get into tech but I have zero experience. Do you get situations like that where you get those type of people coming in?

John: Yes and no, for the most part, no. But I have had, let’s say, in manufacturing there’s a lot of CAD drafters, a lot of 3D modeling and things like that. Whenever I get a resume that someone replies directly to that position and their last four years of employment is a truck driver, nine times out of ten, they’re not even going to get hired. Nine times out of ten, they’re probably not even going to get looked at from the recruiter. But if that actual person reaches out to the recruiter and specifically has a rapport with them to say, hey, this is the kind of position that I’m looking for, is there anything that I can do to actually get the skills needed for this position, yeah, as a recruiter we can point them to the right direction. There’s a lot of online tools, a lot of assessments, a lot of certifications that you can get that can kind of propel you to that direction. But for the most part, I have an obligation to my client. My client has an obligation to fill this role. I have to find the right person. A four-year truck driver trying to be an auto CAD drafter with six months of experience trying to CAD in their own living room is not going to do it. So I would instruct them a little bit on how they can get there but it not necessarily is going to be at this time.

Manuel: Got it.

John: Right.

Manuel: Okay. That makes sense.

John: But it does happen.

Manuel: Cool. So how long did you spend in that industry, right? So I know that you moved in, you were basically a recruiter for a couple of different agencies. So how long did you spend doing that?

John: About four and a half years. I was in Chicago. It was a good time. It was a good ride. But I did get burned out. I will say dealing with people, it’s a struggle. I know you have to deal with people, per se, in basically every industry. But when you’re dealing with people’s time and they’re scheduling and trying to mitigate, it’s a lot, right? And it can get a lot of convoluted, frustrating as well.

Manuel: And what type of workload did you have, right? Are you managing, you know, when you’re saying people, like how many clients that you’re trying to fill roles for, are you managing or how many roles are you looking at at any, let’s say in a given month, right? Are you managing like 10 employees or 10 clients with 200 roles? What does that look like on your side?

John: So the industry that I was working in was IT and engineering and manufacturing. It was all out in Chicago. The roles that I worked on would be anywhere from three roles at any given time to 15 roles at any given time. The amount of clients I would have at any given time would be working with three to six. Obviously, it takes time to find the right individual. So clients know that other recruiters from other different agencies are also working on the same jobs. So it’s up to me to be proactive to make sure that I get the clients first or the candidates first and deliver them before any other agencies can battle me to find that right candidate as well. So there’s a need and urgency for me to actually hustle. And that grind is hard because there’s a lot of times where I’ll submit a candidate and the client will be like, oh, yeah, so and so, we got that from Aerotech Agency two days ago. It’s like, oh, man, two days late, man, I just got this job opening. And I was like, how did they, well, the client was late giving me the job description for me to actually post it to where I could fill the role themselves before they gave it to Aerotech. It happens. At the end of the day, the client’s trying to fill the job. They’re trying to get as many recruiters out there as possible to try to fill that job. And I’m just one of the recruiters working for an agency that is trying to do that position.

Manuel: And I’m sure a lot of that too is also building relationships with your clients, right?

John: Correct.

Manuel: To making sure, like, if they see that you are professional, you’re on time, you’re doing a good job for them, you’re building that rapport, they might not have given that. There’s a better chance that they probably don’t give it to you as late, right? You probably are the first one that’s getting that posting as opposed to the other company, right?

John: Yep. So there’s a lot of companies out there that are basically job shops or sweatshops, or it’s pardon the language, but they’re slinging s*** in sending resumes that don’t make sense to the job description, just making the client make all the decisions and be like, yeah, I want to interview these people. That’s not how I proactively recruited. I wanted to meet the individual first to make sure that the client was actually getting a quality product, which were people in the scenario before they turned anything down. You can send a resume out to a client that looks perfect on paper, but if I don’t meet them first and that person shows up in a dress and blue hair with a name John Smith, it’s probably not going to fit the company culture. And as a recruiter for me, making sure that my clients are getting what they’re paying for, I want to make sure that it fits the mold.

Manuel: Got it. Okay.

John: Yeah.

Manuel: So then you get burnt out doing that role, and then kind of what did you, how did you transition into the next one?

John: I wasn’t so much burned out on the recruiting aspect of it, because the money was good and the money actually kept me going, but it was the weather man. Being born and raised in Vegas, sun all the time. I’m telling you, people are in denial about how cloudy, how gloomy, how miserably cold it is in Chicago on a daily, weekly basis. I mean, the sun wouldn’t come out for two weeks and I look at my coworkers and be like, guys, like hasn’t been sunny in six days. What? It was like sunny two days ago. No, it hasn’t. Trust me. I know this. Like I’m coming from a place where I never looked at a weather app. Now I have to look at the weather app every single day because I don’t know if it’s going to sleet, snow, rain, whatever. In Chicago, it just got old seven months out of the year where I couldn’t do the daily activities that I would like to do, really put a damper on my soul, kind of. So I had to move back and I’m moving into new opportunities. My brother built an application called Loyal Unlimited and that started right as COVID happened, which is probably the worst time any business could possibly be created or [Laughter] finished in development in the moment. But it was created. It was built. It was a digital application for the loyalty sector. It’s an app where basically the consumer can download the app, look at a bunch of businesses. These businesses have a criteria that needs to be met to get rewards for those businesses. A credit card is linked to the app that the consumer pays with that credit card. At that business that’s on the platform, they automatically get those rewards over time. So there’s no email collections. There’s no phone numbers. There’s no surveys. There’s no scanning QR codes. It’s none of that. Simply download the app, link your credit card, and pay that credit card to the business. Awesome idea. Awesome app. We went full force with it. It’s still working today. So I can honestly say that moving back here from the whole IT and engineer recruiting worked out well. So I transferred from recruiting into now software sales. We have about 40, 50 businesses on the platform, all in the industry sector where they don’t offer refunds. You’re familiar with like Jamba Juice, buy 10, get one free, buy 10 haircuts, get one free, couple tattoos, get one free, any businesses like that.

Manuel: Okay. That’s a pretty cool idea. If you think about it, now having it linked, and I’m assuming you can link that card to any number of retailers that subscribe to that, instead of like, oh, I got to download this app. I got to download the Jamba Juice app. I got to download the Supercuts app. I got to download this app. Oh, hold on. I forgot to check in. All right.

John: Correct.

Manuel: Crap. I didn’t put my number in this time. I just paid.

John: Correct.

Manuel: I sent my wife. Something like that.

John: Yep. So Loyal is a platform. It’s not necessarily a product, but it’s a place where all businesses come to actually market to all of the users that are currently on the platform. So let’s say there’s two haircut places within a mile away from each other. If one haircut place has a better reward than the other one, and then as a consumer, you’d look at a haircut, but you don’t know where to go, and it’s a GPS located to say, oh, it’s only a mile away. Let’s check out this place. And this reward is obviously better than the other one. I mean, where are you going to go? So you can, the companies can now market to people actually not even looking for specific services that know they’re eventually going to need, which is really nice.

Manuel: And then you transition, you said, into the sales side of that. So you’re the one.

John: Going out, trying to get the businesses on the platform, trying to make sure that their loyalty rewards are activated and actually work on the system.

Manuel: And I’m assuming coming from the recruiting standpoint, right, where you’re talking people and I’m assuming also the journalism, right, speaking, writing, all that stuff comes into play, those are skills that you’ve kind of picked up. And how has that, how has that helped you make that transition into sales? Like what kind of, I mean, obviously it’s your brother and hey, it’s a good idea, but what made you say, I want to be the sales guy and I think I can do it?

John: That’s a really good question. Well for one, my brother is extremely smart, extremely smart. We’re talking like graduated double masters, double bachelors in five years. University of San Francisco, did his masters at UNLV. Not the best socially presentable person in regards to how he can articulate. I would say he’s one of those smart individuals that when he speaks, it’s, it kind of sounds condescending because he expects you to know what he’s talking about, right? For me, I’m more on that passive side, kind of can articulate IT jargon in a way for the consumer to understand. So when I knew that my brother wasn’t going to be able to actually go out and get businesses on the platform that he developed, I just basically took it upon myself to know, listen, I could do this for you. And it’s worked out, it really has. Growing up in Vegas, I know a lot of businesses around the area, I grew up in 89147 and within that area code, we, or that zip code, we have a few businesses on the platform now. And we’re growing. We’re growing, so.

Manuel: And how, how did you pick up that skill of being able to articulate technical jargon in a way that makes sense to somebody, again, this business, they don’t, they really don’t care about the technology. They’re more interested in how is this going to help me, why should I invest in this? What’s a skill that has to be developed, learned, how did you go about doing that?

John: Being a part of a team my whole life, sports probably, understanding how to talk to team members, getting a, utilizing a team to get a specific goal done. My brother, he was a Boy Scout, very introverted, kind of did, kind of, loner things. For me, I wanted to, you know, I stopped sports to go, you know, find girls in high school. You know, my brother was an Eagle Scout, didn’t really date in high school. Just two different personalities, just kind of coming together to better assist an overall goal. How did I learn? I guess it’s just ingrained in my personality traits, just from one position to the next. I always had to talk to people in a way that made it seem like they were winning. And if they felt like they were lost or confused, they were losing, right? So I didn’t like having that look that people would give me where they don’t understand what I’m saying. And I would have to take a step back and be like, well, how can I explain this a little bit easier for you to actually know that at the end of the day, this is actually going to be good for you? And that’s something that my brother really struggled with and something that worked out for me.

Manuel: And as part of that process, are you, you’re seeing the look, but are you also asking the questions of, like, hey, what doesn’t make sense? Do I see I lost you? Are you just kind of on the fly going through and like, all right, I got to change my approach? Are you actually asking for feedback at the same time?

John: That’s a really good question because a lot of times if I take a step back and actually say, oh, does that make sense? That’s actually kind of condescending to the person because I can see it in their face that it’s not really making sense and then they’re just, you know, the cloudy vision goes over, they’re looking past me, not at me. So I try to reframe from saying those, I guess, trigger words, you know, does that make sense? Like, does make sense? Well, it should because I feel like I explained it right, but if I actually see the body mannerisms, then I try to make it to where we can revert back with actually me saying, does this make sense? I try to loop them back in. If I lost you, I try to get you, you know, but that just comes with, I guess, skill and time and understanding how the conversation is proceeding and obviously the person that you’re talking to in the moment. Yeah.

Manuel: Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s, and the reason I ask is it is a skill that took me some time to kind of go through and learn, right, especially I was always the, hey, do this, do the job, right? I was that, that worker, like, you know, a recruiter would fit me in, but it’s when I started getting into roles where as I moved up, now I have to talk to Directors, VPs, and it was my first inclination, my first reaction was they ask a question, I would answer it with the technical solution, right?

John: Right.

Manuel: As an Engineer, I’m trying to fix it. Hey, you know, what are we doing? [Blahraaah]

John: They don’t know what you’re talking about.

Manuel: Yeah.

John: Zero clue.

Manuel: My wife references it all the time is she knows when I’m starting to talk too technical because she’ll be like, it’s Charlie Brown. If anybody remembers, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, that’s right here. She is very good at giving me the look like, oh wow. She sees that I’m excited, right? And she’s like, I will let you go. And then I, you know, I’m done with the conversation. I’m like, so what do you think? She’s like, I have no idea. Womp, womp, womp, womp. So the same thing, I could see that in the Directors level, you know, like you mentioned, you could see it in their face and it’s really going back and asking questions, trying to find out what is the problem that you’re having and not necessarily give them the solution right away, but then also trying to figure out in sports is a good one that I use a lot is trying to do those analogies. And one of the things I noticed too is sometimes those people don’t know sports, right? So I had to find a different way. Okay, well, what is a, what’s something that everybody does where I can go through and explain this, right? And say, hey, I’m, you know, I’m an infrastructure architect for IT and I’m like, great, what does that mean? Well, I, you know, I put service together, okay, still again, I don’t, I don’t know. Well, if you think of an actual architect, right, they go through and they draw up the blueprints, right? Well, I’m helping build the blueprint so that I can then give to different Engineers, this person’s doing the plumbing, this person’s doing this, right? The plumbing is the storage person, you know, the foundation is the networking guy, you know, they try to make those in people else and, oh, I get it.

John: Now I understand how the pieces fit together.

Manuel: Yes.

John: Oh, wow. It’s a jigsaw puzzle that I never thought actually could fit. But hey, now that you do explain it that way, actually kind of makes sense.

Manuel: Yeah. And it’s a skill that I think most people, like you said, most people in technology, they’re just, they’re very, they’re very smart. They know the technology like your brother, but they don’t know how to explain it.

John: How to explain it. Right. So, you can also say that technology is another language in itself, right? So trying to translate that is definitely a skill.

Manuel: Yeah. Well, and then having the confidence to know, right, and you talked about, hey, being confident, I was confident enough to know what I don’t know, right?

John: It’s okay to say you don’t know.

Manuel: I would hear tons of people, and that’s one of the questions that I meant to bring up when, you know, I mentioned about the candidates that you were getting, you know, being truthful. And as I used to do that all the time, like, hey, I understand what you’re talking about, but I don’t know, right? And I do have, even now with my, you know, with people I work with, blah, blah, blah. Hey, wait a minute. What is that? Like, I’ve heard that acronym, but it could mean three different things or, hey, I’m not a security person. Explain that to me. I understand the concept. Give me some understanding. So, all right. And now you’ve gone through, you’ve built your network here, and is that kind of what you’re doing now? So are you just doing the sales portion of it now, or do you still do the websites? What are you kind of?

John: Always have espoconsulting.com. I’m going to have residual clients for the rest of my life, for as long as these businesses are in fruition. I have clients from 20 years ago, so, yep, espoconsulting is still going. On the side, it will still dabble and build new projects, but as of right now, it is full time Loyal. I am trying to find and trying to grow this company for my brother. It took him five years to build this company, or five years to build the software anyway. We have so many moving and integrating background parts that just make all this work, and I’d really hate to see the funding that we’ve actually secured for this particular company go on the wayside. So I don’t want to waste the five years my brother spent to try to not make it work.

Manuel: Got it.

John: Doing my best to do that.

Manuel: And that’s something you bring up, which is interesting, and if it’s okay to kind of ask you, you mentioned securing funding, right? So maybe some people have developed a skill, they have an idea, they’re going through and they’re building something, and when they go to market it, what’s the process like to go through and secure funding, right? Because basically this is a start-up, right? So I’ve never had somebody that’s been at that entry level at a start-up. I know people that have gone to work once it’s built, but what is that like going through and actually building a company?

John: Yeah, so and for our particular position, growing up in Las Vegas, my dad is a professional gambler, played poker his entire life. He’s a World Series poker champion in 1999. Playing poker, he developed a lot of relationships in a lot of different industries, a lot of big money, a lot of whales out there that like to play poker. And just using my dad’s network, we reached out to a bunch of people, pitched the idea. His name ended up being Derek Webb, he’s the inventor of three-card poker, and he loved the idea, he flipped us a fat check. It was basically that simple and it’s not going to come easy like that to everybody because obviously people’s networks are a lot smaller. And I guess I’m privileged in that way to have a father that was able to network himself through the poker circuit. But however, with a fat check comes a lot of responsibility and you can’t let people down. So it’s a strive and grind to make sure that everybody around you making the process work is happy and sometimes it’s really hard to do when you’ve got funding involved. Going about getting that funding, there’s a lot of venture capitalists out there that will definitely hear pitches. Just go out there and try, just get your name out there, ask questions. This is an idea, how can I get this working? Get some mentors in the specific industry, go online, try to find some tech forums and specific forums based on the products or services that you’re trying to grow that you’re going to need funding for and ask all the right people that are in the sector about how you can go about doing it effectively. But initially, start with your main referral network first and go from there.

Manuel: This is a theme that keeps coming up in every conversation. It’s building that network, even if you’re not the extroverted type, build individual relationships with people because you don’t know where your next job is going to come from, what’s opportunity, maybe it may not be you. If you and I have a relationship, you’ve learned me either professional, personal level, you might hear about something that I don’t based on somebody else that you know and say, hey, I’ve heard about this thing, right? It’s not saying, hey, Manny, I’m going to get you this job, but it’s Manny, I heard about this thing or so-and-so, it might be looking, so really building that network and you mentioned not being afraid to fail.

John: Don’t be afraid.

Manuel: The funding, was it the first person that you went and did the pitch too? They were like, boom. I’m on. Were you that lucky or was it a couple of times and did you kind of, obviously you learned through that process?

John: There was a few meetings. Let’s just say that we had to definitely convince our investor to be able to support the idea. It definitely didn’t happen overnight, it definitely took a couple of weeks. But there were conversations with a few other investors, but with startups, especially in the tech industry, everybody knows it’s going to be a lot of funding. The initial funding is step one, right? And then you’ve got to build proof of concept and you have to get a steady clientele and then you have to understand that there’s two sides to every single business. You have the client side and then you have the consumer side. But then you also have the security side, because dealing with credit card information with storage data, you’ve got to make sure none of that gets breached, right? So there’s just so many moving parts that you have to convince in the tech field of the investors that you’re trying to secure money for on how it’s all going to work. You’ve got to make sure you have a business plan. You have to understand that all your ducks literally need to be in a row and then you have to articulate those ducks to make sure that when that goose is hit, sign on the dotted line, right? And then you’re not going to get that check if you’re not prepared, right? And you’ve got to be prepared.

Manuel: And as you’re going through and you mentioned that you had gone through at least a few different pitches, a few different people. Each time you’re going through, is there something you’re picking out of that or are they providing you enough feedback to say, okay, this didn’t work and I know why or are you having to figure it out on your own? I don’t know why.

John: Yep. So the learning curve for us was pitching it to the right investor. Just because someone has money doesn’t mean they’re going to like your idea or just throw money at you, right? You have to find someone that’s going to, I guess, like the idea that you have and continue to go with it and be your mentor and try to make sure that the money that they’re giving you is actually going to get a return on their end in the long run. If they don’t share that same vision, you’re never going to get there. So we went to a bunch of hedge funds and venture capitalists and since they weren’t actually in the tech space, they’re not going to give money to a tech company, right? Because they don’t really understand that field. But as soon as you get someone in the tech field who has a bunch of money and understands exactly what you’re trying to pitch and what you’re trying to do and the solutions you’re trying to face and the things you’re trying to implement, that’s when you can get some stride, I guess you could say. There’s some mentorship involved. You definitely pick up on cues at a lot of different scenarios, a lot of different conversations that you have. And these conversations that you have are not easy. They’re stressful. They are, go back to saying being confident, yeah, you can be confident all you want, but you’re going to get questions that you don’t know the answers to at the moment. And since it’s your company that you’re trying to build and you’re not knowing those answers, that’s a struggle when you’re trying to secure a bunch of money and someone’s not getting the answers that they need.

Manuel: And how did you, you mentioned that, so how did you handle that, right? So if somebody’s asking you a question, so again, it’s your company you should know. What’s your response to something like that?

John: So since it is a startup and everyone’s kind of starting from the ground, they don’t really know all the moving parts right away and then you get this feedback of, oh, this part of this entity of the company needs to happen, but I never even thought about that entity of the company because that’s not really a part of selling loyalty. So you go back to the drawing board and you add it to the business plan and then you go back to the next investor to be like, oh, how does this sound? Or you go back to that same investor and be like, oh, how does this sound? You’re never out of the woods, like I said, if you don’t know the answer. You can definitely not know, but be truthful about it and understand that you will figure it out. And if your investors know that you will figure it out and they gave you these complex problems, being that problem solver really helps you in the long run knowing that you’re building a company that might be beneficial to everybody.

Manuel: And having that follow through then at that point, right? If they’re saying, hey, X, Y, what is this or where is this? And you’re like, I don’t have it. I’ll get back to you and you never do.

John: That’s not good. Better capitalists talk to each other. That’s not good. You want to follow up. You want to be confident in the meetings that you have, taking notes in those meetings and then following up with those specific individuals. A lot of those individuals will say no, in sales, whether you’re trying to knock on doors or trying to get a huge funding on a huge digital project, you will get noes. Learn from those noes, that’s all I can say. There’s a reason why people are saying no. There’s a reason why someone is going to say yes. Go through all the noes and then implement the yeses and then you’ll eventually win. I’m one of those people that will say, if you don’t give up and you just continue to do it every single day, eventually you will win.

Manuel: It’s just a matter of time. I’m glad that you say that because I’ve noticed a lot of people just in general, they will talk about all the wins. You don’t see a lot of noes and people are like, oh, you see the noes. One of the things I always look at is, okay, they say no.

John: It’s okay.

Manuel: What happened? Maybe a bruise your ego a little bit. Maybe. Some people I know it does, it affects them, but I’m like, okay, take that information. You said, take the information. They said no. What can I do different and change that?

John: No goes a long way to people’s egos, like you said. There’s times where I’ve gotten these meetings where I’ve waited three weeks to set up. I finally get this meeting and I think it’s going to be this great client that I’m going to land because I’m so sure about my pitch. I’m so sure about everything. The next thing you know, they say no and I get in my car after and I grip my steering wheel hard. I put my head down. I’m thinking to myself, what the hell did I do wrong? How did they say no to something so great? You have to think about all the internal things and you contemplate and understand exactly how you articulated and the things that you said and were you actually listening and why did they say no? At the end of the day, sometimes it’s not about you. Sometimes it’s just the financial situation of the people you’re pitching. Could be the person that you’re talking to had a bad day that day. They’re going through a divorce. They’re laying off staff. There’s so many different problems that’s just not necessarily just you. That’s the problem of why they said no. So keep your head high. Try again.

Manuel: Eventually, you’ll get that yes or your percentage of the yeses will go up over time.

John: It depends on the product, but yeah.

Manuel: It depends on the product, but even just job searching, just anything that you’re going through. I’ve seen a lot of times where people are like, oh man, you work here. That must be awesome. So I worked at VMware for almost about three years. It was one of those situations where I came in and people were like, oh man, you worked there. That’s awesome. You must be amazing. No. Do you know how many times I applied before I got told no, but it was one of those things where eventually I, knowing the technology, understanding the culture, talking to people that worked there. I was like, dude, this sounds like an awesome place to be. I want to be there. Building my network, and again, I got told no. I got told no. And then I went back and this is something that, and you, from your perspective, let me know if this is something that happens often, is when I had the opportunity, if I had a relationship with somebody, I would go back and say, do you know why I didn’t get it? Again, it’s not, the way I had to approach it is not why, like, hey, maybe more, what skills was I missing in order to get this role? And you know, in some of those situations, I remember one in particular, the other candidate was just that much better. Or sometimes it’s, hey, we were looking for this set of skills, you only had 70%. And that 30% is the ones that we really needed. So is that something from a recruitment standpoint? Do you have the ability, and I know I kind of hop back, but it’s something that came to my mind is, do you have the ability to provide that type of feedback? Or is that something that you would get back from the client if, you know, if I go through and I interview, and I tell you, I tell you, man, I smoked it, this is awesome, you should be getting a call in 30 minutes.

John: Yeah, so as a recruiter, I’m trying to make sure that this person gets hired. If this person gets hired, in any company that I send them or any job that I give them, I’m going to get paid, right? So I would like feedback from any of the employers that I send them to, based on why this person didn’t get hired. So I can take that feedback, deliver it to the candidate to say, hey, this is what they’re looking for, this is how you represented yourself, this might be something that you might want to do in the future. Hey, don’t worry, I got another job for you. Keep them in my system as soon as that another job pops up. I have now a rapport with this person to say, hey, you still looking for work? They say yes. Well, let’s learn from our mistakes from this last employer. I’ll shoot you over here. Let’s fix it. Now let’s see what our chances are now. If it’s still another no, I get that feedback. I let them know, hey, don’t worry, you’re still in my system. I think you’re still a great candidate. You know, I’m going to shoot you forward as much as possible. I’m going to try to get you hired. That’s my job.

Manuel: Got it.

John: Right?

Manuel: That’s awesome.

John: Feedback is great. Feedback is great because if you don’t learn, you’re never going to fix the problems, right? You’re always going to be getting those noes. Let’s get yeses.

Manuel: Let’s get yeses. And then understanding, like you said, understanding why am I getting those noes, you know, I’ve been delusional at times of like, they’re missing out, right? They don’t know, you know, just in general, especially early on in my career, I would say, man, I can’t believe they didn’t hire me. Why would they not? Had I had the foresight to go through and say, hey, can you provide me feedback? I could have gone through because there’s times where I interviewed multiple times. Oh, like similar roles and all four of them, where it’s a no something’s wrong?

John: I’ve had candidates go through a four interview process for one company, and then on the fourth time, they don’t get an offer letter. And they’re thinking, wow, I just spent at least four and a half, five weeks interviewing with this company thinking that, yeah, why would they interview me four times if they’re not going to send me an offer letter, you know, and then that offer letter doesn’t come and now they’re thinking, oh, well, I haven’t really been doing the work that my current job because I was actually going to give my two weeks in because I felt like I was going to go over here. Well, now that person is now sitting in negativity because they didn’t get the job that they’re looking for. Obviously, they’re trying to leave the job that they’re currently in, and now they’re still stuck in a position where they thought they were going to get out of. Not necessarily the best attitude going through it, so keep an open mind. And if you get a noes, it’s fine. It’s going to happen, even if it’s four interviews in. Just keep trying.

Manuel: If you can get the feedback, get the feedback. If not, just try something different.

John: You know, and sometimes it could be the smallest of things that you don’t even know or something that you can’t even control yourself. You know, you could have done all the right things, impressed all the right people, but at the end of the day, when the person that’s making the decision to either hire you to give you that opportunity of that six-figure salary or whatever it is, they’re having a bad day and they just don’t feel it, they can say no for any reason, especially if it’s a private entity, a private company, they can do whatever they want. They can also come up with excuses on why not to hire you because you’re not hired yet, right? They have no obligation to that person. They have no obligation to the candidate, you know? But feedback is always great. It’s the worst when, as a recruiter, I go and try to get feedback and you don’t really get any. Oh, we’re just not really looking for this position at this time, and then I see, you know, that job closes, and now I just spend the last three and a half weeks trying to fill a position that was technically not opened. They were just filling out people who are obviously interested, if they were to open in the future, could they actually do it? And that was a struggle as well in recruiting. Well, this has been awesome and very insightful conversation. I learned a lot, things that I wish I would have known prior, interviewing, but again, it comes with the process, right? It’s the process, it’s the journey. Again, I’ve learned a lot, so I hope other people find this just as insightful and hopefully in the future, once Loyalty takes off, I can bring you back and you can kind of tell us now that you moved out from the start-up space, kind of what was that progression going forward?

John: Maybe I can then hire myself some sales managers and they can take over my job and I can sit back in a chair and watch it roll in, you know? But until then, the grind still continues.

Manuel: Awesome, man. I appreciate you coming in.

John: Thank you.

Manuel: Thanks.