Ali Nichols Enlightens us on the Power of Perseverance

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

Jaden, there's a couple of important things in life that you and I've been over. What do you think those are? Faith friends and family? Where do balls land in that

Jaden Norvell: 0:09

in every category?

Dustin Steffey: 0:11

Exactly. You got to protect the family jewels to be able to get more family in the world

Jaden Norvell: 0:17

in any faith in a product to do that. So yeah,

Dustin Steffey: 0:20

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Jaden Norvell: 1:18

Welcome to your top rated business entrepreneurship self development and smart investment podcast. This podcast is hosted by creator and founder Dr. Dustin Steffey and also hosted by coach, music producer and influencer yours truly Jaden rush Norville, we are blessed for many accolades such as being nominated for the People's Choice Award for Best Business Podcast, as well as raising over $5,000 last year for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as well as for the Boys and Girls Club, spending a global reach or podcasts in the top four downloads in four countries. Without further ado, welcome the chopping wood fire ladies and gentlemen, let's chop it up

Dustin Steffey: 2:01

Hello, and welcome to another episode of chopping wood fire. You're joined with your host today Dustin Steffey I am excited because we're three four, we're about three to four episodes into the new year and already seen some positive results again, please keep up on all changes with the podcast as it is different from last year. There are a lot of new elements that have been added in. So the best way to keep in contact is to head on over to your favorite social media platform and add at chopping with fire, with the exception of Twitter Twitter's at chopping fire. Everything else is at chopping wood fire. So we do have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, which no I'm not doing dances on there, but we are posting stuff. Snapchat, LinkedIn, and of course, our powerful website which is www.ch o p p i n with feiyr.com, which houses our guests profiles, our patreon for donating to cystic fibrosis, and of course some other fun elements like videos, blogs and behind the scenes. So please, if you haven't done so already support us. Go on to your favorite social media and our website and take a look and check it out. Also YouTube, we do post full lie or full we will have full live but four episodes on YouTube. Starting in the new year that was a new change. So please head on over to YouTube and like and subscribe to help us out please. Also we will be having a live event here soon. Our sports series that we're going to be bringing up will be live and in person. So please take a look at that make sure to take a look at our schedule and get that all book. Lastly, we do support cystic fibrosis on this podcast please. If you haven't done so already, head on over to C F F dot o RG forward slash Donate today please any little bit does help. Cystic Fibrosis for those of you that do not know is like breathing through a small straw. So imagine poking a straw through your lungs and go on to run a marathon probably would not work out very well. So please, if you haven't done so already support cystic fibrosis today. That's everything that I have for you guys. I want to dive right into the fun part I have a special guest on we have the pleasure of having on ally Nichols. Her accolades include being the co founder of get away and before that she spent four years as an executive at bungalow. She was strategy and planning Senior Manager at Uber and a consultant of IBM am her education includes a BS degree from Carnegie Mellon University? Allie, I'm excited because I've seen you a couple of times. But we couldn't connect now you're on. So welcome.

Ali Nichols: 5:13

Super excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me. You're

Dustin Steffey: 5:16

welcome. Absolutely. So I know I gave you kind of the like, awesome introduction. But there's more to you than that. So let's dive right in. Give us a little bit.

Ali Nichols: 5:29

Yeah. So honestly, my journey, I think, in how I ended up at start founding getaway really started when I was a kid, I used to, every Sunday after church, go through the local Oregonian newspaper and circle, open house with things in my neighborhood and begged my parents to take us all around to be retails. And the funny part was, I would always like, try and pitch them on why they should trade out of their house and move into this one, based on the characteristics of the neighborhood, or the school district, and so forth. And so there was this piece of really loving, you know, residential real estate and optimizing the deal. That's been a part of me since I was like a little kid. But I went off to college. And of course, you know, followed a lot of trends, where it's like, I don't know what I know what I want to do with my life. I love real estate. But I don't know if I want to make that a career started out in consulting, as most people do when they're like, I have no idea what I want to do, and ended up in San Francisco, and got bit by the tech industry bug, like everyone around me was working at these amazing startups and all of these companies that like, really were new and changing the world. And so I got back with the idea of Uber, it was just around the time where like, Uber was becoming popular, people started actually having it on their phone. And I was like, I need to work at this company, like this company is so cool. If only in college, I had the opportunity to like, press a button and get a ride home safely. Oh my god, that would have been a game changer.

Dustin Steffey: 7:16

The opportunity in college to just invent Uber, we would be billionaires. So I

Ali Nichols: 7:25

missed that one. But I did basically everything in my power to get a job at Uber, I think I applied to over 50 roles. was really just like gung ho on getting in there finally got my opportunity after like six months of trying. And took took a role there had an amazing experience. It was my first time really in like the tech startup world and saw how fast paced it was how awesome my colleagues were. Not only were they like, so excited to be there, and what they were working on. But they all loved hanging out with each other. And I was like, Oh, this is like such a unique environment. I knew I wanted to stay in the startup space forever. So after Uber, coming back to that real estate, you know, bug, I realized, like, is there a way to combine my passion for real estate, with the tech industry and being a part of something building new ideas through technology. So I landed at bomba which is a prop tech startup. And I was joined really early, when they were in a seed stage and around the 10th employee, so got to see than building a company from the ground up. And really, you know, being in a role where you wear every single hat, you just figure out like, here's the biggest problem in the business, go solve it, go figure it out, like you know, if you need to build out a customer support, or if you've never done that before, just go make it happen. So, so spent four and a half years there getting to really lead and build teams across almost every single business function, including their real estate, arm and real estate business line, and learned a ton got an amazing experience. And realize, you know, it's time to fly the nest and try something on my own. And so have now founded getaway, which is a real estate investing platform for everyone to be able to get access into short term rental assets, things like Airbnb properties at a really low entry price. And then investors are cashflow and appreciation on their ownership here, as well as the upside of being able to use the entire portfolio of properties at a discount. So it's an investment vehicle for you know, building wealth over time, but also an investment in your lifestyle, and spending time with friends and family.

Dustin Steffey: 9:57

So a couple of questions came out of that For sure, but I don't want to inundate you. So, first and foremost, your journey, your journey is awesome and interesting and impactful, like experiences. So the first thing that I wanted to do was kind of ask you like, was it already already kind of predetermined for you, too want to be in entrepreneurship, you are just trying to take the smart kind of approach and learn before it hit me in entrepreneurship, or it kind of just happened that way. And that's where it's at.

Ali Nichols: 10:32

Yeah, I think my whole life, I've always dreamed of having my own business. I didn't know really where that would leave me. But I had this idea that I wanted to be my own boss. Like, there's such empowerment in that. And then after, you know, entering kind of the tech industry and seeing how Venture Capital Work, the startup and the founder ecosystem, I realized, like, Oh, this is my opportunity. Now, how do I work towards building towards that? And, yeah, it's like, I think my experience at Bongo really gave me the opportunity to see so many different facets of the business and start to get comfortable with the idea that I could do this on my own. And, you know, there's areas that I can cover, there's areas I can hire for, but I had a better understanding of like the full business end to end and kind of the business equation that I felt comfortable, like finally taking the leap and doing it solo.

Dustin Steffey: 11:32

So Ali, were you were you fully committed in your prior roles? Or did you have kind of this getaway, kind of in the in the coals and you were working on it as a side hustle, and it turned into a entrepreneurship gig? Like, how did that work for you? Did you just cut the job? And then all of a sudden, boom, you're in your new one? Like, how did it work?

Ali Nichols: 11:57

Yeah, that's a great question. So throughout my whole career, I've been doing some real estate things on the side. That have kept me busy. But when it came to get away, the idea came, like while I'm while I was working at bungalow, and so I, I put on the side, I became obsessed with it like, Okay, how do you actually make this happen with the feasibility, I'd be working on it with my co founder on the weekends. And, you know, at first is a fun idea that we've started to get more traction, we like, oh, let's start, you know, testing some ads and see if there's demand for this, and then kept getting more and more signals. And it finally got to the point where like, we need to do this, like we have enough, like conviction and traction, that we should just go for it. And so at that when we got to that point, we're like, okay, we're going to transition out of our current roles, and go 100% On for this goal of fundraising for getaway.

Dustin Steffey: 13:05

So it's really interesting and really cool. At the same time, I asked this question to a select few people. And the answers are always awesome. So for you, you, you kept your normal income coming in, while kind of testing the waters with it until you finally decided to go all in, which is awesome. You still burn the boats and got it, but everybody's different, right? So there are some people that will leave, put their back up against a wall and hope that they succeed, which I don't, I don't fully like right off that approach. But at the same time, I don't fully support it, either. Because if you have family or I don't know, mortgage or whatever, like you need to responsibly be able to pay your bill style, you know, yeah.

Ali Nichols: 13:57

Yeah, I don't think there's any right or wrong answer when it comes to these things. I really think it's so entrepreneur specific. And a lot of it you do it like, right timing in the market, as well of like, you know, is this a product that people have conviction for right at that moment in time, that makes it potentially easier to fundraise versus not? Like, you know, we you can look at the fundraising environment, you know, the past six months compared to the previous and like the market seems nificant. So I think a lot of people that did raise capital previously might not be able to at this point in time and so the shifting dynamic, there's so many things outside your control, there's never a right answer, like a blanket answer. That's right for everybody.

Dustin Steffey: 14:47

It's it's funny, because each time you and I like build on this, it brings up and picks another question. So you bring up the term fundraise, right? So if if I'm getting there So right, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you probably put some of your capital in to invest in, in your own company. But you you, essentially what, fundraise some of the money to be able to open the business? Or how did that work?

Ali Nichols: 15:16

Yeah, so we fundraise from venture capital, and we were fortunate to raise with seed round to kind of like the first round of funding from VCs, which has really enabled us to move faster build a team, be able to spend on marketing and things like that. And so that's the fundraising I'm referring to.

Dustin Steffey: 15:40

So it's different from than taking out a loan? Correct? Because I mean, many, there are many different avenues to owning your own business one being you can take out a bank loan, right, and hope for the best and make a profit to be able to hopefully pay that off. You have angel investors that you went after our investors per se, correct?

Ali Nichols: 16:02

Yeah, exactly. And so the process works is essentially they are purchasing a percent ownership of your business, that we they we sold off that to venture capital firms and some angel investors.

Dustin Steffey: 16:17

That's awesome. See, that's, that's stuff we haven't dove into yet, which is funding your entrepreneurial journeys. So that I mean, it's an advanced topic, in my opinion, it let's not put the cart before the horse, right. But in the same token, a year of episodes for my podcast, it's probably time to start talking about investment within how do you how do you run your own business? So that's awesome nuggets right there, I appreciate that. You make me want to get away actually, with the name. It makes me want to like, Yeah, let's go, let's let's invest, I'm Baroque, but let's do it.

Ali Nichols: 16:59

That they will like to make it accessible to, you know, the widest that people as possible. So you can start investing with a little amount versus historically, you know, to invest in real estate, you needed at least 20% down for a down payment, you know, if this wasn't your primary. So that's our goal is really to open up access to real estate investing for everyone.

Dustin Steffey: 17:28

I think that's an awesome goal. And there's more that you and I are going to talk about offline for that. But I think that that's awesome. it bodes a question that I can ask now. Right? Before when you and I were going to interview I wasn't sure. But interest rates have gone up. Everything's inflating right now, what does that do for you as an entrepreneur, especially within real estate?

Ali Nichols: 17:53

Yeah, so it just creates directly impact our business like there's no and, or buts about it. The reason we, you know, there's, there's some factors in the terms of the asset class that we're going after, that make it so really attractive. So in the short term rental space, oftentimes, you can generate a lot more rental revenue, if operated well, and then you know, a desirable market has a lot of poor influx. So the ability to generate higher kind of revenue, and then yield exists within this asset class. So that's a plus for us. Which means that even with raising interest rates, were still able to create a premium or cash flow on top of the mortgage payment or the debt service. That's like one piece of the rising interest rate. Also with rise, the other market dynamics that make it an interesting time and advocate advantageous time for us is, with rising interest rates. There's less competition from other buyers. So people are kind of sitting this one out, they want to see what's going to happen, and so forth. So you're starting to see the market turn from you know, the last two and a half years has been a complete seller's market, like everything's been going up up, again, like crazy bidding wars, no contingencies, things like that. We're now starting to see it shift back to buyers having power and being able to negotiate better field and perms. I will say like, like correction to kind of the inflating housing market we've seen over the last couple years. So as we go into 2023, we're expecting to see a bit of a softening from a purchase price perspective, which makes it a great time to buy if you do have access to the capital. And if the deal is tenfold. So you know for us the deal still cancel. We're looking at it as a great opportunity to buy And then the way that we structure our business, it's a great opportunity for the individual investor, because you might not be able to purchase something on your own right now. But you can't with through us, you could purchase 5% of a property 10% of a property, whatever is like feasible for you at the moment, but you can take advantage of these market dynamics, this purchase

Dustin Steffey: 20:22

that people put in through your company, is it? Is it cash, like upfront? Or is it finance kind of like a mortgage? How does it work?

Ali Nichols: 20:32

Yeah, so if you can think of the product is very similar to like an investment accounts, like whether you're putting money into Robin Hood, or Wealthfront, or one of those other platforms. So you're investing cash upfront to buy an equity stake, or the equity part ownership of the property. And then you own that piece of the property ongoing. So then you'll make the rental income as a percent ownership of the property. And then the appreciation, one property sold as well.

Dustin Steffey: 21:06

So that begs the next question, which is, you said that people that invest are afforded the ability to kind of go to different properties? How does that work? If you have, like, for example, what I'm thinking is, is you're successful, right? So you have a ton of people that are invested in isn't there cross traffic of people trying to go to the certain rentals, or whatever that you have?

Ali Nichols: 21:31

Yeah, so so you can be invested in one property and you get access to the entire portfolio of homes. And the with that, it, it really does work a little bit on a first come first serve booking basis. But we view it as membership tiers, for our members. So very similar are like analogous to an airline miles program, you know, the more you travel, or the more you're invested, the bigger the benefits are. And one of the benefits for the higher tiers is the booking calendar opens up earlier for them. So, you know, you get kind of, quote, unquote, like first access to booking, but in general, it's very much like, book the date you want and take advantage of your discount. By staying in the property.

Dustin Steffey: 22:23

It kind of reminds me a little bit and no offense, right. So I know what you're gonna say. It reminds me of a timeshare. Right, yeah. Which, which is a dirty term to use. It's so dirty, because people hate it. Right? I mean, I used to own one, two, and it just, it sucked my money dry. Right? The difference between yours and a timeshare, though, is these investors are making money back. So hopefully, that's money that, you know, is lucrative enough where the investments worth, in my opinion, right?

Ali Nichols: 23:03

Yeah, no, that is like the biggest thing a lot of you know, when we were coming up with the idea and testing it, and so forth, it's like, how does the timeshare industry still like that? Like, they're fundamentally, it doesn't make sense to me from an investment perspective. And so a lot of the things we're thinking through are like, how do we make this like, better for the customer? Like, how do you get to take advantage of, you know, traveling and going to these places you're excited about, but it's an investment. And, you know, you're getting a return on your dollar, and you're reaping the rewards of appreciation over time, but you just don't get with the time. Like you're buying the right views. You're not you don't own any of the assets. So for us, it's really important that we view it first and foremost as an investment vehicle. And then the travel benefits are like, a total cherry on top, like, make it exciting for the consumer to invest with

Dustin Steffey: 24:06

us. Yeah, sorry to bring up the dirty term.

Ali Nichols: 24:11

So I'm like, how do you we always joke we're like this, not your mom's timeshare. Like we're trying to like actually help people build wealth.

Dustin Steffey: 24:21

And that was the worst thing that I ever could have signed my name on was having a timeshare because for those of you that don't know how timeshare works, you there are two approaches right? It can be gifted to you or you go after buying a timeshare for a lump sum. And then you have to pay a yearly maintenance on it which those fees

Ali Nichols: 24:44

people Yeah, they're quite expensive, too. Yeah, I

Dustin Steffey: 24:48

started at 800 bucks in mine mine ended at like 1000 Plus, right it's it's insane and there's no return on it with Airbnb. be coming out and all these different ways of traveling. A timeshare to me is kind of obsolete, plus, depending on the timeshare, so I'm not talking Hilton where you can go everywhere. Like there's specific timeshares for just that place only and it's hard to be able to go anywhere else. So it gets boring if you go the same place all the time.

Ali Nichols: 25:22

Yeah, totally. Well, we've definitely had tried to stay as far away from that negative connotation as possible. But take out the pieces that like, were a huge benefit that did draw on so many people. In terms of the concept, and one thing I just want to clarify with with our product is you make your initial investment and kind of like buying, analogous to almost buying like shares in a company or dock. And there's not ongoing fees, like a timeshare that that doesn't exist on our platform.

Dustin Steffey: 26:00

Now, this definitely is interesting. I know I have a lot of listeners that invest in different things. So this is definitely a positive investment. Hopefully, hopefully, it's yielding good money to those that are invested right now, but it's definitely positive. So just so you heard it here, guys, this is not a timeshare. It's a dirty word. We're not a dirty word anymore. So this is definitely an investment that advantageous Lee pays you in dividends based off of how much you've invested. So again, not a timeshare nother question for you, I kind of wrote it down. So has entrepreneurship afforded you the ability to have more freedom with your time? Has it allowed for you to do the things that you've wanted to do? Or has it been so crazy, where you really don't have time? Because you're so invested into the business and trying to make sure it's successful? With running your own business, obviously, there's obstacles and stuff like that. So kind of just walk me through like, what's, what's been an entrepreneur afforded you? Ah,

Ali Nichols: 27:16

definitely the ladder and the two. So I think, you know, one thing I always describe as a characteristic, you need to have be an entreprenuer, to kind of be obsessive, because you're obsessing over your process your business like 24/7, like, I wake up in the middle of the night having like, readings about, oh, we should do this? Or is this how we didn't have to handle this problem. So I would definitely say, you know, starting this company, and following this path has become an all consuming task. And so when my family and friends brought me because they're like, We haven't seen you in months. So I would say, it's definitely not for the faint of heart, in that sense, at least from my experience. But the flip side of that is, I have never learned more as quickly, like you're faced with a new problem and challenge every day, and you just have to figure it out. And you learn so fast. And I always joke, like, the thing I thought the things I thought were a crisis. You know, the first week that we started doing it, compared to now I'm like, Oh, that was like, Why did I even get upset over that that was so silly compared to the challenges we're dealing with that so you're, you kind of build up this like tolerance for handling bigger and bigger challenges and bigger fire drill. And you learned so much like I think that this is just like a crash course in your field in your industry. And so if that's something that people are, you're going after, personally, I'd highly recommend it. But no, it does at the sacrifice of some other things in your life, and you have to set those expectations with your loved ones too.

Dustin Steffey: 29:09

Yeah, that's something I wanted to reinforce. So mostly most people that go or want to go into entrepreneurship think that you know, you can build the business and then it runs itself and then you have all this free time and you know, there are there are entrepreneurial journeys that do act in that way. But more often than not, you're sinking your blood sweat and tears into something so you can chase that success. And you have to kind of be 100% present so like you said, being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart at all. It is a lot of work and a lot of hours I can be one to attest to it because I haven't burned my boat yet for my normal job. So I work my normal job. And then I do this as well. Sleep is like, what is that? Right? So yeah, there's no such thing and time. And stuff is, is really important, you have to be really good at managing time. I mean, it's, it's what 10 to eight here. So I'm scheduling, I'm scheduling podcasts before, for recording, going to work, editing and after or even getting another one in. So it literally is a all day and night type thing until you can burn the boat. Now, I mean, the one advantageous benefit is as an entrepreneur, you could make good money, but you don't have time to really spend it, which is why most of these entrepreneurs that are successful invest in they have more and more money. So

Ali Nichols: 30:51

yeah, totally. It is something you have to be, you have to love what you're doing. Like there's no way around that because it is very demanding. And so at the end of the day, if you're not like, satisfied and what you're doing all day, it will burn you out way too quickly.

Dustin Steffey: 31:13

Yeah, I agree there. I love podcasts. And I love technology, like you and I have already brought up and I love. I love every element of it. But it's tedious at the same time, right? Because I'm not just recording this and then posting it right you and I, you and I have to arrive at okay, how are we going to market this out? To get more people to listen and get visibility? How am I going to edit this to make it in a way where it looks good? How much equipment is going into it? How much? You know, there's there's a million things and then I go to bed at night sometimes when nightmares like, Ooh, what if I mess it up? And then this is out in the universe now and I look like you know crap. But you, you know, like you You and I both know, like all these questions come up and kind of develops a thick skin in my mind of how to be an entrepreneur.

Ali Nichols: 32:08

Definitely. I don't and they don't watch you.

Dustin Steffey: 32:11

They don't teach you this stuff in school are their ally like you and I are educated people. And I'm going through my textbooks. And I'm like, yep, that wasn't in the textbook. There was that there was that? Like, what the what the heck, what am I doing? Like, what did I pay 100 grand plus for my education for?

Ali Nichols: 32:30

Totally. I had one last thing about it, too, is like, it can be really lonely. Like I don't think, you know, going into this experience and like leaving kind of working at startups with teams and things like that. The early stages, at least for for our company, like we're such a small team, and like everybody's very focused on their own specific like area that you don't have as much like, you don't have a ton of people to bounce ideas off of there have that like, you know, kind of like workplace chatter, things like that. So there are moments where it's like, you're on doing this on your own, and there's no one. There's also not no one to tell you like, Hey, you're doing a good job. Like if you have to find all of that from yourself. So those are things that I didn't, I didn't think about before I started this journey that I'm like now like, Oh, that makes total sense. But I just didn't put it together before going into it.

Dustin Steffey: 33:35

Listen, first and foremost, if you get lonely, although I know you have a significant other I'm here for you. I'll take that application fall on that sword. I got you here. But no, seriously, you're so right. Like, even for me for the podcast. Like I'm I'm fortunate and lucky, right? Because I've sought after other podcasts, right? And I've made friends off of them. So there'll be like 1010 in at night calls to some people where it's like, hey, does this sound good? Is this all right to you? Do you think? What should I do like bouncing ideas? But that took a big thing too, which people forget about which is networking?

Ali Nichols: 34:20

Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. I can't like overemphasize, like how important building out a network is and a support system.

Dustin Steffey: 34:31

Did you net work quite a bit for getting this business up and running? Or how did that work?

Ali Nichols: 34:37

Yeah, so I was super fortunate that my co founder and I worked together previously. So we had we had already like a standing relationship. We knew we love to work together. We knew we complemented each other skills. So that pizzas was really awesome. But then when we decided that we wanted to take outside capital, we literally like hit the night. admit in terms of meeting as many people as we could, starting to, like, you know, get our idea out there. And kind of our own brand, so to speak. And I think in the period of like, three and a half weeks, we did over 75 meetings, thing like connections, and it was just like, constant zoom call, this was still in the period of like everybody meeting on Zoom, and just back to back to back to back to back to back all day long. I'm tired my life. But it worked. And we made some really amazing connections, we found our investors, whether they were, you know, firms or angels. And then from there, all of these people are now super helpful. They're like, your, let me connect you to this person. Oh, you just talked to this person for this role. And so it's been really awesome. But yeah, it really has really hit the pavement and networking sense. I would

Dustin Steffey: 36:03

imagine with your, with your diverse amount of experience, you're a pro at networking, so you kind of learned how to network and who to reach out to. So I would, I would like to think that you had a leg up on that. Whereas me, I did not like podcasting. It wasn't even a thought I didn't even know honestly, between you and I, how to video edit, how to edit audio, I didn't know what needed to go into it. I didn't know anything. So my first six months was like fire drill. It was, Wow, I sound terrible. To fix this, and, and you know, I go back and listen to some of my earlier episodes. And I'm like, sound like a retard? Like Dane, like not good. I sound super sound super not crisp. I don't have the technology back in me. And so you learn over time to in my opinion, I mean, you can, you can be outfitted with the best things and still not have quality. And that's kind of the point I'm trying to drive home right is you, you have the tools and resources for yourself to be able to function and run your business. However, it was putting the puzzle pieces together. And I'm sure there were a couple of times where you were like, I'm not gonna make it or whatever the case may be. But you learned and you kind of excelled in that sense.

Ali Nichols: 37:33

Totally, I'm so curious, like, what inspired you to get into podcasting? You know,

Dustin Steffey: 37:39

you're gonna laugh at me, and this might take my application off the table for you. So I have my PhD, my doctorate degree. And I just didn't quite know how to apply it right, because there's no access of CEO openings at all. And that's kind of where my education is. And so it started to kind of inspire me a little bit as to how do I give back what I've learned in the form of helping others. Plus, for me right now, with the education system, I believe strongly in education, I just don't believe strongly in the debt that it comes with. And more and more people, honestly, would be better off going to a trade school or being an entrepreneur or kind of, you know, taking a step back. Because education isn't always where it's at, it's more or less into, like, educating yourself, which we have all these mediums now like podcasts and books and everything to be able to educate yourself, and then actually doing it, you know, so for me, I didn't grow up saying I'm going to be a podcaster. But here I am doing it and it takes art and creation and craziness and networking and all of that to be able to kind of have one solid episode, for example, like one episode to post and put out into the world probably takes a good 234 days of true editing. Yeah, yeah. So it's a lot of time. Yeah, it's a lot of time and you'll see it as we post this one for you. Like you'll see the amount of social media presence that goes into it, the amount of planning the amount of just working together to arrive at the same thing because a podcast doesn't build overnight either. Like I don't know about you, but I'm not Joe Rogan. I think I'm definitely like, like better looking maybe. And sorry, Joe Rogan in advance. But I'm not I'm not to his level of influence, right? Yeah. He is like the godfather of Yeah. And I'm like the little like, kid in podcasting, right. So I'm trying to build that

Ali Nichols: 40:00

Dreams that aspiration Yeah, yeah. Cuz he

Dustin Steffey: 40:03

he makes great money off of it. I mean he, he had a head start because of his prior careers right. He was already a newscaster he was involved in sports, I believe. So he already had the influence. He already had the built audience and everything. So it made sense for me. I'm just a small town country boy, like, people don't know me. I mean, they do now. I mean, a year in they do now, but they didn't before. You know, I was just a country boy now doing tiktoks, and snaps, all these different things in my numbers are going up and the influence is going up. And people have never even that are like, Hey, this is cool. You know what I mean? So it's a fun, fun, dangerous journey that I'm on. Totally

Ali Nichols: 40:55

well, you should be really proud. That's like, so, so impressive to see that much. Except in just a year and like from a, from an idea, like taking something as an idea, bringing it into the world, like that's what it's all about. So

Dustin Steffey: 41:09

good. It's just getting more people to find it right, and be able to relate with it. And of course, keeping it interesting, right, like you and I were talking about pre roll, we were talking about all the plans that I have for this year, which are awesome plans, but they need to be executed still.

Ali Nichols: 41:30

Yeah, well, there's a lot of fun things in store on this show. So everybody should definitely stay tuned.

Dustin Steffey: 41:38

And I have my book coming up here soon, which will be nice release in that. And I do blog posts as well, too. So I become a writer as well. That's awesome. Because my does my application meet for you? Like when when we hang out? Let's go.

Ali Nichols: 41:54

Exactly. We gotta get you down in Miami.

Dustin Steffey: 41:57

I'm down I have. My mom is in West Palm Coast. So I'm pretty certain pretty certain I can visit you. Perfect. I love it. So I want to have a fun question. Because it's time to have a little bit of fun, right, which is we've we've we've kind of gotten to go through your entrepreneurial journey. You've talked a lot about things pitfalls, and obviously wins that you've celebrated. If you were to give back like one key golden nugget, as I call it. So one key piece of information to keep people going in entrepreneurship and kind of educate them. What would that be?

Ali Nichols: 42:37

I think I mean, I simplified it down to even just one word like perservere. And like, Jeff, there's going to be so many things that knock you down. So many challenges, so many roadblocks that come up. But if you can just persevere and like, hold on to what you're trying to build and know that what you're bringing into the world is going to be awesome, then that will get you through.

Dustin Steffey: 43:05

Shut that down. I think you just came up with the title. Oh, yeah, you know, I tried to pull out something fun and you got it. So is there if people want to get a hold of you because investing is important. I've always talked to my listeners and said hey, listen, if you're not diversifying, there's no point in investing you don't invest in just one thing. You diversify your portfolio. How do they get ahold of you?

Ali Nichols: 43:33

The easiest way is they get on LinkedIn aged me add me on LinkedIn. It's ALi nickel ad getaway. You can email me really easy li at getaway dot bell. And then if you want to check out investing, just check us out@getaway.com

Dustin Steffey: 43:54

Listen, if LinkedIn ages you then you and I are both older because I use LinkedIn.

Ali Nichols: 44:00

And let's say number one channel let's be realistic

Dustin Steffey: 44:04

here. I mean if we're looking at comparing both you and I and age you definitely look better than I do.

Ali Nichols: 44:11

Great.

Dustin Steffey: 44:13

So awesome. This was this was awesome. Very informational. Our information No, I'm sorry. Very informative. I enjoyed it. Is there anything else you wanted to add at all? Or?

Ali Nichols: 44:26

No, this was super fun. And like I mentioned, that's gonna have a lot of fun stuff coming down the pipeline. So make sure to stay tuned over the next couple months.

Dustin Steffey: 44:36

And who knows you might see ally on again. Yeah, because I might be in Miami with her

Ali Nichols: 44:42

to do live episode.

Dustin Steffey: 44:44

Oh, I'm down. I'm down. You'll make that episode. Look. I'd have to try harder. Ally. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for just being vulnerable and kind of what your journey was, I think Sometimes, pride gets in the way of a lot of us and we're not as vulnerable and therefore people aren't learning what truly goes into being an entrepreneur. So, really, thank you so very much.

Ali Nichols: 45:13

Well, I appreciate you having me. This was super fun.

Dustin Steffey: 45:15

Absolutely. And just think Miami fun. It's right around the corner.

Ali Nichols: 45:21

I love it. See you soon.