Building for yourself then pivoting into a life-saving niche

Vigs
All right, we're live. I've got Mark Condon here with me from iPupPee. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Condon
Thank you very much, I appreciate you having me on.

Vigs
Yeah, we had a really interesting pre chat just now about your varied background. And so I want to get all into that. But first tell us about what the product is that you've built and what the inspiration was behind it.

Mark Condon
Sure, yeah. So the product is named iPupPee. It's a dog training product. where it came from is I had a chocolate lab named Champ for 14 years. I'm in finance by day, full time. That's typically what I do. And I'm fully remote. My boy Champ was always hanging out on the couch behind me in the background. Of all my Zoom meetings, he was a staple. He'd be sleeping and his legs would start kicking as he's chasing a rabbit. Clients just got a kick out of it. So he was always a staple in the back of all my meetings.He ended up, as he got old, his back legs became really weak and long story short, it just didn't make sense for him to come down into the office with me in the basement anymore. So I carried him up and down for a while, but it just, didn't make sense anymore. So he was on another floor of the house and it just killed me because I didn't know when he needed to go outside and whatnot. So I wanted to create a product that could do two things. One, I could keep an eye on him and there's plenty of cameras out there, lots of good ones. But what I was shocked is there wasn't a device out there wheresay a dog presses a button and you get a notification sent to your phone. I was shocked. So we did some research. We looked into , , even pending patents to see if anything had been applied. Nothing. So we decided to create the product. So essentially what iPupPee is, it's a dog training product. The dog presses the button. It's connected to your Wi-Fi. When the dog presses the button, you get a push notification sent to your phone. You open it up you would any text message. And thenActually, I have a unit here. So this is the iPupPee itself, and this is a camera at the front of the unit. So when you open up the notification, it takes you right to the camera. So you are literally getting a video call from your dog. Theoretically, if your dog just presses it, right in front of the unit. You're getting a video call from your dog. You open it up, it takes you to it's a widescreen camera. There's a two-way speaker. So you can listen in through the iPupPee app, or you can talk into the iPupPee app, and it comes out the speaker on the side of the unit.

Vigs
Thanks.

Mark Condon
But that's iPupPee in a nutshell. It initially created as a potty training device, and I'm sure we'll get into this at some point, but it's quickly becoming a medical life alert button for people in the service dog space.

Vigs
Yeah, I think that that pivot that you did when you realized what the market needed and you saw the need for that. We're definitely going to get into that some more. but first a little bit about your background, because one of the things that I to do on this podcast is show how diverse all these different hardware founders are. so they have technical backgrounds, some are non-technical. so kind of what was your original background and , what made you take the leap into hardware? the idea is one thing, but the second thing is actually saying, I want to build a business out of it. So talk a little about your background and why you made that leap.

Mark Condon
Yeah, sure. mean, I've always kind of been an entrepreneur at the core of me. I've had my own business since I was 21. I'll be 41 next month. , it's just, I don't know. It's just kind of always how I've always been. But I'm in finance by day, so I'm a full-time financial planner, investments, insurance policies, cashflow, that. Not exciting stuff to most people. But that's what I do, if you will, from the typical nine to five.

Vigs
you

Mark Condon
And so, but how I got into, how I decided to make the leap into iPupPee is just, I just, don't know, if you have a dog, Champ was my boy. had him for 14 years and it just killed me that I couldn't always be with him. So I used to also host a podcast and I had a company on here that helps you bring physical product to retail. At the time, this whole, the whole idea had started coming together. So , it was just kind of a perfect blend of things that.came together at the same time and they're in-house engineers. They help you design and sketch and branding and marketing and help you just kind of create the components of whatever product you're trying to build. So that's why I took the leap. I just really wanted to, I've always wanted to bring a product to retail. I always thought it was a cool idea. Shark Tank, , I don't know, everybody's probably seen it. Gazillion episodes of Shark Tank. I love the idea of that and I've always wanted to do that, but it's something I've never done.

Vigs
Mm-hmm.

Mark Condon
And then you tie it in with just kind of what was happening with my boy, Champ, at that time. Everything really just kind of coincided together. I just said, screw it. , let's do it. , , my motto really ever since COVID was if it excites you and scares you at the same time, you should go for it. And that's exactly how I felt about iPupPee. , I was so excited about it, but I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.no hardware background. , was really leaning on the engineers that I was working with and the app developers to help create it. So was super excited, but it scared me because I really didn't know too much about it. And then you fast forward, I have a dog training product. I don't have a dog. I have no dog training experience. And now we've pivoted to the service dog space and I have even less service dog experience. And now I'm , I found myself in this space. I don't know how I ended up here, but I think that's just all kind of the process of just

Vigs
You

Mark Condon
starting your own business, just, I don't know. That's just kind of how we ended up here from my background, guess.

Vigs
Yeah,it just sounds a whirlwind of perfectly timed events that all came together. Did you have any kind of hesitation? , this episode is probably going to resonate with other non-technical founders who have a similar story. So did you have any sort of those hesitation moments where you were , I'm not technical, how am I going to do this? And so , how did you kind of navigate those moments?

Mark Condon
Yeah, exactly.Yeah, I had a few moments that because I'm not technical. I don't know any of that stuff. I'm really good on the finance side of things, which I think helped me figure out how I was going to at least fund this and finance it. There's some creative strategies that I did to kind of help me get to that point because it's a tech product and it has an app. It's not cheap by any means. And then after you get to that point, you got to buy a bunch of inventory. So I leaned on the finance piece to help meI think that really helped me because I was entrusting the team of engineers that I was working with and there's a few of them that I just really . They're genuine good people. They really knew what they were doing. They broke it down to me I was a kid to help me understand as much as I could. And I think not having... I was definitely scared, but because I had a team of people that I could trust that helped me just kind of make that leap to...to continue to go for it. And then, , the initial piece, think, those engineers, they're a third party. So I hired them to help me, right? Essentially, that's what I did. But that first one, I hesitated a lot initially hiring them because it wasn't 20 bucks. was, , it's a decent amount of change. And then from there, it's , okay, well, I hired them. And now , okay, now we have the app development. Now we have the tooling and ,As you continue to go along the process, just kind of makes it a little bit easier. The first leap was tough because you're really just trusting this team that you don't really know too much about. You have a good feeling with them and they've shown you what they can do, but you're really just entrusting your gut in that point. And then it just kind of got easier from there as we kind of went along the process.

Vigs
Yeah. One last note with , when you're hiring someone extra for help. so I was telling you a little bit about my full-time job and what we do is kind of have these smaller discovery phases where we , okay, we want to make sure you understand how to work with us, how we can work with you. So that's kind of a, a smaller kind of hill to climb something to get more comfortable before you commit to something larger. So was that something that you did or.

Mark Condon
Yeah, I also had the benefit, yes, we met probably three or four times before I pulled the trigger and eventually hired them. It was also, I lucked out that they just happened to be two miles down the street from my house. A company I had never heard of a month prior. They do exactly what I was looking for and they happen to be a mile down the road. So I was able to really, I was able to not only see them over Zoom and all that stuff is great, but the in-person vibe you get seeing what other.products they're creating within their workspace also helped that entire process. So we probably met three or four times before I eventually pulled the trigger, but I think the in-person thing really helped.

Vigs
That's just sounds so serendipitousthat they just happened to be down the street. on the same note of serendipity, well, I don't know if it's related or not, but let's talk about this pivot that we've kind of been hinting at, for the last couple of minutes. So you had initially kind of brought this to market as a, training device to help any dog, inform the owner of, I have to go outside. kind of those doorbells that they have, they sell, are they called poop bells or something?

Mark Condon
Yeah man, it's wild.Yeah, don't yeah, potty bells doorbells. Yeah. Yeah, those annoying you can call them poop bells. I think they're poop. So

Vigs
Party bellsSo that kind of your initial idea, but I think you did what is a very commendable trait for any founder, which is kind of keeping your ears to the market, paying attention to the feedback. And what you happened to discover was this whole world of service dog training. So talk a little bit about , what was that moment of realization? How did it feel to make that pivot?

Mark Condon
Yeah, it was scary because, , it's a space I know nothing about. But essentially, another component of the iPupPee is you can set it up so multiple people receive the notification. So the initial thought behind that feature was neighbors or dog walkers. if you're not home, you have, , say you live in an apartment complex and there's this one person that always takes your dog out, wouldn't it be cool if they just received the notification so they can just come by? So that was the initial thought behind it. And then I was at a pet expo called Super Pet in New Jersey.last March, I signed up for it six months in advance, because I thought I was going have inventory. I showed up there with zero inventory, but I decided to make a weekend of it. It's within driving distance from me in Boston. It's four hours, so just said, screw it. The very least, I'm to meet a bunch of people, consumers and pet business owners and such. So I went there. And it was enjoyable. We didn't sell anything because we had nothing to sell. But one woman, SuperPet, had made a few Facebook posts. And one woman reached out to me.

Vigs
no.

Mark Condon
after the show saying, I saw a Facebook post. Can I train my dog to press the button for an emergency? I was , I mean, you can train the dog to press the button for whatever you want. you want a beer, you want to train your dog to go to the fridge and grab you a beer, you can do it for whatever you want. She said, well, my mom just had her leg amputated and she's in a wheelchair and I have a service dog. So if my mom falls, can I, I want to train the dog for that cue. And I was , and it was just , from there it was mind blown. was ,wow, not only is that something I had never thought of, but that is a very impactful and possibly, depending on the situation, a life-saving component that we just stumbled upon with iPupPee. So, and then as things got on, as more people I talked to in the pet space, everyone just made it clear that that's the space you gotta go down. It took me up until honestly ,a month ago to really change a lot of the language and the visual assets on the website to be more service dog focused. the first half of the page is now all service dog focused. And then just kind of gets into, , trading the button and other features and such. But, , for a couple of reasons, the for typical average pet parent, it's on them to train the dog to press the button. Right. So the barrier of entry is higher because the average pet parent might just run out of patience and say, my dog's not picking this up. But

Vigs
Hmm.Mm-hmm.Mm-hmm.Right.

Mark Condon
It ain'tthe dog's fault. It's the individual's fault. We provide a training guide. We provide a training video. There's multiple Instagram and social media posts showing you how to do it. But at the end of the day, it's up to you as the person to do it. It's a barrier of entry right there. It's always been a hurdle. But with the service dog space, one, many of these dogs know hundreds of cues already. Hitting a bell is super easy. And there's motivation behind the handler to make sure that

Vigs
Nice.Mm-hmm.Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Condon
the cue and the dog pressing the button are lined up because it could save their life. So it's just a much lower barrier of entry. It's life saving. just, , that was just, it's such an obvious path. So that's where we're really going to niche down and focus now. Really want to just, lack of better words, own and be the go-to product in that space. And then, yeah, it can be used for any application, really any, any desire you have that you want your dog to press the iPupPee before you can, but.

Vigs
Mm-hmm.Mm-hmm.Yeah.

Mark Condon
I think the smart thing is to really niche down on that, kind of be the go-to product in that space and then expand from there. The market's there. There's other buttons out there. But I think we're going to try to separate ourselves by focusing on that service-to-exchange space. Because now you can have multiple people receive the notification and be your emergency contact. if there, if something happened in the room with the iPupPee they can see you and talk to you or try to talk to you. If you're not responsive, they can either fly home if they're close by, or maybe they can call local authorities to come by.

Vigs
Mm-hmm.

Mark Condon
and check in on you because there's a woman in the town next to me who's prone to seizures and her dog was trained to act a certain way. The dog was trained to spin in circles, but she's , if I'm home alone with my dog, that's irrelevant what the dog's doing. So now she has an iPupPee and her dog's trained to press it when she has a seizure and it goes straight to her husband. So it's just, , man, it just, took a long time to really sell myself on it. But now that's just, it just makes so much more sense to go down.

Vigs
Absolutely.Yeah. I love that you're having such a big impact on people and people that are in your vicinity, in your neighborhood, town over things that. I think if we kind of zoom out from this pivot that you made, we can frame it in the product development world or phrasing as something that went from being a nice to have to now it's an absolute need, potentially life-saving. Another framework is vitamins versus painkillers. I feel previously when you were going to mass market,It was kind of just , Hey, if you want to train your puppy for this, kind of fun thing, which it is fun. ⁓ you can do so, but now there's a motivating factor behind it that could save lives, warn your loved ones, whatever the case may be. So super cool. You kind of found that and leaned into it. was that, was that pivot hard to do? I mean, you mentioned having to change your, your website assets and stuff, but from an overall approach standpoint, cause I assume you're now.

Mark Condon
Tim.

Vigs
no longer doing direct to consumer, but more going after service dog organizations, things that. So was that pivot difficult after you kind of had put all this effort into one, one path.

Mark Condon
Yes. For a few reasons. I one, I have no, I said earlier, I have no experience as a dog trainer, never mind the service dog space. in the dog training world, how people do things, they are very particular with how they do things and they're very hesitant to incorporate anything else. Right. And then you get into the service dog space with people who prone, are allergic reactions and prone to seizures and they have POTS. And it's just , , you got to be very careful. I'm all I'm treading lightly in this space because I know nothing about it. have zero experience, but the response has been amazing. And at the end of the day, it's only me, the emails, the website, social media, everything's me. I'm doing iPupPee stuff between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. before my two little kids wake up in the morning to go to school. And then it's then it's finance until five. And then I pick them up at daycare. So I'm really trying to segment out my days to focus. It just it was.more of a mental hurdle to just kind of take the time to change over the website and such. But the comment you made about direct consumer and businesses and service dog organizations, we have, I'm going to an event in Orlando the first week of March called the Assistance Dog International. It's all service dog companies. And three organizations actually have an iPupPee now. And one of them, they'll all be there. And one of them just got back to me saying, it's thebest product she's seen for service dog training in a very long time. She's really excited about it. I just got an email two days ago. That was a cool email to see and she's going to be at that event too. So I'm excited to follow up with her on that. There's a couple other big companies that have one that are also going to be there. So I'm excited to talk to them. It's now trying to really just get in front of those big organizations. Also though,Also, individuals. So it is still D to C because there are a lot of people on social media are the individuals that are following us and ordering through the links in our Instagram that take you to the website because they're , I need something this. I just fainted a few days ago. I wish I had this then. So we're also going to what's called the Abilities Expo. So it's specifically for people with disabilities in May in New Jersey, the first weekend in May. I think it's 6,000 to 8,000 people that are going to come by.It's all about people with disabilities and such. So yeah, really just trying to get in front of consumers and businesses in that space to kind of see how we can navigate through it.

Vigs
Yeah, it sounds you're really in, I guess growth mode, trying to get this product in front of as many people as you can. are you, so is this coming from, , what are you looking for next from, for iPupPee? , are you trying to make it next version of the product? Are you trying to just sell more units? I guess once you've found the service dog niche, what would you do? I guess as next steps, would you develop something new or would you kind of expand your service offerings? Maybe not just a physical product, but other additional services.

Mark Condon
Yeah, so all the above. So right now we just got inventory, I mean, three and a half months ago. So we're brand new. it just got, it took two and a half years when the inventory hit the Boston port, it got held up at customs for six more weeks and then we got it. And then Boston had a strike for a few days. It was just, yeah, it was a mess, but we finally got it. It's only been three and half months. We're really just getting out there. really just brand awareness is where we're at right now. AndAfter I think so this year the focus is on brand awareness and sales I have all this inventory got to move the inventory and then from there what I want to do is there's a couple other products that I want I want to create a wearable product I think that would be pretty cool for the dog or the individual something wearable because right now is really just if you're a home alone with your dog Right. So I want if you're out and about I want something I want something that could be wearable and mobileBut I feel we're probably a couple of years away from that. Unless, , I blow through inventory and, we have sales and the finances to start a second product. But so I want to do that. And there's another component that I want where you can remote open a door. So this is going back to the potty training piece, but it's in our patent where you can remote open a door if you don't, you have a free dog needs to go outside, you can just let them out. It's , we got that. But service offerings too. Yeah. we want to expand it.what that looks yet, I'm not sure, but right now it's just focusing on getting iPupPee out there and creating the awareness for it. And then I have ideas, but we need to move some of the inventory and get some of the funds back into the bank account to kind of continue on that.

Vigs
Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about kind of, going back in timeline here, but during the actual development, and , I have a dog, so this is kind of personal to me as well. how did you test this device? , did you have dogs that you were actively training to try to use a device? what was the, it was just so different than , , any human wearable, you kind of just go and ask your friends and family. ⁓ but dogs can't really speak. They can't give you verbal feedback.

Mark Condon
No less.Yeah.No.

Vigs
unless they're barking at the mailman. But yeah, what approach did you take?

Mark Condon
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. It goes back to the finance thing. was making posts about iPupPee kind of just getting people, letting people know I'm kind of starting this new thing or an additional thing I should say in the pet space. And ironically enough, one of my finance clients is a pet photographer. And she's , hey, if you ever need to set up a photo shoot.let me know. I , I'm definitely planning on reaching out to you. just getting our first couple of prototypes in. I'll reach out to you when the time's right. And I did. Her husband is a former military canine handler for 30 years, right? canine handler, sniper sitting outside, outside in the woods for a couple of days with his dog. .They're a married couple. They could not have been more perfect. They also live in Massachusetts. I had known her for five or six years prior. So we set up a photo shoot with them. They reached out to all of their contacts. It was one of the two of the best days I've ever had. We just had dog after dog coming in, testing out the product, the photo shoot. I spent two straight days and out of my house with a dozen dogs just testing out the iPupPee. Little dogs.to big dogs to really test out the strength of it, the wear and tear on it. Can little dogs press it? We've had dogs as little as four pounds press the iPupPee. It only takes a half a pound of pressure. So that was kind of a big relief. We provide two double sided pieces of adhesive so it doesn't move on your hardwood or tile floor. had a, it was 135 pound Newfie that couldn't move it. But had them over in the trainer.

Vigs
Mm. Mm.

Mark Condon
He has a lot of insight and some of the dogs were well trained and some of were not trained at all. So all the well trained ones and with the trainer that I had with me, we were just talking about back and forth on how to train the dogs to do this, getting insight from them. Those two days particularly were really, really helpful to try to work with that because dogs, right, they can only go for 10 to 15 minutes at a time before they just don't want to do it anymore. So you really got to take your time and be patient. They can't talk to you.

Vigs
Yeah.

Mark Condon
All they want is the treat in your hand. There's a lot of difficult components to it versus just coming up with a protein powder and having your friend try it and tell you if they the taste. It's a lot of barriers that I didn't really think through when I went through this process, but yeah, it was helpful. I got lucky again that I knew a couple of people in that space and they had a very big reach and they lined up a ton of dogs.

Vigs
Yeah.youYeah.Yeah.

Mark Condon
So that was the prototypes and then when we got the final product we had a handful that come back and we did the same process again. And it's really not that difficult to train the dog to press the button. we had a Frenchie, adorable, but he's an idiot. we had a Frenchie be able to French bulldog press it within a half an hour. So, , it just takes a little bit of patience, but it was good to see dogs of all different calibers be able to press it. Yeah.

Vigs
youYeah.Nice.Yeah, I have a coupleof points. First of all, that sounds amazing to have all those dogs over those two days, probably the best days of the company, huh?

Mark Condon
Good. It wasso much fun. I took a Friday off of work. We had a Friday, Saturday, and it was just 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., just dogs all day long coming in and out of my house. was awesome. Yeah.

Vigs
That's insane. ⁓and then second point, not to get overly philosophical, but you mentioned that you're lucky to have these people in your circle. But I would kind of say that you're in fact creating that luck for yourself. Cause you said that you made this announcement that, know, Hey, I'm doing the side project. If you're interested, check it out. And I think a lot of people, they don't put themselves out there in the first place. where then these opportunities don't get presented them. I mean, even the podcast that you were started, part of it was.meeting that development company and having them develop this product for you. So I think there's something to be said about creating that work by putting yourself out there.

Mark Condon
I agree. I totally agree. I created the podcast to meet business owners in Massachusetts because of finance. I just wanted to meet more business owners. There's always more opportunity with businesses and individuals, blah, blah. There was direct relationships and indirect relationships that came from it, a brewery in Massachusetts. I haven't paid for a beer in three years. every time I go there, the guy's , don't worry about it. it's , cool. This is great. But then yeah, I had a couple on here that were in my town.A fitness couple called stack tracks. I'll give them a shout out Anthony and Lindsay. They were on here for their initial business And then they had they created a product so I had to ask the beyond again I was sure so they came on and they were the ones that introduced me To the company that helped them bring the product to retail. So yeah, you're right getting yourself out there You create you do I do believe you create your own luck And it's just about getting out there. No, if you don't talk about it. Nobody knows right so

Vigs
Hmm.Nice.

Mark Condon
That's just, you you got to create your own luck. I couldn't agree more.

Vigs
Yeah. That's a really good mindset to have about , if you don't put yourself out there, you're not going to create it. What are some of more specific things? and I'm especially interested in the marketing side of this, cause you said you're a one man show. So how are you getting this in front of people's eyes? , are you posting, for example, I know the service dog subreddit is huge. kind of what are your different approaches with social media? word of mouth, et cetera.

Mark Condon
Yeah, so service dog Subreddit, I hadn't even thought about that. So I'm going to dance around that area soon. Yeah, so it's interesting. So going back to that PetExpo, right? I'm just now thinking back, this all goes back even further. And it's just funny how block after block, it just kind of builds. So long story short, Suffolk University has an internship program. had gentleman do that, do.an internship with me. was an entrepreneur major. And part of what he did one day was just create a template and spanned a bunch of people on LinkedIn with the same message, all in the pet space, just trying to , hey, I got this product, blah, blah, blah. Led me to a woman named Nancy. And then Nancy made a post about me. And then Eric is the gentleman that runs Superpet Expo in New Jersey. He found me, shot me a message on Facebook.Obviously he's trying to sell booths, right? So he had a financial incentive to get me there. But through him was the, was the expo that led to the service dog woman that reached out. And then now I talked about celebrity dog trainers and such. And he's , you should really speak to this woman named Chrissy Joy. She's a celebrity dog trainer. She's amazing. Connected with her. She's connected with a few people. And the list just goes on and on and on where now this woman, Colleen's got a company called Pets on Q.And you essentially there's animal talent that in exchange for say a product they'll create a bunch of video content for you now I'm specifically trying to get people in the service dog space Do I giving out free product? No But it's a hell of a lot cheaper than paying them to create for social media videos and a bunch of b-roll, right? So I got to get over the hurdle of I don't want to give away free product the end of day It's it's a lot less So getting in front of those people they've created a bunch of content for that

Vigs
Hmm.

Mark Condon
And I have another woman in the specifically focused on pet space Instagram accounts and she's helped me grow the account. She provides a lot of ideas of content generating and such so It's the combination of all that so you should see the videos I make down here in my basement at four o'clock in the morning for iPupPee I look an idiot to the end if you had a camera on me I'd look an idiot just down here, but it's Yeah, it's just kind of it all started and all started with the LinkedIn intern

Vigs
this.

Mark Condon
And that's kind of how I've gotten in front of all these people to create the content. Cause , I don't have a dog. I can't create the content without a dog. yeah, so that's kind of how we've gotten those posts. Yeah.

Vigs
Yeah, cool.Last, last point I want to kind of take on here, and this is because you have your finance background. want to use the expertise that I have in front of me. So not every hardware founder is going to have that background. Right. And so if someone, with a similar background, non-technical, however, they're not kind of versed in finance, maybe they have a different skillset. What would be the key things that they need to learn and understand on the financial side, even if they outsource the finance to someone else, what would be kind of those key things in your opinion?

Mark Condon
I mean, you have to know your, this just goes back to personal finance. you have to know your numbers. You need to know what your fixed expenses are. You need to know what your surplus is each month to understand what risk you can take on, whether it's just throw money in the stock market, which historically is just going to continue to grow over time, or outside risk. And this is a very variable risk that taking, know, starting your own business because there's a lot patents, those attorney bills never stop.But so you really have to understand what your cash flow is to start and then there are creative ways to Fund it if you will right the cheapest way is always going to be cash because there's no interest associated with it You're not giving up any equity. You're not giving up any royalties The cheapest option is always cash, but if you're creating a tech product with an app, I mean, it's not cheap by any means so if you have a brokerage account it's called a non qualified brokerage accountso after-tax money that you opened on your own, you could use that, it's called an asset-backed loan. You can use that as collateral, money stays invested, and you can, it's kind of if you have a home, you have a home equity line of credit, kind of the same concept, and you can use that as collateral, money stays invested, so you don't have to take any money out, and then you can borrow, essentially against yourself, and use that to fund some of the projects. So depending on the size of your account and the size of...the funds that you need. We took that approach for some of it and that proved beneficial. They're kind of variable rates. You're barring against yourself. You're paying interest, but rates were nice at three and half a couple of years ago. They're not as friendly anymore at seven. Now that we've got the product, we're paying back the principal of problem.But it's a creative way to just, you people , shit, all I have to do is , I got to sell out of my investment accounts to do this. And you don't have to do that. There's other ways to do it. It's just a matter of the knowledge and the know-how to be able to do it. But it all comes down with your personal cash flow. You really have to understand what your personal situation is. Because you don't want to be halfway down there and be , I got no more money. I can't do this anymore. , that's scary.

Vigs
Mm.Yeah, yeah,definitely. Is there any specific thing, for example, with bill of materials inventory where your financial background, you had to , , learn certain terminology or certain ways that the hardware world works, kind of to balance the sheets.

Mark Condon
Not specifically. mean, I have you just see my laptop over here. I have six spreadsheets up every single day tracking everything, every cost associated outside of finance and iPupPee. I have another business that I own. I have all these spreadsheets of all my costs and it's it's time consuming. It's just although it's all about just tracking the cost. So nothing specific to your question that directly relates to it.You really just gotta understand, you really can't miss a penny. You have to be on top of everything and just really track it. So I just laugh when I look at this spreadsheet. There's just numbers everywhere. It only makes sense to me. But you just, yeah, you just really have to understand the numbers I think it comes down to at the end of the day.

Vigs
Well, if anyone's listening to this as a software engineer, whenever I hear six spreadsheets, that sounds a tool that needs to be built to solve a problem.

Mark Condon
Yeah,right? Yeah, it's crazy. got , yeah, I do. I literally have six spreadsheets up right now with tracking of everything. And they all have multiple tabs. it's just, it's a nightmare to probably the average person, but it takes a while to build. think you have to be really, really organized. Otherwise you just throw stuff up at a wall, ?

Vigs
Yeah,when I do spreadsheets, I can't use any of those templates just because there's so many equations stuff going on in the background. I have to make everything from scratch myself. So I understand what's going on.

Mark Condon
Same.Same. it's a headache. It's it's a weight. It's a weight to be lifted that you have to do it and do it because even I just realized I screwed something up a few weeks ago and I had to redo a bunch of it just because none of these numbers are making sense. I had one small calculation off, but there's nothing that's going to... So many things are customizable. The templates might be helpful for generic stuff, but you're mostly going to have to build your own spreadsheets throughout. So I've kind of become pretty good with the spreadsheets, but I'm still not a whiz.

Vigs
Nice.

Mark Condon
Yeah.

Vigs
Well, if you need spreadsheet help, if you need creative ways to raise money for your company, or if you have a service dog, Mark's your guy. Thanks so much for taking the time here.

Mark Condon
Yeah. I appreciate it,Yeah, thanks man. I really appreciate you having me on. It's been a lot of fun.

Vigs
Yeah, you can check out Mark at iPupPee and I'll put links and stuff in the description here.

Mark Condon
Alright, sounds good.