Fresh & Fit - How To Make Money In The Tech World

00:28:52.000 Alright guys, we're back with Fresh and Fit to Recovering How to Make Money in Tech, the Dustin the Tech Guy.

00:28:57.000 Let's go!

00:29:49.000 And we're back.

00:29:50.000 Listen, guys, this one is going to be an awesome show.

00:29:52.000 My friend Dustin's here.

00:29:53.000 I've known him for 10 years, actually, in Florida.

00:29:55.000 And it's funny because he was in tech the entire time, made a bunch of money, but more importantly, we were friends the entire time as well.

00:30:01.000 Dustin, welcome to the show.

00:30:03.000 I know you are.

00:30:04.000 They may not know you are.

00:30:05.000 Please tell them who you are.

00:30:07.000 My name is Dustin, the tech guy.

00:30:10.000 I've been working in tech for about 25, 26 years now.

00:30:14.000 Worked in retail, worked at IBM, worked my way all the way up.

00:30:17.000 Now I'm an entrepreneur.

00:30:19.000 Opened my own business.

00:30:21.000 And I've been doing that for the last 11 years now.

00:30:23.000 So we met 10 years ago, actually, in Pembroke Appliance.

00:30:26.000 We did.

00:30:27.000 What's the story?

00:30:28.000 That was hilarious.

00:30:28.000 We did.

00:30:29.000 Actually, Walter and I met.

00:30:30.000 I had a motorcycle at the time.

00:30:32.000 He was really into motorcycles at the time.

00:30:34.000 And needed to get rid of it and get it sold.

00:30:36.000 And he told me he had some contacts.

00:30:39.000 And I said, alright, that's cool.

00:30:40.000 We met through a mutual friend of ours.

00:30:42.000 And he said, hey, I can get this bike sold for you.

00:30:44.000 I gave him all the information.

00:30:45.000 We ended up getting it sold.

00:30:46.000 I tried to offer him some money for doing the sale.

00:30:48.000 He didn't take it.

00:30:49.000 And ever since then, I always knew he was a good guy, and we've been friends ever since.

00:30:52.000 It's funny.

00:30:53.000 He won't say this, but back then, I was super broke.

00:30:56.000 I had a Hyundai Elantra, and he paid for lunch.

00:30:59.000 Beat up all to hell on every corner, too.

00:31:00.000 Yeah, it was terrible.

00:31:01.000 But he paid for lunch, and I was grateful because back then I was toasted.

00:31:04.000 But we survived.

00:31:06.000 We did, we did.

00:31:06.000 We talked a lot, and I'd like to think that I was a catalyst to get you where you are today.

00:31:11.000 Facts. So, Dustin, listen.

00:31:13.000 I know you've got a bunch of knowledge in you for tech as well, but let's start from the very beginning.

00:31:16.000 Your childhood, how you came up and got into tech in the first place.

00:31:19.000 First off, I'm 44 years old, so I'm an old head.

00:31:22.000 I've been around.

00:31:23.000 I was born in 1980.

00:31:25.000 I've kind of seen the evolution of technology happen since the very beginning.

00:31:29.000 Before the iPhone, before smartphones, before all this kind of stuff, I was doing the tech thing.

00:31:33.000 As a very young age, we had a couple computers in the house here and there, but I was always intrigued by it.

00:31:38.000 I was three or four years old.

00:31:39.000 I was the one that was setting the VCR at the time to do the recordings for the family.

00:31:42.000 I was the one setting the clocks on the microwave.

00:31:44.000 I've always kind of had this knack for technology.

00:31:47.000 It was always kind of in me.

00:31:48.000 Honestly knew I was always going to do it.

00:31:51.000 Grew up out in the Midwest.

00:31:52.000 I was born in Dallas, Texas.

00:31:53.000 Grew up in Oklahoma in Texas.

00:31:55.000 Moved down to Miami in the late 80s, early 90s.

00:31:59.000 And been here ever since.

00:32:01.000 From a technology standpoint, through high school, I always took computer classes.

00:32:06.000 I was always involved.

00:32:07.000 I had a teacher in Sunset.

00:32:09.000 Actually, I was in Sunset taking some night school there.

00:32:11.000 It's a local school here.

00:32:12.000 And my computer teacher got me into a program to get certifications.

00:32:17.000 And those certifications were really, really, really big at that time.

00:32:21.000 Can you tell them as well how important?

00:32:22.000 Those certs are for your career as well?

00:32:25.000 Certs are very important.

00:32:26.000 It really dives into the specifics of the career path that you're going to go, whether it's on the engineering side, whether it's on the software side.

00:32:34.000 These particular certifications were the Microsoft Certified System Engineer program.

00:32:40.000 And I actually got certified at 16 years old.

00:32:42.000 I was very young.

00:32:43.000 I still think I was one of the youngest ones in the state to ever do it.

00:32:45.000 What was your first job coming out of that?

00:32:47.000 First job?

00:32:49.000 First, first job was a peon job, and I won't mention that, but my first half-decent job was working at Best Buy, working in retail.

00:32:57.000 Really? Yeah, so retail was where I first started.

00:33:00.000 Always working with some sort of computer.

00:33:03.000 I was working at Staples for a while back when they had a tech department in there.

00:33:06.000 CompUSA, which is now defunct.

00:33:08.000 Tiger Direct, which is now defunct.

00:33:09.000 I worked at all those places back in the day.

00:33:11.000 Your parents saw you work with computers a lot.

00:33:15.000 No, 100%.

00:33:17.000 I had a lot of support from both my mother and my father.

00:33:20.000 They pushed me along.

00:33:21.000 They always kind of hyped me up, and they were very supportive of everything.

00:33:25.000 They knew it was the future, too.

00:33:27.000 Both my parents, they really weren't that tech-savvy, so it definitely wasn't in the family.

00:33:32.000 Definitely one that kind of, I was the outlier of the family as far as tech goes.

00:33:36.000 But they were both very supportive.

00:33:37.000 That's good.

00:33:38.000 So getting to tech, obviously speaking, now it is a little bit harder because competition is fierce, a lot of applicants.

00:33:43.000 How did you get into it full-time with your, I guess, first big job?

00:33:46.000 Yeah, so I worked retail for a long time.

00:33:49.000 At that time, sales was really big.

00:33:51.000 You know, computers were $3,000, $4,000 back then.

00:33:53.000 There was a lot more profit in the computers back then.

00:33:55.000 So on the sales side of it, there was a lot more money.

00:33:57.000 This is in the late 90s, early 2000s.

00:34:02.000 We made really good money for that time.

00:34:03.000 Really, really good money for that time.

00:34:05.000 On the sales side of it, it obviously fizzled.

00:34:09.000 The prices of computers went down.

00:34:10.000 They became commodities.

00:34:13.000 The profits just weren't there.

00:34:14.000 What year was that, roughly?

00:34:16.000 2002-ish, 2003-ish.

00:34:18.000 Right around there.

00:34:19.000 After my retail circuit, I worked in retail from 18, 19, 21, somewhere around 22 years old is when I kind of got away from that.

00:34:28.000 The prices of things just went down.

00:34:29.000 The money wasn't there anymore.

00:34:32.000 And I started working for a telco company, a voice over IP company in Fort Lauderdale.

00:34:38.000 And it was a subsidiary of IBM, so I was with the best of the best at that time.

00:34:44.000 It was really cool.

00:34:45.000 It was a really great job.

00:34:45.000 I learned a lot and took in a lot from there.

00:34:48.000 But that was my first real serious job, the six-figure salary job, let's put it that way.

00:34:52.000 How much was that an hour, roughly, back then?

00:34:55.000 Oh, I don't know.

00:34:56.000 Because today it would be...

00:34:58.000 I mean, $100,000 a year back in the early 2000s is probably a quarter million now, I would like to think.

00:35:04.000 It was really good money at the time.

00:35:06.000 What was your first car, man?

00:35:07.000 What'd you buy?

00:35:08.000 Oh, man, I'm trying to think.

00:35:09.000 So I was into Hondas at that time.

00:35:11.000 I was a Honda boy, so I had a couple Civics and a couple Accords back in that time.

00:35:15.000 I was one of the Ricer boys back in the day.

00:35:17.000 I remember when I came to Florida, there was a whole car culture here regarding, you know...

00:35:22.000 Legal racing, and of course, things on the road.

00:35:25.000 And it's funny because if you know the car scene here in Florida, it's very small, but it's also very big at the same time.

00:35:31.000 It is.

00:35:31.000 Because everyone has a nice car, they want to mod it, get new cars as well.

00:35:34.000 And every second Saturday of the month, they do Supercar Saturdays in Florida, so that's good.

00:35:38.000 So, in tech, right?

00:35:40.000 For someone watching for the first time, let's say they want to get into it as well.

00:35:43.000 How would they start, you would say?

00:35:45.000 I recommend...

00:35:47.000 If you're green in the environment and you just see it as a great career path, and, you know, I mean, on that note, of the top 10 careers, every single year for the last 20 years that I've looked, it's always health, tech, and then maybe a sales position and then maybe a little bit of finance, but tech dominates every year.

00:36:02.000 It's a very, very, very solid career path and choice.

00:36:05.000 But getting into it, it's not for the faint of heart.

00:36:08.000 I mean, you're on call all the time.

00:36:09.000 You're working hard.

00:36:11.000 It's a lot.

00:36:11.000 It's a seven-day-a-week job, for sure.

00:36:13.000 But there's introductory courses that you can take, community colleges, local colleges.

00:36:17.000 There's online classes.

00:36:18.000 I recommend highly anyone that's interested in it that's not already working in the field in some capacity to take one of those classes.

00:36:24.000 And it gives a very broad overview of the software side, the hardware side.

00:36:29.000 And I think that's the best way to really get introduced to it.

00:36:31.000 So typically speaking, there's different genres of tech.

00:36:34.000 There's also software programming.

00:36:36.000 There's as well as cybersecurity.

00:36:38.000 There's networking.

00:36:40.000 Also service providers.

00:36:41.000 Which one are you in?

00:36:42.000 So we are actually an MSP.

00:36:44.000 We're a managed service provider.

00:36:46.000 And what we do is we go into companies and we take over their whole infrastructure.

00:36:50.000 We take over their servers, their desktops.

00:36:53.000 We manage the networks.

00:36:55.000 We also do websites and search engine optimization and cables and voice over IP.

00:37:02.000 We have a wide variety of services that we do offer.

00:37:06.000 But we're a managed service provider at the heart of our business.

00:37:09.000 So you're like the company's best friend, basically, in tech.

00:37:12.000 We are.

00:37:12.000 I mean, we're kind of like C-level executives in every company, and we go in and we consult them, and we basically tell them what to do.

00:37:17.000 We tell them how to save money.

00:37:18.000 We tell them how to streamline their operations.

00:37:20.000 We tell them how to streamline their bills.

00:37:22.000 And we look at all that with them.

00:37:24.000 We work with the office managers, and we make the office managers look really good.

00:37:27.000 And, yeah, that's pretty much what we do.

00:37:29.000 What are the requirements to get into?

00:37:31.000 This kind of work?

00:37:32.000 Doing a cert, degree, or just experience in a job?

00:37:35.000 So if you're going to go down the entrepreneurial path like I did, you can be self-taught.

00:37:41.000 I know there's a lot of sister companies that we have that we work with, we've worked with over the years that we've helped launch, and a lot of those guys are self-taught.

00:37:48.000 I mean, you can learn a lot of this just with field experience.

00:37:52.000 You've got to really have it in you.

00:37:53.000 You've got to be like how I was when I was 10 years old.

00:37:56.000 It's not something that you're just going to learn off the top of your dome.

00:38:00.000 But you definitely got to get into a class at some point.

00:38:05.000 Okay. So let's say I'm starting out.

00:38:06.000 I just finished school.

00:38:09.000 What's starting salary for me if I join this career path?

00:38:12.000 There's a ton of jobs in the 75K a year mark.

00:38:15.000 There's tons of them.

00:38:16.000 75 to 125 is kind of the baseline now in tech.

00:38:19.000 Just about anywhere across the country.

00:38:21.000 And what do they require?

00:38:23.000 A degree?

00:38:24.000 Experience? Most of the entry-level jobs, when you go to work for a big corporation, you're going to need at least some sort of a two-year degree and some sorts of some sort, or you're going to need to know a programming language or something to do with the hardware, depending on what avenue you're going.

00:38:37.000 You're going to need to have some formal education in order to get one of those jobs.

00:38:40.000 So let's say I want to fast-track this to get a higher pay.

00:38:43.000 What cert would I need to get, I guess, from the certifications?

00:38:46.000 It depends on whether you're going software or hardware.

00:38:48.000 It really depends.

00:38:49.000 So once you choose that path, then that'll determine exactly which certification you're going to need to get.

00:38:55.000 Why didn't you go software?

00:38:56.000 It doesn't interest me.

00:38:58.000 It just doesn't excite me like the support side of it.

00:39:03.000 I also feel like when you're on the software side of it, you're very limited.

00:39:06.000 A lot of guys will go learn two or three different coding languages and they'll get themselves a job, but they're kind of stuck in that market and they can't really deviate from it.

00:39:13.000 On my side of it, we're more on the service side of it.

00:39:16.000 And as the trends change and as the new technologies come in, we adopt those changes and we help the customers utilize those new technologies versus make the technologies.

00:39:25.000 There's money on both sides of it.

00:39:27.000 It just depends on the path you want to go.

00:39:29.000 But the software development side, there's big money in that.

00:39:32.000 There's really big money.

00:39:32.000 Because you know what's scary?

00:39:34.000 A couple years ago, I was told, a lot of people were told that you should get into software development because that's where the money is.

00:39:40.000 They said, you do programming, they're going to get paid for a long time.

00:39:44.000 But now, welcome in AI.

00:39:46.000 You know, it's changing how the game is being done.

00:39:48.000 And actually, last year, recorded, 3.4 million people, sorry, jobs were outsourced to other countries.

00:39:54.000 So, how does someone navigate the job market now with all those things happening with AI, jobs being outsourced?

00:39:59.000 What would you say?

00:40:00.000 Outsourcing's been a problem since the beginning of time.

00:40:02.000 It's plagued just about every industry.

00:40:05.000 Listen, in my market down here...

00:40:09.000 Hopefully a lot of the listeners are down here in South Florida, but I know we've got some across the United States.

00:40:13.000 South Florida market's a little different than the rest of the United States.

00:40:15.000 Job quality down here is not that great.

00:40:17.000 Mediocre work down here is better than most people's.

00:40:19.000 So it's pretty easy to get work down here.

00:40:22.000 In the rest of the United States, that's a little different.

00:40:24.000 It does change per region that you're in.

00:40:27.000 You know what's funny about that?

00:40:28.000 You mentioned it too as well, is that people will work a job here or work for themselves here, but it's low class work.

00:40:34.000 It is.

00:40:34.000 So it's like bare minimum.

00:40:36.000 It is.

00:40:36.000 If you do even a little bit more.

00:40:38.000 You're seeing this way better.

00:40:39.000 You're golden.

00:40:40.000 And if you do exceptional work, you're never going to have a problem.

00:40:42.000 And I like to think that that's where we're at.

00:40:43.000 We do quality work.

00:40:45.000 We've got a good name for ourselves out there.

00:40:46.000 And we're a small, big company.

00:40:48.000 We present big, but we're small.

00:40:49.000 And, yeah.

00:40:52.000 So, Dustin, real quick.

00:40:53.000 If you've got to change one thing from back then to now with tech, would you say, for example, let's say you're going into an industry like this, right?

00:41:01.000 You want to have, of course, everything ducks in a row before you go apply for this job.

00:41:06.000 Give us the play-by-play.

00:41:07.000 If someone's watching for the first time, what they need through and through.

00:41:11.000 I always recommend and always give suggestions to everybody.

00:41:15.000 If you're interested in getting into this career, go get a job in the career.

00:41:19.000 Even if it's at Best Buy.

00:41:20.000 If you're 18, 20, 22 years old, it's an entry-level job anyway.

00:41:23.000 You're most likely got something else going on.

00:41:25.000 You're either in and out of school.

00:41:26.000 Go get a job working in retail.

00:41:27.000 Go get a job working for, you know, even if it's the front desk help, it doesn't really matter.

00:41:31.000 You can get level one support.

00:41:33.000 There's plenty of companies offering positions.

00:41:35.000 I mean, I look through Indeed all the time.

00:41:37.000 There's just thousands of job postings all the time.

00:41:40.000 Thousands. Everywhere.

00:41:42.000 Go get a job in the market.

00:41:43.000 It's going to be an entry-level position.

00:41:45.000 But keep an idea.

00:41:47.000 Keep your eyes open and watch how the businesses are being ran and see what they're doing.

00:41:50.000 Learn from their mistakes so that when you take that into your position later on in another job or if you start your own business, learn from where you're at.

00:41:57.000 Study what they're doing.

00:41:59.000 In that job position, I mean, I worked retail and I chose retail because I took advantage of all the customers coming in.

00:42:05.000 You know, when you're working in retail, the guys that are coming in to buy things in the daytime is me now.

00:42:10.000 So I'm in there.

00:42:11.000 I'm going in and out of Best Buy, grabbing things, you know, real quickly now.

00:42:14.000 I'm a business owner.

00:42:15.000 I'm looking for tech guys.

00:42:16.000 I've hired people from Best Buy before.

00:42:18.000 Really? Yeah.

00:42:19.000 You see somebody in there with a lot of tenacity, and they're real eager, and they talk well, and they present well, and they've got the right look.

00:42:24.000 Listen, they're a good candidate for it.

00:42:27.000 And guys like us, we can tell who's who.

00:42:29.000 I've hired a lot of people in my day.

00:42:32.000 I've hired hundreds and hundreds of people at various jobs over the years, and you can tell right away if somebody's a good fit or not.

00:42:38.000 Do you think that nowadays it's hard to find good talent?

00:42:40.000 I would argue that a lot of people want jobs, but...

00:42:42.000 They don't want to put in the work.

00:42:44.000 Oh man, that's a touchy subject.

00:42:47.000 Yeah, listen, the generation now is not the hardest working.

00:42:52.000 It is a little bit of a challenge.

00:42:54.000 I'm lucky that at this point I've got a good team around me.

00:42:57.000 I'm not actively searching and I haven't had to hire anybody for a higher level position in a while.

00:43:01.000 We do hire people to come in and help out run cables.

00:43:06.000 You know, the monkey work.

00:43:07.000 You know, you come in, you do the work, and you leave.

00:43:09.000 It's in-and-out type work.

00:43:10.000 It's manual labor, basically.

00:43:13.000 High-level positions are a lot harder.

00:43:14.000 It is.

00:43:15.000 You know, people want to work for nothing now.

00:43:16.000 They think everything comes to them really quickly.

00:43:18.000 And, you know, this industry is a little tougher.

00:43:21.000 You've got to get in there, and you've got to grind, and you've got to work for a few years to really build it up and learn.

00:43:25.000 It's constantly learning.

00:43:26.000 It's constantly evolving.

00:43:27.000 It never stops.

00:43:28.000 It never stops.

00:43:29.000 And, I mean, that's the beauty of it, and that's why it's not going away.

00:43:31.000 That's why it's going to be here forever.

00:43:32.000 It's just never going to go away.

00:43:33.000 There's always going to be a need.

00:43:34.000 There's always going to need to be support.

00:43:36.000 I mean, everything in your life, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, is a computer or running off of a computer.

00:43:43.000 Even if you're old and you write checks and you're not even using the technology you want to, you're still going to an ATM and there's a computer behind that.

00:43:48.000 So the support's always going to be there.

00:43:51.000 It's just getting crazier and crazier every year.

00:43:53.000 Yeah, it's not going anywhere.

00:43:55.000 So every industry has their actual benefits.

00:43:57.000 And disadvantages, of course.

00:43:58.000 What are the benefits of getting into tech, you would say, nowadays?

00:44:01.000 Benefits of getting into tech is stability.

00:44:03.000 Again, I mentioned a few minutes ago that, you know, top 10 positions every single year, you know, you can look this up.

00:44:09.000 It's always four or five or six tech positions and then, you know, one, two, three, sometimes four positions in health.

00:44:15.000 Like you said, then you throw in a finance job and then sales is always one of the top 10 jobs, right?

00:44:19.000 Sales in anywhere always makes money.

00:44:22.000 Burnout phases happens in a lot of these jobs.

00:44:24.000 Finance wears you out, too.

00:44:26.000 Benefits of working in tech is a stability.

00:44:28.000 Again, like we're talking about, it's never going to go anywhere.

00:44:30.000 It's always going to be there.

00:44:32.000 And you've just got to be willing to adapt.

00:44:33.000 When I originally started the company, I'm not doing anything that I wanted to when I first started.

00:44:38.000 We've had to adapt and we've had to mold and change.

00:44:40.000 We have eight or nine more product offerings now than when we first started.

00:44:45.000 And this is just the way the industry is.

00:44:46.000 It just changes.

00:44:47.000 It's not static.

00:44:47.000 It doesn't stand there.

00:44:48.000 And you've got to be willing to change and adopt.

00:44:50.000 You can't be a person that's a creature of habit, so to speak.

00:44:53.000 You've got to be willing to change and adopt to the times.

00:44:57.000 Get some education.

00:44:58.000 Work for somebody.

00:44:59.000 Learn the system.

00:45:00.000 And then if you want to be an entrepreneur, take that information, get your own clients, and move forward in your own way.

00:45:06.000 100%. And, you know, very early on, get an LLC.

00:45:10.000 Get an escort.

00:45:11.000 Start the business.

00:45:12.000 A lot of guys don't do this.

00:45:12.000 I made the mistake early on, too.

00:45:14.000 I did it the first year that I opened the company.

00:45:16.000 You know, you can source product from a lot of other places now, but when you go to try and get equipment from companies and you're trying to buy a third party, Don't take it serious.

00:45:25.000 They're not taking you serious because they're seeing you as a month-old company.

00:45:27.000 And tech is a fly-by-night industry.

00:45:29.000 So they're not taking you seriously.

00:45:30.000 It's a little harder to get products.

00:45:31.000 It's a little harder to source things.

00:45:33.000 You know, I would say start that now.

00:45:35.000 And I recommend that to anybody.

00:45:36.000 I mean, whether you're going to go into tech or any other industry, it's always a good thing to start that up and, you know, get an account and get someone that's good on your books and start writing some things off and save some money.

00:45:45.000 Okay, real quick, Dustin.

00:45:46.000 Okay, listen.

00:45:47.000 I love school.

00:45:48.000 Just kidding.

00:45:48.000 I hate school.

00:45:49.000 What if I hate school?

00:45:50.000 I don't want to get a degree.

00:45:52.000 Can I still work this career?

00:45:54.000 For myself.

00:45:54.000 Of course you can.

00:45:55.000 Of course you can.

00:45:56.000 I mean, if that's the case, then you're going to go down the entrepreneurial path.

00:45:59.000 That's just the way that you're going to have to do it.

00:46:01.000 Listen, there's a lot of self-study.

00:46:03.000 The internet does wonders these days.

00:46:05.000 There's a lot of information out there that you can find.

00:46:06.000 But if that's the case and that's the path that you want to go down, just go get a job working somewhere.

00:46:11.000 Start studying how they're doing things and let it run.

00:46:14.000 I mean, like I said, you can start in retail.

00:46:15.000 You can start working at Best Buy and in five years.

00:46:18.000 Easy, easy, easy, without even trying within five years.

00:46:21.000 It might seem like a long time initially, but within five years, you can have yourself a very, very good, successful six-figure salary.

00:46:28.000 Not bad at all.

00:46:29.000 What's the max you can make, like super max, top level?

00:46:32.000 I mean, Silicon Valley has a lot of $1 million guys out there.

00:46:35.000 Sheesh. You know, Silicon Valley has a lot.

00:46:38.000 I mean, there's a lot.

00:46:38.000 There's a lot of half a million dollar guys out there.

00:46:41.000 You know, the thing about this career is it's not, you know, you're not going to make millions and millions and millions and millions every single year.

00:46:45.000 It's not quick money.

00:46:47.000 But it's a good stable career.

00:46:49.000 It's stable.

00:46:50.000 And, you know, you can raise a family on this.

00:46:51.000 You know, you can feed.

00:46:52.000 I mean, I've fed my family all these years and we've all done very well.

00:46:55.000 We've all traveled.

00:46:56.000 I've seen, man.

00:46:57.000 You know, yeah, you have.

00:46:57.000 And, you know, we're all doing really well because of it.

00:47:00.000 And it's fed me for a very long time.

00:47:01.000 So the stability part of it is a good thing.

00:47:04.000 The people that really get into this, the network of people around me, they've been doing it 10 plus years or more.

00:47:10.000 And that's the real...

00:47:12.000 Good benefit of it is that it's good, stable money.

00:47:14.000 And if you open your own business and you do go down the entrepreneur, it's not hard to make a half a million dollars.

00:47:20.000 It's really, really, truly not.

00:47:21.000 You don't need that many customers.

00:47:23.000 So the possibilities are really limitless.

00:47:25.000 And then you can scale it as high as you want, or you can keep it simple and small.

00:47:28.000 You can grow it out.

00:47:29.000 You can open up multiple offices.

00:47:31.000 It just depends on the direction that you want to go.

00:47:33.000 Aren't you scared of AI coming to the forefront?

00:47:36.000 I was at a meeting, actually, and they spoke about AI becoming a part of every company by 2030.

00:47:41.000 Aren't you worried about it dominating your industry, like taking over, driving?

00:47:46.000 No, I mean, AI's been around for a long time.

00:47:49.000 It's like a lot of these coin terms.

00:47:51.000 I mean, the cloud was a big thing 10 years ago, and everybody was scared of the cloud, and what was it, and how are we going to push our data off-site, and how is it not going to be here, and everybody wanted on-prem stuff.

00:47:59.000 Now the cloud is just something that nobody even talks about.

00:48:02.000 I really don't like a lot of these terms.

00:48:05.000 AI's here.

00:48:05.000 It's been here for a while, but it's just going to continue to get better.

00:48:09.000 On my side of it, I basically use AI as a tool, and I educate my customers on how to use it to make them more profitable and to streamline their processes.

00:48:18.000 And I'm really getting a lot better about teaching them how to utilize this in a way that suits the customer's needs in the industry that they're in.

00:48:29.000 And, I mean, AI's in everything now.

00:48:30.000 It's in Zoom.

00:48:31.000 I mean, you can see it everywhere.

00:48:33.000 It's in Adobe now, and it's in your email now.

00:48:35.000 It's in Office 365.

00:48:36.000 It's everywhere.

00:48:39.000 Really, on my side of it, I'm not really worried about it.

00:48:42.000 On the programming side, I wouldn't be worried about it either.

00:48:44.000 If you're a developer, I mean, obviously you're doing great right now.

00:48:47.000 But it is going to become the norm eventually.

00:48:49.000 And it's going to taper off like a lot of the cloud-based stuff.

00:48:52.000 And right now it's a trend.

00:48:53.000 It's big.

00:48:53.000 It's massive.

00:48:55.000 It's blowing up everywhere.

00:48:57.000 But no, I don't worry about it taking over.

00:48:59.000 I don't worry about it taking our jobs because at the end of the day, somebody still has to program it.

00:49:01.000 Somebody still has to deploy it.

00:49:03.000 Somebody still has to support it.

00:49:03.000 And maintain it.

00:49:05.000 And no matter what, you know, on the support side of it, which is where we're at, there's always going to be a need.

00:49:10.000 Because the end user and the customers are never going to be able to really truly understand all this.

00:49:14.000 Yeah. I think every time there's a new rollout, people are like, oh, what do I do?

00:49:18.000 Who do I call?

00:49:18.000 So that's where you come in.

00:49:19.000 That's where we come in, you know.

00:49:21.000 Call us up and we go out and we help them out.

00:49:23.000 All right.

00:49:23.000 We'll take a little break here for some chats.

00:49:25.000 Any questions at all?

00:49:28.000 JosiahV92 says, did you create your own MSP?

00:49:31.000 Or do you work for, like, Optify, ClaireShark, MSPs, or something similar?

00:49:35.000 I'm a 1099 core consultant for Splunk.

00:49:38.000 Worked with MSPs before?

00:49:39.000 Just curious.

00:49:40.000 Yeah, we are our own MSP.

00:49:42.000 We do everything in-house.

00:49:43.000 We handle everything ourselves.

00:49:45.000 All right.

00:49:47.000 We have up next, Amalik Yoaz from Rumble.

00:49:50.000 Hey, guys, how do you feel about the mass layoffs in tech, despite being thousands of job postings?

00:49:55.000 Also, my nick is pleat.

00:49:57.000 Because easy.

00:49:58.000 Listen, um, every time there's an...

00:50:01.000 I didn't want to say that word.

00:50:03.000 Oh my gosh.

00:50:05.000 The chat, bro.

00:50:06.000 The chat kills me every time.

00:50:08.000 I love you guys.

00:50:10.000 Listen, there's always layoffs, right?

00:50:12.000 Because as new technology comes in, it's out with the old and in with the new.

00:50:15.000 So like I was saying before, you've got to be very adaptive in this industry.

00:50:18.000 You can't come into this industry and think that you're going to be doing the same thing for the next 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.

00:50:23.000 It's going to change.

00:50:25.000 Security, cybersecurity has been a big thing here.

00:50:27.000 There's been a big push on that.

00:50:29.000 I would say that that's even bigger than AI.

00:50:31.000 It's just not being talked about as much.

00:50:33.000 And, you know, cybersecurity is massive, and we've been rolling it out in attorney firms.

00:50:37.000 Obviously, the medical field has been deploying all sorts of cybersecurity.

00:50:41.000 You know, it's a really, really, really big field to be into.

00:50:44.000 So, you know, listen, as technologies change, you know, the big companies are going to, you know, move funds around, and they're going to get rid of some positions, and then new ones are going to spawn up.

00:50:53.000 So you've got to kind of roll with the punches and, you know, not let it distract you.

00:50:58.000 I think the biggest thing for me in tech that I didn't realize at the beginning was that it's ever-changing.

00:51:02.000 It never ends.

00:51:03.000 It's every six months.

00:51:04.000 So you have to always learn the best thing.

00:51:06.000 If not, you're going to be left behind within two weeks, which is crazy to me.

00:51:09.000 Listen, it's just forever, forever, ever changing.

00:51:12.000 And, you know, it's basically, you know, we're on a TikTok refresh.

00:51:15.000 Every six months it ticks, and then another six months it talks back.

00:51:18.000 That's a good point.

00:51:19.000 You know, it's just kind of the nature of the business.

00:51:22.000 It's forever changing.

00:51:23.000 It's not going to stop.

00:51:24.000 I mean, it's moving at a pace now that's...

00:51:27.000 It's hard to really fathom how much it is.

00:51:29.000 There's charts on this, and you see it go up for the years, and in the last 20 years, it was pretty steady, but in the last five, it's just shot straight up.

00:51:36.000 And it's really ever-changing.

00:51:38.000 You've got to be willing to adapt.

00:51:39.000 Again, it's not for the faint of heart if you're a creature of habit.

00:51:42.000 Good point.

00:51:44.000 So real quick, we've got some more here as well.

00:51:46.000 Double D, 5000, what are your thoughts on Network Plus and CCNA certifications?

00:51:52.000 Are they worth it, and which one is better?

00:51:54.000 Network Plus is good.

00:51:55.000 I mean, that's an entry-level class.

00:51:57.000 I did the CCNA as well.

00:51:58.000 I did it a long time ago, so I'm a little outdated on it, but Network Plus is definitely good.

00:52:03.000 If you're green and you're new, A Plus, Network Plus, it's basically the same class now.

00:52:08.000 Jump in there, take those.

00:52:09.000 That's a good introductory.

00:52:11.000 If you like it, then move forward to the CCNA for sure.

00:52:13.000 Would you say now it is, Dustin, that getting your cert is better than getting a degree?

00:52:17.000 It depends.

00:52:18.000 It depends on how far up you're going to go.

00:52:19.000 I mean, listen, the Bachelor of Science degree is really, really necessary in a lot of high-level positions.

00:52:24.000 From a programming perspective, you're going to need to get in and learn those languages.

00:52:27.000 On a hardware side, you're going to need things like this.

00:52:30.000 So, yeah, I mean, the certs are not going to hurt.

00:52:33.000 And you can knock those out pretty quickly.

00:52:36.000 They're not cheap.

00:52:37.000 They're a little pricey.

00:52:38.000 It's especially to get them done at a good school.

00:52:39.000 But the certs do help, and it does give you very specific knowledge.

00:52:43.000 Okay. Cool.

00:52:46.000 All right.

00:52:47.000 So Dustin, real quick as well.

00:52:48.000 So normally speaking, right, you go to school, get your degree, get a job, and you kind of like just retire after 40 years and go to your pension or whatever you want to say or 401k.

00:53:00.000 In tech, how do people manage money, you would say, to retire and get out of the game?

00:53:04.000 Because obviously speaking, people make a lot of money in tech.

00:53:06.000 How would you say people manage their money in tech itself?

00:53:08.000 I mean, that's a great question.

00:53:09.000 That's a really great question, actually.

00:53:11.000 You live a pretty good lifestyle.

00:53:12.000 I do, I do.

00:53:13.000 And, you know, honestly, in the last...

00:53:15.000 Three to five years, I've really started diversifying things, and I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket anymore.

00:53:22.000 I'm very diversified at this point, and you do have to do that at some point.

00:53:26.000 I mean, as any entrepreneur, you have to do that, right?

00:53:29.000 And it's not a forever career unless you build a company up and you sell the company off, which is a...

00:53:35.000 Good possibility, too.

00:53:36.000 A lot of companies are built just to be sold off.

00:53:39.000 I've been with a few of those companies.

00:53:40.000 I did mergers and acquisitions for tech companies for a while.

00:53:43.000 And that is a thing as well.

00:53:45.000 Well, isn't it funny?

00:53:47.000 What happens is it's a small startup.

00:53:49.000 They get funded.

00:53:50.000 They get big.

00:53:50.000 And they're working to be sold, basically.

00:53:53.000 That's it.

00:53:53.000 So everyone working there is like, oh, yeah, this is a great company.

00:53:56.000 And then it's like, oh.

00:53:57.000 I can make $10 million here, $20 million here.

00:53:59.000 I'm out.

00:54:00.000 Happens a lot.

00:54:00.000 Yeah. Happens a lot.

00:54:01.000 And it's okay if you're brought in and you're privy to it.

00:54:03.000 When it's not fun is when you're brought in and they give you a nice title and you're making a lot of money.

00:54:07.000 You're making a quarter million, half a million a year.

00:54:09.000 And then six months later, the company, they come in.

00:54:11.000 Because what happens is when they get merged and acquired, they take the people over.

00:54:14.000 They get rid of everything.

00:54:16.000 And they normally just keep the salespeople of the organization.

00:54:18.000 A lot of the other people go away because they've already got those people.

00:54:21.000 And that's just kind of the nature of the beast.

00:54:23.000 It's scary because I used to work at a tech company.

00:54:25.000 Pretty much everyone there that was there in the past was fired because they got bought out basically.

00:54:30.000 And it's like, wow.

00:54:31.000 Imagine if I stayed there for job security thinking, okay, this is great.

00:54:35.000 And then it's like, oh, well, we moved on.

00:54:36.000 Sorry. Who's next?

00:54:38.000 Yeah, that was at, where were you at?

00:54:39.000 You were at Wix, I think, right?

00:54:40.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:54:41.000 You were there for a while.

00:54:41.000 Listen, I, it's a good, stable, non-volatile career, but you're going to bounce around.

00:54:47.000 I mean, you're going to have to bounce around.

00:54:50.000 I bounced around a lot, too.

00:54:51.000 It really wasn't a thing back then.

00:54:52.000 People looked down upon it.

00:54:53.000 You know, I'm a little older, and at that time, people were getting jobs, and they were getting that one career path.

00:54:57.000 But in tech, you kind of got to bounce around, and it's the only way to really kind of move up.

00:55:01.000 And it's still that way today.

00:55:02.000 So you've been, I don't know, for what, 10 years now, Dustin?

00:55:05.000 Yeah. Should you save money for any of these?

00:55:08.000 Because obviously, speaking in tech, you can lose your job.

00:55:10.000 How should you save your money, I guess, to move forward?

00:55:12.000 So listen, you should always save money.

00:55:15.000 I mean, you always got to have a rainy day fund, right?

00:55:17.000 I mean, that's always the case.

00:55:18.000 And as a business owner, you've got to stash away things.

00:55:21.000 Listen, we have busy months and we have slow months.

00:55:23.000 Our late winter, early spring is our slow months and that ramps up.

00:55:28.000 And it's always the tax season is where we slow down.

00:55:30.000 I don't know why it's like that.

00:55:31.000 It's like that every single year, it seems like.

00:55:33.000 Then we pick up in the summertime and then towards the end of the year, there's another big push.

00:55:36.000 But the chart is the same almost every single year.

00:55:40.000 You gotta save some money.

00:55:40.000 You gotta put some money aside for a rainy day.

00:55:43.000 Listen, tech people are nerds at the end of the day.

00:55:45.000 Geeks! There's very few of us out there that aren't doing other things.

00:55:49.000 I mean, I would gather that everybody in the tech industry has some sort of a stock portfolio.

00:55:54.000 If you don't, you're not a real nerd.

00:55:55.000 Or crypto.

00:55:56.000 Or crypto or something, you know?

00:55:57.000 You know, something along those lines.

00:55:59.000 That's funny.

00:55:59.000 Speaking of, did you see that they spray-painted the crypto bull down here?

00:56:03.000 Yeah! What's up with that?

00:56:04.000 You know what it is, bro?

00:56:05.000 Sorry to interject there, but man, that is frustrating, man.

00:56:07.000 People are upset at the establishment.

00:56:09.000 Some people don't like Elon.

00:56:11.000 They don't like what's happening to crypto.

00:56:12.000 What's up with that, man?

00:56:12.000 And I just think people are haters, bro.

00:56:14.000 I think so, too, man.

00:56:15.000 It's just like, bro, you didn't buy the right time.

00:56:18.000 Hey, I get it, bro.

00:56:19.000 You're mad.

00:56:19.000 But, hey, some people did.

00:56:21.000 Yeah, I know.

00:56:21.000 I saw it the other day.

00:56:22.000 I was like, damn, man. 0.99

00:56:23.000 What are you doing with the bull? 0.99

00:56:23.000 What'd the bull do? 0.99

00:56:24.000 He's got no balls, but, you know. 0.99

00:56:27.000 You what? 1.00

00:56:28.000 Okay, listen.

00:56:29.000 So, in the tech world, I was in there for a little bit, dating is never really possible that much.

00:56:37.000 You kind of just go to work.

00:56:38.000 Work your 9 to 5 or if you're working on a project, more hours than normal.

00:56:42.000 You might get married to a chick that you met at one of those Magic the Gathering games or whatever.

00:56:48.000 And then you kind of settle down.

00:56:50.000 Have some kids and work.

00:56:52.000 But more than not, you're spending a lot of time at work.

00:56:55.000 She may get bored.

00:56:56.000 She may be like, you know what? 0.99

00:56:57.000 This isn't working out.

00:56:59.000 Like, you're never home.

00:57:00.000 And then usually, sadly, it ends in divorce.

00:57:04.000 How do you navigate dating?

00:57:05.000 Working tech, because it's a demanding job as well.

00:57:09.000 Well, I was married for 10 years and then got divorced.

00:57:11.000 So exactly what you said happened to me.

00:57:13.000 Listen, it does happen.

00:57:15.000 And you work hard, bro.

00:57:16.000 You work very hard.

00:57:17.000 I do.

00:57:17.000 I work seven days a week.

00:57:18.000 I'm on 24 hours a day.

00:57:20.000 I really don't ever stop.

00:57:21.000 But I also have the freedom to do what I want.

00:57:23.000 I'm here right now.

00:57:25.000 And I can schedule things around.

00:57:26.000 And when you're the boss and you control things, you've got the ability to set up the free time.

00:57:31.000 Listen, tech people in general...

00:57:33.000 The nerds have been ruling for a long time.

00:57:35.000 Yeah. They work hard, but they play hard, too.

00:57:38.000 Listen, Silicon Valley parties are good.

00:57:41.000 I don't know too many of the nerds out there that aren't partying hard on the weekends and out with the girls.

00:57:45.000 And listen, the nerds always get the girls, too. 1.00

00:57:47.000 They do.

00:57:48.000 Listen, at the end of the day, we get them all.

00:57:50.000 You know, it's funny.

00:57:51.000 In school, people are like, oh, look at these nerds over there. 0.98

00:57:54.000 Now they're on Facebook.

00:57:55.000 We came back, man.

00:57:56.000 We came back.

00:57:57.000 They're on X, YouTube.

00:57:58.000 So it's like, oh, who was last last now?

00:57:59.000 We do.

00:58:00.000 So it's well, bro.

00:58:02.000 100%. So in terms of actually managing a company in tech, tax-wise, how do you structure a company, for example, a new S-Corp?

00:58:11.000 Yeah, so listen, I mean, and I'm only going to speak for down here, and every state I'm sure is a little bit different.

00:58:17.000 Yeah, Florida.

00:58:19.000 Part of the United States is a little bit different.

00:58:21.000 You need to get yourself a good tax person.

00:58:23.000 You need to, you know, S-corp yourself is normally the best way.

00:58:25.000 The big thing that we have in our industry is you need insurance.

00:58:29.000 And you need a very, very large policy for data retention.

00:58:33.000 Because that's really the worst thing that we can do as an MSP is to lose the customer's data.

00:58:37.000 You know, they get a virus, they get hacked. 0.99

00:58:40.000 Listen, shit happens. 0.99

00:58:41.000 Knock on wood, it hasn't really happened to us in the last 12 years. 0.99

00:58:45.000 But you need to have a really good insurance policy.

00:58:47.000 We've got a $10 million policy on data and a $5 million policy on all the hardware.

00:58:53.000 It's a lot.

00:58:55.000 But listen, we work with very high-profile customers.

00:58:58.000 We deal with attorneys that...

00:59:00.000 You know, deal with very, very large clients, and we've got a lot of responsibility.

00:59:04.000 And, you know, these servers have terabytes and terabytes and terabytes worth of data.

00:59:07.000 If something were to go wrong, you know, there's a lot of money involved.

00:59:10.000 So what happens if I work with a company, I've got my S-Corp, but I don't have insurance?

00:59:16.000 I mean, you don't need it.

00:59:17.000 It's not required.

00:59:20.000 It's only going to be required if you're working in a condominium or you're on the cabling side of things.

00:59:24.000 They'll require insurance sometimes.

00:59:26.000 But working for smaller businesses, we cater towards that SMB market, which is somewhere 15 to 20 users, up to around 80 users, somewhere in that little sector.

00:59:35.000 A lot of the smaller companies, they don't even know to ask about it.

00:59:39.000 We have it there.

00:59:40.000 Now, if you're doing work in condominiums and you're doing work for contractors and you're doing work in larger organizations, they're going to do it.

00:59:46.000 Definitely require it.

00:59:47.000 They're going to require that insurance and they're going to ask you for it.

00:59:49.000 We've had to give it out to all the larger jobs that we do, especially on the cabling jobs.

00:59:53.000 Okay. Would you say, well, I guess from your experience, what's a harder career path?

00:59:59.000 Software or actually hardware?

01:00:02.000 And why?

01:00:04.000 Software because it's more difficult for me.

01:00:07.000 Software is very tedious.

01:00:11.000 It takes a long time.

01:00:12.000 I mean, there's millions of lines of code in just a simple instruction set.

01:00:16.000 And people really don't realize this when they open up an app and they just use it freely and they think everything is, you know, just functioning normal.

01:00:22.000 There might be a trillion lines of code in there.

01:00:24.000 I mean, and there's a lot to that.

01:00:26.000 And somebody has to physically write that in there.

01:00:28.000 Yes, they do automate some of that, but somebody's overlooking it and checking it and making sure that, you know, everything is good.

01:00:34.000 So there's a lot that goes into that.

01:00:35.000 It's very tedious.

01:00:38.000 Listen, the hardware side, on the front side of it, you get to interact a little bit more.

01:00:42.000 It's a little bit more instantaneous.

01:00:43.000 You get that instant gratification.

01:00:44.000 You go in, you do a network build-out, you plug everything in, everything kind of comes alive.

01:00:48.000 You start seeing the lights and the people go to work.

01:00:51.000 So, you know, the instant satisfaction is there a little bit quicker than on the software side.

01:00:55.000 But it just depends on what kind of person you are.

01:00:57.000 I mean, some people are more, you know, they want to sit in front of the computer and they want to grind there all day long.

01:01:01.000 I want to sit in front of the computer and, you know...

01:01:03.000 Do my AR and get money and then go out and I want to talk to people and interact with people more so.

01:01:08.000 It's funny because I thought that for me in tech, I would enjoy being behind a computer desk, just programming and doing support.

01:01:16.000 And I was like, this is cool.

01:01:18.000 Then I was like, wait, I'm doing the same thing every single day.

01:01:22.000 Yeah. The burnout phase is really big in our industry and a lot of people get really, really burned out, especially when they're in level one, level two, level three support.

01:01:29.000 Those are really terrible jobs.

01:01:31.000 I mean, they're good entry-level jobs, but you've got to get out of there.

01:01:33.000 You're going to burn out quick.

01:01:34.000 You're going to burn out real quick because it's just the same monotonous thing.

01:01:37.000 You're saying the same thing to every customer that calls in.

01:01:39.000 You're dealing with the same problems over and over again.

01:01:41.000 And traditionally, whether you're level one, level two, level three, you're...

01:01:46.000 You're being assigned a specific task.

01:01:48.000 And that monotony gets old after a while, you know, three, four, five years into the job, you're done and you're like, I don't ever want to go back to it.

01:01:54.000 So, I mean, just like with anything, though, listen, there's a lot of burnout in a lot of different industries, you know, and a lot of industries have a short lifespan and you got to expand and you got to adapt.

01:02:02.000 And listen, as a business owner, that kind of changes the dynamic of things because you can kind of do what you want.

01:02:08.000 Do you think that nowadays, especially with people being outsourced, well, their jobs being outsourced, Are they ever going to come back to America? 0.87

01:02:15.000 For example, Trump wants to bring, obviously, tariffs upon these companies.

01:02:19.000 Do you think people are going to come back to America to actually go to work and work properly?

01:02:25.000 I hope so.

01:02:27.000 I'd like to hope so.

01:02:28.000 The problem is that building this stuff overseas is just so much cheaper.

01:02:32.000 A lot of this equipment is expensive already.

01:02:35.000 I don't know.

01:02:35.000 It's hard to say what's going to happen with that, but I would love to see a lot more of it built back here.

01:02:40.000 It's just like with a lot of things.

01:02:43.000 Because I noticed a lot of the companies are here in the US.

01:02:45.000 Not in Europe.

01:02:46.000 They're here in the US. 0.73

01:02:47.000 So I'm like, why don't they just make people jobs here?

01:02:50.000 But I guess it's cheaper.

01:02:51.000 It's the manufacturing side of it that's very tedious.

01:02:54.000 Unfortunately, China's kind of mastered logistics and they've mastered manufacturing. 0.92

01:02:58.000 As much as I hate to say it, they're really good at it in mass production.

01:03:02.000 They crank out those iPhones every single year by the millions and they do them in a couple months.

01:03:07.000 So, you know, it'd be really hard to get that here at a mass scale.

01:03:09.000 But they're trying.

01:03:10.000 You know, there's a couple big manufacturers that they're looking to bring over here.

01:03:13.000 I know Apple's coming over here.

01:03:15.000 The company that manufactures, Foxconn, they're looking to come over here.

01:03:18.000 We'll see what happens.

01:03:21.000 What's up with Castle Club, bro?

01:03:23.000 What is that?

01:03:24.000 Is that Mo?

01:03:26.000 What the heck is this, bro?

01:03:28.000 They've been roasting me on show, bro. 0.98

01:03:29.000 Who's handing it out on your head?

01:03:31.000 That's Icy's.

01:03:32.000 Oh, God.

01:03:33.000 Don't mind the chat.

01:03:34.000 They're hilarious, man.

01:03:36.000 Okay. They be roasting me.

01:03:37.000 That's like a common thing.

01:03:39.000 They roast me all day, bro.

01:03:40.000 All night.

01:03:40.000 I can see, bro.

01:03:40.000 I can see.

01:03:41.000 I can see.

01:03:42.000 All right.

01:03:43.000 So, Dustin, I've known you for 10 years, bro.

01:03:46.000 All right?

01:03:46.000 Obviously, you've made a lot of money in tech.

01:03:48.000 You want to share what you're spending money on a little bit?

01:03:51.000 Oh, man.

01:03:51.000 For a long time, it was cars.

01:03:53.000 I mean, you saw.

01:03:54.000 I mean, there was a nice range of cars there for a while.

01:03:56.000 How many have you had, bro?

01:03:57.000 I don't even know.

01:04:00.000 A lot.

01:04:00.000 I mean, a lot.

01:04:02.000 30, 40 now?

01:04:03.000 I don't know.

01:04:03.000 Maybe more.

01:04:04.000 Who knows?

01:04:05.000 I used to buy a new car every year for my birthday, and I did that for years, and then sometimes for, you know, Fourth of July, I'd buy another one.

01:04:12.000 I don't know.

01:04:12.000 I had seven or eight cars at one point in time.

01:04:14.000 It was a problem, but...

01:04:16.000 Bro, so hold on.

01:04:19.000 I used to go to car shows with my old Toyota Camry, all the way in the back, walk to the front and be like, hey guys, I'm here!

01:04:25.000 And they'd be like, here's what a new car, like every other month, bro.

01:04:29.000 And I'm like, how's this guy making money?

01:04:31.000 It's a money loss.

01:04:32.000 It's not making money.

01:04:33.000 I know, I know, I know.

01:04:34.000 But you make money in tech, so whatever.

01:04:36.000 But I was just impressed by the car collection that you had.

01:04:41.000 Because back then especially...

01:04:43.000 I've gotten out of it a little bit now.

01:04:44.000 I'm actually doing a lot more traveling now.

01:04:46.000 That's what I want to do.

01:04:48.000 Traveling is where it's at.

01:04:48.000 I'm getting a little older now, too, so I'm slowing down as well.

01:04:52.000 Traveling is kind of where it's at, and I've enjoyed that a little more, creating experiences and seeing things a little bit more.

01:04:58.000 I've been grinding for a long time.

01:05:00.000 And I've had my head down for a long time.

01:05:03.000 So now I'm trying to kind of step back a little bit.

01:05:05.000 Things are very automated right now.

01:05:07.000 We've got a really good baseline of customers.

01:05:10.000 We've automated a lot of the things.

01:05:12.000 And it kind of runs itself now.

01:05:14.000 We've got a machine.

01:05:15.000 And that kind of allows me and gives me a little bit more time to kind of escape and get out of the country for a little bit and see what's up.

01:05:21.000 Have some fun.

01:05:22.000 So guys, I brought Dustin today because Dustin is actually a guy that has a lot of wisdom.

01:05:30.000 He wants to actually share with you guys and put you guys in a game of tech because a lot of guys want to make money, but they don't know how to.

01:05:36.000 They don't know where to start, how to begin.

01:05:38.000 And industry and tech is amazing because not only is it good for having your own time, having freedom, but it gives you options that you can take.

01:05:47.000 Now, obviously speaking, we can't answer all the questions today or get everything done today, but we'll do another show pretty soon or a Zoom call if you guys want.

01:05:54.000 If you guys want, put a one in the chat for a Zoom call.

01:05:56.000 We got time today or no?

01:05:58.000 Maybe on Wednesday?

01:05:59.000 Yep. Wednesday work for you?

01:06:01.000 Yeah, we can do Wednesday.

01:06:03.000 Cool. Sure.

01:06:03.000 So we'll do an actual, like, Zoom call with Dustin to give you more in-detail information and personal questions as well.

01:06:10.000 But Dustin, this was a great wealth of information here that you give the audience.

01:06:14.000 Thank you.

01:06:15.000 Last question from me, at least from me to you.

01:06:19.000 If you could go back in time, what did you change about your career?

01:06:22.000 Anything at all or no?

01:06:25.000 I wouldn't change anything about the career, but I wouldn't have spent most of my 20s working for other people.

01:06:32.000 I would have started for myself a lot sooner.

01:06:35.000 And at the time, I had kids in my early 20s, so I was a little scared to jump out there.

01:06:41.000 I probably would have postponed that a little bit.

01:06:43.000 But I definitely would have started my own business a lot sooner and not worked for somebody else.

01:06:50.000 I helped out a lot of people and made a lot of other people a lot of millions of dollars before I finally jumped out there on my own.

01:06:56.000 So I probably just would have started earlier.

01:06:57.000 Started sooner?

01:06:58.000 Yeah, I would have started definitely in my early 20s and not waited until later, in my 30s.

01:07:04.000 Dustin, if I was your son, man, what advice would you give to me as a young man coming into the world?

01:07:11.000 Focus on work, focus on money, and stay away from women. 1.00

01:07:17.000 No, it's true, man.

01:07:18.000 It's true.

01:07:19.000 But women is hard, bro. 1.00

01:07:21.000 It is.

01:07:22.000 It's hard sometimes, right?

01:07:22.000 It is.

01:07:23.000 You love them and hate them, right?

01:07:26.000 All right, man.

01:07:27.000 We've got some more chats here.

01:07:29.000 But yeah, guys, listen, I'm telling you right now, tech is the way to go.

01:07:32.000 It's not that hard to break into the industry.

01:07:34.000 Once you're in, you can maneuver and get some stuff done for yourself as well, different career paths, and at the same time, make some good money because six figures is not that hard to make in tech.

01:07:41.000 It's not.

01:07:42.000 It's not.

01:07:42.000 Listen, you can easily, easily, easily get into six figures very early on.

01:07:47.000 Listen, you just got to want it.

01:07:49.000 You got to get out there.

01:07:50.000 And it's not going anywhere, like I said before.

01:07:53.000 It occupies four or five of the top spots every single year.

01:07:57.000 Find your path.

01:07:58.000 Find where you want to go and make it happen if you're interested in it, for sure.

01:08:02.000 Alright, where from our sponsor?

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01:08:45.000 And again, guys, this coffee is what we use in the morning to get our day going.

01:08:49.000 It's black like me, fresh like me, and at the same time, it's good for you.

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01:08:54.000 Thank you for being a part of the show, and for our sponsor, 1775 Coffee.

01:08:59.000 Thank you.

01:09:02.000 Dustin, where can I find you, bro?

01:09:03.000 And what's next for you?

01:09:05.000 Instagram. I was off social media for a long time, but I'm back on my personal Instagram, AMBMiami.

01:09:10.000 You can also check out our website.

01:09:12.000 You can drop me a line in there.

01:09:13.000 It's www.goboxtech.com.

01:09:17.000 And yeah, that's it.

01:09:19.000 We have some more chats here as well before we head up.

01:09:22.000 One last question.

01:09:23.000 All right.

01:09:24.000 Double D again says, what would be the best way to break into the six-figure salary?

01:09:28.000 From a level two support position?

01:09:30.000 Start networking.

01:09:32.000 Try and pick yourself a couple customers on the side.

01:09:34.000 If you're already doing level two support, then you've got a pretty good understanding of how to fix things.

01:09:38.000 Pick up a customer or two on the side.

01:09:40.000 Work two jobs for a while.

01:09:41.000 It's the only way to transition out of where you're at.

01:09:44.000 What's the best way to find a customer or get them onto your...

01:09:49.000 So, listen, there's networking groups everywhere.

01:09:51.000 I mean, down here we have BNI.

01:09:53.000 I know it's everywhere.

01:09:53.000 You can buy into that.

01:09:55.000 You know, listen, it's really just a matter of if you're doing Level 2 support, you're probably behind a computer desk, so it's a little bit harder at that point in time.

01:10:01.000 But there's always a friend or a family member or somebody that's got a business off to the side.

01:10:05.000 Talk to them, you know, and really the side hustle is really where it's at in the early days.

01:10:10.000 You've got to have that side hustle.

01:10:11.000 I mean, man, I worked two jobs for a long, long time until I finally transitioned out.

01:10:15.000 And that's really the only way to do it.

01:10:18.000 Alright, we got another one here.

01:10:19.000 Dame Dolofilm says, what are the best tech events to network in the States?

01:10:23.000 I'm halfway through my cybersecurity journey.

01:10:25.000 Oh, that's good.

01:10:26.000 Congratulations on that.

01:10:26.000 That'll be a fun one.

01:10:27.000 Good stuff, bro.

01:10:29.000 Yeah, so listen, I used to go out to Vegas every single year.

01:10:33.000 I did the big CES event.

01:10:36.000 Listen, that's a nerd's paradise.

01:10:39.000 Go look at some.

01:10:42.000 Please tell them a Vegas story, bro, because Dustin's the guy that lives a great life.

01:10:46.000 Tell them one cool Vegas story.

01:10:47.000 Oh, man.

01:10:48.000 That's not too bad.

01:10:51.000 Dustin, how tall are you?

01:10:52.000 Six foot six.

01:10:53.000 Guys, this is a six foot six white man that lives life on his terms, bro. 0.64

01:10:58.000 Listen, I'm not going to say too much on it, but I did end up at the Bunny Ranch one time.

01:11:03.000 Really? One time.

01:11:04.000 One time.

01:11:05.000 You what?

01:11:06.000 One time.

01:11:07.000 We'll save that for another one.

01:11:09.000 Okay, maybe some outdoors.

01:11:10.000 Alright, so I guess for him, best tech events in the States of the Network.

01:11:15.000 Pretty much?

01:11:16.000 Listen, look for a local group.

01:11:18.000 Like I said, the BNI groups are always good because, and it's not really about a tech network group as much as it is just networking in general, especially if you're looking to find new work.

01:11:26.000 It's really just about meeting new people that have businesses.

01:11:28.000 Didn't you find clients at a car show too as well?

01:11:30.000 Oh, I find clients everywhere.

01:11:32.000 I mean, no matter where I go, I'm always talking it.

01:11:33.000 So you just got to find the need and whatever you're specializing in, you know, listen, if it's just building computers or if it's gaming, go hang out at GameStop.

01:11:40.000 You know what I mean?

01:11:40.000 Like, whatever it is, you just gotta hang out with the people that are like-minded.

01:11:44.000 But the B&I groups are always really good.

01:11:45.000 I always recommend people to do that.

01:11:46.000 You do have to buy into them.

01:11:48.000 Most of them are not free.

01:11:49.000 But there's a lot of, like, high-level people in there.

01:11:52.000 And it's really, you know, that's really where you can learn, and you'll always get leads from there.

01:11:55.000 Always. I remember I went to meetup.com, and I was looking at a bunch of groups there as well, for free.

01:12:01.000 Some are more paid, though, like you said, you gotta buy into.

01:12:03.000 Yeah. Okay.

01:12:05.000 Louise, does your...

01:12:07.000 Do guests have any experience with DOD contracting?

01:12:10.000 No, I've done very, very little work working for the government.

01:12:14.000 I did have a little stint around 07, 08. I was doing licensing for a company that I was at, and they were shipping military components to other governments in other countries, and there was some government work there involved, but it was on the tech side of it, and I was applying for licensing,

01:12:30.000 and I was having to inspect the parts and things like that.

01:12:32.000 There were a lot of computer parts and things like that that we were shipping, but aside from that, I haven't really done too much with the DOD.

01:12:37.000 Is it better to have a government contract?

01:12:40.000 Do they pay more as well?

01:12:41.000 I know people that have done it.

01:12:42.000 They put those bids out.

01:12:43.000 There's a website you go to and you put the bids out.

01:12:46.000 This is what we're going to do.

01:12:49.000 They do that for everything.

01:12:50.000 The government bids out almost all the work.

01:12:52.000 I never chose that path.

01:12:54.000 I don't like working for the government.

01:12:55.000 They normally don't pay too well.

01:12:57.000 They pay really late.

01:12:58.000 Maybe things have changed, but I try and steer clear of that.

01:13:02.000 I like to work with the small private businesses.

01:13:03.000 I've had better success there.

01:13:06.000 Makes sense.

01:13:07.000 All right.

01:13:08.000 All right, guys.

01:13:09.000 This is going to be the end of the show here.

01:13:11.000 Obviously, of course, if you miss anything, watch it back from the beginning.

01:13:14.000 But we're going to do a show with some girls as well right after this. 1.00

01:13:17.000 And Dustin, again, thank you for coming, bro.

01:13:18.000 Thank you so much.

01:13:19.000 I appreciate it.

01:13:19.000 Thanks so much, man.

01:13:20.000 Listen, known this guy for 10 years.

01:13:21.000 Solid guy in tech.

01:13:22.000 Knows his stuff.

01:13:24.000 Thank you, brother.

01:13:25.000 Thank you so much.

01:13:25.000 I appreciate you, man.

01:13:26.000 All right, guys, man.

01:13:26.000 We're out of here.

Fresh & Fit - April 21, 2025

How To Make Money In The Tech World

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