Levi Lindsay: 0:00

The best learning experiences are the real scars that failure leaves. The actual experience of losing something, failing, egg on your face, the feeling of the yolk dripping down of failure. Welcome to The Real

Joe Grover: 0:17

F Word. I'm so happy to be here with you, Levi. We've become fast friends, and I remember... Many years ago, a good mutual friend of ours said, hey, you've got to meet Levi Lindsey. He's so talented, and he's starting this company called VidArmy, and we're going to talk a little bit more about VidArmy.

Levi Lindsay: 0:38

It was Michael Jordan, I think, was our mutual friend. That told you that you needed to meet me.

Joe Grover: 0:44

Indeed. MJ, number 23. Who was the friend? Mark Matheson. Oh, that's right. Yes. And you'll probably be listening to this episode.

Levi Lindsay: 0:52

Oh, my gosh. Mark, it's been too long. I'd love to chat. He was a mentor for us at VidArmy. That's right.

Joe Grover: 0:58

And you've had a really interesting and varied career. You've been a CMO. You've run content at one of the larger kind of consumer brands here, Kizik, that grew really, really fast. You're now the VP of Marketing at Hona.

Levi Lindsay: 1:12

Yes.

Joe Grover: 1:12

which is a software company. I think you're catered to attorneys, right? So you've had a terrific run. And today I want to talk about all the failures and none of the successes, right? That is the theme of our discussion here on the F Word podcast. So tell me about VidArmy. What was the genesis of the idea? And talk a little bit about that early growth and things were going well. And then there was like, you and I, you shared this experience with me. There's a little bit of a turn. And I think there's a lot of learning from your experience there that the listeners will want to hear.

Levi Lindsay: 1:44

Yeah, VidArmy, it's so funny. We had lunch a while ago and I told you this whole story and I was like, I really need to learn how to condense this. But it really was so many failures and learning in that three years. I feel like I went and got a couple of master's degrees. Uh, if you're familiar with, uh, the LDS culture here in Utah, I was the, I was living in my parents' basement with my newlywed wife. We just graduated from college and we're kind of trying to figure out what, what to do next after college. Uh, and I was assigned to home teach at the time is what it was called. Uh, a gentleman in my parents' congregation up in Bountiful, Utah, uh, And we became very fast friends. And he said, hey, I have this idea, but I'm working full time and I have bills to pay. But you're this young kid who's living in his mom's basement. So you probably have the financial flexibility and time to start this up. And I was like, I do. And so he's like, it's a video subscription. It's 500 bucks a month and you get unlimited video production for 500 bucks a month. And I was like, I like the sound of this.

Joe Grover: 2:55

Did you have a video background?

Levi Lindsay: 2:57

No. No video background, no photography, nothing

Joe Grover: 3:00

at all. Marketing background?

Levi Lindsay: 3:02

I mean, I wanted to go into marketing, but I saw that the marketing degrees all had a couple more math classes, and I didn't want to take any more math. So I did the professional sales degree at Weber, thinking maybe I can somehow default into marketing. Thankfully I did, but it was a dumb choice. But yeah, then it was like, okay, you've got access to my camera equipment. I'll start throwing some business your way. Minky Couture, I think was already a client at the time and a couple other like smaller businesses up in Northern Utah were clients and started getting rolling, getting some working capital, hired our first employee after a couple months. And the first year, was me working full-time in the business, not paying myself, with one employee that we paid, I think, $18 an hour, and Johnny being full-time. And that was kind of year one. Just cranked, trying to build recurring revenue. Sorry.

Joe Grover: 4:06

What was the response in the market? Like, were you signing up a bunch of clients quickly? I

Levi Lindsay: 4:13

think it's a good question. I think it was a little bit of a, because I was always positioning it as unlimited filming for $500, for 500 bucks. And there was a lot of learning of how to tweak the model. We actually got it to the point where it would economically work. But within that first year, we really were like eating. Yeah. It was a nonprofit. It was a nonprofit for sure. And we also like, we were very delusional about how service companies grow. Yeah. We thought that it would grow like a tech company and the multiples would be 20X and VC dollars would flow in. And we thought that it would be like a 1 to 10 ratio on every dollar. But in service, it just scales long and slow. It's like the way I look at it is you get fast initial revenue when you start a service company, but then things taper off more on the tail end. It's not a hockey stick. It's almost like a... quick growth and then flatline them and then like slow, steady growth. And I didn't realize that.

Joe Grover: 5:14

So how many years did you build VidArmy?

Levi Lindsay: 5:16

Three years.

Joe Grover: 5:17

Okay. About how far into this kind of entrepreneurial journey did you see signs of kind of weakness in the model or the partnership?

Levi Lindsay: 5:26

Things started getting crazy as they scaled. So year one, at the end of year one, That's when my partner said, okay, it looks like we have enough monthly recurring revenue that I could come in and you can, we can pay my salary and I can quit this job I'm doing. And so he jumped in, we started paying his salary. I think I started paying myself maybe 1200 bucks a month at that time. Cause it's just like, I'm going to grind it out. It was 50, 50 from the start, no partnership agreement. And we're just cruising, having a good time. And we just believe in this thing. And it's a lot of hard work, but we see the long-term vision. And then he came on and he's like, I can handle a hundred clients. Don't worry. Week one, he was like, hey, we need to hire some help for me. And so then now we're hiring an editor for 40, 50 grand a year, whatever that is on top of his salary. So all the-

Joe Grover: 6:20

Because your partner had a video background.

Levi Lindsay: 6:22

Because my partner did have a video background. Yeah. And so the idea was that he would be the individual contributor to come in and also be the entrepreneur. But it quickly just turned into, no, I need some individual contributor help. And then at this time, this is one of the funniest parts to me, is his brother-in-law started a pest control business a few years back and was just on the tail end of selling it. And I think he'd built it up to like a million dollars in annual revenue. And my partner and I were like, just starry-eyed. Like, I can't believe you scaled a business to $1 million in annual revenue. Like, this guy. is the king of business.

Joe Grover: 7:09

You've spent a million dollars in a single ad channel in your career per month.

Levi Lindsay: 7:13

Oh, yeah, yeah. Money loses all perspective in marketing. I think we talked about this, but it's like you're like, let's just run this quick test. Oh, it didn't work. Well, that was a house. Exactly. Anyway, so we said, come on board. Still no partnership agreement. Come on board. We'll give you 33% of the business. And it'll be 33, 33, 33. So it's me, my original partner and his brother-in-law. And now we're all three owners. And that's really because we didn't have working capital or funding. I mean, just free labor for equity is kind of how we got going. And like my partner's initial equipment and jolt of clients that kind of got us the ball rolling. But then... we needed to start bringing in more business, to start scaling, to start hiring more employees. And so I would classify year two more as like figuring out how to make the model work and how to grow. And I think by the end of year two, we had around 15 employees. And I still wasn't taking a salary. And his brother-in-law, my original partner's brother-in-law wasn't taking a salary still. But we were, but we could see the progress. We could see the monthly recurring revenue climbing. And it was like, it was this legit sustainable business. We had an office, we'd bought some more equipment. And that's kind of where year two ended. And then we also kind of started to see that the, the model was more the $500 business. production was more of our Costco chicken just to kind of, it was more of like an advertising ploy to get people to come in to film other videos. Because you had to charge more,

Joe Grover: 9:00

right? Yeah. It's 500 bucks. Doesn't get you a lot

Levi Lindsay: 9:03

of, not a sustainable model. Nope. We would limit it. It was like we'd film for one hour and, By the time we were in year two, it was like we had a little studio. We'd film for one hour, film as many videos as you wanted. Mostly they were talking head. And it was we would chop that up into as many videos as you feasibly could and do it all just in the studio. So it was like no travel, tight on editing. And so it actually ended up working, but we kind of had to narrow and narrow and narrow the scope so that it could scale.

Joe Grover: 9:40

So you're at the end of year two, you've got another partner. So the three of you, did you finally pencil that or did you finalize an agreement? Do you never had like a finalized partnership agreement? This, by the way, this happens a lot. There's probably some learning here for entrepreneurs. These handshake agreements on day one seem to be great. There's high trust and there's excitement to build a business. Invariably things don't always go as planned and it's a mess. Is that fair to say?

Levi Lindsay: 10:05

Especially when your friends or your family or even in Utah church, Church members, they would never do that to me. Someone who's in my congregation, someone who's my family member, someone who acts so kindly and we get along so well, we would never end up disagreeing to the point where we couldn't fix it.

Joe Grover: 10:23

Yeah, those are famous last words, right? I've seen that play out over and over and over again.

Levi Lindsay: 10:28

Yeah.

Joe Grover: 10:29

I think especially in certain cultures, this culture of trust is a positive thing. We want to give people the benefit of the doubt and trust each other, but it's business. You just need to remember this is business. And in the end, what's written is what people are going to do.

Levi Lindsay: 10:44

Yeah. And the learning for me was... You can trust anybody on this planet once an ironclad agreement's in place. Then you can trust completely and fully. But you do the diligence and then you trust. You don't trust and then

Joe Grover: 10:59

do

Levi Lindsay: 11:00

the diligence because it's always too late.

Joe Grover: 11:03

So you're two years in.

Levi Lindsay: 11:05

Two years in.

Joe Grover: 11:05

And then a few things are changing in the business. Talk to me about this year three.

Levi Lindsay: 11:11

Oh, man. Year three is where things get real wild. COVID hits. which obviously is crazy for a film company because sending people out gets sketchy. But what's interesting is the government was handing out money like candy. Our cute little video business got a nice juicy check with a sweetheart loan, the EIDL. So we get the EIDL loan, which is like a 30-year fixed loan. You owe $500 a month after three years, and it's 1% interest. It's the most sweetheart loan a business could ever get. So that money hits our bank, and we're so many things that we...

Joe Grover: 12:01

Because this is the first infusion of capital you've had, right? You've been bootstrapping this. Every dollar that comes in is paying people and trying to keep the business alive, and now you get this little influx, little shot in the arm, right?

Levi Lindsay: 12:13

Yep.

Joe Grover: 12:13

What do you do with his money?

Levi Lindsay: 12:15

First thing we do, we hire a CEO. So now we have three founders and a CEO and our 15 employees. So we're just over leveraged. Our monthly expenses are just climbing, but we're just, our optimism isn't rooted in logic at all. Um, we just like, we see this amount of money and like we did with the million dollar business, we thought this is a ton of money, but you know... Burn it fast. It burns fast. Like, I, you'd be shocked how fast money burns, like at whatever quantity into a business. Um, but we... And then we kind of all started disagreeing pretty quickly on how these funds should be divvied out. I always saw it as like this is working capital for us to grow. Maybe we put some into advertising. Maybe we pay ourselves a little bit of a salary and give ourselves jobs, like really get strict on what our job in the business is. But anyway, we hired a CEO, Nick Staggy, guy's a stud. That was probably the one correct thing we did with those funds because he took us from mid five figures to well beyond six figures a month in revenue and a good chunk of that being monthly recurring revenue within the first few months. So that was... I mean, that was probably the deal of our lifetime that we were going to get with that small amount of cash was hiring Nick Staggy as our CEO. But at the same time, I didn't understand some financial obligations that the original partner was going through at the time. And he came to us and said to our new CEO, to myself and his brother-in-law and said, I need to... get my salary back up to this immediately. Sorry, reversing. All the founders took our salaries away during COVID to make sure we

Joe Grover: 14:34

could keep things going. Right, so now you're working for free again. Yeah. Trying to make ends meet. How did you make ends meet during those days?

Levi Lindsay: 14:41

My sweet wife. She worked. She worked. That was, man, that was one thing that killed me, I remember. Sorry, this is a side tangent, but... I remember dropping off my little girl, my first daughter to daycare while my wife was at work, working full time to make sure I didn't have to take a salary. And I dropped off my little girl and she's bawling her eyes out and clawing to not go and just clawing my arm as she leaves. And I go get in the car and I just started bawling because I've now got a partner That's saying he's got to get paid and we don't have the money to pay him, but I think he has the perception that he can get paid because we have this little nest egg. And I have to go drop my daughter off to go work for free at this business and it's year three and I've been grinding hard. I just lost it. And I think that's where things, I think that's where emotions started to come into play. And I started to fight back and say, no, you can't go stay at home, buy a new house without telling us and give us a vague description of what you're going to be doing when you're working from home and get a salary when none of us are, when the rest of the founding group aren't taking a salary. Then, His brother-in-law gets deployed to California for the military during COVID. Oh, wow. So now you're... So now I'm on my own. Thankfully, his brother-in-law was always very level-headed, the mature one of the three, and kind of played mediator between me and the original founder, but... So now we're fighting with the founder, brother-in-law's in California. I have to keep things going. We have 15 employees. We're closing Amazon. So cool things are happening on the revenue side, on the client side. This

Joe Grover: 16:46

is such a classic story because there were a lot of positive things. And maybe from the outside looking in, it was all up and to the right. But so much turmoil happened. Behind the curtain, right? So much turmoil in the partnership.

Levi Lindsay: 16:59

Yeah. Oh, and it's funny because we grew very organically by just personal brand on LinkedIn. All the time, just pushing our personal brands on LinkedIn is really how it was our main acquisition channel.

Joe Grover: 17:12

By the way, you've been a master of LinkedIn ever since. You're very active and get lots of great engagement.

Levi Lindsay: 17:18

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. I think out of necessity, I was able to find a voice on there. And it's been a huge blessing. I wouldn't have recovered after the failure if it wasn't for that. But anyway, we were really good at making things look really rosy to LinkedIn while things were just completely caving in on us. But so now at this point, we're kind of just stewing in this argument of like, hey, man, we're not going to pay you a salary. Like, we just can't do it. And then all of a sudden we get... we get in the mail a thick partnership agreement. And the partnership agreement says that this partner is going to get 6% of the top line revenue from the business for the lifetime of the business. Is

Joe Grover: 18:10

this something you guys had talked about?

Levi Lindsay: 18:11

No. Out

Joe Grover: 18:13

of the blue.

Levi Lindsay: 18:15

Completely out of the blue from a lawyer he had hired, we get this partnership agreement slapped on our desk. Asking for six, just no strings attached, every dollar, he gets six cents. No question. And it's gross revenue, not net, not profits, gross revenue.

Joe Grover: 18:35

Which in a service business, which you were probably running a gross margin of... 40%, you know? I

Levi Lindsay: 18:43

wish. Yeah. I think it was 20% at its best.

Joe Grover: 18:46

A net or gross?

Levi Lindsay: 18:48

20% margins

Joe Grover: 18:49

at its best. Okay, yeah, 20% net. That's what I was going to say. So like by the time you have overhead after you've paid your people and your cost of delivery, like you're probably 20% net margin. So 6% ends up being a big chunk of that.

Levi Lindsay: 19:01

Yeah. Well, and you know, in hindsight, you read Shoe Dog from Phil Knight and you're like, you understand a growing business with limited capital is, eats itself alive. I love the quote, you can die from indigestion just as easily as you can die from starvation.

Joe Grover: 19:16

Starvation, yeah.

Levi Lindsay: 19:17

And the irony, like you were saying, is things were up and to the right revenue-wise, but then we're eating ourself alive through arguments and partnership agreements, disagreements, and what to do with capital. And maybe we could have made it outside of that, but even then it would have been a miracle. And so... Just things were tight.

Joe Grover: 19:38

Yeah. So you get this partnership agreement and how do you respond?

Levi Lindsay: 19:42

Like I said, I think things had gotten really emotional at this point because I'd been working for three years. I think at this time I'd made an accumulation of maybe $30,000 over the three years. Wow. Maybe. Because like I would get a nice livable wage for a month and then we'd take it away pretty immediately. I'd get it and then we'd take it away because I was always like, look, I'll... I'll take my salary

Joe Grover: 20:05

away. Take one for the team, right? You were playing the long game.

Levi Lindsay: 20:07

Yeah.

Joe Grover: 20:09

By the way, this is interesting. The work for free mentality, I was taught. early in my career that that's what's required is a little bit of work for free. And there's times in your life where you can afford to do that. And you were kind of in the moment, like today you couldn't work for free. You know, you've got two daughters and right. And you have a mortgage probably and a couple of cars. And so like, but early in your career, you have this like window where you can probably give it two or three years without making a lot of money. Um, And I always wonder, like, is that worth it? And the answer is it can be, but it rarely is, right? Because it rarely works out and pays you back because most startups fail. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't do that for the experience and to get started as an entrepreneur. But I worked for free for a time as well.

Levi Lindsay: 20:59

It's hard because I couldn't do it again. However, thankfully it happened at the right time so that I don't think I actually would be providing for my family in the way that I am now if I wouldn't have worked for free. Because I got on LinkedIn. We built that following. And I learned the hard lessons. I learned what working capital was. I learned the corporate structure. I kind of almost see it as like I went and said, I don't want to do a master's degree. And God was like, I'll make you do one anyway.

Joe Grover: 21:41

It's so true. I mean, the experience, I mean, you learn more. running a business in a month than you would in a year sitting in a classroom.

Levi Lindsay: 21:49

A hundred percent. Reading a line about something versus the feeling of like, Ooh, I've over leveraged my monthly expenses is such a...

Joe Grover: 22:00

Yeah. Fixed costs will kill a business.

Levi Lindsay: 22:02

Yeah. Having your stomach sink to the ground because of a number versus someone just telling you, Oh, this happens in business is two completely different

Joe Grover: 22:10

things. Not being able to make a payroll is... Is a great lesson in accounting.

Levi Lindsay: 22:15

Yeah. And it's, I don't know, it's kind of random, but I think I've been a better executive within companies because I can empathize more with the founders. Sure. Whereas a lot of people have this perception of the founders of like, you lucky dogs, you got all this equity and you have these payouts and da, da, da, da, da. And it's like, you don't, they leverage some risk.

Joe Grover: 22:36

It's so, I see this dynamic as I work with founders where the rest of the employees have this perception. You know, these founders are building, like one in particular, built a business over 11 years, right? Started in their home, right, and grew it. And it's successful now, right? And certainly there's some free cash flow now. But no one recognizes the sacrifices for years and the financial risk, right? I mean, they put everything on the line to get to where they're at. Yeah. Employees will show up without that perspective and they just can't relate.

Levi Lindsay: 23:10

Yeah. And everyone loves to say, look at us now, look how big we are. And I work for such and such. It's like, you have no idea what year one is like, like the year one to year two, year three, those are different animals. Like, I know I don't have it in me anymore. Like, the reason I love Hona is I'm like, I'm coming in right after Series A. I'm coming in three years when there's market validation.

Joe Grover: 23:34

Working capital. There's some marketing investments. You've got a team. A hundred percent. It's a lot different when you have capital and people.

Levi Lindsay: 23:42

I would have to be super passionate about something if I was to go and do a year one to two again.

Joe Grover: 23:47

All right. I'll invite you.

Levi Lindsay: 23:49

Let's start something. Goodness gracious. Or, you know, maybe after. I know. After an exit, we can... That's true. What's that joke is like, I wish I had enough money that my wife could have a coffee shop that loses $40,000 a month. That's right. Anyway, yeah, year one is a beast.

Joe Grover: 24:09

So you're in year three, you get the partnership agreement, and you're like, this doesn't work.

Levi Lindsay: 24:13

Yeah. I'm like, the math isn't mathing. I get emotional. One of my really big lessons in this is... when things like this happen, that you don't take it personally, that you come back without emotion and you just say, hey, this doesn't work. And even if they come back emotionally, you just can't.

Joe Grover: 24:33

Were you emotional at the

Levi Lindsay: 24:34

time? Very emotional, very immature. I mean, I'm, I think it was 27 at the time, a couple of years out of college at this point. And

Joe Grover: 24:45

I just. Maybe a little overconfident.

Levi Lindsay: 24:46

super overconfident and just very, like, I just, I handled it very personally and emotionally. And I just, I wish I would have had a more level head about it. I think also at the time I thought, well, this is my one shot. Like there's nothing after this. VidArmy is me. It's your identity. It's my identity in the community. I was Levi, one of the founders of VidArmy. And so I just thought like, this guy's going to end my life. Thankfully, gosh, it was just a silly little video company. But so, yeah, we get that. We get those papers. We say no. He comes back and the negotiations start and the negotiations are. The different planets we were living on were incredible. In

Joe Grover: 25:34

terms of the value that he is ascribing to the business versus where you guys were at.

Levi Lindsay: 25:38

Yeah. I mean, one offer was you pay me two hundred thousand dollars every year for the rest of the life of the business. Where's that money coming from? All of the profit, right? We're not making an extra $200,000 right now. I don't know what business is that they could just be like, okay, just to get this argument over with, we'll hand over $200,000 a year forever.

Joe Grover: 26:00

So it became super contentious and you're going back and forth via email? Yeah, email, phone

Levi Lindsay: 26:06

call.

Joe Grover: 26:06

Was there a moment that you realized that this was... not reconcilable, like that you weren't going to be able to actually find like a meeting of the minds and a solution here? I

Levi Lindsay: 26:18

don't know when it was, but at some point in the crux of it all, it might've been right after we did mediation. So we finally met in person with a mediator, with our lawyers, we hired a lawyer and he said, I'd like, he's like, my final offer is for 3% of my equity of my 33%, I want $1 million. Yeah. And I was just like, dude, here's the numbers. We put it all together. The business is not only worth zero, it owes money. So here's our offer. Like we'll give you X amount of money, which is, I don't even know how we'll come up with that, but you got to walk away. Like we want all of that 33%. And I think this is where I learned about reality distortion fields and how there are people, and they're scary in business because people, There isn't, like, there is no reasoning. And so now we're in this position of, like, this guy's not backing down, and he has just as much as attachment to this business

Joe Grover: 27:21

emotionally as we do. But to be clear, there is still no documentation that has established the equity in the business. Nope. Who was on the original LLC documents? Who was the managing member?

Levi Lindsay: 27:32

I think me and him.

Joe Grover: 27:34

Okay.

Levi Lindsay: 27:35

And you know, we did, we went down all those rabbit holes. Um, but I think there was enough like documentation through text messages and emails.

Joe Grover: 27:42

So even though there was an agreement, everyone had pretty much said, Hey, everyone owns a third of this business. Yeah. And so thankfully,

Levi Lindsay: 27:48

thankfully things were strong enough there that there wasn't really arguing out of that. Anyway, the next move was after fighting for a few more months, uh, we went to, we bought him down to 19% from 33%. Uh, For an unreasonable amount of money that we were going to pay in a few large chunks

Joe Grover: 28:09

over a few months. Was that just so that you guys could have majority control of the business?

Levi Lindsay: 28:12

Yeah.

Joe Grover: 28:13

So there wasn't this kind of like stalemate?

Levi Lindsay: 28:16

And, I mean, I learned a lot about stuff. Like if you're 20% or more, you have to be on loans and on certain types of documents and leases. And so our goal was to at least get them to 19%. So we got him down

Joe Grover: 28:30

to that. It sounds like you had some debt too. So you'd raise some notes.

Levi Lindsay: 28:33

Well, the EIDL is technically debt. Um, and then like the PPP loan, but thankfully that was forgivable. But, um, it was like we, and then we were so over leveraged on our monthly expenses. It was like, we need all this working capital. And like, you look at it on a balance sheet and the company was literally worth $0 at the moment. Um, and, But you're still growing.

Joe Grover: 28:58

You're still providing good service.

Levi Lindsay: 29:00

Yep. And, you know, at this time, we're up well above, like, well above the seven-figure mark. Yeah. Or I guess we're around that seven-figure mark in annual revenue. And like I said, there's some good monthly recurring. So once we get him down to 19%, he went and started a company called VidFam to compete with VidArmy directly with a new partner. He told people, asked me why it's called VidFam. I assume what he would tell people is that, well, and maybe I caught wind of this, but it was called VidFam because we, he valued family and we didn't because we wouldn't let him be with his family. I think, you know, in his head, from his perspective, it's you guys, like, I'm here as a friend asking you for a favor and you're not giving it to me when I would do the same for you. Right.

Joe Grover: 29:56

And I'm sure if he was on the podcast, he'd have a perspective about things. For sure. What's up, Phil fans? You know, as we've listened to so many guests on this podcast, that the road to success is often paved with failure, with a lot of challenges, and even full-on face plants. But there's a thing that you could do to help skip some of those bumps and bruises. And that's really where the consultants at Amplio come in. See, Amplio offers fractional executives in finance, marketing, and HR. And these are people who've experienced a lot. They've been in the trenches. They've built businesses. They've failed. But here's the kicker. They've learned from those failures and now they're applying all that wisdom to your business to support you so you don't have to learn the hard way. I mean, think about it. Instead of stumbling around in the dark and hoping you don't hit the wall, you could bring someone in who's already mapped out that room, right? Amplio consultants and experts have worked with and for numerous companies of all sizes and they've gathered insights on how it works and where to focus and how to actually grow your business efficiently. So while we embrace failure on this podcast, there is no rule that says you have to fail at everything yourself. So check out Amplio and see how their fractional executives can help your business move forward and avoid those painful learning curves. Sometimes the smartest move is learning from someone else's failure. Visit Amplio.com to learn more. man, how rough. Like at that time, like what was your mental health like?

Levi Lindsay: 31:32

So this is when panic attacks started. I think this is when this was all around like November of 2020. And that's when I had my first panic attack. It was in the crux of arguing over like, how are we going to even get him to 19%? And that's when I was just, I found myself in my closet. I'd never had a panic attack before. I'd, you know, heard of them before but i'm just in my closet and just breathing heavily can't breathe and like my mind is disassociating it feels existential and my wife comes in and catches me and i'm just in this shock state and she just starts kind of rubbing my back and um that was freaky Because at the moment, I didn't have the mental fortitude or knowledge that anything would get better. And then the tricky part is I'm also experiencing burnout because I've been working my freaking butt off for three years. How many hours a week

Joe Grover: 32:36

were you working?

Levi Lindsay: 32:37

I mean, at the crux of it, sometimes 80. You know when you're a business owner, it's like... I remember I would go on vacation with my family, and I'd be on the beach or texting, and they'd be out in the water.

Joe Grover: 32:50

Unfortunately, I do know.

Levi Lindsay: 32:51

On a vacation we couldn't afford. I'm over there working, trying to figure out. Credit cards. Trying to figure out, well, this videographer is supposed to be here at this time, and da-da-da-da-da. Because you just, you're... business just never leaves your brain it's like even if you have a thought it's your second thought and then you can maybe get another thought where you taste some food and you're like oh this food's good my business this food's good my business

Joe Grover: 33:16

yeah it's consuming mentally right it's like even physically my Melanie would always say my wife would always say hey you're here physically but you're not here mentally like I was there but she knew and everyone could tell that I wasn't engaged I wasn't connecting I wasn't Like even like talking because my mind was spinning about all the things that had to be done and fixed and all the problems and challenges. And that's such a dangerous place to find yourself in because you're not only sacrificing your time. And in your case, you weren't getting paid, but you're sacrificing relationships. You're sacrificing real connection for the pursuit of some purpose. success, some achievement. And that's a dangerous place to be. And a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to that. So the panic attack started. And by the way, thank you for being so open about this because we haven't talked about this a lot in previous episodes. But I had experiences during about a year and a half stretch, very similar to that, where not in a chemical way was I depressed, but All of the signs, I dealt with all the kind of signs of depression. And I remember being curled up a time or two in a closet or in a car just because I didn't feel like I could, I did not have a coping mechanism. And I had internalized everything that was happening in the business in a way that I felt like I had to solve it all and that I carried it all on my shoulders in a way that was so unhealthy and And so did that get better? Was it pretty persistent, the panic attacks and the anxiety that came with this stressful situation at VidArmy?

Levi Lindsay: 35:03

It got worse and worse. Because I think you couple it with a few things. I have ADHD and I get hyper focus where hyper focus is a blessing because you go hard at one thing and you get obsessed with that thing. And my thing was make vid army the biggest thing this world has ever seen.

Joe Grover: 35:21

This was your bet. You were swinging for the fence.

Levi Lindsay: 35:24

And that leads to burnout. And then it leads to panic attacks because I'm working on this thing and people are fighting against me. And so the frustration ensues, the burnout ensues. And what's interesting is, and you probably experienced this, is it's like sometimes as the founder you start or business owner, you start feeling all those pressures and those weights and the depression and the burnout. But then you don't feel like you even have the space to go recover because everyone's depending on you and the problems aren't going to go away. It's not like a lot of employees have the privilege of punching out at five and being like, Like, if I lose my job, I'll go get another one. But for you, it's like, no, I've leveraged everything into this. I've bled into this and I have to make it work. And these people are making salaries and I have to show up the next day.

Joe Grover: 36:14

Isn't it interesting as a leader, we feel this responsibility and it is our responsibility to show up and rally the team and to motivate and provide vision and encouragement. And I remember walking up the stairs to my office and every single morning. It was an old building in Denver and these metal stairs. I can still feel the weight of every step because I was in so much pain and I knew, I knew that there was an outcome, inevitable outcome here that was not going to be positive for many people, including those employees and my investors and my customers. And, and so I would walk up those stairs and I walk in and I think if you ask people how I showed up every single day, they would realize They would say I was positive and motivating and encouraging, and I had to dig so deep. But I was hiding. I was hiding real pain. And just because I felt like I had no other choice. I couldn't show up in that state of anxiety or stress because it would just bleed into the rest of the organization. And that, I think, exasperates the problem because there's no outlet. You feel like you have to be some— show up in a way that is so dissonant with how you're feeling did you feel that way

Levi Lindsay: 37:30

yeah yeah and it's you're almost like running on reserve you're running on adrenaline because you've already given everything that you can give so now you're just tapping into fight or flight chemicals that's that's probably true to to make people happy and it's like you're not taking from a tank that you've filled anymore you're taking from an empty take and it's this It's this extra little caveman pouch of adrenaline that you're running on. And that's dangerous because it got to the point, and I'll fast forward a little bit, when I finally did leave the business and I could kind of like take myself out of it. I was so used to being Levi, the founder of it, one of the founders of it, Army, and so hyper-focused on it and being on autopilot with my family and being and just– grinding through burnout. Then you take all that away and it was like, wait, now what's my purpose and what's next and who am I? And my identity was tied to that. My mental, like my happiness was tied to the outcome of that and I didn't get the outcome of that. So now I'm sad. It all came to a pretty big crux where I attempted suicide about a month and a half later where I just thought like, cause I, I, I'd emptied the tank so dry that I was like, how am I supposed to go on when there's just an empty tank? And I'm reaching for stuff and I am not finding anything. Thankfully, time is what fills that tank. Not thankfully as it takes a long time. I think, I mean, Alex MacArthur and Kizik probably saved my life. by reaching out and taking a chance on me. Otherwise, who knows where I'd be or what I'd be floundering through, but they gave me a purpose and an awesome team to fall back on and trusted me with projects that I fumbled through. I don't think I'd be here without that.

Joe Grover: 39:42

This experience is probably all too familiar to so many entrepreneurs. We don't really talk about the mental health costs that come with business ownership, with starting something. And I just wonder, like, how do we, how would you have, could you have done anything different along the way that would have kind of helped you cope? We're so grateful that you're here and have had this successful marketing career post-BidArmy. But most importantly, we're so thankful that you're here sharing this perspective and being vulnerable and giving hope and direction to other entrepreneurs. But what would you have done different along the way that would have prevented that spiral?

Levi Lindsay: 40:30

Oh man, I just, it's so funny because I've bounced to a few companies now and I look back, I don't do, I don't do this perfectly. anymore or now but I do I do it sometimes when I get into the crux of the problems of the current day of the current company I think oh yeah I was facing some problems at neighbor I don't even remember what they were but man I was stressed out but that's a company I don't think about anymore and I don't work there and like the vid army problems they're not problems anymore because I don't work there I like what Tim Allen says on one of the Santa Claus movies. He says, a problem at work is a problem, but a problem at home is a problem. And just this last week, I faced a really big problem where it was of my own doing. I was a really big idiot and made some pretty crazy mistakes with some interpersonal skills with somebody that I really care about. And the only thing that got me through was despite the temptation to say, my problem's at work, so let's dive into work. Fighting the temptation to do that and saying, my problem's at work, I'm going to dive in head deep into home. And I'm going to take my girls out on a daddy-daughter date. I'm going to take them to the indoor play gym. I'm going to enjoy reading a book with them. because everything in you says go solve the problem at work. But man, my three-year-old healed my soul this last week because all the failures in life and the reputations I've destroyed through being just a jerk or making mistakes and failures and not acting correctly and learning, my three-year-old looks at me and I'm her entire world. Um, my wife, when I was, um, I came to my wife and I said, Hey, I think it's time for me to leave it army. And I've got this opportunity. I think this is the time for me to just walk away. She said, I don't care what you do. I just want my husband back. Um, and it took a lot of months and a lot of time. And like I said, thankfully Kizik was there to catch my fall and Alex MacArthur, but, um, I wasn't there anymore.

Joe Grover: 43:14

It's so easy now, right? In hindsight to say those problems weren't as big, even as you describe them today, I'm sure you still feel some of that pain, but with perspective, they're like, Hey, it was a small video business. You just said it. Um, but if it was your whole world, it was your whole identity. Your mental health was hinging on what was happening in this negotiation and the successor failure of the company. Um, In the moment, how do we do that? How do we keep perspective in the moment? Because that's what I struggle with too. And curiously, the reason I got a little bit emotional is because my wife said that same thing to me, right? She's like, this is not Joe Grover. She's like, this is not worth it. She's like, I don't care what you do. Like I'd rather be poor for the rest of our life than for you to be in pain and disconnected and unavailable. And probably the thing that saved me during those years was like some ski trips with my kids. Those were moments where I wasn't thinking about work on Saturdays, driving up I-70 to Vail and Breckenridge when I was living in Colorado. Those are probably the, that kept me sane through that. And then Sunday night would come and I would spiral and I'd work and fight and claw my way trying to solve all the problems. But how do we keep the perspective in the moment when these just seem like mountains that are unclimbable?

Levi Lindsay: 44:39

I feel like you'll understand what I mean when I say I think unfortunately one of the best ways to learn how to do it is to go through it and lose a business. I'm so grateful now in 2025 that I lost myself in 2021, because now I can look back and say, nothing's worth that, really feels like that one analogy of God's holding holding a teddy bear behind his back that's huge and you're sitting there crying over this little tiny teddy bear and his eyeballs popped out and you're sad and he's like, I've got something so much bigger and better for you, but right now I get that this sucks. And so I just, I don't know if, because people talk about shifting perspective and hopefully listening to this podcast will help people shift perspective. But at the end of the day, I think it's, The best learning experiences are the real scars that failure leaves. The actual experience of losing something, failing, Egg on your face. The feeling of the yolk dripping down of failure.

Joe Grover: 45:53

That everyone can see and everyone's judging you, right? The founder, the failed founder, right? The founder of VidArmy who didn't figure it out, right? Don't you, like, I can remember just thinking, oh, I'll never, ever be a CEO or a CMO ever again because, like, who would bet on me? A

Levi Lindsay: 46:11

hundred percent. And it's just... Unfortunately, time is the one thing. And it sucks because you want to fix things then, but time has been the single healer of suicidal ideation, damage to a reputation for someone who cares way too much about what people think, not being qualified to do the things that I have committed to doing. the feelings of bitterness and self-doubt and self-loathing. It's time.

Joe Grover: 46:56

Yeah, it took me seven years to start a podcast to talk about failure. You're far ahead of where I was, you know, four years ago.

Levi Lindsay: 47:05

Four years,

Joe Grover: 47:05

yeah. Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it now?

Levi Lindsay: 47:09

But also, when you think of 2020, don't you think like, oh, it was like, what, last year, two years ago? And then people are like, no, it was five years ago. And you add on top of that, I mean, 2020 was a crazy year for the entire world, let alone trying to keep a thin business that's on the verge of collapsing.

Joe Grover: 47:30

Tell me about the... You tell your wife that you're done with VidArmy and she says, whatever, I don't care at all about that business. I just care about my husband. How did you feel the day after?

Levi Lindsay: 47:44

You probably would relate to this too, but you almost kind of go through every grieving process. Like you go through denial and acceptance and bargaining. Yeah. I remember when the contract was signed and I didn't have any equity anymore in it and I washed my hands of it and had indemnification from whatever happened beyond that point. Muscles I didn't even know I had started to relax. Muscles I didn't know that I'd been clenching for weeks started to relax. And then it was facing the next conundrum, which was who the crap am I? And I what do I do now and what's my purpose? And can I, what do I go back to school? Can I find a job? Am I hireable? But yeah, I do remember just the feeling washing over me. My wife is just so patient. Sounds like your, your wife and my wife would really get along where she's just like, I don't care. We'll make it work. We put so much pressure on ourselves in America, but then Utah too.

Joe Grover: 48:50

Yeah. We have this, These ideals, this idealistic view of what life should be, and it's unhealthy.

Levi Lindsay: 48:59

It's unhealthy. It drives a lot of unhealthy behaviors. It does.

Joe Grover: 49:04

Yeah. That moment, so there's a little bit of grieving. I understand that. There's absolutely, like, I remember throwing away all the T-shirts that had the logo of the company. because I couldn't go in my closet. I had all of the swag, hats, t-shirts, bags. I threw it all away because it was a reminder to me of a failure. And I had to distance myself from that. Isn't that, I mean, that's crazy. Like I just, it all went to the Salvation Army. But I do remember also the relief. I also remember after we had laid off a bunch of employees, it was a little bit of a different outcome. And I talked to all the investors. It was super painful. I've talked about it a lot through season one. I do remember feeling like I was free again. It wasn't my identity anymore. It was a bad outcome. I didn't want to talk about it. I wrote about it. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. I didn't want to unpack it at the time. But I did feel a great relief. And the reason I bring it up is because I just want to say it's okay to quit. I think, and we've talked a lot about quitting and failing and are those the same or they're not the same, but I've just changed my philosophy over the last several months as I've talked to entrepreneurs and it's just not worth it. The reality is if it's that bad, that you don't feel like you should be living anymore, or if it's that bad that you don't think you're going to be able to turn this thing around, then it's You are more important to your family and to society and to our community than that business is. Period. Full stop. And this sunk cost fallacy where like I've been at it for three years. I put all my money and time and energy into it. It's my identity. Stop it. Just stop it. Say I'm done and move on. Because I've now watched entrepreneur after entrepreneur, whether they were forced to do it. because the business just ran out of cash and they had to close the doors, or they chose to do it because that was in their best interest. I've seen those entrepreneurs take that experience and parlay it into successful companies, but most importantly, happier lives, more fulfilled lives. Just stop. It's not worth it. And this idea that we have to persevere against all odds, that we can't ever quit, I think does more damage to humans and to families than all of the wealth that you could accumulate from any exit or IPO that you could ever imagine. So I don't know if that's a hot take or not, but like if you're an entrepreneur and you're like, I don't feel like I have joy in my life. I can't connect with people that I love. Right. I don't think I'm going to be able to figure this out. I don't feel like I should be on the earth anymore. Right. then what I would tell you to do is stop, quit, back away, distance yourself, and you will find some freedom. And honestly, you'll probably find that this endeavor, this venture is not your end game, that you got something else, a bigger teddy bear. Man, I love, love,

Levi Lindsay: 52:16

love that. One of the learnings is you can all be happy when... Yourself into the grave. I know. I'll be happy when this business hits this revenue mark. I'll be happy when we have this many employees. I'll be happy once we get our Series A funding. I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when. When in reality, if I was to start another business, I would need to make sure I'm happy and that the business could be an amplifier of the happiness, not the giver of it.

Joe Grover: 52:45

Yeah. I love that. Stop it. I'll be happy when... you'll be asking yourself that question until you're 90 years old. 100%. It has to be independent of the success or any outcome of any company. So I don't know. Do you disagree or agree with what I said? Because I've never said it out loud until I've been sitting here with you. And it's been something I wanted to get off my chest. And this is probably the final episode of season one. So I guess I just want to give permission to entrepreneurs everywhere to stop and to quit. And to like, you know, live to fight another day.

Levi Lindsay: 53:21

Yeah. Or even slow down. Yeah. Who said that you have to, you have to have a divvy exit in three years. Yeah. Like so many people need to learn to be easily pleased, but never satisfied. Yeah. Where it's, where it's, oh, wow. Okay. We're not so-and-so that I saw on LinkedIn, but like, man, I got like, Look at where, look how far we've come. This is pretty awesome. Like we have a business doing such and such revenue and it's paying our bills and like, oh yeah, we can fix a couple of problems. Like I think shifting the perspective and comparison, it really is the thief of joy. And failure, when you're a failure and then you see other people succeeding or even perceiving that they're succeeding, because like I said, I was really good at showing people I was succeeding when we weren't. We're marketers. Of course we're going to show people we succeed. Yeah. Just because other people are having certain successes doesn't mean that they're... Yeah. It's your journey. Like... That was my journey that I needed to go through. I like what one VC told me this, I love, before you start a business, before you join a business, before you do anything, know thyself. And we sit there and compare all these successes of people and it's like, I don't know what they've got to get to that success or what they've been through to get to that. But at the end of the day, all I get to take with me is the learning from the failures and none of the IPOs. And can we just normalize? Sorry. Can we just normalize in Utah? Quit. putting off salary for equity, quit putting off happiness for these little startups in hopes for an IPO. Every entrepreneur is out there selling this dream of like, burn yourself out for me and one day you'll get $2 million or $10 million and you'll have this huge exit. It's like, normalize just getting paid what you need to get paid now. Yes. Clocking out at five, going home and seeing your family and quit putting off your happiness for this fictitious IPO that's

Joe Grover: 55:28

going to happen. All the VCs in the community are going to be like, Joe just told all the entrepreneurs to stop and quit their job as the founder and you just said go home at five and stop taking equity instead of salary take all the salary now and and i know i agree like how many times script i mean i was sitting with three executives one year and we were growing we were actually had raised a bunch of money and we were doing pretty well like we were on a nice trajectory but we were not profitable and i remember there was this conversation about our salaries and we were all under market and we all got paid the exact same amount which is really interesting the c-suite all had the exact same salary. We had the exact same bonus. So we're all on parity. And I remember we said, okay, we're going to bump it by $20,000 a year. And I said, no. And I like was, I was like, guys, and I came from the investment side. I said, listen, we're not profitable. We can't justify that. This is not the right time to give ourselves a raise. We need to get to profitability first. And I know that sounds really benevolent, but it was stupid because like that $20,000 was not going to make a difference at all in our burn rate. It was a principle-based decision that I felt strongly about, and I'm sure my investors thanked me for it. But guess what? That $20,000 did make a lot of difference to my family and probably to my kids' college fund that, you know, over the course of five years, right, I had $100,000 less in my college, my kids' college funds, in my savings account because I had taken one for the team because I had equity because I was looking out for the long game. Come on. I'll be

Levi Lindsay: 56:56

happy when we get this paid, like... I'm cutting $20,000 now for $20 million in three years, right? Yeah, exactly. So I like that you bring that up. It's a lot of what's driving, I think, mental health problems for people in software companies right now and people working off VC money. Because it's like, we got to grind and we got to get, like, we have to double every year or we're not in top percentile. And look, I'm all about working really hard towards those things. Manny, my CEO, don't worry. I'm still going to work really hard. But also like I'm done putting off my happiness, hoping that it happens because it actually happens maybe one out of every hundred.

Joe Grover: 57:38

Yeah. Even companies that have been successful in Silicon Slopes and you know who they are. have had massive outcomes. You look at how deep those dollars went, and in some of those companies, it did not go very deep. And there was a lot of people that signed up for those gigs with this equity lottery ticket. And those lottery tickets sometimes become a vacation, not a retirement. And I've seen that play out a lot. So even if the company does work out, oftentimes, unless you're there early, you're probably not going to retire on that outcome. And so that's a little bit of straight talk from a couple of guys who probably are really rich with a lot of equity that's worth nothing.

Levi Lindsay: 58:22

At least I am. Maybe you're not. I am absolutely filthy rich on failures and unkept promises and outcomes that never happened.

Joe Grover: 58:36

Yeah. One day I remember... I had an employee say, tell me what this really means, these employee stock options. What's the strike price? What's the company worth? And I remember talking with my executive team and I said, let's do a training on this so that everyone understands exactly how it works. What's the value of their options today based on the last round? Like, you know, with dilution and preferences, what does it look like if we sell the business for $100 million or $1 billion? And the sad reality was when you looked at 300 or 400 employees and everyone had options and you did the math, these were $50,000 checks. And $50,000 is a lot of money. But I think some of those employees were operating... with the assumption that it was 500,000, just because they didn't even, I'm going to retire off this or pay off my house. Yeah. And so I like the call out. So in, in closing, Levi, you have, I, this is one of my favorite conversations of all time. You've shared a bunch of personal things and some of these things you've shared on LinkedIn as well. And I think it's inspired thousands, maybe tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, um, share some parting wisdom for the founder of for the operator who is embattled, right? Who is in a partnership conflict, who is struggling to keep a business afloat to survive, or who is struggling with deeper kind of mental health challenges. What would you tell that entrepreneur?

Levi Lindsay: 1:00:06

Even though every fiber of your being is saying that you can't afford to take the time off, that you can't afford to lose the client, right? that you can't afford to take the next VC meeting or whatever it is that you're putting off that week off for, actually you can't afford to not take the time off. You need to give yourself permission to lose a client. You need to give yourself permission to piss off an employee. You need to give yourself permission to to quit caring so much about the outcome of the business and take a break and force yourself to forget about the business for a day, a week, as long as you can because the business is eating you alive and you don't even know it.

Joe Grover: 1:01:06

So maybe you don't have to quit, but you definitely need a week off or just quit

Levi Lindsay: 1:01:09

or quit free and hanging on and just let it go. Let it go. Give up because you're not giving up. You're actually, you're actually, what's funny is giving up the business in a lot of regards and probably in a lot of people's cases is actually the triumph where you go and save your life.

Joe Grover: 1:01:25

It's not the failure.

Levi Lindsay: 1:01:26

It's not the failure.

Joe Grover: 1:01:28

That's the, that's the reality is the fact that you're sitting here right now. That's a triumph. Yeah. Fact that you lived to fight. another day, but also have now parlayed that experience into so many other contributions in our community and in the startup ecosystem here in Utah. There's no failure in that story. in my opinion. Thank you so much, Levi. Thank you. I

Levi Lindsay: 1:01:53

am Levi Lindsey, the former co-founder of VidArmy, an epic failure out of Utah, but turned out to be one of the biggest blessings and lessons in my life where I got to learn the importance of family and taking care of my own mental health above all else.

Joe Grover: 1:02:12

Thanks for tuning in to The Real F Word. The Real F Word is failure. And remember that failure is a stepping stone. It's not just a stumbling block. Join us next time as we continue to explore the journey of resilience and growth without ignoring the true costs personally, professionally, and financially that comes with failure. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep embracing the real stories of entrepreneurship. See you next time.