Omer (00:12.560)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
This week's interview is a story about two guys who were running a brick and mortar computer training center in Gainesville, Florida.
They spent many years building and growing that business, but they realized that a brick and mortar business wasn't going to let them grow as fast as they wanted.
And they also wanted to build a business with recurring revenue.
So they launched a second business called ITProTV to deliver online IT training.
It began as a humble startup business on the side, but eventually the founders decided to make a big bet on ITProTV and sold the brick and mortar business.
In four years, they've built a successful SaaS business that's on track to do $9 million in annual run rate this year.
And they've grown with very little marketing, or I should say very little marketing that's worked for them.
This is a great story and my guest is a great guy who's humble and very level headed.
In this interview he shares his story and the lessons that he's learned along the way to building an almost eight figure a year SaaS business.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Today's guest is the co founder and CEO of ITProTV, a subscription based learning site for IT professionals.
The company provides an easy and entertaining approach to IT training which is broadcast live every day and is also available on demand.
The founders launched the business in 2012.
They originally started out with a few authorized brick and mortar training centers which they sold and went all in with their new startup build.
Built around a SaaS business model.
The company is based in Gainesville, Florida and has been self funded from day one.
So today I'd like to welcome Tim Broome.
Tim, welcome to the show.
Tim Broom (02:27.000)
Thank you.
Thank you Omar.
I appreciate you having me.
Omer (02:30.480)
I always like to start by asking what motivates my guests.
So what is it for you?
What gets you out of bed every day to work on your business?
Tim Broom (02:40.640)
Well, I tend to be a guy that gets out of bed early.
We get up about five o' clock every day and what I always think about and the thing that motivates me is, is I go back to the early days where I discovered Simon Sinek and the start with why and that really made an impact on, on me and our family and the way that we want to operate, you know, the business for our team, you know, why?
Why do we do what we do?
And it's to help others and improve.
You know, empower them to, to do things in their life to help improve.
Omer (03:11.700)
Okay, so I gave the audience a little bit of an overview of IT Pro tv, but can you explain to them in your own words, a little bit more about what the business is?
What's the problem that you're trying to solve?
Tim Broom (03:26.660)
ITProTV, the easy way to explain it is we're like the Netflix for IT learning in that it's a very low subscription price either per month or per year, but you get access to an entire library of IT training videos.
And for like 15, 16 years, we ran a brick and mortar training center that was an authorized, Microsoft authorized, Cisco vendor authorized type training where single courses might be two or $3,000 or someone was wanting to enroll to change careers, it would be, you know, 20, $25,000.
What we do is provide all of that content with that same type of training that they received in the authorized training world with the same certified trainers that are now edutainers@ITProTV on video.
We're now bringing that to everyone.
And some of the pains that we discovered back in the brick and mortar days that there were very few content providers and the people that created the content, they really weren't really fast when there was new technology and we needed content for it for our customers, or when content needed to be updated.
And that's what led us to one of our values of creating new content every day.
So we want to have a robust library that stays up to date so people know and trust that it's a trusted source and that it's good content and is up to date.
And we really felt that that was missing in the marketplace.
Omer (04:54.050)
Okay, so two questions come to mind immediately.
One is you guys put an emphasis on entertaining as well as educational content.
So what is it that you do to make the content entertaining?
And I kind of wonder about that because the topic in terms of IT training doesn't necessarily lend itself naturally to entertainment.
Tim Broom (05:19.430)
Right.
The easiest way I would describe is we bring personality to information.
Nothing is scripted.
It's.
It is spoken just like it would in an instructor led class.
There's an outline that we follow to make sure that we cover everything that's complete.
But what we do, we add on video is difficult.
And you'll see, you know, like other people that might do training videos, they'll do like a voiceover desktop where you're looking at the screen and you hear a voice.
What we do is have full HD production videos where there's a host and a subject matter expert and they have dialogue back and forth and they ask questions.
So it's more conversational, similar to that instructor led training experience.
Because there are lots of advantages of being in the classroom.
One of the advantages might be where the student next to you ask a question that you haven't thought of yet.
And you might not think of it until next week when you're back at the office and the instructor is no longer there.
But when we create our content, we stream it live.
And by streaming it live, we have people that are in the chat room that are watching it live and they'll ask those questions and the community helps us create better content.
Now, on the entertaining side, we aren't trying to be comedians, we aren't telling jokes, but just like you might hang out with your friends and you, you make a joke or you laugh about something and it's funny because of the personalities with the group that you're in.
I think we have a unique group that's been with us for eight to 15 years and they all know each other and they love what they do and they communicate really well and it tends to be kind of humorous and entertaining to see them have a dialogue about a particular subject where they're very effective communicators and bringing that knowledge transfer which is what people really want and need.
Omer (07:04.380)
I also want to talk about how you manage to create content every day and how both in terms of production capability as well as not, I guess a lot of people think about when they create content is at some point I'm going to run out of ideas.
And so I think we can get, we'll get into that a little bit later.
But I want to start back before you had launched this business and when you were running these training centers, because I think that's a really good place for us to sort of explore where the idea for this business came from and what led you guys to selling up the sort of the brick and mortar business and sort of going all in with this SaaS business.
Tim Broom (07:52.950)
Right.
As you think about those training centers from a business perspective, every month on the first of the month you started, you know, on your sales board was zero.
So you had zero sales and you had to create your sales for that particular month.
So a lot of times the emphasis was more on sales than, than it was about the technology and the people that you're delivering to.
And because I enjoy technology and I.
And I have this passion about wanting to help others and Help empower them through learning.
That tended to be a frustrating experience.
And it was also very expensive.
What we.
What we did in the training days and what we wanted to do was offer the best experience possible.
But we were somewhat limited.
And from a sales perspective, I would say we would have 100 conversations with a potential candidate and we would get a single enrollment out of that hundred.
But there were 99 other people that were interested in learning something and wanting to improve themselves and get into it.
But we didn't have the right fit.
Either they weren't close enough to us, so it was geography, or it was too expensive, or it might have been a student loan.
And.
And they weren't able to get the loan approved.
There was many different reasons.
And so we really originally started out looking for something for the 99.
And I was thinking if we just had a video that we could sell for $99 for a plus, that was a good video, we could help these people and, you know, have another opportunity to serve more.
And that's how the idea kind of started.
Omer (09:27.620)
How is the business doing the training centers?
I mean, I know you kind of talked about the challenge of sort of starting from zero every month and generating sales, but was this a struggling business which made the decision easier to move into the online offering, or were you doing okay?
Were you guys comfortable and sort of had a tougher decision to make in terms of, you know, walking away from what you already had?
Tim Broom (09:58.740)
We were doing okay.
We built a pretty good business.
You know, we won awards.
We were growing each year.
But it became more difficult to operate in an environment where, you know, the state and the state licensure was difficult process to go through in the audit that you would have from the state.
It became more difficult to deal with the authorized vendors like a Microsoft or a Cisco to be, you know, be a gold partner buying their official courseware that was, you know, outrageously expensive.
It just became harder and harder from the vendor side and the delivery side, as well as getting the students in to complete the programs, because maybe they were long or hard or, you know, they were driving each way to try to do just became more and more difficult.
And I didn't think that the growth, if you looked at the next three years, I didn't think that opportunity was going to be as good as stopping selling that business and starting something new.
And I haven't looked back since.
Omer (11:00.710)
Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about that.
So how did you guys get started?
Tim Broom (11:07.910)
Well, I joke because I think that we were either arrogant or naive to say we're just going to create content ourselves.
And we had done a little bit of video and some of our experiences through learning and we kind of set up a video camera in front of a wall and started to create our own content and learn from the mistakes that we were making to try to make it better and listening to feedback from people.
So we kind of decided from going from one class to that A plus course that I talked about, maybe we should have more and hey, let's do have a subscription.
And how much would people, what would the market bear in price?
How much would they pay in order to have access to that video content if it was good?
So, you know, it kind of started from that.
And subscription business is tough to start.
You know, when you're bootstrapping and you don't have any capital raised, you're going to go into a negative spend.
So I was fortunate that I kind of ran both businesses side by side for about a year.
And I had one businesses that were one business that was paying the expense of the other basically.
And in the first year we had a million in sales, you know, at an average of $30 per person per month.
Omer (12:23.300)
Wow.
Tim Broom (12:23.740)
Which is great in the subscription business.
Second year I sold the business at the end of that first year.
The second year we did 3 million and we did 5.7.
Last year we're on track for 9.
So we're bootstrapped for four years.
And then year three, I turned profitable and a profitable year to date now in year four.
Omer (12:44.340)
And I think that's what I really want to dig in and sort of help, you know, our audience here.
Listen to better understand in terms of what you guys have done to basically go from zero to almost very close to an eight figure business in a very short space of time.
So let's kind of go back to when you kind of created that first course.
From what I recall, I mean neither you or your co founder Don were like video experts or you had a background in creating content or video production.
So this was something new for you guys.
So once you sort of initially created this content, what did you do?
You just put it up on your website and try to get people to buy it?
Tim Broom (13:33.510)
No, no, we didn't really launch the website.
We just kind of created a video and put it up on the Vimeo and you know, I remember going home and watching it on.
I would get the Vimeo app on my Roku channel and I would sit on the couch and I would kind of watch the videos every night that were created that day, and then we discussed the next day things that were good and, you know, things that we can improve on.
So we were kind of.
And we'd create like an entire course, and then we would end up redoing the course again, you know, the next month.
So our DNA was in the brick and mortar type of business.
We were teaching a new course every week.
So we're used to teaching a course every week.
That's what we're used to doing.
So we just kind of bring that DNA to creating the content for our site.
So we kind of started that way, tried to improve, and then decide to launch.
And when we originally launched, it's probably the one thing I did that was really smart because we made a lot of mistakes.
But the one thing I did that was smart is I was Inspired back in 1999 to change careers from the transportation business to get into it.
And it was basically from watching Leo Laporte on the screensavers.
And my wife told me, she goes, you know, you like watching this guy on TV every night, and it drives her crazy.
But if that's what you want to do, once you do that, if you.
If you want to quit your quit what you're doing in trucking.
So I did.
You know, now we circle back to wanting to launch.
I want to advertise on Leo Laporte on his Twit tv, you know, podcast.
And so I emailed, I called, you know, no one would take my call.
They didn't want me to advertise on because he likes to know who his advertisers are.
And I was basically a startup.
And I don't think that he could kind of put his voice of approval on us because he didn't know us.
So Don and I packed up and went to Petaluma and we met him and went to dinner and met his wife Lisa, and kind of told our story and talked about our why and what we wanted to do.
And he.
When I first met him, you know, he walked up and he goes, hey, I understand that you are Mr. Broom.
You know, to kind of.
As he walks up to me, I said, leo, I've been watching you since the late 90s.
I need a hug.
So, you know, he gave me a big old bear hug.
And, you know, it was from that point, it was just a special connection.
And, you know, him and Lisa have been good mentors.
And, you know, we talk business, we talk shop, and I continue to advertise and market with him, you know, now four years later, and from the very first AD that we did.
And it was like October 23rd at the end of 12, we were looking at Google Analytics of the live people on our site.
As the ad was running, I had one screen, you know, running the ad live and had the other screen on the Google Analytics.
And it was like that UPS commercial where you see 30, 40, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300.
You know, we're like jumping up and down screaming because there's so many people that are hitting our site for my first ad.
And from the very first month, I was getting more in credit card sales than I was spending on my advertising.
So I started cash flowing.
I had very few expenses that were real into the new business, but my advertising was one.
And I was collecting more from those advertisements because of what Leo was saying about us.
You know, they're good guys, they have a good product, they're trying to help people, you know, go support him.
And his listeners were doing that.
And they continue today.
Omer (17:13.820)
How are you selling the content on Vimeo?
And how long did you guys keep doing that before you decided to build your own site?
Tim Broom (17:22.780)
I probably wasn't.
I apologize.
I wasn't clear.
I kind of started talking about that I would watch Vimeo, but it wasn't for sale.
I don't think Vimeo has the, you know, to be able to sell a video back then.
But I was watching it from my Roku, you know, sitting on the couch.
And the reason I mentioned that is because that first year we launched on Roku, and the very first month before our website was able to take a sale, the Roku app launched.
We had a vendor launch the Roku, but we had no website to take a sale from.
Someone couldn't subscribe.
So we made the decision to make everything on Roku free.
So everything we had just created, all the libraries that we created, we made it for free.
And it was like another two months before our website was able to launch.
And then we converted it to selling.
And we still have about 30% of our audience that watches our content on a TV, on a Roku or an Apple TV device.
And that's one of the major aspects that I think that has helped us because we've penetrated into the living room where people feel comfortable, it's entertaining, they want to watch on their tv.
And I imagine they're much like me, that they sit there with a laptop and they'll watch and do and watch and do and just be entertained.
I would like to think there's family sitting around learning what we're doing on their TV because it's being streamed.
Omer (18:44.920)
That's so funny.
Not even having a website to be able to take payments.
Right.
I mean that's about shipping quickly.
Tim Broom (18:54.240)
It was, it was about three or four days into it, we got a support ticket from someone in Canada and they said your website asked for a state.
But I'm in Canada, we don't have states.
We didn't even build into our website to be able to access outside the US we just weren't thinking that way.
We were, you know, we're still thinking small minded.
Like you know, the Southeast being regional and not international and today we have members in over 170 countries.
Wow.
Omer (19:21.640)
So was the getting the ad running on Leo's show, was that the big break, the big driver towards getting the million dollars in sales in year one?
Tim Broom (19:35.960)
No doubt.
I would say 70 or 80% of our sales, our subscribers came from Leo's audience.
And you know, if you think about his audience is that technology enthusiasts, people that love technology and they want to learn.
And if you look at our format and you know, we joked about it, but it was kind of true.
When we went to go visit him, we looked at his cameras, his equipment, his lighting, his format.
He was obviously successful in the way he did things.
And we went back and we ordered the tricaster, we ordered those cameras, we ordered, you know, everything that kind of copied him.
And we wanted, we were inspired going back to the screensavers in the late 90s.
So our first studio kind of looked like Leo's set on tech tv like the screensaver.
So that look and feel and the discussion about the technology, it was very similar to what they had.
It's like a show.
So we call them shows and still do call them shows and episodes even though it's like a course.
And when Leo talked about it and he is raving fan user base, they, they were certainly attracted and have fond memories of those days.
And I think they were attracted to us because of it.
And Leo gave us his like permission saying hey, this is cool, I like it.
There's like a modge to the screensavers and the tech TV days.
Omer (20:55.110)
And did you start out with a subscription model or were you initially selling each course separately?
Tim Broom (21:04.230)
We started out with a subscription model and it was video only for $57 a month or 570 for a year.
We had a small library so we started out with 50% off.
So it was 2850 per month or 285 for an annual and about 85% of the members subscribed for a year, so they prepaid an annual for that $285, which really helped boost our sales to get to that point of the million.
Omer (21:30.780)
Okay, and so then in year two, you did over $3 million.
And so what else did you do?
It wasn't just Leo's ads continuing to drive growth in year two as well, was it?
Tim Broom (21:46.850)
Well, we are not sophisticated marketers.
We could do so much better.
And, you know, we're still learning now and talking to more people that are in the know about marketing.
We were just kind of like advertising, and Leo was, I would still say, probably 70 or 80% of that growth.
We started looking at other podcasts and other audiences trying to replicate that.
And what we really discovered was it wasn't that it was advertising on Leo.
It was from my world.
I don't mean this everywhere, but in my world, Leo was like the first social influencer.
You know, he's like the godfather of technology broadcast.
But, like, you have YouTubers today that are social influencers.
Leo has a following, and people will listen to what he says in his world of technology.
So by him saying that they subscribed, well, we have people on YouTube now that new certification training videos on YouTube, or they talk about technology, and we get a great response from anyone that will say, hey, these are.
These are good guys.
Have a great product.
I got certified.
I passed this test.
You know, they produce so much good content, I can't keep up with it.
They tell their friends, or they say it in marketing, or someone tells their friends or they tell their boss.
You know, that's another good story.
Is that a mistake that we made is that we were going directly to consumer and not worrying about businesses.
But when people would subscribe themselves, they were likely working in it, and then they would tell their boss about it, and their boss would call me and say, hey, I have 20 users.
Can you give me a price for 20 users?
And I said, sure.
So I started doing that, and then I was getting more, then I was getting more, and I was like, I have, like, three other jobs, too.
I can't keep doing this.
I gotta hire a salesperson.
So I hired a salesperson, and then he got busy, and then I needed two, and then I needed a manager, and now I have five.
So, you know, it's a groundswell of people that discovered on their own.
Essentially, they become social influencers because they tell their boss about it, because they're happy with it.
So we're kind of serving that growth as opposed to chasing that growth.
People tell their friends, they tell their Boss they're on YouTube because they have a following or somebody like Leo that has an audience.
That's how we've been able to be successful.
Omer (24:08.180)
Did you do anything else with your marketing other than advertising?
Tim Broom (24:14.670)
I've, I've really tried and I spent a lot of money and we do some other technology broadcasts, but you know what, it doesn't work if someone, if there's a banner ad or someone just reads an ad or you know, there's a third party person that records an ad, there's a pre roll.
What works is if Omar says itProtv.
I took this course and I learned so much, I had no idea.
You talk about your experience, that is what works for us.
Omer (24:42.700)
And then sort of the cycle seems to be somebody listening to that will go to ITPro TV, they'll check out a course, maybe, you know, make the commitment to sign up for a subscription, get value from that.
Then because of the nature of the content, this is going to be probably an IT professional who's going to go back to work and tell their colleagues or their manager about it.
And then you're going to get potentially more customers from the same organization coming to you.
Tim Broom (25:18.420)
Correct.
And if you think about how we designed what we wanted, the format that casual, entertaining, engaging format, if we started with the user experience first and we worked back to the technology, we know what we wanted, we know the pains that we had and what our customers wanted in the brick and mortar location.
So we kind of started with a great product.
So once users try it, they look at it and say, hey, this is different.
This isn't a voice over PowerPoint.
I kind of like the dialogue.
It's kind of like a live late night show sometimes.
Maybe, you know, it's entertaining.
They're funny guys, they have personality.
I'm learning, I'm watching more, so I'm learning more.
And then they get great results and then they tell someone about it.
But it starts with having a great product that people like to see.
So if someone tries it, you know, odds are they're gonna like it and they'll tell somebody.
Omer (26:15.100)
How much time do you spend thinking or looking at competitors?
Tim Broom (26:23.740)
Not very much.
You know, I check out the websites, we look at some of the content, but I don't, I'm probably not as up on it as I, as I should be.
I know that the people that run our B2B team, they tend to be more up on it.
They haven't really changed their format.
I don't Think anybody sees us as a threat?
We just might be that annoying mosquito right now.
But you know, we want to be able to grow and empower more people around the world.
So we will be a pain in their side shortly, I'm sure.
Omer (26:58.720)
Yeah.
I mean, because this is not, it's a fairly crowded space in terms of what's happening with online training.
And to some degree you guys have a niche, which is a very significant niche around IT training.
And then as you mentioned, not only do you have other sites kind of offer, you know, other offering content, but you also now have people on YouTube providing IT training.
Yet when we look at your numbers and your growth, you know, on track to do $9 million and be profitable in four years is pretty remarkable.
And what I'm trying to get to is what are you doing that resonates with your customers that they're choosing you over the other options that they have out there?
Tim Broom (28:04.780)
I just think that it's easy to watch.
We have good personalities, you know, we're humble, we're not arrogant.
Like sometimes people might be in it when you see those teachers come in certain times, we're just good people, easy to watch.
You know, our team has been together for a very long time.
When you talk about the market size, Microsoft says there's 50 million IT pros around the world.
We know the shelf life of an IT professional is about three years.
So when you think about the market potential, yes, there's some big players in Linda, LinkedIn, Lynda, Microsoft and plural sites, CBT, Nuggets, you know, Skillsoft and some others.
But there's still a lot of potential to grow.
Yeah, there's a lot of training to be done with 50 million with a three year shelf life.
Omer (28:52.150)
Yeah, I mean, I'll share something from kind of my own personal experience that I think I watched.
I can't remember where it was and I think it was with Don doing some kind of training course, but seemed more like watching a TV show.
And it kind of, it kind of underlines what you sort of said in terms of making it conversational and just as if you're there.
And I think that's very different because I've tried watching training where it's a combination of, you know, maybe you see somebody sort of the, the, the instructor on, on in front of the video, but then most of the time you're looking at slides or you're looking at a screencast while they're doing something on the computer.
And I don't know if it's just me but that stuff makes me fall asleep really quickly and.
But when you see the sort of the format in terms of which feels more like a show, I think there's just different kind of energy there that keeps you more engaged.
Tim Broom (29:59.560)
And did you learn something from Don?
Omer (30:02.440)
I can't remember because I didn't watch the whole thing.
I think this was when we were kind of doing the research for the training.
But yeah, I mean I think what kind of struck me was that this stuff wasn't scripted.
Right?
Tim Broom (30:18.360)
Right.
Yes.
John is a super smart guy who's a very effective communicator and he is so humble for someone to be so smart.
He is so humble and that comes away across whenever he communicates to you and he's on camera and he is so good at explaining something that could be very difficult that most anybody can understand.
Omer (30:39.330)
Let's talk about content and how you put that together.
And so I kind of mentioned this earlier in terms of how much time does it take to, to have a production schedule where you're creating new content every day and, and what sort of the process you go through to, to create each new course?
Tim Broom (31:10.630)
Okay, so five video production studios and we still have capacity, we have studios that aren't being used every day.
But if you think about the DNA of us creating or delivering courses and then structuralized training, it would be like 8:30 to 4:30, Monday through Friday.
What our host or edutainers typically do is they'll either be in the morning session or an afternoon session and that's when they'll be in the studio.
And the other half day they're creating and organizing and putting their materials together for the next day.
So these are subject matter experts that have an area of expertise so they stay within their area of expertise, whether it's security, it's Microsoft, it's Cisco, you know, Linux or whatever that area is.
And they create and studio half the day, the other half of the day they're organizing and preparing like it might be their labs or displays or products they use to help explain what they're going to teach the next day.
And sometimes they might host someone else's show when they're a subject matter expert, which we call a SME.
So they may SME or host depending on what's going on that week.
Omer (32:22.369)
I like the fact that you call them edutainers.
These people who deliver this training, are they full time employees or are you bringing in kind of contractors and sort of third party resources depending on the type of content that you're delivering?
Tim Broom (32:39.040)
I have about, about 10 or 11 full time employee subject matter experts and I have, you know, full time host also where someone just as professional on camera and they host, you know, someone show in the morning and they'll host someone shows in the afternoon because that person doesn't have to be an expert on the technology.
They just want to be aware they're somewhat like the end user when they'll ask effective questions.
But you know, they don't have to be an expert.
Omer (33:07.350)
The other thing was like, you know, I know, I know it training is pretty broad.
There's a lot of stuff out there.
But do you guys ever get to the point if you're, you know, for years you've been creating content on a daily basis that you ever feel like you're running out of ideas or you're, you're kind of going back and just recovering content that you've already produced in the past?
Tim Broom (33:29.670)
Well, you would kind of think that.
And I think at some point we thought it also.
But we had one studio for a while and then we had another studio that was kind of a, it was a small office that we kind of turned into a studio.
And last October when we moved to our new facility for our five studios, we kind of thought the same thing, that we would run out of content.
But people like Comptia and Microsoft and Cisco are always updating their certifications so it allows us to update those courses and then there's always new courses like pfsense firewalls.
You can't really get any training on that.
But we have a great course on, you know, pfsense so we can create content for.
It could be hardware or other products, areas of security, cryptography.
There's lots of things that we can create content and so we haven't, we haven't run across it yet.
What we have done is recreate content that might have been at our old facility because it might be 720p HD.
And our new facility is 1080.
And we want everything to look uniform in our new studios at 1080 so we can have the best user experience.
Omer (34:34.490)
I'm kind of looking back at the sort of the trajectory of your business and from the day where you and Don decided we're going to create this content, we're going to put a camera up against the wall and start recording stuff you got.
You kind of had a lucky break with, with Leolaport's show and, and, and that helped drive you getting to a million dollars in sales in the first year.
You know, 3,3 million 5.7 million the year after and now you're on track for 9 million.
So.
And, and you haven't marketing, right.
It's just been some advertising and, and the sort of the virality, I guess, of the, the content in terms of when people use this, they're going back to their companies and telling other people about it.
Tim Broom (35:23.880)
For the most part it is, I mean, I do spend a lot of money.
It does, it does cost a lot of money because we're always trying new things, trying to replace Leo, but we just haven't been real successful outside of a little bit of social influencer stuff.
Omer (35:36.040)
It sounds too easy, right?
So what you, I know you've made mistakes and we've talked, we've talked about them sort of, you know, offline, but what can you share with the audience to help them sort of understand that this wasn't just, you know, smooth sailing from day one to where you are now?
Tim Broom (35:56.120)
Well, it was like the 17 year overnight success because there were a ton of mistakes that we made in the first 15 years in our previous business.
And it was things like leading a team, you know, me developing and becoming a leader of the organization and how to, how to grow and manage people and motivate people and inspire them.
You know, all of those lessons I was, I went through a phase to where at first I thought I knew everything and then I kept making mistakes and I was learning from my mistakes.
And then I decided I wanted to stop learning from my mistakes and start learning from someone else's mistakes.
And that's where I truly became a student of leadership.
And you know, Jim Collins, Good to great.
It took our entire organization to read that book and we talked about it, about how to be better.
We went through Tony's, Tony Tsae's book, Delivering Happiness.
And that book made such an impact on us that we took 19 of our team members out to Vegas to do the two day class on customer service.
So, you know, we've learned things along the way that when we started ITProTV, we said, okay, this is like a reset button.
We want to do it right.
We want to hire for culture first, make sure that we protect our culture.
And my number one, most important thing that I do every day is to take care of my team.
My team is most important to me.
A happy team will take care of our customers and my customers will take care of the company by continuing to buy the product.
And that took a long time for me to understand that and to trust it and to live by that.
But that's what I try to do every day.
Omer (37:37.950)
Looking back over the last four years, in terms of building ITProTV, is there anything that sort of stands out in terms of something you wish you had done differently?
Tim Broom (37:48.990)
I think there were some opportunities that we didn't take advantage of.
Like, not never anticipating that we could sell to businesses or corporations.
We were just advertising direct to consumers
Omer (38:00.510)
or selling outside of the U.S. start.
Tim Broom (38:03.550)
Right.
We didn't start selling businesses, you know, until like, the past year and a half ago, two years ago.
And now I have a sales team of five, plus a manager.
And I have customers that are calling us.
You know, I have some.
I have some large organizations, some universities, very prominent universities that are subscribing with us.
And, you know, we're thankful and we're grateful for that.
But imagine if I would have started two years earlier where we could be.
How many more people could we empower through knowledge and experience?
Omer (38:33.750)
So what's next for ITProTV?
What.
What are you focused on right now?
Tim Broom (38:39.190)
I think last I kind of went through this again.
Another little lesson learned is I see the growth that we have, and I see the opportunity and the profitability that we have, and I wanted to take care of my team.
So last December, I rolled out a, like, a profitability bonus plan that if we achieved a certain profitability, they would get bonuses, you know, each quarter.
And in the first quarter, we didn't hit the number that we needed in order for them to get a bonus.
And I took that as the leader, as, what did I do wrong?
I let my team down, and I started analyzing the money that I was spending on my expenses and trying to say, you know, what can I do in the second quarter?
Make sure that I take care of my team and they hit their goals and they get that bonus.
And I realized that I was making investments in things that won't have a positive effect on revenue until 2018.
And essentially it would harm my business to be 20% profitable.
At the stage we're at right now, I don't need to be 20% profitable.
I need to continue to invest in marketing.
And as I would say, shouting, you know, our voice out there so people can hear us, because they'll respond.
So the opposite of being 20% profitable is making a significant investment in marketing.
So we went through this exercise of deciding that we were gonna, you know, seek a capital raise that is essentially for marketing and sales teams and development work on our website, getting the message out more and having a louder voice.
So that's really the next phase.
And with an investment like that, I don't want to say that it's unlimited, but we could be a SaaS business that could provide a double, double, double growth.
And then you're looking at, you know, 40, 50 million and.
And it's more competitive with the people that are the most popular right now.
Omer (40:34.280)
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And I think the fact that you've already shown that type of growth and more in the last few years is certainly strong evidence that you can continue to do that, if not better, with the right kind of focus on an investment in marketing.
Tim Broom (40:56.390)
Yep.
And we've been fortunate that we've had a great response.
Unsolicited responses from, you know, dozens of people that are reaching out to us because they're taking notice of us.
And we haven't even, you know, announced or anything that we're going to be seeking.
You know, investments are putting our deck out.
So we're excited about the kind of people that are calling us, wanting to help us, and they're bringing this fear of influence and this knowledge when it comes in the areas of SaaS, businesses and marketing that, you know, we're super excited about what the opportunities could be.
Again, I go back to imagine if we could empower 100 or 200,000 people around the world by learning more.
That's.
That's an amazing opportunity for just a group of people in Gainesville, Florida.
Omer (41:43.070)
You're right.
All right, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
Tim Broom (41:54.440)
Okay?
Perfect.
Omer (41:55.320)
All right, let's go.
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?
Tim Broom (42:01.480)
Focus on your.
Focus on your customer, focus on your members.
Omer (42:05.880)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Tim Broom (42:10.040)
Start with why.
It was really the first book that made a turnaround for me personally to discover and find out your why.
And if you know your why, everything in your world changes.
You know, people don't buy what you do by why you do it.
Simon Sinek is amazing.
I like, stock him.
He's an amazing guy.
Omer (42:29.270)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Tim Broom (42:34.870)
Integrity.
Somebody that puts other people's first.
I think you do what you say.
Omer (42:40.230)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Tim Broom (42:45.980)
I apologize.
I'm drawing a blank on that one.
My number.
Productivity tool or habit?
Omer (42:51.940)
Yeah, like, how do you get stuff done every day?
Tim Broom (42:54.540)
I surround myself with super smart people.
You know, I'm one of those guys that subscribe to the fact that the CEO should be the dumbest guy in the room.
And you surround yourself with smart people and, you know, they help keep me going.
Omer (43:08.700)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Tim Broom (43:15.730)
I have it, but I can't say it because we actually might be doing it.
It's gonna be awesome.
Omer (43:23.650)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Tim Broom (43:28.050)
I'm probably an entertainer at heart with no talent.
I've been known to, you know, get on stage and karaoke.
We used to make these like lip sync videos in high school and it was kind of crazy stupid.
But looking back now, back then we thought we were cool.
But I love to entertain and make people laugh.
I just don't have any talent.
I can't sing, I can't dance.
So it's not fun for anybody but me.
Omer (43:53.050)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Tim Broom (43:57.770)
Definitely.
I would say my kids, my family.
Definitely that.
And from there I became a private pilot about five or six years ago and I so enjoy flying.
It's just beautiful.
It's calming, it's easy.
It's much better than driving a car and having fighting traffic and it's a lot of fun.
So family first.
And I've got three girls, twins that are 14 and a 15 year old.
All girls.
And outside of family, it's flying.
Omer (44:26.270)
Awesome.
Tim, it's been a pleasure catching up with you again.
Thank you for joining me today.
If people want to check out it Pro TV, they can go to ITPro TV and if they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Tim Broom (44:46.690)
They can just shoot me an email.
Tim, at ITPro TV, I answer all my emails that I get.
Omer (44:52.210)
Awesome.
Tim Broom (44:52.730)
I appreciate the opportunity.
I'm grateful to talk about our passion at IT Pro tv and I appreciate you reaching out and being able to do this.
Thank you.
Omer (45:01.760)
Yeah, no, it's my pleasure.
I really enjoyed this.
Look forward to staying in touch with you.
You guys are on an amazing trajectory here and I truly wish you all the best for the future.
Tim Broom (45:13.840)
Thank you for that.
Thank you.
Omer (45:15.439)
Cheers, Tim.
