Episode 679 - whistlekick State of the Company
In this episode, co-host Andrew Adams interviews Jeremy about whistlekick’s State of the Company.
whistlekick State of the Company - Episode 679
Tables are turned for a bit in this episode as Andrew interviews Jeremy regarding whistlekick’s State of the Company. Jeremy talks about what’s going on in 2022, some updates, and upcoming plans for whistlekick.
After listening to Jeremy and Andrew talk about these subjects, it would be exciting to know what are your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section below!
Know the things you can do to support the show, visit whistlekick.com/family
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Andrew Adams:
What's up everybody, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio, today we're doing something a little bit different. We're calling it a State of the Company. We're going to talk about, in fact, more Andrew is going to interview me in a sense about what's going on with whistlekick for 2022. We're releasing this episode the end of January 2022. And we're going to talk about some of the things that will make this year different for us, including things that are upcoming things that you're going to see have the opportunity to participate in the opportunity to have influence over. And we'll see where that conversation takes us. So stick around. And this is where I grab my notes off the floor, because I don't plan ahead and keep them in my lap because then you see them. A s you've heard me yelling at the camera, you know that this episode is in video as well as audio. Once you got the video, go to YouTube. If you want to see all the things we're doing, including the multitude of things we're going to talk about today, go to whistlekick.com, it's always the best place to start. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com where we do the stuff for the show, PODCAST15 gets you 15% of everything at whistlekick.com two episodes a week, the goal of what we do being to connect, educate entertain traditional martial artists throughout the world. And if you want to help us, there are a bunch of things you can do, you can make a purchase, you could share an episode or maybe join the Patreon patreon.com/whistlekick, you can start for as little as two bucks a month, and get behind the scenes, upcoming guests all kinds of stuff. And as those tiers move up. So also do what we provide to you bonus content, school owners mastermind merge, like is so much stuff over there. So check that out. And if you want the full list of everything you can do to support us in our mission, our mission, whistlekick.com/family. Check that out. 2022 Depending on how you look at whistlekick, is there you know, defining the start point are we talking about the corporate start? the idea start? first product start? Depending on how you look at it, it's been 7-8-10-12 years. Yeah, I can make a case for any of those numbers. And a lot has changed. Yep. You know, I was gonna ask when whistlekick first did culminates and in whatever way you see it, you've likely had an expectation of the where it would go.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes.
Andrew Adams:
And we've talked on the show often about people's reason for training often changes throughout their training. And I suspect that the shift of whistlekick has changed as well. What was it like in the beginning, and how has it shifted at to where it is right now today at the end of 2021? When I launched, this is just me at the time, we were a products company. And it was all about the sparring gear. And people like the sparring gear. But there wasn't a mission in the sparring gear. And then when we put out the Podcast, it started to resonate with people. And I started to hear feedback from people. "Oh, I love what you're doing. I love your message." Even with early episodes, which I look back on, I cringe completely because, you know, I've come a lot further as an interviewer and we've come quite far in terms of audio quality and a bunch of things. But I realized that there was something missing in this space. And it wasn't sparring gear. Yeah, we made better, the best sparring gear. We've done a bunch of other products that are really like industry leading in terms of features or value or other elements. But the biggest thing the industry has been missing has been an entity that is supporting Martial Arts as a lifestyle. And over the first couple years of the podcast, that's where we slowly started to shift as I started to realize that so the why at the beginning was let's make sparring gear because I'm tired of sparring gear options that I have available to Okay. Martial Arts is awesome. It makes people better. The world could use things that makes people better. Let's go all in on the betterment of humanity, martial arts being the vehicle. So there's been a lot of growth within whistlekick. Obviously I think that's that's easy to see from anyone who are here. Yeah. And then that's an example you know, and I think it's important to note that your reason you started whistle kick to a just sparring gear. And as it continued to grow, you didn't drop that, whistlekick still makes the best part of here around, right? It's not something that you said, we're going to transition into doing this other thing you kept doing what you initially started out to. Although that's not the only thing you do now. And so it you know, it's interesting to see that that growth has been there. But your initial reason for the company still exists. And let me acknowledge because there, there may be some people watching or listening who are screaming or shaking their fist. Yeah, getting sparring gear from us right now was really hard. We are out of some sizes. I'm not ignoring that I'm trying to fix that. I'm sending follow up emails to factories going, hey, can we can we do this? Don't forget the thing that's been going on for a while, as had a fundamental impact on every single thing that has to move internationally. So it is due to circumstances beyond your control.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Way beyond my control.
Andrew Adams:
So bear that in mind. 2021 was a big year. We're now coming out of 2021. And we're looking to the future. 2022 is as of recording this, like four days away. This will come out end of January. Yeah, it's gonna come out the end of January. The whole year is ahead of us. What can we look to see from whistle kick moving forward? You mentioned 2021 being a big year. And I think if we look at what happened 2019 2020 2021, if you carry that out, you can already predict a lot of what's going to happen in 2022. Because of your involvement, the caliber of guests we've had on Martial Arts Radio has become more diverse. I don't want to say better, because we've had amazing guests. But if you were to take year by year snapshots, you can see that we're reaching people in different groups, some being very prominent, some being not. And it's always been important to me that we keep that that mixture. And so I expect in 2022, we will continue to see that mix evolve. And the big names we get will come from continually bigger and bigger names. And that's awesome and thank you to you to making that happen. If we look at the apparel side, and this, there's a reason I'm wearing this hoodie, right like this hoodie is probably our best received apparel item that we've ever done. I finally understand apparel. Now I finally understand what this audience what the Martial Arts industry wants from us for apparel, I get it, I've got an entire plan of the full, I would call the core apparel rollout for 2022. It's scheduled in my calendar, you need to develop this item, you need to get an order you need to get it released. Like there's a ton of planning, we are the most planned we've ever been on apparel. And I'm really excited about that. So you haven't had that in the past.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No Apparel has always been. When was the last time we released something. Oh, oh, ooh. And I'd go on the website. And I was usually good about taking out items that expires, we've got two types of items, we've got what I would call the essentials collection, which are always available. And we update periodically that they tend to be simple and lower cost items. And then we've got what I would call more premium product, something like this, this cost more than our standard whistlekick. But it's you know, it's designed, like I mean, it's printed on the inside. There's a whole different caliber here.
Andrew Adams:
And it's full print, for those that are only listening, right? It's printed all the way around. Right? It's as opposed to just a standard t shirt like I'm wearing where it's just a shirt with a logo on the front. And that's it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If I remember remembering dates correctly, when this airs, you have like three days left to get this sweat shirt. So not that something else cool will come in its place button. Just so you know. The events in 2021 You know, we had our best ever free training day, our fifth implementation of free training day had 50% More people than the time before that we had had it. And so now in 2022, we've realized I've said for years, we are a content company that sells product. I don't think that is true. I think we are an event company.
Andrew Adams:
And in order to do that, we have to do more events, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Why do I say we're an event company because the things that we have done that people are most blown away with are first and foremost, it's Free Training Day. And secondly, it's the Podcast. So yeah, content, you can think of an event as content, they're kind of similar, you're putting together an experience. And it doesn't mean I'm not going to keep getting better. We're not going to keep bringing new people to help grow the product side of things. But we're up against some pretty big players that make a lot of products, some of which are really good things. And if we're trying to differentiate, you know, given that we have limited time limited resources, do we want to go head to head with those guys on those things? Been doing it for years, and has it worked out the way? I'd hoped it would? So let's adjust. I mean, that's a Martial Arts philosophy, right? So if you're trying to punch somebody, and they keep blocking it, eventually you got to do something different. Right. And that's, that's kind of what we're doing. So event wise, 2022 is launching what I'm calling the was okay, Phoenix Rising tour. And yeah, that that name, that imagery was very intentionally chosen, because I feel like it's a reimagination of the business. If you know the imagery of the classical Phoenix, you know, it burns and comes back.
Andrew Adams:
Rises from the ashes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, and I think it started as a joke, and I don't know where the joke started, it feels like something Jared started. So Jared Wilson, maybe this is this is all you but in the back of my head, we've had for years, this idea of what if whistlekick went on the road? What if there was a tour bus? What if we put on show, you know, and when I think about touring and shows, I think of concerts, I think of rock shows. And if you take a look at the shirt that's on the website, it looks kind of like a concert shirt, you know, it's got a graphic on the front, it's got the tour dates on the back, we're gonna update the back of the shirt as we add more tour dates. And it's not a bus yet, but maybe in a couple of years, it will be a bus. Why is not a bus because the bus is very expensive. But we've got dates planned around New England, like locked in. And there are conversations going on right now for the Pacific Northwest for California, for like the New Jersey-Philly area, a little bit further sout
Andrew Adams:
Atlanta
Jeremy Lesniak:
For the Atlanta area. And somebody reached out about this constantly, there are conversations all over the place. And so what does that mean? That means that I'm getting in a car, I'm getting on a plane, and I'm going somewhere, and I'm teaching a seminar. And yeah, there's a cost involved there. But the goal for 2022 with the seminars, is that we can make a little money, this is not like, if you want to book Jeremy, it's going to cost you $5,000 Plus expenses.
Andrew Adams:
But if you want to pay that, you can.
Jeremy Lesniak:
But if you want to pay that you can do that. No. What we're trying to do because like everything, we have not done this before. Now I've taught seminars on a bunch of them. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it. Some of you have had me at your school. Some of you have had me your school multiple times, which tells me you probably thought I did a good job the first time. But it's not been a thing that I've done for money. And like everything else that we do, if we're doing something new, let's go back to the drawing board, let's not just do what everybody else is doing. Let's do it in such a way that everybody wins. So, you know, I'll drag books with me. And we'll do book signings. And the seminar shirt, like we're doing it on light colored shirts. So if people want to have the other people in attendance, sign or have me sign it. And we've got it set up in such a way that if you want to bring me in for a seminar, we've got a whole methodology where you can pre order the shirts and sell the shirts back to your students for the same price that we have on the website. And we make a few bucks and you make a few bucks and right like, my whole business philosophy is, let's put it together in a way where everybody wins. And I'm really excited about this because, as you said, Everything we've done up until now has been for the most part at a distance. Yep. And this gives me face time with people. I love meeting people. I love training with people. I love seeing the way different schools are I love hearing the stories. I love knowing why people train. You know, for years, I've been the odd person who might kind of slide up to somebody or tournament that nobody knows on the way out. Did you learn something today? Yeah, sure. Oh, okay. Did you have fun? Yeah. That's all you need. If you learn and you have fun, everything works out. And those are my two goals. For me, as I go out to these seminars, I don't pretend I'm going to be perfect. I'm going to knock it out of the park. But I set the goal, I set the standard really high. So as long as I learn each time I do, though, and I have fun doing them, the people participating are going to enjoy.
Andrew Adams:
So why this year? What makes 2022 the year to start this?
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's a great question. I don't think it would have worked before. I think we needed a certain amount of exposure, I think people needed to trust me as an individual. And let's recognize there's a blurry line between where Jeremy ends and whistlekick starts, like there's some overlap there in a lot of people's minds. So there are some people who would say, you know, we'll bring Jeremy in, because whistlekick does good things. But over the last couple years, I feel like I've found my voice.
Andrew Adams:
You know, which is funny for a podcaster.
Jeremy Lesniak:
People don't believe me. I am inherently an introvert and I grew up a shy kid. Hmm. Why am I doing these things that I'm doing? And why am I willing to embrace this part of me? It's because I needed to. I needed to do this to further the mission of the company. And the mission of the company has changed, and I've had to change with it. And that's exciting and scary. But it's time because it's time for me. I'm ready. Yeah, yep. I'm not utterly terrified at getting on a plane flying somewhere where I've never met the people and doing four or five seminars over the course of a long weekend. Bring it on, let's do it, sounds like a great time
Andrew Adams:
How would people do that? Let's say someone's watching or listening right now and says, you know, I would be I'd be interested in doing tha., I would consider having Jeremy come down.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Jeremy@whistlekick.com. And while the specific finances, it's basically it's a small cost plus logistics, right? Like, if you live over there, and your school is over there, it's cheaper for me to get there than if you are in California. I can't do it for the same price. So we've got to figure those pieces out. But based on the seminar cost, forget the logistical costs, the seminar cost, if you can get 15 people to come to it, based on what I would recommend charging for your students for me to come in 15 people you're making money. If they're if you're including a shirt with it, you can break even at like 10. So this is not something that has to be a big deal. And that's important to me, will the costs go up over time? Yeah, because I expect that my attendance will become more in demand. And so we'll slowly raise the price over time, just me available, because otherwise I'll be out, you know, 52 weeks a year. And I don't want to do that. January's already full. With one weekend where I'm doing too. And this is the first most of you are hearing of it.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and by the time this airs, January will be over. You will have already done a handful. Yeah, throughout January. Um, I had a great question that just left, my brain. Um, we talked about how people can get a hold of you to do this, which is important. Jeremy@whistlekick.com . Um, let's say I am a school or I contact you. I wouldn't expect you to outline exactly what you're going to teach. But talk a little bit about like, you know, I went taekwondo school. You know what are you going to teach taekwondo stuff? Or I'm a kung fu school..
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know what this was another part that when I thought about it, years ago, what am I going to teach? There are plenty of things I can teach. And when I've gone into individual schools in the past, it's been, you know, if it's a school and I know well, what are your students struggling? Let me be an additional voice trying to help them move along on this thing. You know, so sometimes it was kicking, sometimes it was forms or whatever. But if someone's gonna hire me. They've got to know ahead of time you know, what is it I'm teaching? And because whistlekick's whole mantra is style agnosticism. It didn't make sense that it was you know, it'd be a whistlekick tour Jeremy teaching karate like that doesn't fly. Even if people will be okay with that, like, that's not what I'm going to do.
Andrew Adams:
Unless they want that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure. And that's to say, yeah, there's a concept for this. But if someone feels really strongly about me teaching something else, we can have a conversation about I can't promise I'm gonna indulge it. And really started to coalesce early, I think it was last year, when we did the online 20:26.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. I remember.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And then again, I taught with you free training day, more of those slow drills. And the number of people that came up to me and said, we don't do anything like this. And that's what got my wheels turning, okay? If I can take some of these drills that work, these concepts that most martial arts schools do not participate in. I'm three quarters the way there. And that doesn't mean everything is slow. And it definitely doesn't mean it's easy, and does not mean it's boring. But what is my goal, if I'm styling agnostic, I can't go in with the goal of I'm going to teach you how to kick better. Because what if you're a boxing school, what if you're a Capoeira right? Like, I'm not going to teach you how to do your Capoeira kicks better. That's incredibly arrogant of me. I've done you know, a little bit of Capoeira, not enough that I'm fixing anybody's kicks, right? So instead of me being the teacher, I have to teach you how to be your own teacher. That's essentially what this sequence of drills these concepts are, but mixed in with it. Because what is the hallmark of what I do? What am I known for? Talking. Yeah, I'm known for conversation and getting people to think and instigating contemplation. So that's threaded through it. So it's helping you find your why. And being pumped on your own training. And being able to walk away after a couple hours going, you know what? I feel like I was starting to break through on whatever it was, yeah, that technique, that movement, that combination. And now because Jeremy's coming in worked with us, I've got some tools that I can use on my own. To get better at that thing. And when I'm done working that thing in that way, I can go back, I can do this, I can do that. And it becomes not, here's how you punch or kick, it's, here's how you help yourself get better at fill in the blank. Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
And this speaks to, you know, the audience watching or listening right now, if you are, you are likely a fan of what we do.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you've listened or watch this deep into the episode, especially an episode like this.
Andrew Adams:
This shift for 2021 that shift, but there's growth that 2021 is going to seek, the 2022 is going to see of whistlekick, having more face time directly with people will help the company start to become profitable, which hasn't been up until now.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Correct. One of the things that I mean, I've been very open, we're not yet a profitable company that I work other things to put money back in, I've put every nickel and find into this company, because I believe in the mission. And so many of you out there also believe in the mission and some of you contribute, you know, Patreon, etc. So we do all these things, because we're trying to support the company this way. But what we found is that when people can get in front of us, and sometimes us means me, and sometimes us means the entity of whistlekick, free training day or, you know, sometimes getting in front of us is me interviewing someone and then hearing my voice and the way we engage going, this is different. It leads to things they engage further, they participate in other things that we do. And I found that that touch point, you know, when we went to Comic Con, that was a touchpoint by being in front of people. We brought in people for the show. And we brought in listeners and we further relationships
Andrew Adams:
We connected face to face with past guests that were there.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that's what we're finding is the more we can do that. Good things happen. And that's part of why we can do these seminars at a low cost because at the end of the day, time and money connect. And let's be honest, the seminars that I'm teaching, if you figure out the hourly cost of the seminar, but of my time traveling getting there, etc. Like it's it's terrible. Like just full disclosure, it's awful. I'm not making much money per hour and probably not even close to minimum wage. All in. But why am I doing it? Because with that face to face, people get it, they understand what we're trying to do. And now they're like, you know what? Now that hoodie isn't just a cool design, it's a cool design from a company that resonates...
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, that I connect with.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I understand what they're trying to do. And I want to be part of this mission, I want to be part of this family. And I believe genuinely that if I can get out there and just hammer on through 2022, that will happen. And as we roll out more things, as we look at hopefully adding two additional free training days in 2020, to potentially other events, you know, all weekend, as we plow forward, in this year, it's going to lead to money. And that money will lead to being profitable.
Andrew Adams:
Will lead to was kick doing more things.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Which leads to doing more things. And I don't want people to think that, you know, the entire goal here is is me lining my pockets, I'd like to pay myself back. That would be cool. I'd also like to pay back some of the other people that have lent money. When I say every nickel, I can scrape together some, quite a few of them are other other people's nickels. And, you know, maybe paying myself a reasonable salary. So I didn't have to do all these other things on the side. So I could also be all in on whistlekick. Sure, would be cool, right? Like, this is not hard to believe. If somebody doesn't get that you're probably done watching. You're probably not going to stick around. So that's fine.
Andrew Adams:
I mean, I think to summarize, I think 2022 For whistlekick looks like planning, and face time and hopefully those things will lead to eventually becoming more profitable, not more profitable, profitable.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I think that all falls under the heading of me finding my voice, as the leader of this company, this company being a leader in and I want everyone to hear that language, not the leader of a leader in this Martial Arts space. I never, just as we are style agnostic, if you know what is my definition of martial arts, right? And what do I say about your definition of martial arts? I don't get to tell you what yours is. We as a company are never going to say this is what the martial arts industry is or has to be or should be or should be, we will be supportive. I think the only thing that we are firm on is other people have the right to train the way they want to what was that episode we did?
Andrew Adams:
The trouble would have been 470 Plus episodes as I don't remember them all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The episode, the title that we didn't use was the first amendment of martial arts right. There was an episode we did probably a year ago, where I said nobody has the right to tell you. Your martial arts is not right. It's an arrogant statement. I don't agree with it. But I know there are people out there some of whom being friends of mine that feels strongly about what certain people do. You go do that. That's fine. You know what, if you just don't get in their way, you can have a judgment on it. When you get in the way that I'm going to get upset, okay. But as a leader of a leader in the industry, we need to get out front on certain things. We have done a good job with this Podcast showing others here's what a podcast can be in the martial art space. But we also provided a platform for others, we have martialartspodcast.com. We're not saying others, shouldn't we are supportive of that. Just as I wrote some books, we have published books that others have written and what you don't know behind the scenes is we've made offers to many others. Do you want us to help you get your book published on Amazon? No, it's not that complicated, but we'll support you in whatever way we can. We bring people on the show all the time that are trying to do cool things. And I expect that the seminars and the other events that we do will follow in that same vein, it's not just about me or us it is about all of us. And I think I said this on a first cup episode. When I came out of free training day, wearing the same shirt sweatshirt. There was a phrase a mantra in my head that was in there all weekend. We are Martial Arts. Not we..
Andrew Adams:
Not we Jeremy and Andrew.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We. If you're if you're listening you're not seeing my hand movements. We as In all of us, we are Martial Arts. And I feel really strongly about that. And so this 2023 involve us continuing the The Rock Tour mindset where we have opening acts, and feature acts and headliners. Sure, I don't know, why not? I mean, that's kind of what free training day is. But yeah, but everybody's on the same page. Maybe that's what we do. I don't know.
Andrew Adams:
We'll figure it out. But the point being, as we see success with the thing, as we come to understand the thing, we will turn those lessons around, offer them up often for free via this Podcast, so others can take our lessons, learn from our mistakes, and run with it in their own way. Awesome. Wow, look, looking forward to a successful 2022. Looking forward to a bunch of these seminars and some of the other events, we're doing free trading day, All-in Weekend, it's going to be a great, great year,
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's going to be amazing, I'm super pumped about it. And I want to thank you. And I want to thank all of you watching or listening. And I want to thank the entirety of the team. You know, I'm pretty open about the fact that there are a lot of people helping with a lot of different things. What you may not realize is that a lot of those people have donated their time. And no one not one person involved in this team is paid the entirety of what I think they deserve. because there just isn't enough money. Why do they do that? Why are they willing to do it? Why do you do it?
Andrew Adams:
I believe in the mission statement of the company, to educate, entertain, connect, educate, entertain, traditional martial artists. I believe in that mission statement, and I did from the minute I listened to my first episode,
Jeremy Lesniak:
Martial arts makes people better. So if we spread martial arts, if more people do martial arts, more people are better. I've said it before, I'll say it again, just trying to change the world.
Andrew Adams:
I think that's good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Thank you for your continued support. Now, if you want me to come to your school, reach out soon. Because by the time this airs, it's a month, it's going to be about a month until this airs. We're not going to be looking at a lot of dates left the responses has been nuts in a positive way. So thank you to everyone who has already scheduled with me. Jeremy@whistlekick.com, we'll get you on the schedule. And here's the thing, if you're far away, maybe you are in California. Well, let's work with others in your area and have three or four and then we can split the logistical cost. I'm not gonna profit on the logistics. We can make this happen if you're committed to it, I'll commit to it. If you want to see more about what we're doing, check out tour dates whistlekick.com. If you want to pick something up at the store, whistlekick.com. You just go to PODCAST15. Our social media is @whistlekick. If you want to email Andrew for the next Q&A and give them some questions that I'm not going to know about ahead of time. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com
Andrew Adams:
Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you want the full list of how to support us whistlekick.com/family. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate all of you. We will see you soon. Until next time, train hard smile, and have a great day.