Life is Pretty Darn Good: Mike Franz

Episode 4, Tales of Misadventure with Nicole Donnelly

On the latest episode, Nicole chats with the owner and founder of ManufacturingPower, Mike Franz. They discuss iNSUPPLi, a new, revolutionary mobile app for manufacturers, turning misadventures into educational life moments, AI, marketing blunders and wins, and how small businesses and manufacturers’ marketing can benefit from HubSpot.

Nicole Donnelly

Welcome to Tales of Misadventure. This is Nicole Donnelly. I'm your host. I'm the founder and president of DMG Digital. And I am so delighted and honored to have on our show today Mike France. Mike is the owner and founder of ManufacturingPower. And this is a platform that provides price and delivery data for industrial supplies. He started ManufacturingPower with the vision to help small to midsize manufacturers optimize their spend management by leveraging true peer-to-peer data that spotlights cost savings opportunities.

And something really exciting is they are currently in the process of developing a mobile app that they are currently demoing and beta testing right now that will revolutionize the way companies search, find and buy industrial supplies. So I am super excited to learn more about that today. Mike And just to talk to you, you're such so much fun to chat with.

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting with you on Curt Anderson's Manufacturing eCommerce success show four months ago, and we just connected right away. It was so great. So welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Mike Franz

Oh my gosh, Nicole, thank you so much for having me, first of all. And wow, what an introduction. Thank you for that. And it's an honor and a pleasure to be here. I mean, we've had some good conversations in the past and I just look forward to it.

iNSUPPLI the Game-Changing App for Manufacturers and Distributors

Nicole Donnelly

Yes. Awesome. So I would love to hear more about your company. Tell us a little bit about what you're working on. I want to hear about ManufacturingPower. Tell me about this app. Let's let's hear about it. It's exciting

Mike Franz

Sure. So ManufacturingPower really spawned from an idea years ago about industrial suppliers and how we can make organization data analysis and price comparison an easier task or challenge to overcome. For small to midsize manufacturing companies, many times its data that's collected and it's a pain in the butt to deal with. So we wanted to help with that struggle and that's what we felt we built the SaaS platform that really helps to organize, analyze and show cost savings opportunities for those types of products.

So anything that you anything we say from toilet paper to tooling, anything that falls into this, that category we, we deal with and try to make it a little bit easier for people to, to navigate the industrial supply water. So that's cool. And now over the last two years, we really got some solid customer and potential customer feedback around, you know, the struggles of supply chain and COVID and all that stuff.

We don't need to get into that necessarily. It wants to get into that again. But that was they came to us and said, Hey, you know, we'd like a product that is simple and easy, that allows us to find products and see what their price is. So price and availability was the main thing that we took out of that.

So we're we built a mobile app. I just happened to be wearing the beautiful t-shirt here today that it's inSuppli. But yeah, cheesy product placement. I know, but I couldn't help myself.

So inSuppli really is the three simple terms that we came up with, search, find, buy. Search, you search the part number on the mobile app, it shows you just local distribution that has the product. So that's the key it's local distribution really shows you where the product is and then you can go directly from the mobile app to their product page through the distributor that you choose.

And then you can make the purchase. It's really that simple. And, you know, we're finding that local distributors love it because it actually acts as a marketing tool for them and it directs people back to the local options they may or may not even know that are around their area. So use I could talk all day about this.

Nicole Donnelly

You know, that's you know, what's great about that is with the supply chain problems, being able to find a local resource is so huge, right? Like find someone locally and with freight costs going up and all of that, that's amazing. And having worked in-house for an industrial manufacturer like I just feel like this solution is such a great option for folks to be able to get access to this information and make those purchasing decisions so much more quickly, and effectively.

And, you know, to realize those cost savings, because I can't tell you how much like our sales reps at this company would spend talking to people who are looking at, who are from procurement, who are trying to gather pricing for products. And that's it's, you know, traditionally such in this space, very, very, you know, tedious and a lot of menial work that's involved in it.

So I just love how you're, you know, changing that whole, you know, how you buy and how you find information. I think this mobile app seems like it's going to be such a great, great benefit to companies.

Mike Franz

What an endorsement! You're going to send me a copy?

Nicole Donnelly

Yes. It's like there are benefits to both sides. There are benefits to the company selling the products, right? Because then they're getting their products out there in a much more, you know, you know, get awareness there and have another platform where they can, you know, be able to have that data. And then for the customers to be able to get access to access.

iNSUPPLI A Marketing Tool for Distributors

Mike Franz

It's very exciting. And you being a marketing guru, you know, that that it's it's really difficult for the small distributors to gain visibility in a Google search.

So, you know, spending money on SEO and search engine optimization and those that that marketing activity, it's really hard, number one, to see the benefit of that. But then also to even be placed in the top ten or on the first page of a Google search for any of the products that the carrots really are. And it costs a lot of money.

So this, we almost you know, we're finding that it's a great marketing tool for those small distributors because we don't do any of that ranking system. It's the number eight platform.

So we're not that and we show if they have it in stock. Great And show that by price and then you know then the end user can make the decisions based on that. So it's we're very excited crossing our fingers and you know we do we're just super excited about how it's panning out and we're excited to bring it to market.

Nicole Donnelly

Very cool. As a marketer, I heard you say earlier that you're beta testing it out on I think 80 people right now, which is incredible. I love that you're gathering data from your customers and getting that like, so you're doing it right, man. You're doing it right. That's awesome.

Would love to know, like, how did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Was this like, always a dream for you from the time you were a child? Like you just wanted to start a business or did you kind of just, like, fall into it over time and just thought, hey, I could try this out?

Mike Franz’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Because building a SaaS product is that's a big undertaking. You know, that's, you know. So what led you here? What is this something you always wanted to do or did it just kind of like happen organically for you?

Mike Franz

Well, it's kind of interesting looking back on things and, you know, just reflecting a little bit like at the end of last year and I'll just into a little bit of reflection about how things have been going, what's happening in life in general. And, you know, and then just ironically, this or coincidentally, I guess this morning I was talking to a very good friend of mine and he said to me, you've always had ideas about stuff, but I like you can take an idea.

Okay, I've got an idea. How can I make that happen?

Everybody's got ideas, but you can take an idea. And the critical part is being able to execute those ideas. That's just, you know, that portion of, you know, working, do it kind of doing anything. Okay, I've got an idea. How can I make that happen? That goes for anything but starting a business. It's, you know, it's a kind of a risk-reward type of thing.

And are you willing to take that risk? And I never thought I was, you know, willing to do that. I grew up in a family with parents that had 9 to 5 jobs, worked for companies, and were very successful doing that. So that was kind of the model that I was. Yeah, kind of destined to go down. And it worked for them, so why wouldn't it work for me?

But then, you know, there was a day where the switch flipped.

Nicole Donnelly

What happened on that day? What happened on that day? The switch flipped.

Mike Franz

Well, I mean, it's nothing super dramatic or exciting. Like I kind of built it up to be. It was just a matter of, you know, I had this idea. The timing was kind of right to try to execute it. And that's what kind of led me to start it.

Nicole Donnelly

So you just knew it was like magic in a bottle, huh? It's just lightning in a bottle. Is that the phrase lightning?

Mike Franz

If I'm ever going to try to do something like this, it's got to be now!

I don't know about lightning. In the beginning, it was more … a slow like, drip or something like that. But it wasn't. It wasn't a well, actually, I mean, full disclosure, it was like other life circumstances that just said, okay, the timing is perfect for this. There were some good things that happened, some bad things that happened in life and personally, and things like that, where it was just like, you know if I'm ever going to try to do something like this, it's got to be now!

And if I don't, it's going to eat at me for the rest of my life. So that was just kind of the. All right. There's a guy, Reid Hoffman, who was the founder of LinkedIn. Who says, and I'm probably going to butcher this quote, but it's something to the effect of you jump off a cliff with no plane and you have to build a plane before you hit the ground.

And that's kind of what it feels like. And this felt like. And luckily, we just you know, we haven't hit the ground yet.

Nicole Donnelly

It's such an exciting journey. I'm on it with you and I just love every day. It's such a fun roller coaster.

Mike Franz

Well, you know, Yeah. I mean, you know full well, I mean, you start your thing and, you know, this podcast and it's. Yeah, scary, and intimidating.

Nicole Donnelly

You got to do it scared.

You got to do it scared.

Mike Franz

It's so exhilarating.

Regrets are data

Nicole Donnelly

It's so there's so much pivoting. So let's talk about that a little bit. Like starting a SaaS business, a huge undertaking, so much work that needs to be done. I am sure that along the way there have been hiccups, there have been mishaps, there's been, oops, why did we do it that way? There have been regrets if you will. Right. And I just listen to this fabulous podcast from McKeown, and I don't know if you're familiar with him.

He wrote the book Essentialism and a new book called Effortless. So he's really great I just love, love his stuff. It's wonderful. But he was talking on his podcast about how so much of the time people talk about living with no regrets, you know, and you know, you know, no, you don't want to, you know, do anything that you regret.

But he kind of repositioned that in a way that was like, you know, let's not look at our regrets as these bad things that happen, but rather regrets are data. This is data that you can actually stop, assess and say, okay, how am I going to take this experience that didn't go right or I made this mistake?

And how could I use that to design a better future for my life, you know? And so I just really love that. I think it's just such a really positive, productive way to look at entrepreneurs. Because so much of entrepreneurship is taking these leaps of faith and failing forward and getting your knee [scraped] and getting back up again.

How are you learning from misadventures and failures?

I would love to know what you think about that and maybe share one of the experiences you've had as you've grown your business where you really just like, you know, had a real it was a terrible business blunder. Walk me through what that was like and what you did.

Mike Franz

I mean, thinking back, there's pretty much zero regrets and zero failures that have happened over five years.

Actually, that is so far from the truth of it.

Nicole Donnelly

Laughs. I was going to say, Mike you’d be the first person I ever talked who said that.

Mike Franz

Gosh. I mean, how much time do we have? Seriously?

God. I have two regrets and one failure from this morning. So if that gives you two.

Nicole Donnelly

Oh oh, it's so true.

Mike Franz

No, but there are so many things, you know. But as you said, I mean, turning what the one thing that I kind of keep in the back of my mind is that, you know, life is pretty darn good and I have a lot to be thankful for. And, you know, turning regrets or things like that, they're pretty minor, you know, in the grand scheme of things, especially with business.

So, you know, I look at it like I would have a big regret if I hadn't taken the steps to try to kind of start something.

Nicole Donnelly

Yeah.

Mike Franz

But the failures, like you say, and there's so many things out there now that talk about, you know, it's good to fail and fail fast and fail quickly and then turn that into a learning experience and into a positive thing. And, you know, it's how you fail. You know, there's do you learn from it?

Do you become better from it? And, you know, I like to think that the failing portion of it is … there's a couple of events that have happened in past lives for me that were failures that were like the most impactful things to say, Holy cow, I don't ever want to make that mistake again.

And here's how I'm going to correct that. And it's those are fantastic learning experiences. And if you can turn those into a positive somehow, whether it be, you know, a win or whether it be just the way that you do things differently or the way that you approach a relationship or deal with somebody or there are so many examples of, you know, failures that it's just in my life, you know, that small failures that have really impacted everything.

So it's kind of a how you react to those. How do you respond to them and how do you deal with them?

Nicole Donnelly

Yeah, you know, the first thing you said that I just loved is you said my life is good. And I think that mindset of like my dear business partner, Curt Anderson, who, you know, so fabulous.

Mike Franz

Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly

One of the things he loves to say is how can I live with radical gratitude? And I just love that. And I think like your mindset, just like as you know, the first thing you said was life is good and I think, you know, you approach any situation, your regrets, your day-to-day, just with that radical gratitude of like I've got a great life and put it in, it really does put things in perspective so that when you do have those mishaps, you realize like in the grand scheme of things, life is good.

I have been blessed and have so much wonderful things that I can get through this and you know, it's all going to be fine. It's not doomsday.

Mike Franz

Well, I mean, radical gratitude that totally fits. Curt. I mean, he's much more of an extrovert, than I am. I don't know if I can keep up with the radical portion of it, but more of a laid-back attitude kind of guy.

Nicole Donnelly

Oh, any way you slice and dice it, gratitude, whether it's radical or laidback, however, you want to, however, you want to own it. I just love that you're living that and I remember when you were on the last show, I remember before you started your business, you told us you had gone through a really big career change, right?

Like a big significant, like kind of like moment where you like, oh, you know, I got to make I got to do something. And it's those moments, right, that really define us frankly. You could have taken that situation and really like, turned it into a negative. But you did it. You like, used it as fuel too, you know, have the confidence to jump into this next thing.

And I just think that's inspiring.

Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Solo Marketers Should Always Be Building and Ready to Pivot

Mike Franz

It's still building. We're not quite there yet, but it's still building. But yeah, things are good.

Nicole Donnelly

So it's always building. My goodness. I can't tell you how many times I've had to pivot in my business and I've only been in business for. It's coming up on three years in February and it's like seems like every year I'm like, okay, we got to revamp. We've got to, you know, figure out the next step. But it's always listening to the market, listening to customers, trying to understand what they need and just constantly being on the pulse in that way.

Mike Franz

Well, I don't know about you, but one of the things that I enjoy most about getting back to kind of the reflection on what's happened over the last four or five years is I just love learning new stuff. And part of that learning experience is, you know, failing or taking a misstep here, doing that. And and then like realizing that, okay, I made a mistake, I corrected it, and then, you know, being grateful that you're able to do that, like it's almost like a pride thing, too.

But yeah, definitely. I think as a like you just mentioned over the last three years, you know, you've kind of there's a term in an old business that I used to work in called check and adjust and or things like that, check in adjust. So, you know, you review exactly what you did, and then, okay, how can I help make you better?

So you check, you adjust. And that was the thing that I took away from that. But it is it.

Nicole Donnelly

Is like an after action review that the Navy SEALs use. Kind of similar, I guess. Yeah.

Mike Franz

Well, I don't know. I don't claim to know anything about that. But Navy SEAL training. But it's just something like to check and adjust so understanding but then the learning process of doing that is something that is another thing is as far as again, reflection, I don't know, it's kind of stuck in my mind. This whole reflection thing over the last year.

Grateful for Mistakes and Turning Mistakes into Learning Opportunities

But understanding that, the process, I think I've learned so much more in the last four or five years than I did in the previous 20. As far as business relationships, the networking, marketing, all the different aspects of business that, you know, it's just it's been a fun experience to do all that stuff. And, you know, that's another thing to be grateful for, is being able to, to be able to have the ability to be able to go and learn those types of things.

But I think that's one of the biggest things that I've I've found is that you know, learning from just new things or past mistakes, you can always there's always good takeaways from that.

Nicole Donnelly

I love that. What are you like? What do you like learning right now and what is your process for learning? It sounds like I heard that you like to do a lot of reflection, which I think some people don't think about what they think about learning, right? You just think learning is like your acting, your well, reflection is action, I guess, when you really think about it, but like reading or talking to other people.

But that reflection part of it I think is so huge. So like what is your what's changed the last four years for you in terms of like how you learn and how you go about it? That was different from before. Is it just you're exposed to a lot more experiences that you were than you were before? Like, tell me a little bit more about that.

Learning from People

Mike Franz

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say the first thing that popped into my head when you asked or talked about that was learning from other people. You know, I think we connected probably on LinkedIn. First of all.

Nicole Donnelly

Yeah, love LinkedIn, it's the best.

Mike Franz

It's great. I try to be a sponge, you know, talking with people.

Nicole Donnelly

Yes.

Mike Franz

And learning. There are so many smarter people than me.

Nicole Donnelly

It's amazing because people are all smart in different ways, you know?

Mike Franz

Yes. And everybody has different thoughts about different things and different perspectives. And that's super intriguing to me. And then not only like learning from other people and their perspective, it's but then finding, you know, you might be thinking about something in this way and you talk to somebody who has great knowledge about that, then they trigger your mind to think about something maybe a little bit different.

Then you meet somebody that is an expert in that and said, Wow, these people are so intelligent and have such great ideas and opinions about things. It's really just like, how can I gather up all that stuff in my head? Physically, it's not big enough to hold all that stuff. So but that's, but that's what I mean as far as learning.

That, that's probably the coolest thing that has happened in creating a network of people and, you know, building trust with them so that they can or they're willing to actually give their expertise and knowledge and opinions and things about whatever the topic may be. And that's a cool portion of learning, but a very cool portion of learning.

Disrupting Manufacturing by Leveraging Technology, A.I., and Conversations

But as far as specifically, like learning at a particular task, I'm so intrigued by how technology is at like in manufacturing and industrial supplies specifically not to turn it back to a product type thing, but it's so interesting to me how in the last four or five years how manufacturing is slowly trying to catch up with I think the rest of maybe.

Other industries. And when I say technology, I don't I don't mean like the machines, the C and C machines that people are working on. That's always been, you know, leap leading-edge technology, innovation, and robotics and automation and not animation automation and robotics and those things are very cool. But there are other portions of technology that are catching up to the other industries now.

And it's like it's just a very cool time to learn how impactful that technology can be.

Nicole Donnelly

Oh, I love that so much. And you're right. I mean, so if manufacturing is ripe for disruption, just thinking about like conversations like this conversation we're having right now and how we learn from other people, like, I can't tell you how many times like I've been like, noodling on an idea about something and I'm like thinking about it by myself and reflecting on it of something.

Maybe I want to try and my business or how I might want to tweak this and I bring it to someone, you know, a colleague, business, associate team member, and talk about it with them. And it's amazing to me how that idea can turn into something even greater when you actually, like talk to someone else about it, and then you can just kind of riff off and build off of it with someone else.

You get their perspective and now this idea that you had turned into something like ten times better because you have the input of someone else that can really add to and create that something that's something new, that's something magic. And it reminds me a little bit of like in marketing right now, there's kind of like this new disruptive technology.

You've probably heard about ChatGPT, it's the, you know, chatbot. It's like kind of like getting all this attention, and rightfully so. There's a lot of magic and power in that. But one thing that that kind of technology I don't think can ever replicate is the magic that happens in conversation like this, where you're creating new ideas and coming up with something new and different.

And I think that's what's beautiful about being human, right? Like is, is there's nothing that can replicate. No machine can replicate that.

Mike Franz

Well, as a matter of fact, I'm actually typing in your questions into ChatGPT as we're talking and I'm just reading them off the screen. I'm just kidding. But yeah, no, no doubt. I mean the human factors that that thing and by the way, chat is incredible. It's amazing.

Nicole Donnelly

But it can turn meetings into a summary of this transcript.

It's amazing to come up with action items and you know, it's definitely going to give Google a run for their money for sure. I think I heard the other day that Microsoft's trying to acquire it, so that'll be very interesting.

Mike Franz

Well, it's crazy. I actually this morning I was just, you know, check out some things on it. And I happen to find a guy who actually gave it the ideas and the parameters for building an actual website like coding out a website and wrote for it, it rolled out the entire code to build this website.

And I see him copy and paste it, and there it is.

Nicole Donnelly

So that was amazing.

Mike Franz

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And you know that like what you just mentioned, all those that other capability of but the other crazy thing and I'm bouncing around here a little bit that the other crazy thing about it was it wrote out the steps and the code for it, but then he would write, I want to change something in the code to make it this way.

And it remembered what the original code was, that it had just written, modified it to meet that expectation. So it's like, it's like thinking about it.

Nicole Donnelly

It's crazy. You had to kind of wonder, is it going to be sent to you to tell it like it is? Is it going to start to cry in one moment?

Mike Franz

Back to ideas and things generating ideas and if it's if it starts to be like my friends and chat in text chats, yeah it'll start saying “you're an idiot quit asking stupid questions at some point. Laughs.

That’s when we know it’s real.

Nicole Donnelly

Laughs. The robots are going to be taking over the world and there's no chance.

Misadventure in Marketing - Not Knowing Your Market Fit

Oh, man, this is so fun. So. Okay, let's shift gears. We have just a few minutes left. I want to shift gears a little bit on marketing. Sure. I'd love to learn a little bit more about like how have you marketed your business. You know, starting a business, you always have to think about how you're going to grow.

How have you marketed your business and what's worked and what hasn't worked?

Mike Franz

Oh, boy. Here we go back to failures There's been positive that. So yeah, I'll start with kind of the negative. Not negative just, you know, learning later. Yes. Yeah. Originally one of the biggest takeaways that I have had with ManufacturingPower specifically was maybe trying to market it too early. Before there was, you know, in software products and ultimate entrepreneur SAS products, It could be, I guess for anything.

But you ultimately want to find market fit. And in doing that, it takes a certain level of marketing. But I found that we did stuff a little bit too early.

Nicole Donnelly

What did you do too early?

Mike Franz

So yeah, so the stuff portion of that is honestly, it was like email campaigns and making video clips and starting a YouTube channel and other marketing was by making expensive collateral. So stuff like handouts and stickers and stuff that, you know, we were just a little bit too soon with that I felt and.

Nicole Donnelly

Needed to learn more from the market and from like kind of like your customers that you already had, that's for sure. Right? Correct. Before you went down that path. So you were trying to grow too quickly. It sounds like before you really had dialed in the product market fit. Is that what I'm hearing?

Mike Franz

Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

HubSpot Marketing for Manufacturing

But then on a positive note, I learned from that completely. Yeah. And that was things that we're applying now to inSuppli as the mobile app as far as kind of takeaways from that. But positive going through that process was also learning tactical marketing approaches. I'm no marketer like no expert like you are, but we use a CRM HubSpot.

Mike Franz

I think you're familiar with it.

Nicole Donnelly

I'm a partner. They're the best.

Mike Franz

Yeah, so we use HubSpot, but actually the tactical stuff of learning how to use whatever version of HubSpot or whatever CRM that anybody uses to get familiar with it, to be comfortable with it for the next time was back to learning. It was a great learning experience to not only have that capability but to be able to rely on it and make it and have it be consistent makes things a lot easier.

So it's like learning a skill to be prepared for the next time.

Nicole Donnelly

A love it and a CRM is such, man, there's so much adoption and work that goes into understanding how to use and fully utilize, especially something like HubSpot. So that's huge. Now that you've learned it through that kind of growing pains and you understand the platform and all that it's capable of, it just allows you to just really saw when the time is right.

Mike Franz

Oh, I'm not saying that I understand. I mean.

Nicole Donnelly

I love your humility, Mike.

Mike Franz

Well, I mean, we go by what does; I think about the other that we go by the KISS method.

Nicole Donnelly

But oh, yeah. Keep it simple, Stupid. Right.

Mike Franz

Well, the stupid part is that I was bothered me because it's like if you say that as somebody you know, in today's day and age, it could be a little offensive.

Nicole Donnelly

You're right.

Mike Franz

I think. And not that I'm a big softie like that or anything, but. There's, there's a lot of what we're saying it also keeps it simple son of a gun and it was like like kind of the same deal. Anyway, that was just a random thing. But yeah, really the simple method for us is like there's, there's so much capability with HubSpot or in most all other crimes that HubSpot does. And I keep bringing up HubSpot only because I use it, we use it personally.

So yeah, there's a lot of capability, but for us as a small team, if we can just do things consistently that it helps us do and do that consistently on and then learn more of the capabilities. So it helps us down the road as we scale. Those are things that are important. But I think like for us the biggest thing was just diving into it, learning a couple of things that can really help us to get it to a certain point.

And then, you know, as I mentioned, as we scale, that capability is really going to come into play. I can see it. But again, just kind of starting out.

Learn to Walk Before You Run: Don’t Just Dive Into Marketing Tactics. Get to Know Your Customer.

Nicole Donnelly

Like taking it in chunks, taking it in phases, don't eat the elephant all at once. And the consistency part is so huge in marketing too. And I love that. You know, it sounds like what you've learned really, and what I think is so key that a lot of people miss is somebody people want to dive straight into the tactics of marketing their business.

They want to go straight to email marketing. You know, let's start doing social media. But you have to like start from that really deep understanding of your customer. And it sounds like that's kind of what you learned through that process initially we can't run before the walk. We need to spend time with the customer and make sure we have like an understanding, a deep understanding of the product market fit first.

Mike Franz

Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly

And then once we understand that, then we can really dive into those tactics. And I think that's really key to, to get any real traction.

Mike Franz

So. Well, yeah, just on that note, I mean, I had 20 years of experience going into starting ManufacturingPower and I thought I knew what the market fit was going to be. And I made a bunch of assumptions that just didn't pan out. And turns out they were just taking some extra time to focus more on the customer needs than what I thought I knew.

Things probably could have turned out a little bit different, meaning it would have sped up the process, which, you know, entrepreneur, time, money, all that stuff comes into play, too. So.

Mike Franz’s Perfect Day

Nicole Donnelly

Yes, Well, Mike, this has been such a wonderful conversation. So fun to talk to you. I love what you're doing, a lot of what you're building. I love hearing all about it and learning from you. So marvelous. I have just one final question for you. And this is kind of more of a personal question. I guess just something I know about.

Like if you could choose, like perfect day, what would your day look like? What would you be doing if you could like, the architect that? What would you be doing? What would you be doing and whom would you be doing it with? What's your perfect day?

Mike Franz

Getting ten orders for each one. That would be a portion of the day. How about that?

Nicole Donnelly

And then you celebrate, right? Yeah, for sure. How would you ... okay, let's say this. How would you celebrate that? What celebration look like?

Mike Franz

Okay, I'm going to add it all together, if that's okay. Yes. Yeah. So the perfect day would be with friends and family on the Gulf Coast of Florida somewhere where. Oh, nice. I have my laptop early in the morning on the beach. Yeah, Getting ten orders and then closing the laptop and playing on the beach and maybe having a cocktail or something on the beach for friends and family.

Nicole Donnelly

Love it.

Entrepreneurial advice

Okay, I have one more question. Sure. What's your one word or sentence of advice for any new entrepreneur out there who's just getting started? What would you advise them?

Mike Franz

Oh, geez. I mean, we covered quite a few things. Yeah. See? Wow. Would it fail fast? Would it be to have gratitude? Would it be to volunteer to celebrate small victories? I would say this may be persistence and consistency would be something that I would like. If you're consistent in how you do things, people notice that and respect that if you're doing the right things, of course.

And then if you're persistent on your approach to executing on your idea, yeah, that's, that's pretty critical. And then good networking, it, you know, you want to go and do amazing things, but networking has been so huge. Like for, for a couple of things. We talked about product market fit these, these people that are currently testing or these 80 people that are testing the mobile app, they're experts in the market that we're trying to get into or that we are getting into.

And I would not have known these people at all without creating a network specifically on LinkedIn. And, you know, that's super valuable. Like if just from a company and a product standpoint, if you can have a good market, if it gives you solid feedback, advice and can give you some of their time, you know, that's, that's, that's huge.

So I know that wasn't one thing, but sorry.

Nicole Donnelly

Maybe it's just not one thing. Yeah, that's okay. Mike, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you.

Mike Franz

I mean the pleasure has been all mine. I know this is one of your first few shows. So it's an honor for me to be on it.  It's been a lot of fun. Thank you.

Connect with Mike on Linkedin or via email, mike@manufacturingpower.com. Don’t miss an episode of Tales of Misadventure with Nicole Donnelly by subscribing to our YouTube Channel or wherever you prefer to stream podcasts. Looking for marketing insights and resources? Subscribe to our newsletter.