#1443 BlueCotton | Bitcoin Makes This Small Business Rich!

Mike Coffey and Julie Denton-Price are the owners of BlueCotton, a small retail-grade screen printing business in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They previously plugged their business into the bitcoin network in a very unique way, and it is changing the lives of 130 employees. In this conversation we discuss, why they did it, how the employees earn bitcoin, and what the impact has been. ======================= Xapo Bank, the world’s first fully licensed Bitcoin-enabled bank, offers military-grade security with an unmatched blend of physical and digital security, as well as pioneering regulatory oversight, so your funds are always protected. Beyond secure storage, they enable you to grow and use your Bitcoin. Earn daily interest in Bitcoin, spend with zero FX fees using a global card, and make instant payments via the Lightning Network for unrivalled access and convenience. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.xapobank.com/pomp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to join. ======================= Ledger has been trusted for 10 years to secure 20% of the world’s digital assets. Their latest devices, Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, feature secure touchscreens for safer, easier crypto management. This Black Friday, upgrade to Ledger Flex and get $70 in Bitcoin or save up to 40% on select wallets and accessories. Deals valid through December 5th. Visit ledgerpomp.com today! ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/ ======================= View 10k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's going on guys? Today's a very, very important conversation. I think it may be one of the most inspiring conversations I've ever had on this podcast. I have Mike and Julie, the owners of Blue Cotton, a small business in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They previously

• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

  took their business and they've plugged it into the Bitcoin network in a very unique way, and it is changing the lives of their 130 employees that work at their business. Blue Cotton is an embroidery and screen printing business. They have a bunch of hourly workers that work there. They work hard and they go home to their families. But Mike and Julie came up with a fantastic plan to help their employees earn Bitcoin as long as they stayed around the business for a long time. In this conversation, you're going to hear about why they did this, how it works, and what the impact has been. There's a lot of people who are interested in very big businesses such as MicroStrategy, BlackRock, Fidelity, or countries buying Bitcoin. But I believe the Bitcoin story is all about the people

• 1:28Anthony Pompliano?

  on the ground. Fiat currency is money for the elites, and Bitcoin is money for the everyday person. What Mike and Julie have done here is they have used Bitcoin to infiltrate long-term thinking into their organization, and it has completely revolutionized what they're doing. This conversation will make you think more deeply about Bitcoin's role in the world, and if you own a small business, you may want to consider doing what Mike and Julie have done. At the end, they give out their email so that you can reach out to them, and they're more than happy to discuss with anyone what they're doing, how it works, and what the impact has been. And then lastly, I'm a big believer in supporting other people who are pushing Bitcoin forward. And so if you're compelled, go check out BlueCotton.com,

• 2:13Anthony Pompliano?

  make an order, support them as small business owners, and let's show them the power of the Bitcoin network. Here is my conversation with Mike and Julie of Blue Cotton.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 2:46Anthony Pompliano?

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• 3:30Anthony Pompliano?

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• 4:56Anthony Pompliano?

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• 5:05Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So I thought a great place to start this conversation, Mike, is you all gave out this huge bonus a couple of years ago, and pretty much no one remembers. You guys were the good guys when you gave money. Now, all of a sudden, you're not the good guys because no one remembers. But then you started to work with Bitcoin and Bitcoin completely revolutionized your relationship with your employees, changed your business. Can you tell us the story of how you started to think about Bitcoin as a tool, as a small business owner, to really revolutionize that relationship?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Sure. You know, it was 2020 and it was COVID and we were manufacturing business. We got about 130 people that work here and a lot of them are coming to work every day. And we're just trying to figure out, how do we kind of benefit those people? So as you said, we decided one day we're going to walk up, we're going to give $30,000 away. You know, it's for, we're a small business and that's a lot of money. And, you know, we announced it on the floor and everybody was just like rah rah rah. And we felt great about it and they felt great about it. And then a couple of years later, company was doing well, Julie and I were working together. It's like, hey, let's do that again. And so I went to one of our most financially responsible people and I said, because I remember the $30,000 part. I didn't remember how much everybody got. And I said, I said, hey, how much did you give when we gave that money away a couple of years ago?

• 6:20Speaker 02

  And he said, I don't remember. And I'm like, you don't remember? How could you not remember? It's like the most money we've ever given away, ever, you know? And so I immediately walked down to Julie's office and said, hey, we're not doing that again. And I started thinking. What could we do that they would never forget? And that's how this, the genesis of kind of this idea to give Bitcoin to our people. And then I thought, I want to take it a step further. We're going to mine Bitcoin. Like, we're going to start at the origin of Bitcoin. We're going to learn. I'm kind of a Bitcoin enthusiast to begin with, obviously. But I didn't really know mining. And I thought, well, here's a way for me to kind of learn mining. And so we went to the employees and said, hey, listen, we've got a new initiative. We're going to invest in mining equipment. And we're going to give Bitcoin away for free.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  No cost to you. All you have to do is stay. We have a five-year plan. So if you stay five years, you get the Bitcoin. And so we started mining Bitcoin in the summer of 22 on behalf of our employees. And, you know, I've told this story a few times to people. And every time they say, that story needs to be told. And I always think, well, I guess it is kind of unique. I've never talked to anybody else that did it. But it's, it's not a hard thing to do. It's just, we thought to do it. And so now we, we mine every single day, right here on location, for our people. And they get payouts every, it's starting in 27, every five years. We've made a commitment to do this every single year. And I think one of the values of mining for everybody is that we do it on location.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  You know, Bitcoin can be kind of mysterious, right? It's like this magic internet money that people can't see. But the miners are on location. They can hear them. They can see them when they walk by. And it's like, oh yeah, that's that thing that the, that's that thing that Mike and Julie are always talking about that we don't really understand. But it's there. And I guess there's some good to it. We have a, we have a monitor out in our warehouse that displays like the per share for everybody and how much it's worth. And, and even though they may not understand all the nuances of Bitcoin and what it is. And, you know, people can debate back and forth about game theory and all these high-level topics. What they can see is that every few months, that number on that screen goes up. And I'm not exactly sure why, but I know that's good for me.

• 8:33Anthony Pompliano?

  When we talk about Bitcoin, I think that people get really excited and they want to talk about micro strategy and they want to talk about countries buying it and you know BlackRock has now got an ETF and it's always about like the biggest organizations. You guys run a small business in Bowling Green. It's a very successful business, you've got 130 people that work there, but it's still a small business that isn't BlackRock. Talk a little bit about the business and kind of what you guys are doing on a day-to-day basis to maybe put some context around this whole idea of a small business leaning into Bitcoin really to benefit their individual employees.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Sure. So like we said, we're in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We do custom screen printing and embroidery. So like the shirts we're wearing, we printed these. We actually handed these out when we announced the initiative. But any times clubs, groups, organizations, businesses come together, that's where our product lives. And so we have people who are working right here. You know, we have some college educated, a lot of high school educated. We train everybody from the ground up to do this work. But it was just a way for us to impact them a little bit differently. And let me add a little something to this. Mike said he is the Bitcoin enthusiast. That was not, we were not in this together from the beginning. I supported the initiative, but like I still didn't know much. I mean, I was just like our employees. And when he announced it, everyone,

• 9:50Speaker 03

  we kind of, everyone just looked at us with the dead eyes, kind of like, okay, thank you, you know, moving on. And we told him like, hey, this may not work. And the good part is you're, it's at no risk of your personal capital. So if it doesn't work, you're out nothing. If it does work, it's huge for you. And so I think what a lot of small businesses know is that you have to communicate until you're blue in the face and you have to communicate some more to share the vision of your company. You have to do the things that you know are right to do for your employees, even when they don't see that it's the right thing to do. And we were just trying to give them a way to get ahead and have some skin in the game.

• 10:28Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the average pay that some of these employees are making? And then before the Bitcoin kind of initiative, how long were they staying on average? Right? You always hear that kind of labor is so hard for small businesses in America to retain.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  That is, the people part is the toughest part and during COVID it exacerbated that, you know, times a multiple of who knows what. Our average pay is probably about $17 an hour. So it's like, we do not have like a super highly paid workforce or super highly trained workforce in terms of like higher education, but it's a lot of good, you know, honest, hardworking people that come to work. And Anthony, the, you know, one of the real drivers of this was, those people are the very people getting hurt the most from our like government policy, you know, and from inflation, just thinking about just in terms of inflation, people without a lot of assets that have an hourly wage, they get hit the hardest. And frankly, we wanted to do something to help our people. I think, you know, hopefully there's a lot

• 11:30Speaker 02

  of small business owners or, you know, founders are listening or watching this podcast and, you know, everybody wants to do the same thing. You want to do, you want to do right by your employees, you want to do right by your customers. So we all have that in common and we just thought, how do we help our people fight back? They're getting slaughtered by inflation. And sometimes they don't even know it, you know, inflation is kind of a hidden tax. They can't really calculate that. But we knew it. And I thought, you know, what can we do to give them a fighting chance? What can we do to give them some agency? What can we do to give them kind of a seat at the table? Get their hands on something. And so we thought, well, I mean, I believe Bitcoin's the hardest asset in the world and I believe it's a way to project, you know, time and energy forward, or at least energy forward, you know, for a very long time, even after we're gone.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  And here's a way to give them something. Maybe they don't understand it yet. Hey, let me tell you something. They've become more believers. All the last couple of weeks, they've become big believers. That number on that board's gone by like over 50% of their share. They may not understand all of it, like I said earlier, but they can understand that there's something there. And I know that I'm giving them something that's going to last for a long time. So. I think even though, you know, we're not the highest paid industry, you know, we're screen printing embroidery, we can still do something to give our people an opportunity to have a really improved and rich life down the road.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  So let me give you some context, like we're in a manufacturing park and in an industrial park and we're competing with some big names in the business, you know, they have plants all across the country. We're a one location shop. And so as they drive into work, there are other companies that have banners in the front yard of their businesses saying starting pay $20, sign on bonus, this, that, the other. We didn't have that. And so we kind of set out in 2022 of just like getting really clear about our business and what we wanted to be, what we wanted to do for our people. And we just had the strong sense that we wanted to create a future for the people who walk through the store, that they have a life they never thought they would have had by joining up with Blue Cotton.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  And this is just a piece of that. So whatever their dreams look like, if it's to take a family vacation, to buy homes and their kids to college, that when they came to Blue Cotton, a screen printing embroidery company, that they got to achieve all of their personal goals. And so this was just one, one way for us to get them.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And we're able to do that without selling part of the company. We're able to take this asset, Bitcoin, invest in it and then let it do the work. And so it's a way for them really to have ownership without having ownership in the actual company.

• 14:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, one of the things that I think a lot about is on the country level, we have seen countries like El Salvador, Bhutan, et cetera, who have gone and obviously embraced Bitcoin. But it's the classic innovator's dilemma, right? The biggest countries have the most to lose, so they don't take risk. Whereas the smallest countries have the least to lose, and so they take risk. I think you all are a great example of the beneficiary of something similar, where when you are smaller, you don't have a bunch of cash laying around that you're like, oh, we could just hand this out like candy. Instead, we have to get creative. We have to be innovative. Let's talk about the details of the program that you all created. So you gave away the cash in 2020, you get to 2022.

• 14:42Anthony Pompliano?

  You bought miners, the miners are creating Bitcoin, that Bitcoin is sitting in a pot. And then it's almost like, uh, if you are an employee, you have a certain percentage of the pot. And you have to stay five years to receive it, but if you leave, you don't get it. Is that kind of the best way to think about this, Mike?

• 14:57Speaker 02

  That's exactly, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it's, and it look, we started out just wanting to do something good for our people. But Anthony, let me tell you what the result was. The result was our turnover practically went away. And we had a lot of turnover. I mean, I'm embarrassed to say, for a long time, we didn't even track it. You know, turnovers, you know, you always talk about inflation is a hidden tax on people. Turnover is like a hidden tax on business because you don't actually write a check for it. But when we went back and figured it, we were turning over like 108%. So you think we have 130 people, we're hiring like 140 people every year for those 130 positions. And honestly, 60 of those 130 were probably weren't leaving.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  It was the other 60 that were turning, so we're turning 60 jobs 130 times a year, 140 times a year. And the crazy thing is when we did this, now we did a few other things too. This was just the most impactful. But our turnover has gone down to under 50%. And we credit, we largely credit that to this Bitcoin initiative that we launched. Because they feel like there's something here for them. It's not just an hourly job. And we, and you know, and we have a scoreboard out there in the warehouse, like I mentioned. And you know, people play differently when they're keeping score and they're able to see that score every single day. And they feel like, hey, there's something here for us. I mean, there's a great story. I, I, I hope we have time for this, but my, my wife was getting her hair done here in town.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  And she was sitting next to this lady, this lady did not know that she was my wife. She did not know that Becky was involved with Blue Cotton, but this lady is one of our employees. And she's talking to her hairdresser about retiring. And she wants to move to Florida. And she said, you know, I would already go, except our company gives away this thing called Bitcoin. And I'm not leaving until I get my share. So I'm staying the whole five years until I get it. And when I get it, then I'm going to move to Florida. You know what? That woman couldn't talk to you at all about what Peter Schiff believes about Bitcoin, or what Robert Breelove believes about Bitcoin, or price, or whatever. But she understands, hey, this thing's going to impact my future. And that's exactly what we were trying to do.

• 17:02Anthony Pompliano?

  It's this beautiful thing where you've essentially plugged your employees. We talk a lot about companies plugging into the Bitcoin network, but in a way you all plugged your employees in. Julie, when you guys did this, I think you were saying that you're similar to the employees. Right? You're like, hey, I've heard about Bitcoin, but maybe I'm not the expert here. What do you hear from the employees in terms of their understanding now? It's obvious that when they see a scoreboard, it's like, hey, I got some money there. And so that's pretty big. But if you had to score the understanding on like a one to 10 scale, how would you think about that?

• 17:37Speaker 03

  So we have two groups of employees that make up about a third of our workforce that we have like personal development classes with every week. I would say that they have a really good understanding because we just finished up a personal finance series and two of those five weeks was about Bitcoin. And so the thing that we realize is all the things that Mike have just talked about, we didn't talk about any of that stuff with them. You have to come down to what does this mean for you? Like, we have to put it in terms of like, this is how it's going to be impactful for you. They don't need to know all the specifics of Bitcoin. If they want to, we can get into that with them, but it just comes down to how can we work on this with you? So now we have employees talking about jokingly saying

• 18:20Speaker 03

  they're going to have to get some people fired so that their share goes up.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  But really, I just think that they see, especially now, I mean, it's with anything. You know, seeing is believing. So now that that number is going up, we do have a lot more enthusiasm for it. But we were trying to teach long-term thinking. We just have a lot of people that just kind of, what's right in front of them is what they see, what they believe. So trying to give them a kind of a different perspective, kind of to build some thick skin as things go up and down and realize that you still do these things because they'll pay off in the future. And so these are just type of life lessons that we're giving to our team. And you know, some people embrace it more than others, but I'd say when that first payout comes, they'll all be a huge cheerleaders.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, you might imagine, I mean, look, we can paint it all sound as pretty as we want it to look. But the fact of the matter is in June of 22, when I called everybody together on the floor and talked about this. I mean, they most 95% of them looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. They're like, what in the world? In fact, Julie mentioned these personal development classes that we that we give on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And I had a girl the other day, we're talking about we're talking about financial wellness. We had a whole session on Bitcoin, two sessions on Bitcoin. And she's looking at me and I looked over and I just said, Jensen, you don't believe war of this, do you? And she she just looked at me and I said, one of these days, we're gonna make you so rich. And we're gonna do it using Bitcoin and you're gonna come back and say, I really appreciate you doing that for me.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  So, look, some people get it more than others. The payouts haven't started happening yet, but that monitor in the warehouse that shows the price that keeps going up. And we have an employee meeting every month and every month I say, hey, how's our Bitcoin investment doing? And granted, we have to drive it more from the top. It's it's not just like, it's not just like ground swell of support from our people yet. Although it's been two and a half years and we went from maybe three or four people out of 100 that cared about it on day one. And now there's probably 30 or 40 people out of 130 that actively ask me, hey, what's going on with the Bitcoin? And so it's it's growing. It's been two and a half years. We're only halfway to our first payout, but that adoption is growing.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  And and we have recent investors. We have people who have not invested in anything and they've just gotten into the market with Bitcoin. So they're trying, they're dipping their toes. I mean, for us, we just preach like getting in the game is more important than not. But I think their personal adoption of it and them using their own money has just been a great sign that that they're catching on.

• 20:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it's this idea that, you know, you all do it for them. You expose them to the ideas. The personal development classes, obviously, are something that most businesses don't do, but that are very commendable that you guys do. And then once people are armed with knowledge, they are like, hey, my my boss, my business has plugged me in. Maybe I should also do some of this myself. And I think that this is it's very natural, I think, in terms of how Bitcoin adoption has happened, right? Is, you know, usually it's your friend, it's somebody you know, whatever, who went and they bought some Bitcoin. And then the old joke that how do you know someone has Bitcoin? They'll tell you, right? And so the word of mouth spreads and as You learn about it. Everyone is, you know, a little bit cautious. They're kind of skeptical.

• 21:30Anthony Pompliano?

  There's no way that this is a real thing. But ultimately, I think the point that you guys made of you have hourly wage workers, which you're paying higher than minimum wage, right? You're doing the best you can, but you're running a business. And so you've got to be able to grow and invest and buy machinery and do, you know, all the complexities of these businesses. But wow, how powerful is it that, hey, maybe we can pay the bulk of their pay in dollars? But if we pay a little bit in Bitcoin, this Bitcoin thing may be able to take care of them is is pretty powerful. What is currently the amount that, you know, maybe the range of employees have in this pot? And then what do you guys expect it to be, you know, when you actually get to two and a half years down the road and you'll start doing payouts?

• 22:14Speaker 02

  We bought the miners back in 2022. We actually did two sets of buys. And then we also, at one point, when the price dipped so much at the end of 22, we actually just bought two coins to kind of juice the juice the deal. But right now, just that program that we have just for our employees has got just over four coins in it. And we believe that we'll have six by 2030. And so, you know, extrapolate that out to whatever you think the price is, and divide that by the number of people that we think stay, you know, we feel like, I told you, we employ about 130 people. The people that will stay five years, that's probably about half, you know, we kind of factor it based on about 60 people. So, you know, take six coins times whatever the price you think is,

• 22:56Speaker 02

  divide that by 60 and, and you know what, Anthony, I'm willing to bet, I'm willing to bet they won't forget that number. It won't be like 2020. They won't just cheer and then walk away and it wasn't impactful. I'm willing to bet we can make a significant dent in these people's lives, really enrich them, perhaps even generationally, perhaps if the number, you know, if it's a sailor case, you know, if it's even if it's sailors, like medium case of 13 million, you know, 13 million times six divided by 60 is more money than a lot of these people ever dreamed they would see. And, and, and we just are thrilled with the fact that, you know what, we have a way to do something super impactful for our people. Everybody wants to take care of their employees. Everybody wants to take care of their customers. This is just a kind of innovative and unique way

• 23:40Speaker 02

  to do it. You know, we don't, we own this business. We can be flexible. We don't have to adhere to the corporate status quo. We can do whatever we want. And we just thought, you know what, this is a cool way to get involved.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  I think the important thing to know is just that all of this originated out of a desire to impact our people in a way that just, uh, we got a lot more bang for our buck than just giving out. So some people may say, I mean, like, we'll just be completely transparent. At the beginning, we invested a hundred and twenty thousand on behalf of our employees to cover the twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine payout. Some people would say, well, why did even our employees would say, well, why don't you just give us that hundred twenty thousand on our, on our paycheck? Well, for all the reasons that we believe in Bitcoin and, and the value of that versus the dollar, but also, um, if we don't know how to manage our money, then it doesn't matter what we pay you. You're, it's going

• 24:34Speaker 03

  to be gone. And so we're, we're just trying to, we're kind of bought ourselves five years to really to encourage our people, educate and personal finance. I mean, I know there's a lot of big corporation people listening to, but from a small business level educated or high school educated employees, you know, personal finance, it's not something we talk about. It's not something that we know. We have, haven't always had great examples of how to manage our money. And so that's just a very personal topic. And so these are baby steps. Like we're talking about something that we've been doing for three years now. Um, and it takes a lot of time to build the trust of the, of your people to even like, look at you as someone who can help them, that you're in it for them

• 25:15Speaker 03

  and not in it for yourself. So I just think, uh, the thing that it's done for our people is just giving them more confidence in their own financial future and learning about that and being able to have some people to talk about and have some discussion. But the thing that it's done for our company, which we did not set out to do, but it's just, it's just what happens is that we have gotten stronger. So Mike mentioned our retention has risen, you know, turnover's gone down. And what that means for our business, which is a very manual skilled work of, of screen printing. You know, everyone wants their shirt to be done correctly. Well, when people aren't turning over all the time, they have more knowledge. They have more experience. They can work faster with less mistakes. And so we've produced more this year than we ever have. We've had zero days of mandatory overtime,

• 26:00Speaker 03

  which has never happened. So that provides more of a work-life balance for our employees. And It's just a better experience for our customers. So we did this for employees, but really everyone is benefiting from it.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't stress enough. I mean, we've had overtime every year and that we've had the biggest year we've ever had. We have not had one single day of mandatory overtime. And that's because our retention is so much higher, the experience of our people so much better. And that, you know, when we set out to give Bitcoin away two and a half years ago, nobody thought, oh, we won't have overtime in 2024. But you know what? We don't. It's changed. It has changed the small little input, right? Small little input, and it's changed our business. And, and that's why we're here talking about it, because we think other people have the ability to do the same thing. And it's, it's, it's not rocket science. It's just, you know, how about investing in an asset for your people that's gonna, that has staying power? And then just see what it does for your company. It's done a lot for us.

• 26:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's talk about, um, if you were talking to another small business owner and they wanted to go and, and explore this, um, what are the lessons that you all have learned over the last two, two and a half years? Um, are the things that you would do differently? Or how would you say, look, this is, you know, this is the way to kind of run this playbook?

• 27:13Speaker 02

  I would say education is a big part of it. You know, we, we could have, we could have made this announcement, put the number on the monitor, but you've got to talk about it all the time. Um, we started these, um, we started these personal development classes, which by the way, we bought your book. We bought like copies of your book for all of our people. And, and, and that book is tremendous. It's these like short little lessons that are so practical. And we're using like, that's the kind of content we're using in these personal development classes. And so it's, it's education of how to just basically improve people's lives. We say all the time, hey, everybody wants to get better. So let's have more discipline. Let's have more physical discipline, uh, community discipline, spiritual

• 27:55Speaker 02

  discipline, financial discipline. Uh, let's read, let's try to improve ourselves. And so I think the advice that I would give is if you're going to do this, it's more than just buy some Bitcoin and put it in a cold storage for your people, or, or even if you want to mine and, you know, and that's a little more involved, but we just wanted to do that because we want to learn mining. But it's a little more than just buying it and putting it in cold storage. There's also the work that goes in of lifting people up, pointing them towards something. They probably didn't see, you know, we started out with these groups. There was a group of 22 people and a group of another 22 people. And we called them the 22 and the next 22. But after this financial wellness series that we just went through for the last five weeks and we ended with the last two weeks on Bitcoin. Now we call it the Millionaires Club.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Because I have shown everybody in those groups, Anthony, I told you earlier, our average wage is about $17 an hour. But I have shown every single person in those two groups, that's 44 of our 130 people. They can be millionaires when they're 65 with just a little bit of discipline, with the inputs that, you know, we have a 401k. We have all the traditional things that they can invest in. But with this Bitcoin initiative and just a little bit of financial discipline, hey, you can be a millionaire. And, and we've got people thinking, a millionaire, like, I could never be a millionaire, but they can be. So I just think it's, it's more than just buying the coin and putting it in a vault. It's educating and teaching and pointing and thinking about long-term and getting people to look past the end of their nose.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  That's, that's kind of the key to, to drive it home.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say that it's, you can't just do it and walk away from it. It's not like I said it and forget it. I think you have to get really clear on why you're doing it for your people. If it's just trying to be a grab of good talent, like, it's not going to work that way. So it is a little bit more effort simply on the education and letting people know the good thing that's happening for them. So it's not to pat yourself on the back, but people have to really understand the good things, that the benefits that they're getting from being with your company.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a culture move for us. Bitcoin is truth. Bitcoin is transparency. Bitcoin is long-term thinking. It's like, we're able, and these are the kinds of things we want to, like, you know, our people to digest and, and that kind of thinking, because that makes them better and it makes our business better, which is better for our customers too.

• 30:14Anthony Pompliano?

  I was just gonna ask, as you all become known as the Bitcoin company, which is maybe one of my goals in doing this, have you seen a response from customers? Is there anything that has affected there? Maybe before you guys come on and do this podcast conversation?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Well, we actually accept Bitcoin as payment. So, you know, we have our online, our website, bluecon.com. That's where we generate most of our business. You can actually go to bluecon.com and place your order and pay in Bitcoin.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  And people have.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  And people have. It's not been as much of a customer-facing thing as it's been an employee-facing thing. But, but the word in our community, and we live in a community of, our county's about 135, 140,000 people, so it's not, you know, it's not a huge city. And we've got about, like I said, 130 people and they're out there talking. And so, you know, I will hear people say, oh, don't you guys, uh, don't y'all, are y'all like in, something about Bitcoin, and most of them don't even know what Bitcoin is. And I'm like, yeah. And then that gives us kind of a platform to talk about it. So, it's a great talking point. It's a great way to educate. And, you know, I'm all about wanting to increase adoption. Like, I'm a big Bitcoin believer myself, personally, and I want to increase adoption. And part of this for me was, hey, because I look, Anthony, I want to be the president.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Okay, let's just, you know, I'd like to be the president, but I'm not going to be the president, but here's what I can do. I can impact about 100 people. And I'm going to do all I can to impact those 100 people and I'm going to spread the truth about what I believe to be the best asset in the world.

• 31:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Mike, you got Julie's vote and my vote, so you're two of the way there.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Well, I'll be the deep state managing everything from behind. Um, I would say that, you know, when we first put this out, we, people would say, oh, Bitcoin, and they were kind of like snicker a little bit, which, you know, it's, it's just an interesting thing. Now that it's catching on, it's, it's a different narrative. I mean, when Mike, Mike was meeting with some other well-known business owners in our... Hometown. And when he explained to them what we're doing, the man said, well, no one's ever gonna leave your company. And we're like, exactly. But so it's it's increased kind of the competition for jobs around here. We don't just have to settle for low performers. You know, we have people wanting to get in, trying to get a job here. So now we have our pick of to find the

• 32:28Speaker 03

  the top culture fits and top performers. But I will say, we put out a press release about this earlier this year, maybe, or right into last year. And you put it on LinkedIn, zero, zero traction. And so I don't know if we would put that out now, what it would do. But it was just such a foreign concept, period, much less for a business to do for employees.

• 32:51Anthony Pompliano?

  Don't worry, we'll take care of that for you guys. And I think if we put it on Twitter, there might be a few more people more excited.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, to answer your question, though, do our customers know about it? No, but they feel it. They get the benefits of it. And so it's not a direct benefit to the the training and things we've done, but simply by retaining people. Their skills have gotten better, they can work faster, people get their orders complete, and just as they expected. So our reviews are good. Let's just say that.

• 33:17Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing. I think my message, everyone, is bluecotton.com. You guys are pioneering, you know, an entirely new way to plug a business into the Bitcoin network. And, you know, for those who are just pure investors, they may not understand some of the ancillary benefits. But just hearing the two of you talk, every single person that owns a business immediately understands the language of retention, you know, high performance, better quality, serving the customer, you know, all of these things are things that people, regardless of whether they know about Bitcoin, don't know about it, care about it, don't care about it, they're constantly trying to get their business to kind of check these boxes and deliver on this stuff. And so if there's something out there that can help with those

• 34:00Anthony Pompliano?

  things, who cares if it's Bitcoin or something else, right? It's ultimately, can we be more efficient? Can we have better people? Can we, you know, have that retention? Can we better deliver for our customers? It's a pretty powerful concept.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  We agree.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. It's just a, it's a cool way to take this really innovative and powerful tool and plug it in and see what happens. You know, I think, I think when Bitcoin started, people thought about it as a currency and then they thought about it as a store of value and now they're talking about it as national strategic defense. But, you know, it's got a lot more use cases than I think. I don't know. I don't know what Satoshi knew. He knew a lot, but did he know that it would be used the way that's being used today? I don't know. I don't know that he knew it was going to impact a company in Bowling Green, Kentucky, real people on the ground and just give them a fighting chance. I don't know if he knew that, but you know what? It's happening.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  You know, something we always say in talking about our business is that T-shirts mark the memories of our lives. You know, like, we know who you are, but we don't really know you. But if I said, "Hey, pump, go get me your T-shirt drawer," I could look at the things that you've kept. It would just tell me the story of your life and the things that are important to you. And so we get a lot of satisfaction out of being in a company that does meaningful work. And so this was just one more way to kind of just really bring the whole thing together of connecting with our employees, connecting with our customers, giving them dignity in their work, a meaningful experience that every single product they're working on is so important to the customer. So are widgets and car frames and things

• 35:28Speaker 03

  like this, but these are products that they're not going to throw away very soon. So we just feel like we're impacting our customers. Now we get to impact our employees in a very meaningful way. So it's all come together for us.

• 35:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. Thank you guys for taking the time to, to do this. I think that your story is not only one that is, is pretty powerful, but also it's inspiring, hopefully, to many other business owners. And I will point everyone to bluecotton.com if they want to support you guys or they need T-shirts and clothing. But also, is there an email that maybe you guys want to give out if there's other business owners that want to reach out and harass you for, for all the details on how to do this?

• 36:04Speaker 02

  They can reach out to me directly, [email protected]. You know, put Bitcoin in the subject line. That'll grab my attention and I'm happy to, I'm happy to talk to anybody about it, spread the, spread the gospel around about it. We want to, we want to use it to impact as many people as we can.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, we welcome any people who want to come out here too. But yeah, [email protected]. Mike will be a great one to talk about Bitcoin. I can talk about how to help your people.

• 36:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing. Thank you guys both for doing this and I'm excited to see what happens in two and a half years.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot, Anthony. We appreciate it.