Your UGC Sucks: How Hero Content Scaled This Brand From $3M to $2B With Jacques Spitzer

Jacques Spitzer is the CEO of Raindrop, a four-time Emmy® award-winning creative agency. Under his leadership, Raindrop has produced high-impact ads that have generated over a billion views and more than $1 billion in campaign sales for brands like Dr. Squatch, Manscaped, and Native. Jacques was named one of California’s most visionary CEOs by the Los Angeles Times. He also co-produced the award-winning documentary Wampler's Ascent and is an investor in multiple consumer brands. Jacques is the author of People Love Turkey Sandwiches, a collection of marketing parables designed to inspire innovation.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:40] Why every $40M+ brand needs a second major marketing channel to scale
[9:40] What differentiates top-performing, branded content from UGC?
[13:31] Jacques Spitzer’s experience producing videos for MrBeast and what he learned about content creation
[19:28] The process for creating shareable, attention-grabbing YouTube ads
[31:31] Jacques talks about the hidden cost of not investing in a second ad channel
[35:53] How product market fit impacts creative campaigns
[43:47] Why Jacques started Raindrop
[48:32] The biggest risk Dr. Squatch took with its content — and why it worked
[53:03] Separating brands that scale from those that stagnate
[58:30] How having supportive parents influenced Jacques’ career
[1:12:10] Jacques’ advice to his son and aspiring entrepreneurs

In this episode…

Many brands rely on a single ad channel, like Meta, to drive sales, but this can stall growth. Yet these brands often realize their brand-centric content doesn’t perform on other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or connected TV. How can brands create compelling, high-performing ads tailored for multiple channels without losing their identity?

Award-winning creative strategist Jacques Spitzer maintains that each channel requires a unique creative approach, and brands must adjust content for various viewing experiences to drive engagement. Additionally, rather than creating ads centered solely around your brand identity, you should generate consumer-focused content by addressing your audience’s needs and emotions. Jacques also warns against relying too heavily on UGC or performance-driven creative without investing in top-of-funnel, storytelling-based content that builds long-term brand affinity.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris interviews Jacques Spitzer, CEO of Raindrop, about the secrets to creating high-impact content for multiple advertising channels. Jacques talks about Dr. Squatch’s risky campaign, the components of a great ad, and the difference between high-growth and stagnating brands.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“Most brands have never made an ad that someone would actually forward to a friend.”
“If your ad isn’t better than the MrBeast video someone’s about to watch, it won’t work on YouTube.”
“The biggest winners in DTC aren’t just running ads; they’re building brands people love.”
“Your content shouldn’t revolve around your brand — it should revolve around your customer.”
“Taking risks with creative is scary, but not doing it is a much bigger risk to your brand.”

Action Steps

Diversify your marketing channels: If you’re scaling past $40M, you need a second major ad channel — whether it’s YouTube, TV, or TikTok. Expanding beyond a single platform reduces risk and increases your ability to reach new audiences effectively.
Rethink your creative strategy: UGC won’t cut it forever. Invest in high-quality, storytelling-driven content that resonates beyond niche audiences: compelling brand narratives help establish long-term customer loyalty and elevate the perception of your brand.
Adapt your ads for each platform: Content that works on Meta won’t necessarily succeed on YouTube or TV. Each platform has unique engagement patterns, so tailor your messaging and production style to fit its specific audience expectations.
Measure success beyond clicks: YouTube and TV ads won’t always show direct attribution. Use tools like branded search lift, geo-holdouts, and post-purchase surveys to get a clearer picture of how top-of-funnel ads impact your overall sales.
Take bigger creative swings: The brands that scale are the ones willing to take creative risks. Playing it safe leads to forgettable ads, so focus on making content that entertains, informs, and genuinely connects with consumers.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:16

Hey everyone. I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million and beyond, as you up arrow your business and your personal life. Joining me today is Jacques Spitzer. To some. Jacques is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of some of the greatest performing commercials of all time. To those he works with, Jacques is a passionate leader, connector and storyteller with an innate ability to build brands and create marketing that people love. His four times Emmy award-winning eight-figure agency Raindrop has generated over a billion views and a billion dollars in campaign sales for brands like Dr. Squatch, Manscaped, Loom, native Pori Ridge and more, Raindrop was also behind the top performing YouTube ad of 2020, and the Dr. Squatch Super Bowl commercial. Today, we're going to be talking about ad content that will get you to 2 billion and Hint It's not UGC Jacques, excited to have you on the show today.

Jacques Spitzer 1:12

I’m so excited to be here and ready to rock. What an intro. And I better be an enigma. I guess I better. Better be a mystery wrapped inside of something else.

William Harris 1:22

Yeah, you need almost like a dark shadow coming over here, like half lighting. I don't know, split lighting, right? What is it? You know better than I do what the different lighting styles are. I want to give a shout out to Jacob Burkhouse, your growth director. He and I were chatting about things, and I was like, Dude, you got to get Jacques on the podcast. So he made the intro. So Jacob, thank you very much for making this intro.

Jacques Spitzer 1:42

Jacob is the man appreciate. Jacob is one of those people who is genuinely curious about everything. And I love like, you know, he's always sending me stuff on, whether it's LinkedIn, on on Instagram, he's just always got his finger on the pulse of what's happening out there. So I appreciate you connected us. Yeah,

William Harris 2:04

Curiosity is is just paramount to just anything I love it before we dig into the good stuff. I do want to announce our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we felt 13 of our customers get acquired with the largest one that sold for nearly 800,000,001 that IPOed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt.com, which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N t.com, that said on to the good stuff, go to

Jacques Spitzer 2:33

the Elumynt website. Yeah,

William Harris 2:35

thank you. Okay, so you and I were chatting, and you told me that every brand that has gone from 40 million to 100 million plus has had to find a second major channel. Why is this always true?

Jacques Spitzer 2:50

Man, just you're hitting me with the good stuff right off the bat. Well, let's think about it this way. So one of the things that we see with a lot of brands early on is that they find, like every brand kind of has to find a channel that works for them. And I'll give you some examples of what we tend to see. Some brands come to us, you know, and they've, they've gotten from zero to 20 million, 30 million, 40 million, whether it's, you know, on TikTok Shops, or many of them are Meta focused. Some of them are a little bit more bottom funnel, sort of Google Shopping focused, right? What you'll tend to see is that people, most of what we see is that people either have a really, really strong Meta presence, that's, that's, that's 80% of time what we see, but we do see brands that really dominate on TikTok. We have people that come to us that they have only ever been able to scale and work with. They come, you know, got to $20 million in sales only on YouTube, and they can't figure out how to get interesting Meta to work for them and their audience, or people that come to us in television has been their only channel, right? So I would say to be a brand that gets to that revenue size, you tend to have to have at least one channel that is a dominant channel that you can grow and scale. And the reason that I throughout, I think 40 million is a is a pretty good number, because I think that's kind of what we tend to see, be this place where you have this almost diminishing marginal return, especially on Meta, where it's like, if you continue to spend and spend and spend you're, you know, you tend to see bigger swings and like, just month to month, day to day, activity, whatever the algorithm decides to do, that day, that week, that month. And you know, the brands that we have worked with who have gotten to, you know, 200 million in sales, 500 million sales, a billion dollars in sales, they tend to be able to create a. Secondary channel that can compete at times, even with their primary channel. And I oftentimes think of it as like an airplane, where imagine that an airplane only needs one propeller to fly. It's like, well, that works, but if you were to have two propellers, right? And it's a little The analogy is not perfect, because a two prop airplane does need two propellers to work, but the idea is, like, if you have two propellers, you can, not only can you go faster, but like, if one of them is experiencing trouble, then the other one keeps going, right? And so usually the one two combo we're seeing is a brand has Meta, and they've, they've seen success and scaled it, but they're just sort of like hitting this sort of, I want to call it a to call it a wall, but it is like a moment where, I should say they could be hitting a wall. Some brands reach out to us as they're reaching this, like, well, we're actually going a little bit backwards. We have our favorite and then the best moment to reach out is the winner. You're like, look, I want to get ahead of this, like I nothing is broken with what I'm trying to do. But I'm like, if I want to get to double, triple where I'm headed, I can't just rely on one dominant channel with very little spend these other channels. So what we end up seeing is that a brand will figure out how to leverage a secondary channel to drive to lift all the boats, really. And so imagine you're a brand, you're on Amazon, maybe you're on Shopify, maybe you're in some retail, and you have net as your primary driver. It's like, well, we tend to see something like a YouTube, really, pair well there because for a variety of factors, a lot of times it's lower CPMs, we're able to reach people in a targeted way. I can speak to way more about like, why 99% of people fail on YouTube, sure, but, but like YouTube, we see be a main driver, and we see connected television and linear TV still be great channels to counterbalance the growth and the top of funnel, really, that Meta provides, and it does lift all channels, like you will see more spillover if you're on Amazon, on your Amazon, like you will see just again, additional spillover. I mean, even we have brands that only do Meta, and there's still a ton of spillover to their Amazon anyway, right? Like, that's not news to anybody, but that's only going to compound as you add additional channels. But, man, it's just something that I've seen time and time again. Once you can crack a secondary channel that you can rely on to scale and spend against, it just gives you so much room to run.

William Harris 7:39

Yeah, I like the second channel piece because I think one of the things that I appreciate, at least as the media buyer about it is that it usually forces a brand to have to re think a lot of their content strategy anyways. So if you're going from Meta and now you're going to YouTube or CTV or tick tock or anywhere else, right? Like, you have to rethink what you're doing, because the same content isn't necessarily going to work. There elements of it will right? And so it's like, you'll say a lot of times, I'll say you could take something from tick tock and it will usually perform decently well on Meta and YouTube shorts. Can't take something from Meta and bring it over into tick tock, typically, if you haven't already cracked the Tick Tock style content. Same thing is, you can't take your Meta ads and bring them to YouTube, typically. And so what I find is that it's usually a good opportunity for brands to really start to think what it is that they're doing from a content perspective. And that's the thing that I like, because then like to your point, it helps all of the channels perform better. Now your Meta starts performing better because you actually have different content that's going to work different that's going to work differently, reaching different people. And so that's really where I wanted to take this today, is really more on the content side. That's where you guys focus. When you think about what I'll call hero content, I don't know what you call it. Maybe you call it something different. I'd love to know if you have a name for it. But like content that is a level above, beyond, just like your typical influencer, UGC, or even the stuff that we call, like performance creative, which is like, you know, what we're gonna end up working on is just taking, like, your assets and putting it into some basic, you know, ads and things like that. But when you're taking it into like, really good content, when you think about what that content is like, what does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like like? What makes that good content?

Jacques Spitzer 9:26

Let's, let's go ahead and lick this content like as an ice cream, a scoop of ice cream, so we can really get a flavor hit our palette.

William Harris 9:37

Oh, man on that. Yeah, yes.

Jacques Spitzer 9:40

So man, well, asked question. I guess I have three sort of reactions to the question. I think I want to talk a little bit so you can keep me honest. I want to talk a little bit about because kind of the question is, well, if it's so obvious, add a second channel, why wouldn't you just go? Ahead and do it sure like and it's like, well, there's kind of three reasons. One is, it takes different type of creative to win in those channels. It takes different types of media buying and very specific parameters to see success and then actually tracking and understanding the success. The attribution component of it is blur. Is more blurry and more confusing as well. So when I talk about all three of those, when it how the Creative Matters in that so, so the reason that most brand like I see Meta, I'm I'm really going hard on Meta, and I guess Google Shopping in this in this case, because you know what it takes to be successful there to sell a product. The beauty of those platforms is that it's relatively low lift, like you can just stick a static ad that you made in Canva or a UTC video into Meta, and it could do millions of dollars in sales for you, right, right? And so it's very difficult for people to like, you know, you're growing this brand, you're driving forward. I should say, you know you're selling product. I don't know if you're necessarily growing the brand, but you're, you know, you're selling product. And so it's hard for people to then go, Okay, what type of creative do I need to invest in, and what type of storytelling do I need to do, and what channel should I do it in? And so you use the term hero content. I'm going to more generally refer to it as, like, top of funnel content got Yep. And the reason, I don't know that there's like, an exact perfect word, but the reason I'm gonna say that is, most brands have never made an ad that anyone would forward to a friend. Yes, exactly, right. No one. A lot of brands haven't made an ad even coming from their own brand voice, it's come from someone else. It's all UGC, it's all statics, so they haven't even developed. I mean, you can be a $50 million company and have no brand voice, right? Totally, yes, seen a lot, and that's very real, very real. And it's part of the plateau, and it's part of the frustration. Is then, okay, well now we're going to go into a platform like television or YouTube, where you have to have some sense of what are we communicating, what's our story, what's our brand, voice, and one of the things that I'm really big on preaching, because we've seen a lot of success on YouTube. We've had over 20 campaigns scale to more than 10 million views, paid, you know, paid views we've had, we've had ads do 100 million views, quarter billion views, right? Scalably, meaning they just, they just kept selling, and so you just keep spending behind them. And our big ethos is like, we need to make an ad better than the MrBeast video you're about to watch, right? Yes, which is, which is crazy, because we actually, a year ago, got a call from MrBeast team who recognized your ads. And they're like, Hey, can you work with us on some some projects? So we got a chance to work with them. But I was like, how cool is it that MrBeast people recognize that we understand attention for that channel in the same way that they do. Does that make sense?

William Harris 13:26

Were you working directly with him, though, not just his people? Did you get to, like, sit

Jacques Spitzer 13:31

in a room with him? I get let me, let me back up and say, Okay, did I? Was I in the same room as Mr. B's? Yes, right, but, but the majority of our communication was with, you know, people that work there. In fact, they've now gone on the people that we worked directly with, just executive produced and edited his show, which was, which was awesome, the beast game stuff. But, yeah, I think to maybe provide clarity to that. You know, we, we helped with with a project where we were doing the post production for so we flew out there. We did all the the editing for the project and motion design. And, you know, what I didn't realize is that, like, you know, Jimmy is a I mean, I knew he was a beast. It's in his name, like he shot three things that day. We were just one of three things that he shot in one day. He started at 5am ours didn't start until like 8pm so when he got there, it wasn't like, hey, let's hang out. It was like, yeah, like, let's roll. In fact, it was so funny, because there was a point where he walked up to me. He to me and he was like, Hey, are you you guys? Are you guys? Are here right for for the project to help? And I was like, Yeah. And I thought he was gonna start talking to us. He's like, Yeah, I need that chair. And I was like, so that's as close as I came to getting to know Jimmy. But I. Cool, but it was a really cool it was a really cool experience, and it was just being part of working with them. But the reason I'm bringing that up, though, is it's like the reality is, is that they understand in this channel, there's certain types of attention, there's certain types of flow, there's certain types of realities of this is what the content needs to be to win here. And if you just try to stick something you made for television on a YouTube, it won't sell, it won't work. If you try to, to your point, take something you made for Meta and put it on YouTube, it won't sell, it won't work. So that is true of every channel. It's like every channel you said earlier, tick tock, YouTube television. It's like, you have to create the creative for the context in which it will be viewed. And so let's just start there. It's like, why do most brands not decide to invest in it until they're almost forced to, at times, it's because they're like, well, that's just a bigger swing. It's more expensive to produce the content, because there's no cheap and easy way to make great content, right, right? There's cheaper ways, and you can get lucky, but like, on a repeatable basis of like, Insight driven creative that drives action in real time and gets you to not skip. Like, that's a very specific type of asset. And so whether you're doing YouTube or television, it's like, immediately, the amount of thought and budget and creativity that has to go into it, it goes up. Then the secondary component of that is, you know, these platforms are set up for reach out of the box, not for conversion. So what I mean by that is, like YouTube and television, like you have to be very mindful about limiting the placement to exactly who the audience needs to be, because it's set up for the biggest advertisers in the world to reach as many people as possible to sell products at retail, not to convert for a direct to consumer brand. And so we only have, like, a couple people that we will even recommend or work with on the especially the YouTube or even connected TV side, because it's like, it's such a specific skill set to be successful there. And then the final component is the lack of direct feedback loop that you lack. It's like, it becomes much more triangulated to do stuff that isn't like, Oh, I see an ad, I click exactly on it, I go to a landing page, I buy it's like a lot of people, when they see a TV ad, they see a YouTube ad, they see a fill in the blank. Instead of clicking on an ad, they'll just open a new browser tab, and so you'll see, like, branded search lift. You'll see, you know, post purchase survey results, like, it takes more triangulation, and people don't like that. I think everyone likes that safety blanket of like, I'm spending x, and I can see I'm making exactly why the biggest brands in the world, like they, they eventually just move to, like, a mix modeling or, you know, some sort of other model, because that's that you can't be a two $50 million brand and have one channel that you're like, pulling the leverage day to day. Yeah, right, yeah. So that's a very long winded way of saying, like, yes, every channel needs different creative but it also needs different buying and it needs different Yeah, different expectations. Yeah. We

William Harris 18:26

talk a lot about the different mismatches and attribution systems in the way that we're going about that on other episodes, too. If you're watching and listening and you're like, Oh, tell me more. Go deeper into that. There's a good episode by Matt Bahr over at fairing. There's another one with Jeremiah Prummer over at Knocommerce. Both of those are getting into, you know, customer surveys being a really good thing. The other thing that we really like is just a geo holdout, you know, run it in certain areas, not in other areas, and look at the actual real lift. That'll give you a good indication of what that in brutality looks like. Okay, so we maybe understood about a little bit more about what this content is, What's the process like for actually going and coming up with an ad that has the potential to be shared, like you said, where it's like, where you actually want to share this with your friends. This is, you know, better than just the normal stuff that you see out there. What does the process look like? Because I think a lot of people maybe sometimes get sticker shock when they see, you know, they're used to $100 UGC ads that they're getting, and then all of a sudden, they're gonna get something produced. But they don't understand, maybe, everything that goes into making this

Jacques Spitzer 19:28

Sure. So process wise, I think, I think there's two ways to think about and approach this. One is someone has to do the heavy lifting of the both, what drives the insight, which I'll talk a little bit about, and then also, you know, what's going to to drive purchase action, right? Like, if. If that's your goals, like, hey, I want to I want to get attention from the right people. I want them to buy like, someone has to do some heavy lifting. And I think one of the mistakes brands make is they say, We need a commercial. Let's reach out to a video production firm, yes, and get in contact with them. Problem with that is that, I mean, and I have lots of friends that run video production firms that like I would, I would use again, once I figured out, like, literally all the things. And it's like, I just need someone to execute the vision of this and edit it great. But if you're going to get onto a new channel, you know you need someone again who understands those channels, what wins there have made the have seen success and made mistakes there, right? Like, because that's going to save you time and energy. So I can speak to our process, you know, and for any, for any client we are, we are approaching it, not from a standpoint necessarily, of, how do we get someone to share this? We actually start with more. So just what is the insight and insights a word that gets thrown around a lot, it might be something also that is foreign to direct to consumer brands in comparison, like, if you work with, like, we do a lot of work, Procter and Gamble. Like, if you were running the proc, the gambles, the Unilever's, they'll literally be like, what was the inside of that work? Like, that's just the way that they approach it. But, you know, the reality is, and I'll break down how we think about it, is, we are asking ourselves, what is somebody's why when it comes to this brand, you've probably heard the Simon Sinek quote, it's like, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Yep, and it's something that I think was a that mindset was a giant leap forward. I use the analogy that it was like, as human beings, one day we discovered that the world was not flat, it was round. It's like, that's a huge discovery, right? It's a big deal. But even at that point in time in human history, we still believed that, well, now we were like, Oh, wow, it's round. But then we still believed that we that the sun and everything in the universe revolved around us, right? And I think a lot of brands are still stuck in that mindset, and they don't realize, like, no, the consumer is the center of their own universe, and we revolve around them. And so what we do is we we take the brand and we take them through this process of like, what are the insights that that tumble out of the consumers? Why everything that we buy says something about who we believe we are or who we're trying to become. And so we literally write those out. What are those? Whether you're making a decision about who to work for, media buying, what what brand of cereal you're gonna buy, whether you buy a store brand or name brand, what shoes you buy, everything you you do is a reflection of those things. And so we write those down, because ultimately, we want to see people see those things mirrored back to them, right? That's what's going to grab and pull them in, is that they're like, Oh, that is who I'm trying to become, or, ooh, that is who I am. Now you have my attention individually, and then we do find that the use of, you know, whether it's education, humor, inspiration, these are all tools to keep someone engaged. You know, with these platforms, like, the more time you can spend with anyone, the deeper you can develop that relationship. It's one of the reasons we've loved YouTube is like, you can make a really long ad, and if it's entertaining and pulling people in, you can do a lot of education and a lot of fun. One of

William Harris 23:49

our best ads on YouTube is, like, nine minutes long. It's like, this is not even an ad anymore.

Jacques Spitzer 23:54

Yeah, yeah, no, it's and so I just strategically, it's like, I think one of the things I find very interesting is we have, we do have, like, a couple, we have a couple people in like, we have, I don't know who our competitor is anymore, like, with what we do, but it's like people who create some like, let's say, direct response, YouTube creatives, right? One of the mistakes I think I see other people make is they'll just write five scripts and be like, pick one. And I'm like, sure that's not how you're going to develop incredible, creative, iconic brand voices that you can repeat, not just in that in other channels. And so we're really starting with like, our concepting is, what's the insight, what are people's Whys basically, or what's their why, and the second one is, what is the context that we're going to place all this in that's compelling, visually and compelling to watch, right? And so we pitch concepts, you know? It's like, hey, trying to think of a one that we've already launched, like, we did a great, great spot for grooms that came out. And it's a, they're like. Green gummies, and it features this kid who basically asked his mom, hey, you know, can I have gummies in my in my lunch? And she says, No. And then he turns the house into a courtroom, and he's a lawyer, right? So he wears this, like, oversized jacket, and it's like, so the concept was like, better call Barry. Like, the whole thing was, like, the kid's going to be a lawyer, and he's gonna put his mom on stand and his dad on the stand, and there's all this crazy stuff happening. It's like, but not a single line of entire script has been written yet. It's like, just the concept of, like, what, what world are we living in? Why is this gonna be interesting? Now let's go and write a script. And so that's highly unique, but it's such a critical step, because you're like, you kind of said, well, what's gonna make it shareable? I'm like, honestly, we need to ask ourselves, what's gonna make it watchable? Yeah, like, before we were about sharing, it's like, what's gonna make it watchable? And so building that con the context for like, what's going to make it interesting is done before we write scripts. Yeah,

William Harris 26:06

that makes a lot of sense. The idea of, like, if before it's gonna be shareable, it has to be watchable. If it's not watchable, then it's not shareable, because somebody's gonna share. You were talking about even just this idea of, like, five scripts, and coming up with five scripts, and then it's like, pick one. And it reminded me of something from a book, The Psychology of money by Morgan Housel. Really good book, and in it, and I'm gonna, I don't remember the name of the guy, but there's an art collector that he talks about, and this art collector had this massive art fortune, and he sold it to, like the German, you know, museum or whatever. And they're like, Well, how did he end up being so good at picking this he had Picassos and all these other things. It's like, how did he get so good at picking all of these amazing art pieces that are now worth millions, maybe billions. I don't even remember them. You know, it's, it's, it's immaterial to what we're talking about, but they find out that. It's like, that was 1% of his collection, though. The reality is, he bought so much art that the inevitability of something ending up being successful was a lot higher. And I think sometimes when people go into some of the creative they take that same approach. They're like, great, we're gonna take one swing at this. Let's make 115 $1,000 commercial that didn't work well. I guess we're just gonna stick with UGC. And to your point, it's like, it's not just here's five scripts. Pick one. What is the insight? What's the context? Let's start from there. Let's start developing more than one context. Let's start getting out there and taking many swings. Would you agree with that approach or

Jacques Spitzer 27:32

well, so I, I here's what I'll say. I think there's, there are a couple different ways to approach anything. But I always say, like, you can't hit a home run without taking a big swing. Sure, yep. So let's just, like, just flat out, like all of the brands that have really, really, really broken through eventually took the risk. It took a risk, like, no one just safely stumbles their way into an incredible brand. Yeah, right. It takes investment. It takes intentionality. And no $15,000 video is gonna just randomly change the course of your brand. If you're at 20 to $40 million even 10 million, 5 million, it's like, that's just not the expectation or the hope. And so, I think, too, one of the things that we've, we've, you know, we think about everything that we do as more like a campaign, because we recognize that like, you know, we do typically create multiple opening hooks. We create variations and cut downs. We put them in different formats. Because reality is like you have to run and test and learn on anything you do. And so you know that would just be, again, a fundamentally different approach of, like, I'm gonna go make a blank thing. It's like, no no. Like, you want to create a couple variations that you can learn from and work with. That is going to be a fundamentally different approach for brand that's trying to learn a little bit more about what people respond to, and then once you have a sense of not only product market fit, but a message that resonates in a channel, that's where it gets really exciting, and you just double and triple down on developing out. You know, whether it's a tone of voice characters, The more consistent you can be, the more you can drive that, that brand tone, and that's what, that's what we've done, you know, whether it was with James Schrader and the Dr. Squash stuff and Mike, Mike Langsdale or Lauren, who's with native is bathroom died he it's like, you create these, these worlds and these characters that people come to know and respond to. And frankly, if you do it right, they're like, when the ads pop up, they're like, Ooh, a new ad instead of, like, a new ad. If you can do it right, like, that's that's the difference over time. But I hope I answered your question. It's like, yeah, at some point people just need to say, look, I'm going to be willing to take some swing. And take some risk. But a shotgun approach, because I'm like, it's like, that does that just never I think the shotgun approach what it does, it's, I find it to be lazy, because it means that you're not doing the work to narrow the possibilities before you know, when you're even testing,

William Harris 30:21

yes, and I think it's a lot of ways it's been so, you know, I know there's another, let's say, frame of thought out there where people are, like, you need to be testing, you know, 1000 ads a day, or some kind of ridiculous number. And to your point, it's, it's, but it's 1000 ads that you should have tested in the first place. And so it's not really testing if they were just bad to begin with. Yeah, yep, you're literally just wasting spend. So let's say that you are a ten million brand. I want to start at the lower end of the spectrum here, ten million brand, and you've gotten to ten million just off of statics and carousels and whatever else. And you're like, Okay, we need to invest in this. And maybe, maybe that's a little bit wrong, but it's like, we've, we've run into brands that are, it's even spending a million dollars a month on ads. And the suggestion of, like, hey, let's get some $50,000 stuff going here for ads. They're like, Oh, that's so much money. It's like, You're spending a million. This is not a lot for compared to what you're spending. But like, what is the amount that you say, like, this is the this is where you need to be at you get 10 million in order for you to maintain competitiveness within the market, or you're going to get beat really quickly. You need to be spending this amount on creative in order to really start being in a good spot.

Jacques Spitzer 31:31

Yeah, let me. Let me reverse out the because it's a great question. But the way I've thought about, because I think about you started this whole episode with like, Hey, you guys have been in charge of some, like, amazing journeys and prolific brands and and there's and there's been other brands, like a that we haven't been part of, like, a true classic tea, for example, who, again, like, figured out how to do This. And I look at it, and I go, okay, none of those brands would have ever become anything more than a 30 to $50 million brand without figuring this out, right? So, so then I go, Okay. The question to me isn't like, well, what does it cost? It's more like, what would it cost you to not be able to figure out that second channel? So there. So in my mind, like, you know, when Dr. Squatch made the decision to invest in start investing in creative, it was like, I'm worried we'll never get off of Facebook. And in fact, I will say this, when they first ran our ad, they went from a $3 million run rate to a ten million run rate on Meta, and then it started to plateau. And I'm like, what if they never put it on YouTube? They would have just been forever an $8 million brand, 12 million maybe 15 million today, right? Like, think about how critical even just getting that same ad on a different platform is, I think about the number of times we deal of times we deliver an ad to a client and they stick into their med account, they go, it didn't get spend. I'm like, Yeah, but if you put it on any of the other channels that we literally built this for and did it right, it could transform the future of your business. And so I go, Okay, I don't. I think the question, the question of, like, what does it cost? Is important, because you do need to understand, like, okay, yeah, like, if I can't, if I can't risk, you know, taking 50 or $100,000 stabs at Creative then you can't. And we would tell somebody, if someone came to us and they're doing, you know, two, $3 million a year in a run rate in there, like, hey, yeah. Like, we want to do a, you know, $100,000 $150 be like, we're not gonna take your money. That's a bad idea. Don't do it. But then I have other people who they're in the exact same moment you're talking about, where they're just like, hemming and hawing, and then they'll literally say out loud. They'll be like, Huh, that's just like, two days worth of ad spend for me right now. So I guess, if it works, that would be a really, really bit. And if it doesn't work, I guess we'll learn something. And you start seeing them realize, like, oh, like, so, you know, at 10 million it is like, it is a high, that's the thing. It's like, it is a higher risk to, like, get into a new channel. But then it it becomes a liability to not get into a channel as you get bigger. And so I think I'm like, Yeah, I mean, at some point you do have to figure it out if you don't want to plateau or be at the mercy of a single or single platform and how it's delivering your ads or anything else.

William Harris 34:39

What about product market fit. How many people brands have come to you? And it wasn't necessarily an issue of media buying. So it's like for us, we can recognize that there's a plateau on a media buying. We're like, look, this is not a meeting by issue. You know, this is your fourth, fifth agency, like you've tried all the different strategies out there. Not. Maybe, maybe hear me out here. It's, it's a creative issue that there's, you're just running the same stuff over and over and over again. You have nothing. It's exciting the market, right? And so it's like that can kind of, let's say, create some product market fit by having better stuff. But I wonder, because you guys see a lot of brands come through here. Are there moments, or what can you recognize within a brand where you say, this isn't a creative problem either, you actually don't have the right product for the market right now. Is there, like, is there something that you can see where you're like, nope, hold on pause. We're not going to take you on. I don't think that you have what we can't work with this.

Jacques Spitzer 35:38

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to answer it with two I feel like, this thing where you ask me a question, and then I keep doing this thing where I'm like, I love it in two different ways.

William Harris 35:48

It's like, it's like the split testing on ChatGPT guess you prefer?

Jacques Spitzer 35:53

Oh man, yeah. Oh my gosh. So, so yeah, there's a reality where to get to. Once you get to a certain revenue number, in general, it's clear you have product market fit, sure, with some form of product or market so, I mean, it's kind of a, I think I put it, we do work with some, like, every year, we work with three or four startups who are funded, who want to, like hit the market with a bazooka and try to like, hit it right, go hard, right? And so in those cases, right, you are at times looking at, okay, great, like, what is currently being done in this category, and then what is our unique propositions within that category? So you know, if it's a completely new product and a completely new category, that's obviously as hard as it's going to get, because you're like, I have nothing to go off of. And we're just really transparent with those people are like, look, we're going to go through our process, and we're making our best educated guess on, like, what the consumers Why is going to be. Obviously, you can survey people and talk to people as well, and there's creative testing that you can do, but I will just say, we don't get a lot of brands who don't have product market fit. And I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna read something that my business partner Adam Wagner posted on LinkedIn the other day, because I think it's more indicative of what we see. And someone, if you don't mind, I'm just gonna read it. He says, I read it. He says, He said, the biggest DTC winners have one thing in common that most brands miss, and there's a reason that our brands win over and over again. The biggest winners have unlocked broad top of funnel creative and spend lot less time on niche. UGC, it's true that algorithms are using creative for targeting, and you should have a robust marketing funnel filled with different hooks, landing pages, talents, etc, but that will not bring you massive household name success. It's a supporting character. Your brand's a supporting character in this story, not the lead, and that's what most brands get wrong. And he gives the example of when we work with Dr. Squatch, we created this brand that resonated with men all across the country, in the city and everywhere else. You can be a big time CEO or a small time farmer and love. Dr. Squatch, think about how rare that is for a brand to be able to do this allowed them to reach massive scale, keep their CPMs down and have awesome conversion rates, and they surpassed many soap companies that are too niche towards blue collar workers or cool urban businessmen, and those niches get stuck at 10 to $50 million and so I think about like how true that is. Is like we develop these audiences and these funnels, and we have these niches, and they get us to 10 million, 15 million, 20 million, and it's just like we kind of get stuck, and we're like, what the heck, how do we possibly reach a broader audience? And so that's just I wanted, I wanted to share that because I'm like, that's what we see, is like you have product market fit with this little audience. What about the broader audience? Yeah, that's really what we tend to see.

William Harris 39:08

And I think that actually aligns very well with the previous episode I did couple weeks back with Preston Rutherford, who was the founder of rep Chubbies, and he talks about the 95 five rule. And I really like the way that he illustrated that, where it's like, a lot of the stuff that you're doing right now, the content, etc, that you're going after, it's going after the 5% that are in market right now, the 95% of people that aren't like, hey, I want this right this second are you're not reaching them both from content or even algorithmically, you're not reaching them. And so you need the content that will allow the algorithm to reach the people who aren't in market right now, because there's going to want to watch it and share it and enjoy it and say this still resonates with me. I'm not ready for a new bar of soap or whatever right now, but, like, I appreciate this, and so when I am ready for it, yeah, I'll think about this the next time I'm walking down the aisle, or the next time I need a bar of soap, I'm gonna go ahead and Google

Jacques Spitzer 39:55

that Exactly, exactly. Yep, yeah. And it gets more and more important. Uh. 95 five principle gets even more important when you have a retail brand, like a retail Ford brand, because, you know, a lot of times people won't convert in the moment. But, and I will say too, I think for people that are 100% at retail and not really online, that's it's freeing, because they realize they are playing the 95 five game. Yeah, yeah. They just recognize that that's sure and D to C brands at times. Just don't they. They're so used to getting that 5% that they just, I'm like, I'm not interested in 95

William Harris 40:30

you talked about making sure that the content revolves around your customer, right? And I think that's a big part of this then too. Where it's like, when it's evolving around your brand, it is only reaching 5% when it revolves around them, it can reach nine reach 95% just throwing out some little fun stuff here, reminding me of Copernicus, right? And Helio centrism. So I'll just throw it out there for fun, because this is a nerd podcast as well.

Jacques Spitzer 40:52

Are we talking about cumulus clouds too? Just like, I'm just like using science word,

William Harris 40:59

yeah, right, yeah. Let's just throw out some other science terms, right? Deoxyribonucleic acid. So the other thing, though, that I was gonna say about along those lines is, like, what's a litmus test that you have for being able to say, I think that your brand's marketing is still too brand self centered versus consumer center? Like, how can you tell? Because I think sometimes people try to make it consumer oriented, but you, with your refined eye, can look at and say, it's like, no, it's not. It's not even close to being, you know, consumer focused, yet you're still very brand centric. How can you tell

Jacques Spitzer 41:32

there's a couple, I mean, look, I could. There are very specific things that sure I'll give you a very specific like, if you're, if you're if your voiceover, your script, says we or instead of you right or your right. It's like just even the positioning, the nuance of like, who you're speaking to, how you're speaking to them. When a brand is talking about themselves, what they stand for, what we stand for with you is, like a lot of we, that's an obvious one. Another one is just ads that open with context instead of connection. So what I mean by that is like, I'll see an ad that opens with, you know, a beautiful shot of like, a downtown skyline or something, instead of like, speaking to Hey, you consumer customer with your why, like, you see yourself in this rather than like, Should we show us? And so there's like, very specific nuances that I see, but I think ultimately No, like, clearly, no. I want to back up and say, clearly, no one ever creates an ad with the intention of it not connecting with threat and consumer totally. However, the reason they make the mistake is they go, Well, this is what I want them. I This is what I want to communicate to them, instead of, like, what do they need to hear? Okay, then how do I reach them. It's just, it's a fundamental framing difference that most people like. That's why I'm saying that they'll write a script with all the things they want to say before they even ask themselves, is this something that anyone would ever watch or listen to if it's on any platform? Like they're just like, No, this is what I want to say when you start from that vantage point, which honestly, 95% of brands probably do, right? You're gonna get that result that people are just like, right, cool. Like, you want to talk about

William Harris 43:30

you. What about me? I like, what's my why? Yeah, I want to talk about Raindrop a little bit then too. Why? Like, where were you at in life that you were like this? What this is missing from my life. I need to start Raindrop. Raindrop is missing from the world. I'm gonna do this like, why did you start Raindrop? One

Jacques Spitzer 43:47

of the things that most people don't realize is that Raindrop started incredibly humbly. And when I say that I started Raindrop when about 15 years ago, when I was 25 years old, and I literally just wanted to help people. I had nothing. It was like had no grand vision. I was, you know, I realized that I called it Raindrop because there's this great CS Lewis quote about friendship, and he talks about, if you're lucky, once in your life, you come along a friend who's like two Raindrops that come together in a window sill and in that, like, it's just this beautiful, effortless thing. And so I was like, Man, that if I could help people with their business and with their creative and what they need, I could be that partner for them. But my, my big, grand vision was, like, if I had three employees one day, and like, wrote some local jingles for the car wash or something like, I'd be happy. And so love that my dreams have come true. I'm currently writing multiple jingles, but they are for a little bit bigger brands. And. We've had three Super Bowl commercials, and a lot has happened. We have about 100 team members now. And so it has been a journey over the last 15 years. But it started really, really, really humbly. I mean, my first clients were, I always say, it's like it was a massage therapist, not the massage therapy studio. It was a trainer, not the gym. It was, you know, it was, it was that that small and that humble, and I follow, I have no formal advertising training, you know, I just really followed instincts that then over time, I've been able to understand. Have a business partner I mentioned earlier, Adam, who's been able to operationalize and create, like, Okay, we have this insight. We have this way of working. How do we how do we do this? That it works time and again for people. What are we doing that's special? He's been able to extrapolate that. And we have an incredible team. I mean, last year, we had like, I don't know, 9295 know, 92 95% retention within our company. Like, we have some incredible team members that have been around for huge, a long time, and have been a part of a lot of success. So very grateful for what we've been able to build. But, yeah, that's the origin of Raindrop was, was 15 years ago, very you know, helping with the WordPress website, build or shooting a commercial on my Canon t2 i at the time.

William Harris 46:29

Oh, nice. I remember that one. Okay, so the t2 I specifically, I kind of just, you just brought back a memory. I took your breath. I just took your breath away. You did. So my wife's a photographer, and so she's done family photography, wedding photography, and there was the first time she did a wedding. She's like, I want a co shooter for this. But like, you know, at the time, she couldn't charge, she wasn't charging enough to be able to afford a co shooter. So I was her co shooter. And so it's like, we picked up, like, a t2 i as, like, my that was my co shooting, photography thing. So I remember being there, it's like, I'm not a visually creative person. I'm auditorily creative, like a musical and stuff like that. But the t2 i That just brought back that memory of me going on, which ended up being like, date nights with my wife, of like, hey, we'd go out to do these weddings, and, you know, I'd be here co shooter. So which ended up being more, more of just your assistants, like, I'm holding up the reflectors and stuff. Do you get

Jacques Spitzer 47:23

PTSD going to weddings now? Are you able to go and enjoy okay, I shot, I shot weddings. I shot probably 60 weddings when I first started the business, trying to make ends meet and everything else. And it took me, like, eight to nine years before I could go to a wedding and relax and not be like, seeing someone dress in all black with a camera being like, Oh God, they could really use some help right now. Or like, Oh, I see them plugging into the sound board. Oh, I really hope they get an audio Oh,

William Harris 47:48

man, right? Like, I felt like there was a lot of times where we ended up being more of the wedding planner than the wedding planner, where it's like, oh yeah, I need the bride over here. Now this is what's taking place. That's good. I might want to offline chat with you a little bit more about some of the wedding stories that we have, because I think that would be fun. But I don't want to derail the conversation too much down that path. I want to talk about Dr. Squatch, so if I remember correctly, it's like they started around like 3 million. You know, six years later, there are 2 billion. I could be making those numbers up, but it's somewhere around this facility, like there was this facility, like there was some, some significant growth they had. What do you think was the biggest risk that they took on their content, and how did that pay off for them?

Jacques Spitzer 48:32

Yeah, so we, when we first started working together, I mean, you know, the reality was, is that they were, they were taking those like, I mean, he was a $3 million brand taking the biggest swing on his content he'd ever taken. And it really connected. I mean, at the time too, we were so early in our when I was, like, 878, years ago, we were pretty early in our I mean, we were, I mean, we were, you know, seven, eight years into the business. But we were early into the more CPG, direct to consumer type of businesses, if that makes sense. We were really big, like, we are a brand and creative agency at heart, but the, like, long form video and that kind of stuff that was very new. And so when it came to where they were in the journey and the risk they were taking, it was a, it was a, really, the time was a very big risk for them, sure. And, you know, I, I felt the pressure of that like 100% you know, they really, really were like, we could really use something to like that. We need something to work here. We need to get something going that could really change the future here. And you always dream of that being possible, right? And you always plan for it, but then to have it happen, and to see people respond and react and not only buy the product, but love the brand, was really exciting. And then to watch us work with them, to, you know. Build that story and create additional product lines. I mean, we went and we created, you know, ads for hair care and for deodorant and for a second one for soap, and then came, like a mash up of, like, the best moments of all of them, which outperformed all that was the one from 2020 you mentioned. It like, that's a five minute ad of, just like a best of how we did everything from UGC to person on the street to, you know, all these different formats, not just long for arm, but all these other formats. And then we started getting into partnerships, so helping them launch Star Wars and Marvel and Warner Brothers and like all these different, you know, world building things where they're tying their brand to these other great brands. And so that was the process of, like, just building a brand tone of voice and unlocking too, that sense of like, you know, was founded by a guy named Jack heldrup who, like his why was he was like, I need, like, I have skin condition that, like, needs natural soap that's such a niche audience. And so, you know, ultimately, we were able to create something where it's like, we made a mundane task, which is showering fun for men, right? That's what we did. Like, that's, that's, that was what that was the commercials enhance the product. And there's actually a lot of, I mean, most things are like that. I think about, why do I feel something when I'm holding a Coca Cola versus like a Shasta, sure, yeah, right, like it's what it's What brands do is they enhance the experience. They make you feel something, and the advertising lends itself to that.

William Harris 51:38

I love that. Yeah, being able

Jacques Spitzer 51:39

to it was, it was a it was a huge risk for them, and in that, that's the thing. It's like, I think it's a good way. But we earlier, we're talking about the idea of like, when to spend what I'm like, basically, when you're small, the risk is you're taking a big swing for yourself. And then as you get bigger, as you go from 10 to 20 to 30. Now, the risk actually, in my mind, shifts, as I said earlier, to not figuring this out could cost you everything. Like, it's like, a big deal. You have to figure this out. So you're like, delaying. It's like, at first, it's too risky for a lot of brands to, like, worry about secondary channels and stuff. And then it gets the point where, like, not figuring this out is a huge blind spot, and one that, to your point, a competitor will figure out, whatever, and now you're chasing, or you never do, or you try to, and then you fail, then you give up, like you get the point,

William Harris 52:28

yes, yeah, yeah. You've, you've done this. Obviously you were mentioning even, you know, native Goose Creek candles. These are ones you've, we've talked about before, bones, coffee, shady, rays, grooms, laundry service like. There's so many of these names that like just saying them, everybody can instantly picture the commercials that have run for these brands, because you guys have had such a good done a good job of, like, getting that type of creative content out there for people to enjoy. What do you think separates the ones that scale from the ones that stall like so the ones that you're just listed, yeah,

Jacques Spitzer 53:03

yeah, yeah. And by the way, it's laundry sauce. Just, I think there is a lot, no, it's okay. There's a laundry say out there. Oh, I wrote laundry sauce. And I was just like, so my mind went, I was like, Well, I was like, if a listener is listening and they're just like, laundry service. So thanks for the correction. Well, I look all the brands you just name, you know, they have, they have multiple channels going for them. That's it as like. And then you, you know that shady rays is a great another great one where, you know, they were at probably the exact number, somewhere between 15 and $20 million and they were able to unlock YouTube and connected television. And, you know, to this day, I mean, you know, the popped on, and I'm like, man, they they were able to scale those ads and scale their presence. And then when they did eventually roll out into retail, which I think they had, like, three, four locations that they own. Now, you know, they were able to see success there, and they were able to, I think one of the things I love about being forced to create the content for these other channels, it also helps you to force yourself to understand your own story. A lot of brands, it's like they understand their USPS and messaging points, but they don't understand their own story, because I never had to tell it to anybody. And so I love the work with Shady rays. I mean, all the brands you just mentioned, you know, their commercials are their commercials that I love to watch, and I love that we created them. And I'm like, yeah, when you create advertising and marketing, people love like. It helps with everything. And so that's what they that's when you mentioned, like, what like? That's what they have in common. They have all created brands that people love, and there will be knock offs and there will be other brands, and it's like, now they're competing with, you know, they are the Coca Cola and someone else is the Shasta, yeah,

William Harris 54:56

which is huge that brand position. Within the mind is so hard to erase, which is a really benefit to be the one that captures that mind share earlier on. Is there, is there ever an ad concept that you wish somebody would have went with and they didn't, you know, I really I wanted this to exist in the world, and they said no, and I'm still a little bummed by that. Yes,

Jacques Spitzer 55:21

I'm sure there are lots of situations where we have pitched a client and, you know, had a great idea. Maybe with another one, there's one that sticks out to me, just because I literally thought to myself, this is a Super Bowl commercial. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I love this idea. And then they didn't do it, which is fine, and I understood, like there wasn't anything to do with the idea at the time. It was just like, Okay, thanks for that. But then they just did a Super Bowl commercial. And I was like, No, I wish you did. So the concept was one that we pitched to hex plaid, and it was called Ram zatoi, no, yeah. Ram za tui. So the idea, the overall idea, was that there'd be someone who looks at the band and says, like, so I can cook like Gordon Ramsay, and then basically, there's a recreation of this idea of like, Gordon. Like, when that person thinks that all sudden, Gordon Ramsay's like, we had heated debates internally, or whether or not sitting on the guy's shoulders, like, helping to, like, do it, or be like a miniature thing under a chef hat that, like, is black. And then we really wanted to do, like a cult, like, we're like, and then we could collab with Disney and come out with, like, a limited edition pans that, like, are all ratatouille themed, like, but like, with Gordon Ramsay and like, we just love this idea. To this day, I recognize that it is insane, that it is it is improbable to pull off, and who knows, maybe not even on brand. But damned I love the idea, and I still to this day think about Ram zatoi

William Harris 57:05

all the time. Which camp were you in on the shoulders or under the hat? Because I'm an, I'm an on the shoulders guy. I think that's your picture. I

Jacques Spitzer 57:12

was thinking that it would be really fun to have him on on the shoulders, pulling his hair, and I was literally, we were in meetings, and we hadn't even, like, pitch this idea. And I'm like, I'm like, so put a harness on him, and then, like, kind of, like, just make sure that he couldn't fall like, you know, this is Gord Ramsey we're talking about. And so that was a that was one that just has a special place in my heart. And, you know, I love the team over there. They're incredible advertisers, you know, and but Yeah, that one's always like, it was just like, I could just see it in the Super Bowl. Like, God, that'd be fun. And then they did a Super Bowl commercial this year, and they killed it. But I was like, Yeah,

William Harris 57:53

they did a great job. But yeah, it's still Ramsay.

Jacques Spitzer 58:00

That's not too late. It's not too late. I can see it number one ad of 2026,

William Harris 58:06

that's good, Jacque, I want to get into the personal side of you, the human being. Jacque Spitzer, who you are. Tell me a little bit about your childhood and how that shaped you into who you are today.

Jacques Spitzer 58:22

Well, growing deep here, sir, what is your

William Harris 58:25

mother lay down by the couch?

Jacques Spitzer 58:30

You know, I think the the I'm like, wow, what would people what would be interesting? I mean, the reality is, is I, I grew up in San Diego. I still live in San Diego, and so that has been a big part of just my journey, how I've met my wife and my business partner, you know. So I have been rooted in San Diego for a long time, since I was three years old. I was born in Northern California, and my parents growing up, were both real estate agents. They worked with each other as partners. And, you know, they, they were, they, they had, they were very successful in doing that. And you know, I experienced some of the highs and lows as a child watching them navigate. You know, night, early 19, early 90s were not good for real estate. And then mid to late, we're good in and then, you know, 2008 was really bad, like watching the the booms and busts and ebbs and flows of that business. But I learned from them, like, what it looks like to be in business for yourself, how to treat people, how to, you know, my dad always said, like activity breeds activity. And so just I learned, either directly or innately, a lot of things from them about how to how to treat people, how to build something. Thing, how to build relationships. You know, I am very grateful. I'm very blessed to say that, like I was somebody who learned a lot from my parents in terms of, like, who I wanted to become as a father and, you know, like he was a role model. It wasn't like, I'm like, learning, okay, this is what I don't want to do, if that makes sense, I really had, I feel like that was a I don't feel I know that that was a huge advantage in life, was to have this incredible, you know, incredible parents. I have a younger brother who ended up becoming a surgeon, so I have him on speed dial anytime I have a rash or something. And, yeah, I mean, they never put any pressure on me to do or become anything in particular. And I had none of us, and myself included, ever had any idea I would get into advertising, sure. And so, you know, they just sort of, they're always very supportive. And they were, their schedules were flexible because they were business owners, so they made a lot of they made almost every sport game I ever played in, and just very present. And that's something that, you know, my I have a nine year old son, and it's something that I've been able to do to, you know, as I lead his Cub Scout group, and I've coached his sports, and anything that he's done, I've been able to be involved and present. And, you know, it also impacts, obviously, running a business. I not just from the standpoint of, you know, thinking about, yes, how I how I work with a potential client, but also, you know, I think it's funny when people will say to me things like, well, it must be nice being our own boss. I'm like, okay, but I kind of have like, 100 mini bosses, because like, like, I love and support like, every single person that works for us as well as our clients. So like, ultimately, yes, like, I have ultimate authority over my time and stuff, but like, I also have a lot of people that I feel responsible for. And I think my childhood was one that gave me the opportunity to prepare for that. You know, I guess at another point in time I'd love to understand too, like, what, what? What was your life process, you know, leading up to who became professionally, but I could tell that story a million different ways. I think that's how it impacted me most professionally, which would probably be of most interest here.

William Harris 1:02:30

I love, though, the way that you talked about how it's like having supportive parents is such a I mean, if you want to talk about getting that opportunity, it's that makes such a difference in that you're providing that then for your own kids and, you know, being there to to be involved in their sports and things like that. I don't think that there's probably studies that say this, and I'm sure I've heard things I don't know the facts, but it's like, I don't think you could really quantify just how impactful that is for being able to give people a catalyst for growth and taking on, you know, bigger challenges.

Jacques Spitzer 1:03:04

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

William Harris 1:03:09

We're talking about quirks and habits and things like that a little bit. And I'll let you tell yours here, one of mine that I there's no good, rational explanation for it, but if I have one hand gets wet for some reason, right? Like you're doing the dishes or whatever, one hands wet, I have to wet the other hand before I dry them off. Like it bothers me to have one hand wet, so it's like they need to be equally wet,

Jacques Spitzer 1:03:35

isn't it? The first time that you've told people this, I don't know if

William Harris 1:03:39

I have said it was, you know, more than a year ago. So it's been a while since anybody's listened to this. And so that's, that's my thing, where it's like, this is just a weird quirk, and you would not know this about me unless I tell you, because you never noticed this.

Jacques Spitzer 1:03:52

Okay, so I don't, I hope this doesn't make it weird, but I totally knew that you were a double hand winner, like, just from the moment I met you. You can't look at somebody and

William Harris 1:04:01

know that dude.

Jacques Spitzer 1:04:02

I knew that. I was like, This guy is a double hand wetter. I The moment I saw you, I was like, I had you squared up. So I apologize. All

William Harris 1:04:10

right. Well, what's yours? What's yours, your eccentricity here. So

Jacques Spitzer 1:04:14

before our conversation, you would ask me this question, I had to go home and ask my wife, and then we went, you know, slept on it. And the next morning, she's like, I got it. I'm like, what is it? She goes, you smell our cups before you drink out of them. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's true, because, and I realized what it was was, um, when I was in college, you know, I started getting roommates and stuff, we didn't have a dishwasher, and so, like, even if they did wash them, sometimes they wash them like those, like, oh, like, gross sponges that are probably, like, more filled with bacteria than, like, what was in there originally. And so there'd be times where I'd get, like, a to go cup or something and smell it, and it was like, Oh, this is not clean. But like that. That how. Rabbit has stuck with me, and so sometimes she'll ask, like, Oh, can you give me some water? And I'll grab a cup, and I'll smell it, and then I'll fill it. She's just like, That's so weird. I'm like, Yes, it is. It is so weird. It's like a primal instinct to protect myself. So yes,

William Harris 1:05:12

roommates are the best at encouraging that type of behavior, especially guys, reminds me, and I'm gonna call them out by name, one of my buddies met Bennet. I'm not even gonna hide his name. I remember being over at his house, maybe high school, and we were like, Bennett, your room smells awful, like, I don't like, what is going on? We find the culprit. It's like a glass of milk that had solidified in his room on his dress. Smelled terrible, right? It's like powdered form. Now he goes, Oh, I know how to take care of this. He doesn't take it down to the kitchen. He takes it to his brother's room, puts it in his brother's sock drawer from the fine later, and you're like, oh, man, that's, I can't even imagine what that smelled like later. So Larry Bennet, if you were wondering what was going on, that was Matt Bennett, probably 20 years ago. I'm writing him out right now.

Jacques Spitzer 1:05:56

Oh, Matt, I mean, think about the impact he had on you, William. You're still thinking about this.

William Harris 1:06:02

It was hilarious. So foul. Oh, I want to ask you a little bit about your faith and how you apply that in your work. You mentioned a CS Lewis quote, and so I'm like, Ooh, I kind of latch down to that, because I love CS Lewis quotes. How do you how do you use faith within what you're doing at Raindrop.

Jacques Spitzer 1:06:25

So, I mean, here's, I'll say, I apologize, Ave I'm just a big lion witch in the wardrobe fan. I'm actually, yeah, Christian. No, I'm just kidding. I just end. I'm just getting crazy. I'm like, calling you a double hand wetter and messing with okay, you know. So here's what I'll say. I think people look reality is, is like, how does impact Raindrop? It impacts it in every way. Because I think ultimately, every day when it comes to, like, work and what we do, it's like, All right, well then, like, why are we doing this? Like, to some extent, we have to, we have to work to make money and everything else. But there are so many decisions to make along the way that impact the life that you're living and providing. And so your values obviously play a big role in that so and so for like, my business partner and I, the question has never been like, how much can we make from Raindrop, right? Like, it's never been like, how much can we take from it? It's been like, okay, how can we create an environment where people can love what they do and can do their best work? And yes, the result of that, like, we have to run this in a way that's profitable versus unprofitable. But our goal is to create this, you know, a people first, environment where people are. It's like you're never going to love every project you work on, or anything else, but like on the whole like, is this fulfilling work that shows progress in our ability to grow, both, you know, emotionally, financially and all the different ways. And so it impacts, you know, everything that we do from that standpoint, it really is, I mean, it impacts life, right? Like, why are we here? Why do we do this? Like, you know, it really impacts the way that we think about the work and how we do it and how we try. It's like, obviously we're not perfect, and we make mistakes. And there are times I get mad or whatever, and I wish I hadn't or whatever. You know, times where, I mean, man, I just think about starting this 15 years, 15 years ago, by myself, and then, like, all the things you have to learn about leadership and knowing that, like, I'm nowhere near done learning, I'm going to make so many more mistakes, and look back and be like, Oh my gosh, 40 year old self, what were you thinking? Right? And so it is something that I tend to, at times, have a hard time talking about, knowing too that, like, I'm going to mess up and disappoint people, and I'm like, just because I have the best intentions doesn't mean I'm going to be perfect. And I think sometimes when people think about faith in business, they're like, man, you're a hypocrite if you can't do it how your faith would align with and I'm like, I'm doing my best here. So yeah, that's, I think that's the best way to put it. It impacts everything in broad and specific ways. But, yeah,

William Harris 1:09:48

I think that's the exact opposite of being a hypocrite, though, right? Because it's like to a point that is one of the beautiful things I think about the Christian faith specifically, is it says you're going to mess up. You won't be able to do it, and you need someone else to kind of. Of redeem you on your behalf. And so I think admitting that is a big thing. I love the way that you talk about this, though, and the way that you've approached running your company. I've tried to do the same with mine as well. And I remember from employee one, I remember saying this like we will have amazing health insurance from the very first employee, because I want to make sure that, you know, whoever works on my team, they are taken care of, like, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, it's like, and I'm not going to be perfect. I've made plenty of mistakes, and for those moments, I looked at Hebrews 11 for me, right? It's like the hall of faith, but it's like the Hall of Faith talks about, like, all of these people, and you get every single one of them in their lives, and like, the Bible literally records the big scripts that they had for generations to read about. And it's like, man, that's that's pretty brutal. At least my my mistakes, for the most part, are fairly self contained or whatever, in like these smaller areas and pockets. But I appreciate that you, you lead with that integrity, and I think that that's a big part of your success, I think, is having that mentality from the get go, I appreciate,

Jacques Spitzer 1:11:03

I mean, I would say I don't know if it has led to more or less success, but I am happy with, I mean, in all seriousness, I'm like, maybe I could have been more maybe I could be more successful if I operate different. I don't know, but I am happy with what we're building, and that that matters more to me than anything else. Yeah, I say that because I'm like, I recognize there's a lot of ways to win. Yeah, you know a lot of ways to win out there.

William Harris 1:11:28

If we'll end it with this one, if you were, if you were going to, if your son ends up watching this podcast episode sometime, right? He's older, and he actually cares to watch an hour and a half long podcast episode. What? What advice would you give him? So, you know, in generally speaking, then this is for the rest of people who are listening there as well. It's like, this is the advice that you would give somebody who has aspirations of going and creating a business that is going to do amazing things someday. What is that piece of advice that you would give? And this doesn't even let me say I'm going to take that back, not even just for business. This could be life advice. It could be business advice. But like, this is a piece of advice that you'd love to pass on.

Jacques Spitzer 1:12:10

You know, I think it's a full time job to be a good dad. He's got so much more stuff than I had. He's got 101 Dalmatians on a CD ROM. I'm quoting the Will Smith, just the two of us, by the way, dude, I am, I am losing my mind at the end of this podcast, everything, I'm sorry everything's a joke. Lordy. I was wondering how long I could go with that lyric from that from that song, just the two of us. Okay, let me. Let me real answer, real answer. You know, I think more broadly, I feel like, Look, you can't control what other people do. You can't control what the world would do. You can only control yourself and your character. And it has been something that, like, I have to tell myself over and over and over again, because there's so many factors that continue to change and and especially with him being nine, and I'm like, I'm watching him just start to become aware of peers. And you know, you can watch these children go from completely unaware of anything to starting to feel that sense of insecurity and comparison. And maybe I'm speaking also to like, what I wish you could just hold on to right now is like, Dude, you got you have a you have you. You have a beautiful heart, because you have good intentions and you mean well. And there will be people that might take advantage of that, people that will hurt you, people that will break your trust. And it's like you can't necessarily control that. You can only control who you are and what you're about in your relationship with, you know, God, like you can't look to other people for those answers, like, that's That's yours. I think that's what I would say, and it's also why I think that that Will Smith quote came to my mind, because, you know, he it's a good one, it's a great song. But he also, sure the whole intention of that song is, he's like talking to his son as a baby, saying, you know someone's gonna hurt you, and hurting them back isn't going to make you feel better. Then, ironically, later he slapped someone on national television. But beside

William Harris 1:14:30

the point, because we hold, I guess, oh my

Jacques Spitzer 1:14:35

gosh, yes, that that would be my my thought, that's

William Harris 1:14:38

beautiful. Um, well, this has been a lot of fun, learning from you and learning about you. If people wanted to get to know you, follow you, work with you. What's the best way for them to do that? Well,

Jacques Spitzer 1:14:49

I'm very on the internet. So what I mean by that is, you know, I post a lot of content to my my Instagram and TikTok. Channels, just my name, Jock Spitzer. I'm pretty active on on LinkedIn as well. And then, I mean, he even got my own website. I'm everywhere. So they can basically Google my name, and you will find me on the internet. That is, that's, you know, but that's, that's by design, right? Yes, yes. I

William Harris 1:15:18

love it. Well, Jacques, it's been very fun talking to you. I appreciate your time, your knowledge, your wisdom here today. Thank you everyone for listening. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro 1:15:29

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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