Matt Sodnicar 0:01
So, when I watch your posts on Instagram, the first thing that I'm reminded of I was a huge Letterman fan back in the day. And I don't know if you remember that segment he had will it float?

Barry Enderwick 0:16
I barely remember that segment. But I was a huge Letterman's fan as well. So, yeah, it's so you know, I see started talking about this recipe, and I just wait with such anticipation over is the sandwich gonna suck or not. And I was scrolling through the feed because there was one that I think you stopped mid bite because it was so bad. But yeah.

Matt Sodnicar 0:43
I just love the anticipation of if the sandwich is gonna suck or not.

Barry Enderwick 0:47
I think that's part of the appeal it really though, right? And to be fair, like, I probably get higher engagements on ones that suck. But you know, I'm not here to make just purely like try and get the highest engagement and try and optimize my videos, reviews and stuff like that. I'm just making a sandwich, see how it goes. I can flex it up and make it something I'd want to eat again. There we go. It's a win.

Matt Sodnicar 1:12
So what is it about the 19 Arts in buttered bread and anchovies,

Barry Enderwick 1:18
the anchovies, the only thing I can think of is that they would be tinned, and they would be widely available, and they'd be a good source of protein that would be relatively inexpensive. The buttered bread, I think, when I look at some of the a lot of these recipes, they'll say to cut off a piece of bread from a loaf. And make sure that the loaf is at least one day old, or they would call it stale. So what you've got is kind of a crumbly bread. So by putting butter on it, you kind of acts as a moisture barrier, but it also kind of helps with the dry bread to make it more palatable. So I think that's why you see butter used just throughout these books until about the 60s or 70s when it seems to have fallen out of favor here in America. It's still done in the UK and a lot of Europe from my understanding.

Matt Sodnicar 2:07
I will admit I'm an anchovy fan. So even outside the Caesar salad and I do have a couple of tins of sardines some of the newer ones that have the flavors mixed in like the beans and the peppers and tomatoes like it's a decent snack.

Barry Enderwick 2:23
I think so too. And there's also a lot to be said for eating down the food chain like that as well because you lessen maybe exposure to mercury that you might get with fish that are bigger fish. And also it's more sustainable. There's there's a kabillion, anchovies and sardines out there. You're not getting over fished or anything like that, which is great. And I actually I like anchovies outside of Caesar salad as well. It's just when the sandwiches call for like, filling the sandwich with anchovy paste. It's like no. No,

Matt Sodnicar 2:57
there's a certain words that evoke, I think over vivid image and chili paste is one of them.

Barry Enderwick 3:06
It has to be used very judiciously and it has its place. But when the sandwich like I said when the sandwich recently I do the sandwich instead to fill the sandwich with anchovy paste. I'm like, Not on your life. And even then I use it sparingly and it was still terrible.

Matt Sodnicar 3:25
What's been the worst sandwich two part question the worst sandwich you've made. And I don't want to throw a restaurant under the bus but what's the worst sandwich that you've purchased?

Barry Enderwick 3:39
Sandwich that I worst sandwich that I purchased. I don't I don't even I couldn't even tell you. I don't like I first of all, I don't eat a lot of sandwiches outside of house now because you'd have sandwich every day has that ham sandwich to a sandwich every single day. Yeah, I don't need a lot of sandwiches out of the house. Worst sandwich ever made. I think it's probably going to be the waster sandwich from the up to date sandwich book of 1909 which had me chop up raw oysters. Mixing some Worcestershire sauce and put it on buttered bread with a leaf of lettuce. And I like raw oysters on the half shell with lemon unit or Tabasco little lemon but chopped up and mixed up with the olive oil and what's for sure it was terrible slimy gross mess.

Matt Sodnicar 4:27
I'm gonna have to go back and look that may have been the one that I saw because it was a first bite reaction.

Barry Enderwick 4:32
It was early on it was it was one of the early sandwiches that I did

Matt Sodnicar 4:39
just plus it up by thrown in the trash can.

Barry Enderwick 4:41
Well luckily it was a Pre Plus apparel, but there would have been no plus after that other than the like. You'd have to cook the oysters but then it's already mixed with all the other stuff. So just

Matt Sodnicar 4:53
what was the origin of the idea? And one of my friends had turned me on to the feed in a I was immediately drawn in just I think, your personality and I have some other design questions around it. But what was the origin of the idea?

Barry Enderwick 5:10
First of all, thanks, I appreciate that. And but the origin the idea, so I originally, okay, let's back it up to when I left Netflix, I had absolutely zero social media presence whatsoever. I didn't know about social media, I didn't know how it worked or anything like that. So we started playing around with it, eventually getting Instagram, very late getting on Twitter and not doing very well on that, succeeding on expanding that out. And on Facebook, which was the one that I had used somewhat, when I was at Netflix, I would buy potato chips, interesting flavored potato chips, and I took post a picture and a description of like, what I thought of it, my friend said, oh, you should do some you could do a vlog I'm like, okay, so I started recording videos, and I started doing in the chips with Barry. And then probably about two and a half years into that that same friend forwarded me a PDF of the up to date sandwich book of 1909. So check this out, this would be fine, have fun to do. And I'm like, Yes, I would. I just started doing it. And I did it on Instagram. First. And the format that I chose was not not successful on Instagram, it was posting a picture on the feed, making videos and stories, which then went away in 24 hours. And it didn't do very well. And they just sort of let it go kind of like be a ghost ship for a while for about six months, seven months. And then tick tock came along and I thought well, what if I take the making of videos that were in the stories and put them on Tiktok as videos? And it just took off? And I'm like, wait a minute, what if I do that on Instagram, and it has taken off and now it's and then YouTube is starting to take off as well. So it's pretty interesting.

Matt Sodnicar 6:49
So can you separate your food curiosity from your marketing brain when you're doing this?

Barry Enderwick 6:56
Yeah, it's so one thing I don't do when it when I think about marketing, I think about analytics, I think about what's the lifetime value? What's the cost per acquisition? You know, what are the target audiences? What is their brand position? What is the messaging? What are the pain points are solving, like, all the traditional things that you think about when you think about marketing? When I do sandwiches, the history, it has been very much a I'm just doing this, I'm just gonna commit and do one a day. And if it's successful, great. If it isn't fine, I'm not going to look at video views, I'm not going to look at advice about how many videos I should post a day or I typically don't hop on trends. I'll do a once in a blue moon. If it's kind of like irrelevant. But I just wanted to do something that was fun and enjoyable. And if it worked great if it didn't. Well, so that to me, I do separate that out a little bit now. You know, it comes to the past today in in doing sandwiches in history on multiple platforms, I've kind of mitigated risk of just having concentrated on one platform. Right? So if I just focused on tick tock, and then tick tock started to founder. That's it. But I've also got Instagram, I've got YouTube again, Facebook. So a little bit of that marketing kind of spread the risk around the kind of thing quite a little bit. And it's kind of informing how I think about monetizing as well now that I figure, you know, why not try and monetize it a little bit?

Matt Sodnicar 8:26
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you're putting the work in and that time and that effort and creativity should be rewarded if possible.

Barry Enderwick 8:33
Well, I like the way you think yes.

Matt Sodnicar 8:38
Well, the one story I'll tell you about the podcast is that people ask me, Do I have sponsors, things like that? And I do it just because I enjoy the conversation. And I'm not gonna lie. What I love to do this as a full time gig and just get paid to talk to people. Yeah, absolutely. But I go into it with the mindset of enjoying the experience of it. And it's led me to meet you know, I think over 150 Just cool people that I could count as friends. And if we learned something, and I didn't have a good time, and to me have satisfied, you know, what I feel is a more important metric than the analytics, which I can't figure out. I've tried to figure it out. But things are tough. Yeah, and I can't believe that that's a thing because with all the metrics and analytics and advertising, and now there's targeted ads based on like, somebody knows, but I don't care. Like

we didn't start any of this out thinking like, I'm gonna make this a thing. I'm gonna make this a potential living. That wasn't ever that there was no end goal like that.

Well, I think it was. I'm gonna attribute this quote to Dr. Dre but um, He said that the minute you chase money, not a personal friend, by the way

Barry Enderwick 10:08
early on your podcast

Matt Sodnicar 10:12
is that the minute you chase money, God leaves the room, I think they're talking about the creativity of, you know, or the, the purity of the creation that if you're doing it for yourself, and I've heard that too, where it's like, if you write for everybody, it's gonna be so generic. If you write for it to be popular, it's gonna suck.

Barry Enderwick 10:32
Yep, I totally.

Matt Sodnicar 10:36
This might be an impossible question. But it's a two parter that if you could somehow separate the technology, and you went back to the days of Netflix, could sandwiches of history somehow exist in any way? In 2008?

Barry Enderwick 11:01
Potentially, when Facebook because Facebook was at that point, I believe Facebook was the thing, right? If it wasn't the thing, it was on the rise. And so there were there was the era where virality was Facebook was where virality happened. So I think might have happened there. But I think part of the reason why it's kind of taken off now is because of how chaotic the rest of social media feels. So there's a context. That sandwich of sandwiches of history is viewed against and relatively speaking, I'm not out there doing the latest dance, but I'm not out there. Jumping off a roof. I'm not doing

Matt Sodnicar 11:43
yet.

Barry Enderwick 11:44
Not yet. No. Not gonna happen. That's not me. I will I will do a little comedy things here and there and goofy things to make people laugh, but but yeah, I'm just like, hey, let's make a sandwich. And everyone's like, Oh, okay, I can calm down for a second I can relax. Because I think there's there's, there's a fair amount of stress in going through your feet and seeing just nonstop stuff going

Matt Sodnicar 12:09
on? Yeah. It took me a minute to get my mind around that I'm always going to miss something that there's going to be something that blows past me. And he talked about the comedy. He said something on today's post about the ether trip, or

Barry Enderwick 12:27
that was totally lifted from Patton Oswald I have to come to was it Yeah, one of his routines, he references an ether frolic. And I thought that was heroic. I thought that was hilarious, but full credit to Patenaude that I did not come up with that.

Hey, used in context, it's it's still funny as hell. And again, with the technology going back to Netflix and 2008, because you can't take streaming out of that equation or the DVDs. But how would your life had been easier or more difficult if, if this type of social media had existed when you guys are trying to get Netflix off the ground?

Well, I mean, like, I, you know, I don't know, because I was so heads down, I had been at Netflix by two in 2008. I had been at Netflix for seven years. And I was all in like, there is no other thing to do other than maybe Ron cook or play golf or something like that. But like the, it'd be by that point that it became apparent to me that I was working at a company that was evolving and changing things in a way that most companies don't. And I was definitely interested in seeing where we were going next. All the time. When I first started, I had no idea like I thought we could put blockbuster out of business. When I first joined Netflix, I like the no brainer. This could this could totally put blockbuster out of business, which of course, is complete, naive thing to think like, realistically, we shouldn't have been able to put blockbuster out of business. And actually, if you think about a blockbuster put themselves out of business. We didn't do it. We just sort of like tip the van as they started to roll

Matt Sodnicar 14:10
if you were a forcing function in that equation, though.

Barry Enderwick 14:13
Exactly, exactly. So but we didn't like people say like, oh, you put blockbuster out of business like no, they made a bunch of bad bets. And it started with Viacom spinning them out with a massive amount of debt that they just couldn't bear. And then they passed on buying Netflix. They thought they just missed DVDs by mail as a niche market. They were really late to get into streaming. And we were that's I mean when I joined the company, Reid had talked about streaming as the future. So you know, we were focused on where things were going blockbuster was focused on maintaining market share and charging their 30% of their their customer base with leaf These

Matt Sodnicar 15:03
people do you think they had lost the culture battle or the vision battle? before it even really started?

Barry Enderwick 15:16
I think Well, I think I think they failed to understand the damage that the late fees had caused. The from a brand standpoint, I think they really underestimated or just didn't think it was a big deal, because that's just the way it was every video store operated under those rules have returned by this time are you charged a late fee and it gets more and more exorbitant The later you are? And then Netflix saunters into the room and says, hey, no late fees? What was interesting, because early on, we would talk to people about you know, but Netflix was a completely foreign concept, this idea of DVDs by mail, it's like, we order online. And so it's like mail or and what. But we would talk to people about where do you want your movie? So we go to Blockbuster you like we're going to Blockbuster Oh, yeah, we love going to Blockbuster. It's fun. Walk us through the experience. And they would walk through the experience. And the further along they got, the more angry they got. Because they talked about having to find a movie, oh, they couldn't find their first choice. Okay, then we set up for that movie, then we get home. And then we we can't watch a movie because it gets sick or something like that. And then we forget to return on time. And then like, the whole thing was that there was a sort of, like latent dislike, I wouldn't say hate the dislike of the rental process that blockbuster used. And so we were able to, like, turn that around and say, well, we'll send them to you. Free shipping both ways. no late fees. And when you send one back will automatically send the next one on your list, you don't have to worry about it. So there was a there was a lot of there was a lot of using their own negative energy against them.

Matt Sodnicar 16:58
Well, I'm gonna send your, your medium article around to all my marketing friends tomorrow, and you just hit upon that one thing is that you attack the process, not the competition. Right. And I think that's that's a brilliant example of carving out mindspace for either new customers or a new market.

Barry Enderwick 17:24
Yeah, we we actively. It was it was well known within marketing that you do not mention blockbuster in any app. You just you don't you don't give them free advertising. And blockbuster, of course, didn't feel the same way. And they gave us free advertising on their TV commercials where they would show the Netflix mailer and the logo and say, out loud, and it was like, thank you. For people who have not heard of Netflix, they will now look up who Netflix is. So yeah, it's very much like don't, you know, attacking the I mean, there can be an argument that if you're in second place, and you know, you're going to be in second place that you're and you can't really get into first place as a brand. You could, you could make a case for going after specifically like kind of like Burger King does with McDonald's. Right? I don't know how Burger King would ever displace McDonald's as a first place brand. And so they've basically lean it, they've kind of leaned into the idea of kicking up against McDonald's. But in general, I would say if you act like a first place brand, it's better for you.

Yeah, I love that concept. And one of the books that's continually on my desk is this one. I'm sure you've Yeah. So as you're talking about Burger King, you know, with that blockbuster ad, and mentioning you guys as the competition. I want to spin up a marketing agency where and I'm hiring that, you know, if you ever want to come do this, all I want to do is have you know, monetarily nice offices. We just kind of hang out, we don't really do anything until other companies send us their ad campaigns. And we tell them, Look, this isn't going to work. We know why and so sick and the way we make money. Yeah, is that they they'll give us, you know, 10,000 bucks to like, fix their ad or whatever. Right? Or if they don't listen to us, we get to use their logo on our website that we told them this is going to fail. They didn't listen to us.

I don't know how that's gonna work out.

Matt Sodnicar 19:35
And then we go back to eatin sandwiches. Do whatever we want to do.

Barry Enderwick 19:39
You'll have a lot of sandwiches but

Matt Sodnicar 19:43
yeah, I see all these. And again, this is me imagining in the blockbuster room is they think they're just you know, toasting champagne with this commercial coming out and just crushing you guys. And it's like, you know, there's

sometimes you can I think you can see like culture in a company's brand. Yeah, an arrogance to

Barry Enderwick 20:05
Yeah. And the other thing, one other marketing lesson I learned from my boss at Netflix that would basically, just because an ad resonates with you, doesn't mean it's a successful ad. So if you see a competitor and they run an ad, you're like, Oh, that's a great ad. Doesn't matter, unless you are the actual target audience, then it matters, then you're you're like, Okay, that's, that's fair valuation, because we have people within the company that would say, like, oh, we should copy Blockbuster and doing X, and it's like, hang on, here's why it's not really germane to who were trying to get, get a hold. It's, it's making you feel something because you work at Netflix, and we're in competition with them. And it's not a bad ad, but it's not an ad that's going to be effective.

Matt Sodnicar 20:48
The fresh eyes perspective, and something like, you know, if you don't know anything about us, does this make sense? Right, losing that objectivity? How have you combat it that this is something I struggle with, on multiple different fronts within sales and marketing is how do you get yourself to look at it for the first time, especially as an organization?

Barry Enderwick 21:15
Honestly, I think consumer research is just invaluable, speaking to people who are in the target audience, and whether they're your customers or not, but it's getting their perspective on it is just ridiculously invaluable. And we did that at Netflix, the entire time I was there when you know, we were when we were before, it turned into a studio that had its own content that I could then leverage and build a brand off that we had to build a brand off of other people's content. So we had to, we would like early days, we had a partnership with our early days, we had a partnership with BestBuy. And they would sell our free trial. And if someone became a paid customer, they would get a bounty? Well, part of that arrangement was they let us go into their stores and talk to customers who were buying DVDs, and kind of ask them to do rent DVDs. Okay, great. Can we ask you some questions about this messaging and this iconography that we've got, because we want to make sure it's communicating what we think it is. And, you know, early on, I can remember, because I started off in graphic design, Netflix and marketing. And I remember thinking I I nailed this, I got it, we got went into our focus group building, and person after person just did not get it. And my first reaction was, how could they not get it? Why? What's wrong with them? And then you start to realize the only constant here is your work. You didn't solve the problem. So it was a great eye opening situation and learning for me.

Matt Sodnicar 22:53
Yeah, it's something that I continually have to remind, first of all, starting with myself, but then people I work with, it's like, look, people are busy. Think about all the emails you get. And just how do we make it easy for people to comprehend what we're trying to do here?

Barry Enderwick 23:08
Yeah, absolutely. Unexpected. It's really the other thing that's great about when you talk to especially if you're talking about communications to customers, and you want to introduce something new or something like that, is just understanding how they speak about the problem that they have that you're solving or they how they speak about the service that you're providing. Because the language they use, most likely will be different than the stuff that you'd come up with as a marketer.

Matt Sodnicar 23:36
Yeah, can't be done in a vacuum. Yeah, I wasn't expecting a in depth marketing conversation. I'm loving it. Talking about sandwiches.

Barry Enderwick 23:46
No, I can talk about either I like both.

Matt Sodnicar 23:52
Let me ask this question. So your your final meal as a sandwich, do you have one that you would pick?

Barry Enderwick 24:02
Not really a so people ask me, you know, what's your favorite sandwich? And it's like, it depends on my mood. It depends on how hungry I am. It depends on the weather, like how hot it is. So you know, there's a roster of sandwiches that I love, but final sandwich I had would come down to what that day was like, Sure. Yeah, so sorry. I know that's an unsatisfying answer but

Matt Sodnicar 24:25
no not at all. Yeah, it's like asking musician your favorite song so it's more just curious how you would process it than anything else.

Barry Enderwick 24:36
Yeah, so again, like if I'm if if I'm not starving, but somewhat hungry. Something like the tomato from Turkey in the wolf in New Orleans would be great. Because tomato, full of flavor, delicious, satisfying, but it's not going to be super filling. If I'm starving, maybe I want to, you know, roast beef with blue cheese and arugula. Right? Hmm. So it just really depends. And it's, you know, it's not 100 degrees out, I wouldn't want that day. So that's another muffle letter. Anyway, have you been

Matt Sodnicar 25:16
recognized out in the wild yet?

Barry Enderwick 25:19
A few times at the local whole Whole Foods algorithm on Instagram or Tiktok? Certainly up to two folks here in San Jose, but it's not. I have no risk of going traveling and having people recognize who I am. Would be No, I don't I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's nice that people were like, Oh, hey, I'm like, yeah, that's, that's cool. Okay. But if it doesn't happen, that's fine, too.

Matt Sodnicar 25:49
Well, I think this is a credit to like your personality. And the tone you set on the posts in the feed is that it's, I get the feeling that this would kind of be if I was in your kitchen, you're making me lunch. You're like, Hey, I found this. This is try this. Yeah. So you're not trying to be anything but Barry, which is really cool. And that that authenticity, and that genuine character in the best possible way comes through. And so I think that, that setting up a dance in Whole Foods and doing that.

Barry Enderwick 26:25
Yeah, that's that's, I think it would be I would not, I wouldn't want I burn up really quick burn out really quickly. If I tried to do a persona, or something like that. I just like, No, I'm just, I'm just doing this because I like doing this.

Matt Sodnicar 26:41
Yeah. What's the time commitment from start to finish for production? I'm just curious, because the videos are pro, but they're not overly produced. And what's your time commitment per video,

Barry Enderwick 26:54
that is kind of tough to say I typically, what I've been doing is batching the sandwiches on Sunday, so shooting about six sandwiches on Sunday, just because my day job. And what I would do is on Wednesday, figure out what sandwiches I want to make. Then, you know, go get the ingredients at the store on Friday, and make the sandwiches maybe over the course of Saturday and Sunday shooting and then during the week, just edit. So shooting a sandwich depends on the complexity of the sandwich. Really simple ones I can I could probably shoot a video in about 10 minutes. And then editing. Editing probably takes about 20 minutes because I do close captions myself for Instagram. I do that in Premiere Pro. I just recently got a lav mic. So my sound sounds much better now instead of the cavernous kitchen. But and you know, there's the writing of the descriptions. There's the making of the thumbnails and then uploading all of this and scheduling it. So I don't know how long per each one but it's probably longer than I should

yeah, but you've got an eye for design and an eye for quality. And he gets I think it's core to who you are. And I was gonna ask about your shirts too, because there's there's a style element there That Was it intentional as part of your brand?

Oh, no. I mean, no, so I figured I needed a logo. So I just I kind of flipped around and created the logo that I've got, I kind of came up with several and most were terrible. And then for the the shirts like I'm gonna plus this up and that sort of stuff. I was just like, I like this aesthetic. I'm gonna go with this. So again, it was not that's where the marking brain did not kick in of like I need to have and I actually think that it's probably more beneficial to have a more diversified look to merch so I'll probably introduce some different designs pretty soon here but

yeah, I've seen the these podcasts that are trending towards video production and it makes sense I get it I mean, but I think about just audio editing yeah and it's that's hard enough but at least I can see it you know I can see that the waveforms and all that

actually if you get Premiere Pro it because you can see you see the video in waveforms, but you also see the audio and waveforms and you can I can actually almost just look if I had to I can just look at the audio portion of it and edit a show together. Like really? Yeah, it's like it's it Premiere Pro is, is pretty pretty, pretty nice. And I've gotten to know it a lot better.

I'll check it out. Yeah, yeah. I took like a Pete Holmes's podcast today when I was having lunch. And yeah, it's a three camera setup. And he's got a studio and all that, like, I mean, that would be awesome. I would love it. If I didn't have to edit it. Just shoot it. And yeah, track of the cameras and all that.

Yeah, the more complexity you introduce the more of an onerous task it's going to be. But if you were to do video with single camera, or you know, using the video that we're doing now, you can do it in Premiere Pro, and it would, I think you could still make it pretty interesting.

Matt Sodnicar 30:40
I'll give it a shot. Yeah, this could be the first. Do we still call it a podcast? If it's video?

Barry Enderwick 30:47
Vlog cast? I don't know. I don't know. Do we just coined a new term? Maybe, I don't know.

Matt Sodnicar 30:52
Maybe trademark that trademarked?

Barry Enderwick 30:55
It. I remember when I had flown cast.

Matt Sodnicar 31:02
Back when I first started this, this podcast, it was more of a business entrepreneurial one. And I would ask questions, because simply I wanted to learn. And it was about, like how close entrepreneurs people got to quitting. And like that inflection point of least when you want to call it like the midnight basement moments where you don't care. Nobody cares. Nothing's happening. And I have read the Netflix book. But from your your perspective, your personal perspective, did you get close to walking away from the startup and what kept you there?

Barry Enderwick 31:46
I, I did not get close to walking away from a startup. And what kept me there was the fact that we had a CEO that was talking about things that didn't exist, but that will exist. And the company kept transforming over time. So when I joined, it was DVDs by mail, and that was it. Then it became DVDs and streaming, then it became only streaming and it became a studio. And the relentless attempts to try and figure out what to do next. Like at one point, we did a test where we had stores within grocery stores, DVD rental stores. And the idea was we'd mail you DVD and you could return and get another one when you were in the grocery store because everyone has to go grocery shopping. But it turns out, it really wasn't worth the extra effort and mu was shut down. And the other thing is, you know, read was read is pretty was pretty brilliant about strategy. Like we had done the we had made this, we had been frustrated with the adoption of streaming. And the fact that there weren't streaming devices, we were just having people scream on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and their PC and Mac, which is fine, but it was like add there needs to be a streaming device. And so we bring in Anthony wood, who's the guy who created the DVR from Roku, he had a soundbar was the only product they had at the time. And he had him develop a streaming player for Netflix. And we got down to like the 11th hour like I was shooting promotional videos in Spokane, Washington for this thing to go on the website. And like everything was ready to go items, boxes were made. And at the like, it was December and Reid just said everyone has to come in all hands. And he said we're not going to make a streaming device. And because the reason was that if we wanted to be everywhere, we would need to be on other hardware. And if we want to other hardware, there's something called device ubiquity. If we create hardware, we're competing with the very people we're going to try and convince to put us on their hardware. And so that was the decision was we're not going to do that we're going to spin the Netflix player out, rebadged as Roku, and that's going to be their product and we'll help them and we'll invest a little in Roku as a company. And they'll they'll get the streaming player and we'll get device ubiquity and that's exactly what happened and Roku under Anthony woods, went on and did a phenomenal job of of expanding beyond hardware into ad sales as well. It's pretty impressive to me that he did that as well.

Matt Sodnicar 34:29
I had no idea that that's the origin of it. I've had several rookies and I didn't know that Netflix was part of that.

Barry Enderwick 34:34
Yeah, the very first Roku player streaming player was a Netflix player first. And my friend still has a prototype that we're using to shoot videos with. A dummy but it was still pretty, pretty cool.

So how did you get past like the sunk cost fallacy and things about 11th hour we've put this much money into it and still having a language Same as courage or wisdom to just say, look, we've taken this all the way except for pushing the Launch button. Where does Where did that come from?

Well, I mean, keep in mind that like the, the Roku player, or the Netflix player was given to Roku, and then Netflix invested in roku. So it didn't, it's not like the Netflix player just was stopped and everything destroyed. Oh, okay, it was rebadged. And then we also invested in Roku so that they can be successful, which of course, paid dividends as well. So I think it comes down to read and his ability to think strategically and make tough calls and the board was totally behind him. You're like, Yes, that makes sense. Let's do that. Okay, all right. Great.

It's an amazing story. It should be up there. I don't know how it's perceived outside of my own head, but up there with Apple and some of the other major disruptions and advancements of it's just not it's just not technology. It's not entertainment. It's its culture and behavior.

Right. Right.

Matt Sodnicar 36:17
Do you have a dream guest that you'd like to have and either fix a sandwich with or for?

Barry Enderwick 36:26
Wow, I've never been asked that. And I don't. I mean, do I have to be alive?

Matt Sodnicar 36:33
Let's do one of each. Okay.

Barry Enderwick 36:36
Joe Strummer, ever the class would be the one that's no longer with us. Lead singer alive

don't know I guess Alton Brown might be the one. I don't know if this is the I'm kind of not great with on the spot questions. And this shows it Yeah, I guess Alton Brown would be would be Jack Lappin. You know, Jack, my significant others on the couch next to me here with Jack prepared would be another. There will be also great. Yeah, that's, that's tough.

Matt Sodnicar 37:25
Somebody who Jacques is I think I've heard the name but I don't know who he is. He is

Barry Enderwick 37:29
a French chef that came he used to cook for the leader of France, got recruited to come over, he came over to New York City in the 1760s, somewhere in there. And he ended up working for Howard Johnsons. And he learned to eat he helped level up their food. And then he also learned to make food at scale, and fell in love with America. And he's been on cooking shows on public television for decades now. And he's watching him is great because you learn technique. You don't just go Oh, that looks like a good sandwich. He's like, here's what you need to do when you're doing this. And it's like, oh, there's Okay. All right. We're checking out

Matt Sodnicar 38:13
as you're so have a favorite sandwich. Know which is I ate all this,

Barry Enderwick 38:25
which is one today that I'm posting day after tomorrow. So they're not she's vegetarian, almost vegan. So a lot of the sandwiches that I make that she can participate in. Oh, there you go. Muffaletta. From central grocery vegetarian version.

Oh, excellent. Excellent. Awesome. Let's see if any other questions for you. Yes, fascinated about the Netflix and looking at your other company history, the word Kaizen jumped out to because we actually run that at my company when we have the kind of a disaster like continuous improvement. So that word can leapt off the page for me. So

yeah, yeah, that was I'm the brand manager at Netflix and I started a partnership when we left Netflix, soon after. And the idea was continuous improvement always get better always test, small gains actually compound, right? So if you if you get a 2% lift on your conversion on your website, that's, you know, and it's not much now that's great, but 10, five years from now, that could be phenomenal. Or it could lead to another discovery that's going to be phenomenal. So the idea of kaizen really resonated with us and we wanted to kind of embrace that and put it front and center.

Matt Sodnicar 39:51
Have you ever had ever had a sales career sales side of your career has it always been marketing?

Barry Enderwick 39:55
Well, you know, with Kaizen, we actually had to learn a little bit about sales. Um, and it's not something that either of us had done, we always thought like, oh, well, we're in marketing, we know how to, to close business. And it's like, no, you don't. And so we did a course on sales. We learned Austin method, I cannot remember it. It was a sales method, and it's got a guy's name attached to it. I can't remember and it's killing me. But it was fantastic. Because it wasn't you selling it was you listening to the person that you're you're talking to? Listening with the pain, asking, you know, figuring out what the pain of that they're going through? Figuring out what the consequences of if they don't do anything or, and figuring out if they've got the decision in the budget to do what they need to get done. And if not, you're like, we can't help you. Like it was it was less about convincing them to con you got to trust us. We're gonna fix everything and more of a honest evaluation of are we a good fit? And are we just trying to get their money? Because if we're just trying to get their money, chances are we're just gonna we're gonna fail. We have to figure out are we the right people to address what they need? Done?

Matt Sodnicar 41:13
Was it let's get real or let's not play? Was that it?

Barry Enderwick 41:16
Sandler method? Sandler? Yes. That was it.

Matt Sodnicar 41:22
Yeah, mine like

Barry Enderwick 41:23
a steel sieve. Yes. And Sam, the Sandler method is the thing that we studied, and it worked it, it worked.

Matt Sodnicar 41:34
I had a variation of that. And I still remember when my heart rate went up, because I was using one of these techniques, like you said, maybe we're not the guys for this. Because the client I was talking to, we're going down a completely different path, not a technology fit. It is one of those things in the movies, where it just like slows down or like zooms in and I saw myself saying this where it's like, don't think we're a fit. And then, as I

you know, just sweating and palpitations. But it was right. And it took us on a different direction. But I was terrified to say that,

Barry Enderwick 42:15
yeah, the first time the first time you do that, it's like, Oh, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? You know, you come to learn that the either a they the person that you're speaking to didn't adequately convey what the information and they think that you are a fit, and they try and tell you why. Or be, they appreciate that you have taken the time to listen to them and evaluate it and that you're not a fit. And you know, we'll make referrals if we're not a fit to other marketers and other agencies.

Matt Sodnicar 42:47
Well, it goes back to what you said, how do they speak about their problem? That should be the first start of every sales meeting is how do you describe what's going on here? Why are we sitting here?

Barry Enderwick 42:57
Yeah, exactly. And that was one of the questions is like, why are we meeting? And what's going on? Okay, well, tell me a little bit more about that. Tell me a little bit more about that. Tell me what, what happens. If you don't solve this? What are the consequences? If, because, you know, it could be that this is a problem, but it's not a big problem. So you don't really need to address it urgent, you don't need to address it immediately. So then, you know, we're, we're on this six to 12 month journey, and that might not work for either of us. So you know, how what, what are the consequences of this not being solved? And then you like, Okay, well, then it is a fit. You think it is a fit? You say okay, well, we come back with a scope of work. And that's another thing that we learned is we used to do proposals, and we would put in the proposal, all the stuff we're going to do and we send it to clients and we'd hear back from it and then we slowly watch as they implemented all the stuff that we said. So the Sandler method call that spilling the candy. Funny, but basically we learn the scope of work. Here's phase one, phase two, phase three here the cost breakdown secure are the objectives of what we're going to do and how am but we don't say how we're going to do it.

Yeah, yeah. I like that. I think I've kind of found an amigo here with a lot of different interests, right? Sales and marketing. You've got your beer, you've got your sandwiches. But yeah, and I this is one of the reasons I enjoy doing this podcast is that it's a creative outlet and but it the gears mesh with a lot of other things and it's just

you never know. Yeah. Are you a TED Lascaux fan?

Matt Sodnicar 44:41
You betcha.

Barry Enderwick 44:42
Yeah. So that that quote that is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but I don't know if I understand it's not necessarily true. But that whole idea of be curious, not judgmental. brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Because then you open yourself up to all possibilities, as opposed to just shutting things down automatically, which a lot of people do. though. So I tried to I tried to kind of embrace that even though it was on a TV show, and it's kind of hokey. It's still valid, I think. And so I think, you know, you're going into this podcast with the same sort of approach. Like, you know, let's, let's learn something, let's talk to people. And then you go off, we can go off on these tangents and you can learn like, there's no way we we'd have similar interests across several different different areas.

Matt Sodnicar 45:26
I love that show so much. I haven't gone back to watch it again, because I know it'll hold up. I want to have the that first watch experience and those emotions. Just a little bit longer.

Barry Enderwick 45:44
All right. I, yeah. I maybe I shouldn't tell you that. I have watched the first season five times and the second season three times.

Matt Sodnicar 45:50
Let's see, I can easily see myself doing that too.

Barry Enderwick 45:55
If someone turned it on right now, I'd watch it again. Yeah, I just it's one of them. It's kind of like, if Groundhog Day is on I'm watching that guy hurt comes on. And I'm watching that. There's no question about it. So

Matt Sodnicar 46:08
where do you stand on diehard being a Christmas movie?

Barry Enderwick 46:11
I agree. I think it is. It's it's wrapped all around the story of the movie. So yeah, yeah. It's not a traditional Christmas movie, but it's still a Christmas movie.

Matt Sodnicar 46:25
Correct. takes place at Christmas. There's Christmas carols. There's Chris. Yeah.

Barry Enderwick 46:31
There's snow at the end in the form of paper running out of the Nakatomi towers.

Matt Sodnicar 46:43
I'm in Denver or Colorado, right between the golden Colorado and downtown Denver.

Barry Enderwick 46:48
Gotcha. Okay. Very cool. Very cold.

Matt Sodnicar 46:51
It's three. Right now, this many

Barry Enderwick 46:58
if you can count the temperature on one hand that's cold. This morning, and it was like 32 And I'm like, oh, so cold. And I see other people posing like minus something. I'm the guy. Okay. It's not that bad.

Matt Sodnicar 47:10
Yeah, run club last night. It was seven and my eyelashes were starting to. Yeah. Yeah, dude, the dudes with beards came in and they were totally frosted up. Yeah, I

Barry Enderwick 47:24
mean, I'd still do it if I lived there because I love running so

Matt Sodnicar 47:29
diehard. I saw this actually on Netflix. They like the movies that made us. Yeah, and as so you know, this, this bit of trivia that when they are cutting Hans Gruber loose, they told him they're gonna do it on three and they didn't talk to brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Barry Enderwick 47:46
I love that. Yeah. And I love that. I love that show. And the song exploder is also good if you haven't seen that. Now, it's kind of the same thing was sort of like a behind the scenes of certain moments in music. And, you know, I don't I'm not a fan of all of the songs on it. And I wish they'd do more. But that one's pretty good as well to check that out.

Matt Sodnicar 48:06
Have you seen the Foo Fighters Sonic highways documentary?

Barry Enderwick 48:11
No, no. Yeah. Which is surprising because I love Foo Fighters.

Matt Sodnicar 48:14
It's amazing because that they they talked about that song and they have like Bob mould from Husker do come in and the guy from cheap trick and they actually have like this crazy amp switching over thing. And I've always wanted to, like some of my favorite songs have always wanted to be in the studio. Yeah, when it's coming together, not like when they're cutting the final edit, but like they're just farting around on the keyboard and it comes together.

Barry Enderwick 48:39
Did you watch that? Beatles documentary on apple plus, Apple TV plus,

Matt Sodnicar 48:44
no, that's on my list too.

Barry Enderwick 48:45
Absolutely. Check it out. Because that's exactly what that is. Okay, you can see it coming together. Let it be just like that. The songs like, what does it get back? Paul just starts with a riff. Like, it's not like he sat down and like, I've got an idea for a song you just written. And then it becomes you watch it become this song. And then it's a little plotting at some points. But it's definitely worth the watch. Because you get to see this this historic, iconic music as becomes what it is. It's crazy.

Matt Sodnicar 49:21
The last experience I had like that was riding giants. Have you heard about that documentary? Have you haven't seen it? It's very cool because it goes all the way back to the big wave guys in the 50s in Hawaii. And it it took me back to like watching the invention of say like basketball or a sport because you're literally seeing these guys develop and there's footage in it just the scenery was just amazing.

Barry Enderwick 49:48
Alright, so I've got two dog grooming dogs to check out. Riding giants and the sonic highways. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Sodnicar 49:59
Yeah, A very this has been amazing. I am so happy to have just connected with you and it's all good. It's all good. I sincerely appreciate the time and

Barry Enderwick 50:15
it was a lot of fun.

Matt Sodnicar 50:17
Thank you Where can people find you? I'll post links to all this but sandwiches of history and then you've got your other accounts

Barry Enderwick 50:26
as well let's see on tick tock we've got sandwiches in history in the trips would very, very quick stick duck ice cream o'clock. Then on Instagram the history in the trips are very, very cooking again, berries ice cream o'clock and craft beer Berry. And then on YouTube there's sandwiches a history and in the chips with very and then on Facebook is sandwiches history in the chips with very

Matt Sodnicar 50:52
awesome if you're in sales and marketing, follow Barry on LinkedIn for sure. It's some amazing content there.

Barry Enderwick 51:01
Thank you. Appreciate that. Great.

Matt Sodnicar 51:03
I'm gonna steal that and I know I'll be asking you for advice down the road.

Barry Enderwick 51:07
Absolutely. Anytime.

Matt Sodnicar 51:10
Very indirect. Thank you so much. It's your absolute pleasure.

Barry Enderwick 51:13
You're welcome. This is a lot of fun. Thank you. Really great interview.

Matt Sodnicar 51:17
Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that. And take your wife to go get that Muffaletta as a thank you.

Barry Enderwick 51:25
At some point, we'll make it back down in New Orleans. We tend to get we tend to go there at least once a year. We have friends down there. Cool.

Matt Sodnicar 51:37
Well tell her thanks for letting me borrow you for an hour. I appreciate it. See you man.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai