Steve Eppinger with Connector and Steve Rozeboom with No Longer Bound

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast first up on the High Velocity Radio show today with Connector Technologies. Mr. Steve Eppinger. How are you, man?

Steve Eppinger: I’m doing great. Stone, how are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. I should have said welcome back to the Business RadioX microphone. It’s been a minute. I think we decided maybe close to 20 years. But this is not your first rodeo, is it?

Steve Eppinger: It is not. Two decades since I’ve been in this studio or new studio, I guess. But, yeah, it’s it’s good to be back.

Stone Payton: So what are you up to these days? How are you trying to help folks? And folks. And who exactly are you trying to to serve?

Steve Eppinger: It’s called Connector. And, uh, the genesis of it, believe it or not, is jury duty. Um. Oh, my.

Stone Payton: I gotta hear this story.

Steve Eppinger: Sitting in jury duty a couple of years ago, and I’m kind of a an extrovert, in case you can’t tell. And looking for a way to find people that I could connect with. Uh, you know, people that were went to the same school, fraternity, whatever. And I figured I’ll fire up the networking app that we all know. Don’t think I want to say it here. Um, did not have that ability. I said, oh, well, there must be an app out there that can find people I know that are around me didn’t exist. So being an entrepreneur, I decided to build it.

Stone Payton: So what are you finding? How long? How long have you had this thing out?

Steve Eppinger: Uh, it’s been available for about four months now, but we’ve been working on it a little over a year.

Stone Payton: So what are you finding the most rewarding about that work? What’s what’s the most fun about it for you at this stage?

Steve Eppinger: Disruption. Uh, current state of networking. A lot of spam, a lot of just unvaluable connection opportunities. And with the connector app, we are looking to connect people on common interests. So say, for instance, there’s someone that grew up in your hometown that’s nearby. You, uh, say you find someone you know that’s in your fraternity. Um, these commonalities that create genuine opportunities to connect with people. That’s what the connector app looks to uncover.

Stone Payton: So it sounds marvelous to me on a cocktail napkin as we’re having a beer. Sounds like a fun project, but I gotta believe there’s a pretty huge gap between the cocktail napkin and getting this thing up and out. Tell us a little bit about that, uh, that journey, how you got it funded, how you got enough people to embrace it and really give you the steam you needed?

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, it’s a good story. I’m actually, uh, one of my good friends, Steve Rozeboom, is with us here, and, uh, you know, I’ve known him for nearly 20 years. Our kids grew up together, and, you know, he’s been generous enough to be one of my advisors and investors. Oh, my. And with that, he actually brought an absolutely amazing opportunity that we’ll talk about a little bit more today with a group called No Longer Bound.

Stone Payton: Oh, fun. Okay, Steve, I got to know what compelled you to pull the trigger on this thing and actually invest money in it.

Steve Rozeboom: Well, thank you for having me today, Stone. Um. Steve twisted my arm really hard.

Stone Payton: No, he played the friend card, didn’t he?

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, a little bit. No.

Stone Payton: Your kids spent the night at my house.

Steve Rozeboom: Exactly. Would you like to invest in my. Absolutely.

Steve Eppinger: I’m not going to put the Viking games on.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, we didn’t do any of that. Um, you know, we it was interesting when I started talking to Steve about it, you know, he explained the business side of it. You know, like he just did. You know, it’s certain other apps out there just don’t provide the filtering and they don’t provide the provide the connection that we need. We were coming, you know, a couple of years, few years post Covid, and it was such a great, um, disrupter in the connections that we had, right? I mean, during Covid, it was all about disconnection. And so when he came out with this app a few years later, I thought, man, this is a perfect way for people to kind of come back together again without having to be really be in person in mass. Right. And so I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool to know, like I spent a lot of time in airports? You know, if my friend was two gates over or if a friend of mine was, you know, somewhere else in the airport, we can say, hey, let’s meet up and have some to eat.

Steve Rozeboom: And so that in itself, I thought, wow, that’s a great networking opportunity. But then I went to right to the, the AA and the recovery side of things. And I looked at, you know, I have 20 years of sobriety. And so the app to me said, why can’t we use this to keep in touch with our brothers in recovery. And and so, you know, Steve was like, it’s mostly a business app, but yeah, why couldn’t we, you know, and so we actually set up a separate group in connector. And we have all the guys from No Longer Bound. And you know, we kind of keep up with each other. And you know, when we see somebody nearby we say, hey, I’m just down the street, let’s have a cup of coffee. Um, if any of the guys feel squirrely, you know, they can get on the app and see who’s close. Close by. Um, we don’t do this yet, but if somebody ends up in the bluffs or they used to buy all their drugs, then it needs to be. No, no, no warning. Warning. But.

Stone Payton: So let’s get before we I am fascinated with this. I want to learn all about how it works, where it works best way to leverage it. But let’s get the backstory on on you. How did you land in this role of doing what you do for the folks? You do it.

Steve Rozeboom: Sure, sure. Um, you know, when when, um, when you get sober in AA, there’s AA meetings everywhere. I mean, you can find someone anywhere, anytime, any time of day. And the difference between that and some of the parachurch ministries and some of the, you know, recovery programs in town is that they’re small. I mean, they they turn out 30, 40, 50 people a year. And for those guys to stay connected, it’s really tough because you got to be at the no longer around. You got to go back up there to see the guys. There’s only one place, one meeting, one way to connect. And with this, they were very excited about the idea to maintain there’s a part in the program when the guys get their phones back and they’re actually just putting connector on their phones when they get their phones back, so that we can all stay in touch.

Stone Payton: Wow.

Steve Rozeboom: But I started using no longer Bound and working with them and employing their people. And 60, 70% of the people at specialty, the office furniture company that I own, are in one form or another of long term recovery. And so we get a lot of guys from no Longer bound there. And that was my connection to No Longer Bound.

Stone Payton: So you own an enterprise and you are clearly neck deep in No Longer Bound.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah. That’s my that’s a ministry opportunity that I’m involved in. And you know, in AA you want to stay sober. You got to give it away. And there’s a lot of great people up there. And I subscribed to their way of doing it. They’re supported by Northpoint. And it’s a great ministry a great group of people. And so, you know, I’m grateful to Steve for letting us do it, you know, pro bono, basically, we’ve been able to test a thing and get a lot of people in it, and it’s worked out really well.

Stone Payton: Well, I’ve got to believe having you test it with a real group like that probably helped you refine the product, the approach, the sales and the marketing, the whole bit.

Steve Eppinger: Right, Steve? Yeah, it absolutely has. Um, you know, I think I mentioned it before, but connector conceived as a commercial product and it still is a commercial product. You know, we, uh, Steve mentioned airports. Uh, we think about airports, convention centers, uh, university campuses, any area where trade shows, where large groups of people gather and there’s networking opportunities. And as we talk to no longer bound about that and other organizations, it was quite interesting. They used the term alumni and fraternity for people that have graduated from their program and like, wow, that’s a very eerie parallel to connector, where one of our markets is fraternities and university alumni. So the idea of turning the app into something for the greater good was really a no brainer. I’m certainly hoping that No Longer Bound isn’t our last. I could see that as the, you know, the the ministry angle for the connector product. I mean, yeah, obviously for the greater good.

Stone Payton: Mhm. So does no longer bound kind of have their own sandbox in your world. For example, if we had uh, this thing set up for everybody who’s been a Business RadioX guest. Right. Because they kind of join the family, then they refer other guests and, you know, they come back on and sometimes they’re clients, that kind of kind of thing. So it’s no longer bound kind of have their sandbox and Business RadioX has their sandbox or how’s it structured?

Steve Eppinger: It can be structured that way. We we have two versions of the app. One is an open network, one is a closed network. So let’s say a closed network. You are the Coca-Cola company. To take an example of a large corporation in the Atlanta area. Good solid, solid product. Um, if they wanted to create an a, a school, a school, a company, alumni network and only show people that are current employees or former employees of Coca-Cola. Very easy for us to do. No longer bound. Actually wanted their people on an open network so they can they can foster networking opportunities outside of just members of No Longer Bound. But with that said, the app is branded for No Longer Bound, and there’s a visual indicator and you can filter for just people that happen to be nearby me that are from no longer bound.

Stone Payton: So the revenue model, if you don’t mind, should share. Like how do you make money with this thing? It is.

Steve Eppinger: Ad based. So the more eyeballs, the more users we have. That’s how we make money. Uh, that’s currently, I think longer term there’s licensing opportunities. And yeah.

Stone Payton: So getting it off the ground, getting a critical mass of people using it sounds like Steve helped, right? He did. Is that one of the biggest challenges in getting technology to be commercially viable?

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, absolutely. The biggest challenge, uh, with any product trying to go after one person at a time to use your your product is difficult. So you have to look at where are the the larger audiences, where are the groups of people? Um, no Longer Bound has added a number of people to the network. My fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, um, because I’m a member, my son is a member and a recent graduate of South Carolina Gamecocks. Um, he’s been instrumental in getting his brothers to test the app. So we have several hundred sig apps out there that are using it. Um, we did our first trade show event back in August in Las Vegas, an event called the Mopar Vendor Expo that added a few hundred people to the network. So that’s kind of the phase we’re in right now, is let’s get some trade shows using it. Let’s get some fraternities using it. Let’s get some university alumni groups using it. And that’s ultimately how we’re going to build the network.

Stone Payton: Both of you are obviously successful entrepreneurs, successful, established business people that have been out there helping people, doing a lot of good for a long time. So I’m going to ask this question of both of you. I’m going to start with you, Eppinger. Um, have you had the benefit of one or more mentors in this space or a similar space that kind of helped you navigate the terrain along the way when you jumped into this arena?

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, there’s a number of people, um, I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy of surround yourself with smart people that will prevent you from getting arrested. So having been an entrepreneur for most of my life, and I actually had a 12 x exit back in 2008 when the economy was just horrible. You come to the realization that things like human resources and legal and accounting find good people to help you with that, find mentors to to guide you down that path. But also, you know, finding the opportunities out there. You always have to surround yourself with good people.

Stone Payton: And now you find yourself mentoring others, I’m sure, on a variety of topics and issues.

Steve Eppinger: Yeah. And that’s a if I fast forward my life ten, 15 years from now, I might be dead ten, 15 years, you know, give you insight into how old I am. Um, you know, that’s what I would love to do full time. I would love to maybe be on an advisory board for 20 different startups around the world and just lend my knowledge that that, to me, is the dream job.

Speaker5: All right.

Stone Payton: Rozeboom. So the organization that you head up is specialty. Am I remembering that right? That’s correct. Tell us a little bit more about that organization, how you got it off the ground. And then I’m going to swing back around to you on this mentor question too.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, sure. I you know, I started working there in, uh, about, uh, 17 years ago. 18 years ago. And came to work here with my dad, worked for him for a few years, and then ended up buying the company from him and sending him off to retirement. And since then, we’ve experienced tremendous growth. Um, but when I came back to work with my dad, he said, uh, I guess when I came back to work with him, I had two years of sobriety. And he said to me, um, don’t steal my stuff. Don’t lie to me and don’t use. And if you do, come resign because I don’t have the heart to let you go. And so I’ve been telling guys that ever since that day. And, like, 70% of our workforce is people in long term recovery.

Stone Payton: Really? Oh, man.

Steve Rozeboom: It’s been. Yeah, it’s a great business. We make office furniture, we make tables. I have a factory in Bulgaria, um, just outside of Sofia. And even over there. We’re very mission focused there as well. The gypsy gypsies over there, the underprivileged class. And so we hire from the gypsy community, and we bring them in and train them and give them a job where most people would not do that. Um, so we try and try and stay focused on the real mission. You know, I always say tables fund the mission. And so we make office furniture. It feels.

Steve Eppinger: So bad being the greedy capitalist here at the table.

Stone Payton: Yeah, really?

Steve Rozeboom: Not to say we don’t have good margins. I mean.

Stone Payton: Well, my instincts are that a lot of listeners would feel the same way because initially that feels to me like you’re taking quite a risk to put the future of your business in the hands of folks that have met with some challenges and don’t have, at least in their immediate past, you know, a great track record of doing all the things you want a good, strong team to do. But I get the very distinct sense that it hasn’t come back to bite you, if nothing else. On the contrary, on the other side of that, I wonder if you just don’t have even more loyal employees, more dedicated to you, more dedicated to the mission than the traditional. Yes.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, 100%. Percent. Hundred percent. Those guys would run through a wall for the company. And, you know, they have to have close to a year of sobriety to come in there. But our focus is really on restoring dignity, you know? And I remember the time when my wife’s looking at me changed when I had been working for a period of time and I had been saving some money. And I was, you know, being the man that I should have been. And that’s been our focus at specialty all along, is helping these young guys, you know, get their life started again and gain some respect in the community. So we’re not about getting them sober. They’re we’re about keeping them sober and teaching them how to live sober.

Stone Payton: So I mean, mentoring has to be so heavily interlaced in your everyday life, but, um, speak to mentoring, being a mentee, being a mentor a little bit from, from your experience on both sides of the table.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, I spend a lot. I do spend a lot of time doing that, but it’s, um, it’s through a group. So I’m in a roundtable CEO group, and it’s all it’s like minded CEOs, um, spiritually based program. And so we do a lot of work with each other in there. A lot of that mentoring happens in there. Um, as far as other business guys, but at the, you know, in the office, of course, we’re working with those those young guys all day. And it’s, you know, I just I had a meeting, we had an AA style meeting at our office at noon. So 12 to 1 every Thursday, and it’s open for anybody. But yeah, mostly for the people who work there. So yeah, we we do what we what we can.

Stone Payton: Well, you’ve got so much going for you, but I’m going to ask anyway, what do you need next. What do you need more of? Less of. How can we help?

Steve Rozeboom: Man, I you can buy more office furniture. Specialty net that always funds the it funds the mission. Yeah. Um. You know, but other than that, when when, you know, we always ask people when you know somebody who is in recovery, who needs a job, you know, give us a call. Um, we’re always hiring. We’re always sending people back into their original careers. You know, business school would tell you that turnover is the death of any company. But for us, we’re proud of turnover. Those guys mean that they’ve got back to where they are. They put their life back together and they go back to construction, estimating or whatever they used to do before. And so when they leave, we celebrate it. The guys in the back already have 3 or 4 guys lined up to come in without me even having to go recruit. And so they bring in the next guy, they train them up. And I don’t have to worry about a lot of training. They want to see him succeed. And it’s just it’s a self perpetuating program.

Stone Payton: So talk about a day in the life of Steve Rozeboom. It’s got to be a lot of variety. But what’s on your calendar week in and week out usually.

Steve Rozeboom: Oh man. Where do I begin? Um, it’s the last. The last few years have been really hard in the office furniture business. It was let’s take restaurants during Covid.

Stone Payton: So Covid really did have a negative impact.

Steve Rozeboom: Sure. 30% of the workforce went home. Wow. Which you know that another reason for connector. You know, it’s we’re at home. We’re running around. Some people work at home. I home. I mean, you just don’t see them. And so being able to get everybody together, you know, on that is great. But a day in the life, man. Just sell and sell and sell. And that’s what we do.

Stone Payton: On every front though. Yeah. You’re selling the furniture but you’re also selling the program. You’re the whole bit.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah. That’s just I don’t know how you put that. That’s just, um, a lifestyle for me.

Steve Rozeboom: Right, right. That’s that’s my lifestyle. So it’s not really a chore. It’s not really work. It’s just that’s how we live. We surround ourselves with each other and we’re with each other all day.

Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of this. Is app the right word?

Steve Eppinger: We’ll call it an app.

Stone Payton: I don’t want to I don’t want to diminish what it is. I just I’m a techno idiot, but I’m not.

Steve Eppinger: I’m not the least bit offended. I refer to it as the connector app.

Stone Payton: The connector app. Let’s dive into the nuts and bolts and we can walk through an existing use case. Or if you want to walk through, you know, Stone getting on the app and utilizing it. But I really want to kind of paint the picture for folks.

Steve Eppinger: Paint the picture. There Are 500 million users of LinkedIn. There I used I used the actual app name.

Stone Payton: That’s right. I can fix it in post.

Steve Eppinger: No, no, I want that in there. Oh, okay. And, uh, the growing dissatisfaction with the use of that app is just off the charts right now. Uh, it was conceived as a way for people to network, but it has grown into social media and gaming and just things that are have they’ve they’ve drifted away from their primary purpose. Uh, connector provides a better way for people to not just find new connections, but stay connected with existing connections. Um, you know, if you talk to an 18 year old, 19 year old, they’ll use Snapchat. And there’s a feature in there called the Snap Map, which will tell them, hey, my friends are nearby. So that doesn’t exist in the business world. Well, it does now because it’s built into connector. Uh, connector will tell you if, let’s say you’re at a trade show and you connect with someone. Six months ago at the Sky club when you were traveling. And why did I did I connect with this person? Oh, I connected with them at the Sema show. And then six months later, I’m at another show. Hey, stones, at this show, I should send him a chat and maybe we can connect. It’s creating those genuine kind of meet up connection opportunities. That’s the underlying purpose for connector.

Stone Payton: All kinds of use cases are flying around in my mind, and I’m being a little bit selfish at the moment. But you know, I mentioned earlier like when guests come on Business RadioX, but I could I could also see having that for a guest of one of 257 media properties that we have. High Velocity Radio.

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, absolutely.

Stone Payton: Or people in the Cherokee Business RadioX family or the Business RadioX studio partners who run these studios.

Steve Eppinger: Exactly right. I mean, you think about the primary goal, if you think about it, for fraternities, sororities, trade associations, university alumni groups is to provide networking opportunities. That’s they’re a number one purpose. And then probably to fund raise number two. Uh, but there is no good way on LinkedIn to do it right now. The groups they’ve set up 15, 20 years ago are just they’re stale. They’re not really providing a lot of benefit. So again, we go back to disruption. We want to revolutionize how people network.

Stone Payton: So what do you need? What are you taking on? More investors. You just want more people on there that are genuinely you know, that where there is a practical use case for them. What would you if you could just wave the magic wand?

Steve Eppinger: Yes.

Stone Payton: Yes and yes and yes, yes, yes.

Steve Eppinger: Um, we are really at a point right now where that we’ve proven the product works. We’ve we’ve proven there’s a market for it. Uh, we are starting to do a lot of, uh, outbound business development work in all those segments that I mentioned earlier. Um, we are as well, looking for funding, and we are building the network kind of, you know, like I said, one person at a time is a bit of a challenge, but one show at a time, one fraternity at a time, one alumni Association. Eastern time, one trade group at a time. Yeah, that’s where we are. I would love to come back here in a year and say we have Alcoholics Anonymous using the app. We have no longer bound still using the app. We have you know, there’s Steve has brought to you. You hear Steve’s passion for the the non-corporate side of what he does.

Stone Payton: Oh, yeah. Loud and clear.

Steve Eppinger: He’s very much a mentor for me in that. That part of the world, if you will. So when I conceived of connector, I thought of it 100% as this is a commercial app, and I didn’t think we were going to take over the world to take over the world. I’d love to have an office in Italy. That’d be pretty cool. Yeah, we have a.

Steve Rozeboom: Prospect over there, don’t we? Yeah we do.

Steve Eppinger: Let’s go to Barcelona. Um, I my my way of thinking has changed over the last few months as we’ve started to work with no longer bound is. Hey, there needs to be a segment of this company and this product dedicated to the greater good. And whether that is addiction counseling or, you know, any segment that would need the product. I’m we’re all in on that.

Stone Payton: Well, I look forward to diving more into that a year from now or earlier at the on site broadcast in Barcelona, in Barcelona. So I’m looking forward to putting that whole thing together.

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Eppinger: Well, we’ll have a studio for you there.

Stone Payton: Great.

Stone Payton: So how are you? And I’m sure the answer is that it’s evolving. But I’m going to ask anyway how what is the whole sales and marketing thing like for a company like you’re like, is there the structured discipline thing or are you just out there shaking the tree? How do you get the new signups?

Steve Eppinger: It’s it’s guerrilla marketing right now, to be honest with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, right now, connector isn’t a 100% full time gig for me right now. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So it’s it’s a startup mode. Um, you know this. We’re just coming out of stealth, I guess, with the announcement, right? With no longer bound. Um, so a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of posts on message boards and just trying to connect with as many people as I can to get the story out there.

Stone Payton: Yeah, just doing the work.

Steve Eppinger: So if you have any connections in the fraternity space, alumni associations, trade groups, be happy to hear about them.

Stone Payton: Well, and I will try and partially because I’m a good guy that wants to see you do well. But I got to tell you, one of the things I love about doing this kind of work is at least here locally, but on the national scale to some degree, because I’m part of the larger network. I’m the guy that knows the guy. And I just and I think a lot of us are this way. I take great pride in getting some form of non-monetary compensation, I guess, from being the guy that hooked you up and found, you know, and found, you know, Steve over here, Rozeboom what he needed. You know, like, I like being so.

Steve Eppinger: I talk about the big groups with hundreds of thousands of people that belong to them. But I think you touched on it. Chambers of commerce. You’ve got 10,000 businesses in north Fulton County. We’re based in Roswell, 10,000 businesses for the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. Their primary purpose is purpose is networking as well. So why not a dedicated version of the app for them?

Stone Payton: Oh, I love it. Absolutely. Yeah. We gotta we gotta make that happen.

Steve Eppinger: Yeah. Another one of my advisors, um, he’s a he’s a national organ donor, and he said there’s a whole network of organ donors out here. And one of the cool things about connector is we help connect you on a number of different factors. It could be the industry you work in. It could be where you grew up, where you went to school, but also on interests and affiliations. So if we all went to the same church, wouldn’t it be really cool if you were on a business trip to Las Vegas and you were like, oh, there’s someone from Woodstock Baptist Church in the Sky club with me, I’m going to send him a chat.

Stone Payton: Or I’m going to make sure they don’t see me.

Steve Eppinger: Well, exactly.

Stone Payton: Whatever’s going to benefit you, right? It could go either way.

Steve Eppinger: Now, the beauty of connector is we have a lot of privacy tools built into that for for just that use case, if you do want to hide where you are, Las Vegas being a good example of where you might want to hide.

Stone Payton: Uh, you wouldn’t have known this, but you struck a very real and emotional chord for me with the organ donor thing. My wife, Holly, uh, about 18 months ago, donated a kidney. Her best friend growing up needed a kidney. They weren’t a match, but in the system, if she would give a kidney, it brought her friend Mary up the chain enough to where she got got hers. But we’ve had a handful of people through whatever organization helped make all that happen. Uh, one. I just have a conversation with Holly, and I can remember before Holly donated the kidney, her having conversations with other donors, you know, to help her prepare and, uh, and that kind of thing. That was invaluable.

Steve Eppinger: Absolutely.

Steve Eppinger: And that speaks to connector and making genuine connections with people. But what I say is that, you know, you’re not every person you connect with isn’t going to be that home run, multi-million dollar business opportunity, right? But it’s someone that you have something in common with and someone you’ll probably continue to speak with. And if your goal is 100% business networking, you will find an opportunity from that connection that you made. And it might be three connections down the road. But hey, I remember talking to Holly. I remember talking to Stone. Oh, you should talk to this person. But that initial conversation may have never taken place. If you didn’t know they were nearby, or that they went to the same school, or grew up in the same town, or both loved Italian wine.

Stone Payton: You struck another chord. He hit Italian wine.

Stone Payton: So I don’t I’m calling one Eppinger and one Rozeboom because they’re both names. Uh, and I’m going to ask you this, too. Uh, Steve. Number two. But I don’t know when or how you’d find the time, but, uh, passions outside the scope of the work that we’re talking about. My listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. And I was sharing with you some of our community partner work and work, and how I’ve conveniently found a way to fold it in to hunt, fish, and travel. Uh, anything you have a tendency to nerd out about outside the scope of this kind of work right now? Or are you just neck deep?

Steve Eppinger: You know, honestly, uh, when I go into full entrepreneur mode, uh, I put 110% of my heart, soul and attention into that. Uh, yeah, I would say six months ago, I wanted connector to be successful. Um, when we announced the no longer bound partnership, I wanted this thing to rule the world. And I don’t mean financially. I mean, I want connector to have an impact on how people connect and network and stay connected. And that doesn’t necessarily mean being $1 billion company, but having a positive impact.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. And the answer may be similar to you. You got so much going on. You have this whole passion with no longer bound. But but I’ll ask.

Steve Rozeboom: Like, what do you mean? Like, how much time do I have to pursue my passions? Is that what you’re saying?

Stone Payton: Well, it’s interesting. Sometimes when you ask that question, somebody, You know, they you know, they their square dance instructor or something. You just don’t ever know. It’s always it’s often an interesting question.

Steve Eppinger: I turned Steve into a car enthusiast.

Steve Rozeboom: Yes he did.

Steve Rozeboom: He taught me how to bike like, you know, high end cars at good prices.

Steve Eppinger: Yeah, used cars.

Steve Rozeboom: We’re ready now.

Stone Payton: All right, so you guys do have that?

Steve Rozeboom: We do that.

Stone Payton: I knew if we kept digging, we’d find something.

Steve Rozeboom: Um, but, you know, when you say, um, how much free time do you have? Or how do you work your passion? My passion is interwoven into my business.

Stone Payton: Yeah, I can tell.

Steve Rozeboom: And so, you know, going to work for me is just. It’s great. You know, I get to hang out with all the guys and we have a good time, and we cut up and, you know, it’s just it’s it’s great. You know, I don’t have a big affinity for office furniture or tables. You know, it’s been paying the bills for my entire life, but. Right, right. At the end of the day, like I say, it funds the mission. You know, we get to hang out together and stay sober together. It’s great.

Steve Eppinger: I think we both have an affinity for family as well. Yeah. Um, you know, like, my son just got his first job. He works from home. My wife works from home. I work from home. And I feel so blessed to be able to spend so much time with them. So even when I’m working on connector, right, I’m still with my family. And so that that that helps drive me as well. That’s cool.

Stone Payton: So I’d love to before we wrap, if we could leave our listeners with a little something to chew on, nibble on. I call it kind of a walk away thought, and if I’d have been on top of my game before we went on the air, I would have shared with you guys, hey, I’m going to ask you for a walkaway thought. And then you’d have like, this well crafted 300 word essay. Uh, but but, uh, and I’ll start with you first. But if there was just a little something that if someone heard this, saw something about no longer bound, walked into a thrift shop struggling with addiction, whatever it was, um, if you could just, like, leave something that you felt like might stick with them a little bit, what might a thought or an idea might be? You’d leave them with?

Steve Rozeboom: Go get help now, I mean, if people are thinking about that, life isn’t, uh, life isn’t as boring on the other side of things as they think it is. You know, we have a heck of a lot of fun. You know, we have the relationships I’ve never had before, brothers I’ve never had before. I just say, don’t be afraid. Just go. You know, just go do it. Get sober, you know, and come work with us.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah. I mean we’re a great group of guys. We have a good time staying sober together and figuring out how to do life together.

Stone Payton: Oh, fantastic.

Steve Rozeboom: Yep.

Steve Eppinger: See that? Now? Stone turns to Steve Eppinger for the commercial pitch.

Steve Rozeboom: That’s right. Give me the business.

Stone Payton: There you go.

Steve Eppinger: Stark contrast to that. I would say, if you’re one of the 500 million LinkedIn users out there and you’re dissatisfied with all the spam that you’re getting and irrelevant connection requests, go to the App Store or Google Play, search for the connector app, or go to connector app, not.com.co or download the app and try it out. And that obviously helps build our network to ultimately fund the mission of helping people like Steve and No Longer bound and, you know, kind of helping the greater good.

Stone Payton: Great. And color me there. I am definitely going to do that.

Steve Rozeboom: Let me go ahead and give the, um, close the deal part here.

Stone Payton: Please.

Steve Rozeboom: So if you are a trade show manager, an event manager responsible for huge groups of people that need to stay in touch. Call Steve.

Steve Eppinger: Leadership in a fraternity or sorority. Huge groups on a chamber of commerce. Anywhere that you think there’s better ways for your group to absolutely reach out.

Steve Rozeboom: Please. There’s nothing like it.

Stone Payton: I love the chamber idea. You know, one of our studios is in a chamber. Most of our studios have some kind of strategic alliance with their local community chamber. I love that idea, but they all sound. Sound.

Stone Payton: I interrupted you go ahead.

Steve Eppinger: You know what? I forgot that for some, because I’m not in this world, but Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary service, rotary service organizations. Another. They exist to network. They exist to help each other. So yeah.

Steve Rozeboom: So people don’t seem to think of it. But I’d get on the connector app and say, hey, do you guys know anybody who does office furniture? We’re moving.

Steve Rozeboom: That’s simple.

Stone Payton: That’s an interesting idea. My late father in law was grand Poobah of some region of the rotary, and I can imagine. So you go to rotary lunch every week here in Woodstock, and you find yourself in Dallas, and you start looking up the, you know, and see if anybody in the rotary is here.

Steve Eppinger: You don’t you probably don’t know everybody in your chapter. So what if you were to tell the connector app, hey, let me know when someone from rotary in the automotive industry is nearby me.

Stone Payton: There you go. Why not? Yeah. Perfect.

Stone Payton: Uh, coordinates for, uh, no longer bound. Coordinates for the, uh, for the company. Let’s make sure that we have that information. I’ll swing back around you one more time, too.

Steve Rozeboom: So how do you find no longer bound? Yes, sir. I would go to no longer bound com. Okay. And check out the program. Quick call up there. They’ll tell you how many beds they got left and you can get in.

Steve Eppinger: Dot com.org.

Steve Rozeboom: Org. Sorry. I think it might be dot dot org. No longer bound.org.

Stone Payton: It’s important that you travel together.

Stone Payton: You gotta watch each other.

Steve Rozeboom: And well after raising these kids, you know, it’s like she’s got about three quarters of her brain left. I got about three quarters between the two of us.

Stone Payton: And then for for those of us that may not need those services, there are these thrift stores that are that help support that as well.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, a lot of good stuff in there. And every everything, every bit of profit from those thrift stores goes right back into no longer bound to support the scholarship programs for guys who can’t afford to be there.

Stone Payton: Oh very nice.

Steve Eppinger: It is.com.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah. Oh is it. It’s thanks they.

Stone Payton: How much post-show editing am I going to have to do here. Let me see. You know what. I’m not going to do any I’m going to let it roll.

Steve Rozeboom: And if you need office furniture, it’s specialty.net.

Stone Payton: Okay, Good stuff. All right. Eppinger, one more time. Coordinates for you and your work.

Steve Eppinger: Uh, Google Play or the App Store? Search for the connector app. Um, or go to connector app.co not.com.co.

Stone Payton: Well, gentlemen, it has been an absolute delight having you in the studio this afternoon. I’m quite sincere. And you know this Steve saying that I’d love to have you back. Keep us updated on your work, both of you. The work you’re doing is having such a tremendous impact on so many. And we sure appreciate you.

Steve Rozeboom: Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having us.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.