Molly Ruland:

You. Hey. Hey. Welcome back. Coming in hot from with another episode of Camp Content. We are live and direct from Heartcast Media and we are excited today to have Dave Van Beekham on the show. And you’re probably wondering who that is. Well, he is the CEO and founder of Tweeva. And so you guys are going to learn all about Tweva today. It’s a super cool product that I’m really interested myself. Personally. I think it can help small businesses. But he is the co founder and full time visionary behind Tuiva, which is the world’s first social TV network for small businesses and influencers. He began his technology journey back in August of  when he formed his own venture, DB Tech Design. And for over two decades, he served as the owner, spearheading projects involving software development, database management, web development, et cetera, et cetera. So we’re really excited to have Dave on the show today because we’re going to talk about Tweva and everything that he’s done. Right, Matt?

Matt Billman:

Yeah, we’re going to talk about it all. The impressive track record and diverse skill set. He’s become a force be reckoned with in the tech industry. And like we’re talking about, we’re going to look at Tweva today. It’s going to be great. But it’s the expertise in software development, software as a service, database development, social media marketing. It’s all kind of played a pivotal role in success of Tweva. So as the co founder there, now he continues to revolutionize the social media landscape for small businesses and influencers.

Dave Van Beekum:

Sorry.

Matt Billman:

So, yeah, just join us today as we dive into the world here and get going. And like we said, Preshow, which is all about pumping your tires here. So we’re ready to get into it.

Molly Ruland:

Welcome to the show, Dave.

Dave Van Beekum:

Thank you, guys. It’s so awesome to be here.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, man. We don’t have as cool of a background as you do.

Dave Van Beekum:

But hey, I had to make it really nice and pretty. I’m in TV. I’m in marketing. So I had to be something that’s snazzy it has to be the cool background colors of today. I looked it up, everybody. Oh, you got to have a colored, colored background here, colored background, opposite color on the other side. So you have to go find the.

Molly Ruland:

I didn’t even notice. That’s not easy to do, people. If you’ve ever worked with lighting the.

Dave Van Beekum:

RGB and I got to have the RGB changing light, colors, et cetera. It’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Matt Billman:

I can’t even figure out the lights that I put behind my TV in my room to do the right colors. But here we are.

Dave Van Beekum:

Take those and put them around the trim in the back, right?

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. So, Dave, the first question I got to ask you is, how are you finding the journey from being behind the curtain to be in front of the camera with all your cool lights? That’s got to be a bit of an adjustment for you.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah, it was quite the adjustment. Yeah. I did realize, though, that you look better with the lights in the camera than just like a normal web camera or with all of the junk, the computer arms and the D printers that were originally behind me. Then you’re like, okay, this looks a lot better. But it is hard to try to get out there and figure out what to say behind the curtain. When you’re programming and building things, you have that undo button, so you can always go, oh, no, I wrote that wrong. I did this wrong. When you’re on Live, you’re talking to people, it’s a little bit different. You got to have a little practice in there.

Molly Ruland:

Indeed. Well, and as a developer, you’re literally, like, head behind a screen all day. It’s a whole right brain, left brain.

Dave Van Beekum:

That’s why there’s such that shift. Yeah, I never thought about it like that. There is. And should I be tan or I live in Florida, so I should be tan, but I’m still Casper, those kind of things. How do you make yourself look good enough and talk and smart enough to be in front of the TV?

Molly Ruland:

You got to move your desk outside so you get some sun.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes. Got to get that vitamin D. My wife says, got to get the vitamin D. Sit out by the pool for a while.

Molly Ruland:

Maybe she’s not wrong.

Dave Van Beekum:

No, it’s a good thing. It is, but yeah, it’s quite the journey. You got to figure out the different things that you have to do in the public side that building a startup and trying to figure out the methodology of how to do something is not really you don’t do that. In front of people. But bringing it out to the public is something that you really should be doing in a startup. In the very beginning, is what I’ve learned. And going through the business accelerator courses to go get venture capital, they’re like, yeah, you wrote a press release in your first week. Right? I’m like, no. What about your first month? No, but they want to see that. And there’s things even now that we’re learning that you possibly have done wrong or even as the economy changes. Right. Things to do differently would be a big checklist that I have.

Molly Ruland:

Well, ain’t that the truth, right? Hindsight is , as they say, speaking. Oh, Matt, you look like you’re about to say yeah.

Matt Billman:

My just first question is we’ve looked it up. We’re pretty familiar with it, but if I’m somebody and I just kind of click the about me and everything. So is Tweva both obviously a service, but is it also a physical product as well?

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah. So Tweva is the TV channel. Think about the TV channel for your city. Right. So it kind of started out as this is a great way to display your business and your company, but it kind of really transitioned into this. Small cities don’t have TV channels. And so can we create a business or a network that allows small businesses to create commercials and show who they are to the average city without the cost of $,? So Tweva is not only a network, but it’s also a physical product that you put behind your TV, similar to an Apple TV, and you run the TV network, and it gives the business owner that opportunity to create content for their TV, but also share it amongst all the other TVs in the city.

Matt Billman:

Oh, wow. So everybody that has that Tweeva product on a TV is running. I’m from a small town in Maryland. It’s very much small town vibe. It’s always support local business, shop small, do all that. So a couple of businesses get it. You can promote each other’s, you can promote yours and all that good stuff.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah, you just can’t promote businesses. So we’re not going to go to two dentists or five dentists, right. And we all share content with each other. It has to be completely unique.

Matt Billman:

The hardware store can promote the dentist.

Dave Van Beekum:

And that’s something you can’t do with TV though, right? So TV, if you just run a local TV channel and as in the case of the founders that I’m working with, they had their restaurants, and I’d say, how dare Pizza Hut and I’ll Pizza Hut show in your Italian restaurant. And we just laughed and joked about it. Like, one day we’ll fix that. We’ll fix that for the small business. So that’s how kind of Tweva came into being, is we were like living right amongst the best opportunity spot for that public television and thought like, how can we change this legacy product that exists and create something that uses new tech? So people want to use it, they pull out their phone. What could they do with a TV, right? And so that’s kind of how we came up with the idea and just keep building. We’re building blocks on top of it.

Molly Ruland:

And tell us a little bit about how people can interact with it because people can actually like it. So if you’re sitting at your local family diner and the Tweva is on the TV, can people submit content? Can they show their content on the TV as well? How does that work?

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah, we want it to be an interactive thing. So TV, if you think about it, just comes down from the satellite. It’s kind of one stream. There might be different commercials for different regions or cities, but there’s no two way interactivity. So we wanted a display where we could have somebody say, hey, you might be sitting at the bar with someone and they say, hey, I was just on vacation in Fiji or Florida, right, anywhere. I want to show you some cool pictures. And they can share that onto the display. So now instead of you showing somebody on a five inch display or a four inch display on your phone. You’re showing them the real experience of this great photo that you found, or maybe a small video clip, and it creates this little bit of community between people. Hey, who put the photo up there? I think I was there, like, ten years ago, and now we have this little connection between people, and that’s what we’re really trying to do, is build those local relationships and connections with people.

Matt Billman:

I can see that getting fun at, like, a bar.

Dave Van Beekum:

Absolutely.

Molly Ruland:

Totally.

Matt Billman:

Absolutely.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah. And on a very small scale. When I first put one in at the local bar in my town, we were just playing with it late at night, like, . There was probably  people, and they were uploading the Peanuts comics, like Snoopy, and they just thought this was so funny that wait for it, wait for it. And then it would show up. And I looked down the line, like, ten people would laugh in succession, and I thought, really? They’re all paying attention to the same thing, and they would laugh at the same time. I’m like, it’s like a little community together. Yeah, together.

Molly Ruland:

They’re paying attention to each other, too. They’re actually engaging with people to see their reaction or see if they liked a picture or see who posted it, which is right, a far cry from normally you go in any restaurant or bar or any place in the world, right. And you’re looking at your phone, you’re looking at national brands, you’re looking at whatever dumb stuff you clicked on before. So now it’s showing you that crap again. Yeah.

Dave Van Beekum:

You’re customizing data feed.

Molly Ruland:

Right. It’s not showing you what’s actually happening locally. It’s all these bigger brands. It’s really like corporate America. It’s not the mom and pop shops. And then the only place for that stuff is, like, in the back of a local rag. But nobody’s reading those anymore. So where do the small shops come together? And where’s that? I think that the creation of relationships and community building is just such a key point because it’s so important. It’s so important. And now more than ever, I feel like we’re more divided than ever because of whatever. You could insert, like,  different reasons into that gap. Right. But it seems like we found more reasons to separate us than bring us together. And Tweva feels like a great way to generate revenue and bring the communities back together, make people, oh, I’m going to go to Anthony’s. That was our local mom and pop. Anthony’s pizza and subs. Right? It’s been there for  years. I can see people be like, oh, let’s go to Anthony’s on Wednesday. I want to put these pictures on the TV, or I want to go whatever, and really start to connect people even more. So, like, trivia is cool, but it also kind of pits people against each other, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s still community building, but I feel like Tweva, it’s a little different.

Dave Van Beekum:

I saw the trivia thing, and people really like that. I’m going back in the history of my city in Apapka, and I’m going to go get pictures, and we’re going to do a little trivia game for that, which is super cool. It’s all local. Our slogan is for the locals. It’s not for the big car companies and the big pharma companies and the big soda companies. It’s just for the locals. That’s what we want it for. They can connect with them and maybe, hey, I missed you at the bar, but I cut it sworn. Was that your dog that you posted? Like, I was there last night. I saw it. And he’s like, yeah, I posted that two days ago. And then maybe the content lives for  hours, right? Shared content.

Molly Ruland:

Right.

Dave Van Beekum:

But that’s the way that we want to create a display that allows people to connect and not kind of separate themselves.

Molly Ruland:

For sure. I love it. I can just imagine the local Sharma shop and the really ethnic places where it’s like, oh, they’re showing pictures of Jordan, or, like, an Ethiopian restaurant, and they’re showing pictures of Ethiopia really building that inner community inside the local community to really strengthen those bonds. So let me ask you, what was the inspiration behind Tweva? What made you take that leap from being a software developer behind the screen? What was the thing that really pushed you into doing this?

Dave Van Beekum:

Well, long story short, we were just about to launch, and then our co-founder passed away, and he was the one that had  restaurants and homes and buildings, and he was the networking person, and he would just love it was Mario, and he would love to help people. Like, when he was working at one restaurant, if he had to fill in or talk with some people, he would say, oh, he’s a plumber over here, and he could be using plumber, and he would say, Put your business card up at the front. So, he would have people put their little business cards up at the front of the restaurant, and there was always, like, ten or  of them up there. In little cases, some of them would be trifold brochures. But he just loved to communicate to those different people and connect them. If there was ever a little connection, he’s like, oh, you should talk to him. You should talk to him. And he was just very bubbly personality. And so I just put sales and marketing right in his hand. I said, okay, I’ll create the product, and he’s going to bring it to market. And then with his passing, I just went like, well, what do we do now? And you start talking to marketing companies and this and that, and you’re like, wow, it’s a lot more work than most people understand. Marketing to be so I said, okay, I’ll take the sales lead a little bit here until we can grow something bigger. But it was almost like a little bit you have to go through to do that mind shift. You just said it left to right brain. Wow. It’s a shift. I think it’s hard for most people.

Molly Ruland:

It should be right. The analogy that I always give is, like, when you turn your fan on in your house, you change the directions, and the fan has to slow all the way down and come to a stop, and then it can rev back up in the other direction. And I feel like I have to do that, like, ten times a day. Like, I’m wearing my sales hat, then I’m, like, editing a website, wearing my designer hat, then I’m editing a copy, and now I’m wearing my marketing copywriting hat, and then I got to turn around and be the boss or do the numbers. And so, yeah, it’s a lot harder than people realize to be able to make that shift. And I think in order to be a successful business person, you need to be able to straddle that a little bit. You have to understand people a little bit. You have to have your hands in all the pots, and you don’t have to be an expert at all of them, but you got to know them. And it’s like, founders are like, I hate sales. I can’t do it. I’m like, well, your company is probably not going to live because you are the company.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes.

Molly Ruland:

It’s like, I just can’t, or I’m not that kind of person. I can’t do it. Well, in business ownership, you find out that all that goes out the window, and what you thought you couldn’t, couldn’t do doesn’t matter anymore because it needs to get done.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes.

Molly Ruland:

And so you just get really uncomfortable, and you just do the thing, and then that’s that. But then sometimes you find out that you kind of like it a little bit, but it doesn’t make it any easier to switch from one thing to the other, because it really is like you got to turn that part of your brain all the way down. Because what might make sense mathematically doesn’t always translate as far as, are people going to buy into it? Are they going to agree to this? Are they going to participate? Something can be good in theory, but not in practice, right? We see that.

Dave Van Beekum:

Absolutely right.

Molly Ruland:

Time out. Right? So cheers to you for putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Learning. A lot of people also say, we’ll send microphones to people, and they’ll be like, Do I have to use this? I’m like, yes, I just sent you a $ microphone for you to use it, and it’s really not that big of a deal.

Matt Billman:

Mainly so you can, as we said last episode, every episode, we take the Jab, throw your yeti away.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly.

Matt Billman:

Nice one.

Molly Ruland:

Throw that thing on the track.

Dave Van Beekum:

You just have to set it up at your dinner table and start narrating your dinner. And the peas are amazing this morning or not this morning? It’s morning, but the peas are amazing tonight. And I’m dashing them with salt and pepper as I take it. You got to just get comfortable in front of the microphone and talking to people. But if you just spend  seconds in front of it, it’s a little bit harder. So tell people to carry around the microphone and just narrate as their family looks at them in awe.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. There’s some really great TikTok accounts of news reporters, but they’re in their home and they’re like this just in, john Brown is very angry with me. They won’t make him pancakes.

Dave Van Beekum:

My child opened their door because they’re mad at me. I’ve seen those before.

Molly Ruland:

But I think you’ve done a really great job of navigating that and being uncomfortable and making stuff look good and doing sales and creating this product that has a really good heart centered mission around it. So let’s talk about your content marketing. How are you using content marketing to spread the good word about Tweva?

Dave Van Beekum:

So, content marketing is an interesting piece for Tweva because most people have moved on to this vertical mode of the video, right, the vertical layout. And so Tweva is a TV and it works on existing TV. So we’re still that horizontal content. So there’s a little bit different of a format that you would want to create. So when you’re creating a vertical content, either have in mind or just flip the camera sideways and create again something horizontal because eventually this TV local TV thing will take off, right. With not just Tweva, but I’m sure there will be other copycats that kind of push this idea of creating local content. And so what you want to do is look for something between short form content and long form content. So I think the idea of video commercials of saying everything in  seconds and then showing the Superman at the end with the plumber, like, call me, I’m the best plumber and there’s an American flag flying in the background. That’s done. It’s old. Let’s move on. The new way is this infotainment. Show me what you’re doing. Right. And so what we’re trying to do is bring that piece and the horizontal content to local TVs and with the idea of like, what does somebody want to watch when they are at the bar? In between the jokes, in between the trivia. Right. So that’s something that we’re pushing our customers to say, okay, how? When I’m a plumber or a roofer, everybody has K cameras in their back pockets now. So it’s so much easier for them to just take that out and say, okay, hammer in a couple of shingles. And then when you get down to your truck, get somebody else pulling a tool out and moving this way and show what you’re doing in the community. If you’re working on a park or a government building in your city, that’s even more powerful because everywhere that you’re showing that is now going to be local on your local TVs. People, oh, that’s literally the city right there. That’s the city building or of your gardener, same thing. Something that’s public. So it’s really the content marketing piece is a little bit different than what people are doing, but it’s just different. It’s a little bit different. The formats are different for sure.

Molly Ruland:

And then how have you been using? Because I know you’ve been going on a lot of podcast and doing a lot of stuff. So what have you been doing as far as content marketing to further the business?

Dave Van Beekum:

So it’s a mix of all those together, though. I’m not a contractor, so I’m not shooting video of myself, but I will be creating content for my city, right? So I’m going to go out and create interviews and podcasts for those local customers. What I found with talking to the local businesses is they don’t have a lot of time to sit down and create content, especially a restaurant. They could be in the same town as Pizza, let’s say just go with the Italian place. But when a lot of people think pizza, they think Pizza Hut, Domino’s. And I think it’s funny because they both have to have the same licenses, they both have to clean their kitchen, they both have to do the bug repellent stuff, they both have to have insurance. But you just see one of those businesses a lot more than the other. So in my mind, I’m always figuring out ways how can we help that local business be more visual in that town? And so one of the pieces is definitely podcasts videos and having that being created and then shared out through multiple different avenues like that short form content, those ten or  nd clips. So as I’m doing this, I’m participating in that venue to say, okay, let’s do this with Tweva. And then each piece will replicate this for the smaller businesses and help them gain that visual on the internet. So I’m participating as many podcasts talk about the product. Video. What was it, Matt? We said videocast. It’s all podcast.

Matt Billman:

Videocast. Yeah, everything’s a podcast. Like I said, we were talking earlier, like, is it still a podcast if it’s on YouTube? We have this conversation so many times. If it’s on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, everything. It’s a podcast.

Molly Ruland:

It’s a podcast.

Matt Billman:

My episode podcast.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah. Is it a podcast or it’s not a Vlog?

Molly Ruland:

Whatever. Like shut up after you get my cynical side comes up. Yeah, it doesn’t take much for that to be unleashed, for sure, but nonetheless, yeah, in fact, I read this morning on Pod News, I think it was, that Pod Scribe has just now included a YouTube analytics in their overall data dashboard of podcast analytics. So if you have a Pod Scribe account and you put the content in there, it’ll actually calculate your YouTube views, which is unrelated to what we’re talking about, but a really big deal, because up until now, there was no way to put all that information into one big fat number.

Dave Van Beekum:

Nobody pulled that from an API.

Molly Ruland:

And hey, I Googled everybody’s trying to be the new anchor and the new Riverside and the new this, and they’re all trying to do the same thing that the other people are doing, and they’re not doing stupid stuff like put all the analytics in one place.

Dave Van Beekum:

That would seem like the most important piece.

Molly Ruland:

You would think so, but no, it’s more important to be able to put backgrounds on an editor that I’m never going to use. Right, I digress that’s. A whole other technology, like Rant, we already covered that in our little features. Yeah, but I don’t want that, right? Just give me something like analytics. Give me data. Give me data before you give me sound effects. Like, I’m never going to use your stupid sound effects, but the data would be very helpful for tell the programmers.

Dave Van Beekum:

To Pivot and move over to the analytics and reporting division and give me.

Molly Ruland:

Something that I can we’re there now, you know what I mean? So give me the data. And now, because Pod Scribe has done it, now the rest of them are going to do it, which is great. Right. So that’s a big deal, right? Because that’s probably the number one question we get clients, is like, how do I tabulate everything? I’m like, well, you can’t.

Dave Van Beekum:

Unfortunately, that’s going to be important for business owners to show an ROI on it, to say, hey, we recorded a ten or  minutes video conversation, something, and it’s your first ever you’re a restaurant. Nobody ever interviewed you about why you’re here for, like you said, Anthony’s,  years, he should have a lot of content out there. And now we know that those content pieces can be clipped up to short form content, TikTok, whatever is popular next social anywhere.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, exactly. So let’s talk about the nitty gritty. Like I’m a business owner. I own Anthony’s Pizzas and subs. Right? I got  TVs in my shop. How do I work with Tweva? What does it cost? How long does it take to install? Give me the quick and dirty.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah, so if you have  TVs, that’s great. If you have zero TVs, you can get a small TV and put it in, but you just do want a TV. And if you’re a smaller place, you don’t want an  inch TV. You want something that fits the size of the room so it’s not too crazy. So Tweva is like a different price range for the box, for a digital app that we’re pushing out. Let’s start it at something like $ for the box, and then you get to choose how much you want to advertise. So you can just use the box as a digital TV network and a digital display, but your reach would be essentially close to zero. But you can add some advertising money into the account and start to advertise on local other TVs for pennies. Right now, they’re pennies because everything is very cheap. We do it through a token based payment system, and the tokens are cheap because the network is small. So you can go in and add $, and probably buy as much advertising you need for the next five years now. But as the network grows, it will obviously become more expensive. But the average business owner, what you want to do is find a predominant place that people would walk in and see it, or when they’re sitting there and they could see it. And you’d include the box behind the TV, connect it into your HDMI port, get the app, activate your screen, and start taking pictures of your products. Start taking pictures of people, the servers that are working there. We did a test with the first name and what their hobbies are on the weekends. Now when somebody walks in and they sit down, hey, server Sally, what are you doing? Oh, you like to drive motorcycles on the weekends or you like to go surfing? It creates these little conversational points with people that we don’t really think about right now. So you want to start and that’s.

Matt Billman:

Kind of like the bar example we were given. It’s like, if I walk into a bar and these are the three bartenders working, why not put something up about, here’s your three working tonight, and here’s some stuff about them? Because everybody likes to sit and talk to the bartender instead of being like, what do you like to do? It’s like, oh, you can just boom.

Molly Ruland:

And especially right now, I feel like we need to get back to humanizing people, because ever since the pandemic, people are unreasonably angry when they don’t get what they thought they were going to get. And it’s like, hey, man, that bartender is a person, too, who also had a bad day or also just buried somebody they love, and maybe you could ease up on that. And so humanizing people on a basic level, that’s not a bartender. That’s Tommy. You know what I mean? Or that’s molly. I was a bartender.

Matt Billman:

If it was me, I’d put it up, be like, don’t talk to Matt today.

Molly Ruland:

He’s cranky. And then you have a bunch of cute girls trying to make you smile, so you’re not cranky. But yeah, I like the idea of humanizing people again, so it’s not just like, I’m angry and I want a refund or whatever. It’s like it’s just people here to.

Matt Billman:

Go back even a little farther on the aspect side of things. If you go on your site, it looks. Like, you can just buy the TV itself with it already bloated on there and everything.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah, well, that’s the TV with the brightness. Yeah, that’s a TV with the box. But we actually pushed out an app for the Google Chromecast. The Google Chromecast device opens up to I don’t know how many. She’s got to be  million TVs out there. But if you have a Chromecast, you can download the Tweva app, and with no box, just with your phone, you can activate it and join the network. So we’re trying to take away the scalability problems of getting the box to you and then plugging the box in.

Molly Ruland:

How many boxes do you need?

Matt Billman:

TVs nowadays are smart TVs. You buy it as a smart TV, or it’s just straight up, like you said, a Chromecast, an Apple TV, or the Roku stick. You plug it into it.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, I got a Fire stick, apple TV, and Roku in the back of my TV.

Dave Van Beekum:

Right. We’re going to push one out to Roku next, and then Apple TV. And so just give it the ability for a business owner to say, hey, cool. That’s awesome. I want to join the local TV channel. That’s it. Boom.

Molly Ruland:

I’ve already got the equipment.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes, I’m in. Now, what happens from that point on? Okay, well, you’ll get a percentage of some of the ads that go on your TV, so they automatically start getting some tokens, and they can turn around, take those tokens, and advertise on someone else’s. So it’s really a shared community. It’s something that helps the business owner. It also helps the small plumber, electrician, dog walker down to the person that’s just like, hey, I got to find somebody that’s in my town.

Molly Ruland:

House sitters, plant sitters, dog walkers, all that personal. I feel that living here, it’s all about community. It’s all about your neighbors. It’s all about looking out for each other. That’s just what we do. You know what I mean? And so that’s kind of built in a little bit more. We share. Who are you using? And it’s not like an Angie’s listing. In fact, it’s kind of cool. In Costa Rica, we have our own version of Yelp, but it’s called UPE. And UPE is like, if you go to somebody’s house, you’re like, UPE. It’s like, are you home? Hey, are you home? And then you can be like, no, I’m not. Or you come out and you say hi. And on that site, you’re not allowed to leave negative reviews at all. There’s no place to put one. And they’re like, we’re not going down there. It’s not to punish people. It’s to connect people and let them know about the local businesses. So I love this idea of great idea, sort of shifting, because in Costa Rica especially, people don’t even have Facebook pages or Google page. It’s like very old times, you know what I’m saying? Even though so it’s an interesting thing.

Dave Van Beekum:

My business partner Mondi has a restaurant. He just sold it successfully and he was very adamant that when we leave reviews for businesses, we want to leave them on the TV. So we want to say five stars can go on the TV. But he said, why don’t we have some way to allow small business owners to remove the negative feedbacks? Because he said as a small business, you’re not a franchise. You’re not protected by multibillion dollar corporation. And one day, if somebody comes in and they’re having a bad day and says something mean to one of your loyal clients or maybe not. I don’t know if a loyal client would leave a negative feedback, but every once in a while, you get somebody in there, and he’s like, I wish there was a way that you could say, okay, if I earn ten more or  more, can we remove that one? And so we’ve kind of tried to figure out a way that we could help those small businesses create incredibly good track records in that reviews because it is so important today. It’s so, so important.

Molly Ruland:

It is. And people have really become jerks in a lot of ways and leave scathing reviews that are unwarranted. So having the opportunity to remove those sometimes because yelp is a little bit like the mafia, they won’t let you unless you pay more money.

Dave Van Beekum:

They call you.

Matt Billman:

You can’t even read reviews on a place unless you have an account.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, it’s pretty wild. So I got to say, for anybody who’s listening to this, I think Tweva is an awesome product. I think it would be crazy not to get in on the ground floor right now because it is going to get more expensive. The reach is going to grow. This token system with the advertising seems really brilliant. So I would say if you’re listening to this and you’re a small business like Hit Dave up and get you set up with Tweva right away because I think this is going to be the future of a lot of things and everything I know about getting in on the ground floor is where you want to be. So go get you $, worth of tokens, start your advertising, support a great local business, support your local businesses, support your own economy and do that through Tweva. That’s my high level summary of Tweva and what people that is perfect.

Dave Van Beekum:

I love it, Molly. That is perfect. That’s what we want to help those small businesses and then also the influencers after that. So if you do have a Tweva TV, we want to create a database of all influencers in the area and just call them and say, head over to that Anthony’s place or head over to the coffee shop and instead of taking pictures of this and that, take some pictures for the small business and add them to the TV. Put your name on it, put your logo now you have a photography position or a job or somebody else is calling you. So this opens up a lot of different pieces, but the investors sometimes are like, dave, you’re doing  things. You got to talk about the one, talk about the TV piece, and then we’ll go from there. You’re not just selling a can of coke from me. You’re not trying to move a can of coke from this shelf to someone’s hand. You’re trying to do so many things. And I’m like, but we lived in that world with all of these small businesses, and we’re like, we figured out all these little pieces that we can help with, and it’s tech, so I love it.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, it’s complicated. I think it’s a little column A, little column B. I think it’s good to be open minded and think of all the possibilities. And listen, influencers are moving the world around right now, and they’re talking about influencer marketing versus paid marketing. And influencer marketing is working, and content marketing is working more than paid advertising right now, depending on the product. But for the most part, yes. And so I think it’s a relevant conversation. I mean, even on Google, I remember when I first started Heartcast Media, and I closed my first deal, and I got, like, a ten K check, and I was over the moon, and I went to this little French cafe in Georgetown, DC. And I got this beautiful piece of layered chocolate cake and fancy cup of coffee, and I took a picture of it, and I posted it because my phone was like, hey, do you want to leave a review or whatever. So I just posted a picture. That picture has gotten, like, , likes. Wow, still there. It shows up on their Google review. It’s a great picture, but it’s crazy how many impressions I get an email once a year that’s like, your photo got , impressions.

Dave Van Beekum:

Wow.

Molly Ruland:

And I’m a customer, so I think that you’re onto something there, because I went to that place one time, I had one piece of cake and one cup of coffee, and that thing is still living, and people commented on it, what a beautiful photo is. And you could see the shop behind it, and that was for free. They should have been rewarded when it happened.

Dave Van Beekum:

I want to give you , tokens for that so that you can then go start doing that to other cafes. That’s the idea, is who can take the best picture? It’s not the best, but it’s a reward for the work that you’re doing. You’re buying the food, but you are helping the small business. That’s what we want. I mean, you’re probably going to post it to your social, but why not post it to the network? Why not show that Diddy Hall and the barber shop and the nail salon and all these other places? Like, all right, that chocolate cake looks good. We actually did a test with that. Speaking of the chocolate cake, they were buying some food from Cisco. So we emailed them and said, hey, do you have any pictures of this cheesecake that we were purchasing? And so they sent us back this p commercial from five years ago, seven years ago, or like, whatever it is all we got. We’ll post it. And a couple of weeks later I said, how’s that stupid commercial going? And they go, we can’t keep the food on the shelves. I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, no, we sell them % more. We had to order actually more cake. So I asked Mario, the one who passed away, I said, Why would that just sell? And he said, David, don’t you know people eat with their eyeballs?

Molly Ruland:

And I was like, what?

Dave Van Beekum:

I don’t see that many people. I just think, oh, if I want something, I’m coding. I see the code, I go, okay, now I want it. But that’s not the way people work. They want to see they want to feel that feeling. Then they say, oh, now I’m going to go get a piece of pizza. Right? So it has a very I mean, it’s incredible act of pushing those people like that chocolate cake. You must have been a good picture.

Molly Ruland:

I’ll see if I can find it somewhere, I’ll send it to you. Because it’s crazy. I remember the first time I got an email and Google was like, congratulations, your photo is I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s insane. And they probably love having that picture, right? It’s like a nice picture. Why wouldn’t they be happy about that? Right on. Well, I think you’re really on to something. I think you got a great product. I’m excited to see it grow. And so for anybody who’s listening, what’s the best way for them to connect.

Dave Van Beekum:

With you through any of the social media channels? I’m on all of them. Or you can go to Connect Tweva.com and you can say that you’re an influencer or you’re a business owner in there and you have a couple of different links that you can select from and join. It’d be a lot of fun. Contact me if you have any questions.

Molly Ruland:

Excellent. And then do you have any sort of an affiliate program set up at all?

Dave Van Beekum:

I’m working on it. I’m definitely working on that.

Molly Ruland:

I could see Matt because Matt’s Young goes to bars and stuff. Matt probably has like  local spots he’s thinking about right now in Arlington.

Matt Billman:

I’m mostly thinking about pizza.

Molly Ruland:

Right. But I think putting the power into people’s hands could be really beneficial.

Matt Billman:

Exactly.

Dave Van Beekum:

Well, I’m looking at local reps. The affiliates would be a good idea. But local reps. I want people to actually live in the community to help with those things and get paid percentage of the ads. Because somebody has to walk in, somebody has to protect the TVs, somebody has to make sure the system is running in their own cities and towns. And what better than people that live there and they can help out with social media, a couple of other things. But do we really want somebody writing content from Florida for Texas now? We want somebody that lives in that community. Remember, it’s for the locals. Everything is focused on helping that local person.

Matt Billman:

On my personal side of things, I spend so much time at all the ice rinks in the area coaching. It’d be a perfect spot to put things like that.

Dave Van Beekum:

Right?

Molly Ruland:

Perfect.

Matt Billman:

You know what I mean?

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes. And then every business owner, every child or whoever you’re coaching, it’s like, hey, are you a business? Let me help you with this. Let me get you on all the city TVs, right? Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

Like, anybody who sells a product for anybody under  would want to put their ads locally on that skate rink TV because all the kids are going to that skate rink, you know what I mean? All day they’re sitting there waiting for.

Dave Van Beekum:

The kids, and they see somebody repairing a roof or fixing a car or something that’s local in the community. It’s like, Bob, I just saw your commercial. Right. You can’t do that right now because I’m probably working on the side to make the ten grand to pay for the TV commercial. I’m not sitting at the rink. Now we have the ability to do that.

Molly Ruland:

I love it. Dave, you rock, man. We went a little wrong great. On this interview, but it was worth it. If you like Tweva and you’re inspired by it and you want to do some sales, you should also hit Dave up, right? Because you might be able to further the missions.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yeah. Become a rep and help sell it. That’s awesome.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, man. If this is resonating with you, help sell it. Right? Why not? So, on that note, thank you all for tuning in to Camp Content. I do hope you check out Tweeva. I think it’s really smart. Well, I spend a lot of time talking about the value of relationships and community, and this is a perfect example and product, and it’s spearheaded by a really good person in the legacy of old Mario. Right. So cheers to you, Mario, wherever you may be, up in heaven someplace, enjoying all of the spoils of your hard work. And in the meantime, we will do our best to continue his legacy down here. But anything you would like to say before we tune out, Dave?

Dave Van Beekum:

Oh, you just said it perfectly. I love that ending. I love the ending.

Molly Ruland:

All right, excellent. Well, then we’ll see you on a local TV, Dave. I can’t wait. Maybe next time I’m in the States, I’ll be eating pizza at Anthony’s and.

Dave Van Beekum:

I’ll see I love it. And we’re going to take this content, we’re going to share your content, too, on the Tweeva TV. So we can generate some followers for you.

Matt Billman:

Love it.

Molly Ruland:

I’m glad I took a shower today. Just kidding.

Dave Van Beekum:

Thanks for having me on the show, guys. It was wonderful. Love it.

Molly Ruland:

Thank you for hanging out, Dave. I’m a fan. The first time me and Dave met, it was supposed to be a business meeting. We talked for  minutes and didn’t talk anything about business. We had to reschedule a second meeting. Some people, you just hit it off right away and it’s like old friends and you chop it up. And other people it’s not quite that way. But you’re one of those people. So I wish you all the best, Dave. And I’m sure this is not the end of our journey. So thanks again and we’ll see you again.

Dave Van Beekum:

Yes, sure. Thank you all.

Molly Ruland:

Excellent.

Dave Van Beekum:

Well, thank you.

Molly Ruland:

Excellent. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to camp Content and we’ll catch you on the next one. Until then, be excellent to each other. Thank you.