Signal To Noise Podcast
The Signal to Noise podcast features conversations with people from all corners of the live sound industry, from FOH and monitor engineers, tour managers, Broadway sound designers, broadcast mixers, system engineers, and more.
Signal To Noise Podcast
271. Nikki Sanz Of Giggs
In Episode 271, Sean sits down with Nikki Sanz, founder and CEO of Giggs, a platform designed to revolutionize how professionals in the live event industry hire, find work, and connect — essentially a LinkedIn for our word-of-mouth, niche market. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.
After working with a diverse range of clients including Live Nation, the Ryman Auditorium, CMA Fest, and touring with Eric Church, Nikki pivoted from the “gigxiety” and challenges of both finding gigs for herself and staffing other positions to taking the leap to do something proactive about it, and Giggs was the result. Since launching in April 2024, it has welcomed more that 16,000 users and 650 companies, helping them find each other across all facets of the live event industry, from concert touring to corporate.
Episode Links:
Giggs
Giggs Podcast
Giggs Blog
Giggs On Instagram
Giggs On Facebook
Episode 271 Transcript
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The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.
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Episode 271 - Nikki Sanz
Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!
Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:
Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.
RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
Sean Walker: Hey y'all, welcome to another episode of Signal Toys. I'm your co host Sean and Andy's out gigging today, so I'm going to hang with our super cool guest by myself for the day. Uh, we've got Nikki Sanz from Giggs on today. She's done all kinds of gigs in the industry and finally was like, yo man, I'm tired of chasing down these text messages and Facebook groups and holy crap, how do we sort this all out?
So she made Giggs nikki, how are you today?
Nikki Sanz: Thank you for having me, Sean you rock. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. So good. Yeah. I did get sick of the text
Sean Walker: dude. I, I run a company myself. And so trying to like sort out all the fricking freelancers is just a nightmare, dude.
Nikki Sanz: and it's crazy that that's just the way it is, you know, and I mean, it makes sense that starting out that way, but it's wild that, you know, 50, 60 years later in this industry, it's still the same way, you
Sean Walker: I did. And it's totally the most time consuming thing I do in a day is trying to sort out the fricking labor on a show, right? Or a
Nikki Sanz: and what's the most important thing that you most important asset you have is your time.
Sean Walker: Absolutely. And the most important thing to fricking labor. Cause they, let's be honest, they can rent black boxes from any place else in the world. It's the people that are on site making the difference, right? Totally.
Nikki Sanz: Exactly. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's, that's definitely the passion.
Sean Walker: Totally.
Nikki Sanz: I love that you share that.
Sean Walker: Totally. So how did you, how did you get to gigs? Like where was the point where you're frustrated and we're like, fuck this. I'm starting something else. This is dumb. This is stupid, dude. Like 4am, nine text messages deep with somebody trying to figure it out. And you're like, nope, I'm over it. I must do something.
There's gotta be a better way.
Nikki Sanz: It gotta be a better way. No. And I mean, I'm not the first person to think of this or, or, or try something like this, you know, um, I moved. To Nashville six years ago, and I was like, I just want to get on the road, got to figure it out. So I just started gigging. I was going, uh, you know, working more in production.
Um, so I, I know I have a lot to learn from you on the audio side, so I'm excited to kind of talk to you about that. But, uh, working, you know, recording studios, venues for Live Nation, running, and then finally got out with, uh, Air Church and then moved to George Strait and, and just, you know, Did a bunch of different tours after COVID.
That's when I was like, Oh, I don't think I want to tour anymore. And, uh, it's wild too, that there's not really a, an easy roadmap, like to get off the road, actually an off ramp rather. Um, so I, I was like thinking maybe I go into management or like, I had no idea what to do. So I was working for this tour manager.
Uh, and I was helping him staff tours and that's when I fully saw like, okay, I know how hard it is for me to keep getting my next gig, my next tour, my next one off, whatever it is, but now finding enough good qualified people on Facebook and on Bobnet, like I can't believe that's all we have,
Sean Walker: It's a nightmare.
Nikki Sanz: Crazy. I didn't like it.
And you know, the other thing that really hit me, this is, uh, this was kind of the wow moment was, um, I finally found three people, you know, after texting and all the, but I found three people to, uh, sit in this interview to be a tour manager, to do some Asia touring with this band. And, uh, you know, the first two got there on time, they looked presentable.
It was a great interview. The third one was late and um, and then she like had it on her phone. She was, you know, completely covered in tats, wearing a sports bra. It was just super chill and I was like, this is This is so embarrassing. I can't believe I got her. This, ugh, they picked her. She was the one that was going to vibe with that camp.
And that's when it hit me of, okay, this is why this doesn't exist yet. Because there isn't a platform for this industry. This works in so, this works completely differently than corporate America.
Sean Walker: Totally. Totally.
Nikki Sanz: I had this moment, July of 2022, like, okay, we need a LinkedIn. Why not? Why don't, why doesn't it work for us?
And I think that exact story kind of proves one point of it, but another, you know, I can't post, I'm looking for a backstage coordinator for Beyonce on LinkedIn. Like you can't post these jobs
Sean Walker: a thousand percent,
Nikki Sanz: So, um, started, started gigs as a, to start really just the the job platform the LinkedIn for the touring industry just starting with touring uh quickly it became live events because we're already in corporate events we're going to move to tv and film and sports but yeah we it it's it's crazy the the Um, yeah, we'll get into it, but now we already have 16, 000 people on the platform, 750 employers, people are getting jobs, um, we started generating some revenue.
So there's a, yeah, I can't believe what's happened in just two years.
Sean Walker: dude. How cool. That's so cool.
Nikki Sanz: I think it's just proving that there was such a need. For gigs, like there's just such a need there. There've been companies that have tried it, but I've seen their business models, the way they've charged the professional side so much.
Why is anyone going to sign up if they don't know they're going to gig for, get a gift from this, you know? So we're, we're free. Just join. You know, we vet people that come through. We make sure that you have experience because we want to be proud of every member that's applying to these jobs and that these employers are looking for, but it's free to be on there right now.
And, and it's really the employers. That are, that are paying to access this database now.
Sean Walker: Sure, which makes sense, and as an employer, I'm totally happy to have a small fee to, you know, have some vetted, a vetted pool of candidates to choose from, right? Like, that makes it easier, and then the candidates don't have to pay because that's not, you know, they shouldn't have to do that. So that's,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah, they're just here to get the gig. And I want them, you know, my goal is to just get people more jobs. That's it. So I need to get more employers to be posting content, to be, to be putting out the jobs and to be searching. So, so it started out as just the job board and then, um, the individual We call them professionals and employers create their profile that has all their touring and non touring experience, their references, availability calendar.
They can be endorsed by other people on the platform. We're going to get it much more social soon, but we really just want to solve the problem of getting people jobs first. And then the employers on the other side, um, there, they can post a touring, a local hire or a non touring job. And so all the formats are different in the way that they post these jobs.
And, um, Uh, even having the option to post the, the rate is negotiable because, you know, they're, that is something from employers. They're like, well, heck, if we get someone with 20 years of experience that, that wants this, we want to talk to business management and figure out how we can get them on board.
Like it's just a different industry and it's hard to kind of standardize it.
Sean Walker: Totally. It is. It's super hard to standardize it, because everything is so, like, custom or one off for each thing, even though it's, It's cool. Even though it seems like it's all the same thing over and over again, it's not quite, it's not enough to just be like, this is the widget we are going to make. And we make this widget.
It's like, this is the widget. And that guy doesn't have an arm. And this guy needs two legs, two extra legs. And this, you know, it's like a little different. It's a little different every time, even though it's kind of the same thing every time. You know what I
Nikki Sanz: Exactly. So what is the most standard way that makes the most sense for everyone? Because I mean, even if you get down to like individual camps, like what a production coordinator is on one camp is so different for another camp, just that. And then the duties of an A1 or, I mean, it's, it's, um, Yeah. So figuring out standardization of what a profile looks like, what a job post looks like.
And now, uh, just a couple of weeks ago, I'm super pumped about this. We launched our database search. So employers can now either post the job and get applicants in, or they just search. I'm looking for a front of house engineer with 10 plus years of experience based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Boom. Everyone pops up.
They can request contact, that individual sees that this employer is reaching out to them, they accept or deny that contact request, and then Contact is made. You know, now the employer gets their phone number and email address and they have that connection. You know, we're not owning any of these connections.
We're not making any employers pay us for any hires that they make. It's really just paying for access to this database now.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's so cool. That's
Nikki Sanz: Thanks. Thanks.
Sean Walker: it all through the website or is there like an app people need on their phone or both or what?
Nikki Sanz: So we start out, it's all web and mobile friendly, so no app yet, and it's gonna be an app. As I'm realizing, like I started this tech company not knowing tech, and so I've learned a lot. We started building the app. It's insanely expensive to build an app if you still haven't validated the web design yet or the web functionality.
So since we've already changed the design so much and, you know, adding an arm and a leg and all the things you're saying, It's so much more cost efficient to just do that through web based, which is also mobile friendly, so you can use it on Chrome or Safari on your phone. Um, once that's nailed and we like figured it out, it has the moment of like, alright, we got enough people on both sides, this is working exactly how it should.
Then we start building the app, um, and, and I see that coming very soon and I'm really excited.
Sean Walker: Yeah, cool dude. That's so awesome.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. So yeah. And that's that way, like, you know, when the job post, so say someone posts front of house engineer and that fits your profile super well. And so we right now are emailing you like, Hey, here's a new job post. Click here to, um, apply with the app. Then it'll be just a notification on your phone saying, Hey.
There's a new job or, you know, the chat feature, all of that of like, hey, this, this employer is trying to connect with you through this chat and then you can just chat on your phone. It's not like sending email and phone. Uh, but the reason we didn't have chat right away is because if people aren't used to opening up the chat.
www. gigs. live every day. They're not, they're, they might miss messages. Um, and so we wanted to keep it as conducive to this industry as possible right now.
Sean Walker: Sure. Totally. But that'll be super helpful on both sides. Once that's like, it's already helpful, but once that's already done with the app and you can just basically have a Slack channel for each thing you're doing, we're just going,
Nikki Sanz: That's when we get social. That's when we get more networking. And I'm, I'm curious for you, like if you're, if you're hiring, where do you keep all of your contacts? Are they in an Excel? Are they in your phone?
Sean Walker: we have a CRM system that
Nikki Sanz: Oh, do you?
Sean Walker: Yeah.
Nikki Sanz: Fabulous. What, what do you guys use?
Sean Walker: we use a, a system called current RMS,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. Okay, cool.
Sean Walker: you know, that you go,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. No, yeah. Cause we, we built a CRM within gigs too. So employers can now have all their contacts in one place. Um, that's amazing that you use that though. Uh,
Sean Walker: have to, I'd blow my
Nikki Sanz: many that I've talked to that are like, we're not, uh, yeah, they're just in our phone, you know, I'm like, all right,
Sean Walker: Dude,
Nikki Sanz: just put them all in here.
You can manage them in one place. Yeah.
Sean Walker: Oh, I can't imagine. I can't even imagine. It, like, it, it's hard enough doing it with something like Current, you know, there's other options out there, but like, it's hard enough with a basic CRM and a, you know, inventory management and that kind of stuff. I can't imagine trying to do it with Google Docs and an iPhone,
Nikki Sanz: that's the other thing with availability. So I'm curious from you, like, if you had your CRM, um, and again, like we're building this tech. And so I'm just trying to ask a million questions of like what everyone wants so that we can build it.
Sean Walker: I got to be honest. I invited you on selfishly so that I could pick your brain about how you can make a thing for me. So it's a lot easier for me. I don't, I don't really care about everybody else. I really want you to build something for me. So it's fucking easy and I could just staff this thing.
Nikki Sanz: that's literally music to my ears. That's all I want to hear. I love when someone says, um, I kind of want it to do this. I'm like, okay. Let's talk about it. Like, why that? What if it's like this? So, okay, beautiful. This is, this is my favorite kind of call. Um, so if, if your CRM, if where you are holding all your contacts also had their up to date calendar availability,
Sean Walker: Love it. Love
Nikki Sanz: So like, say you put five people out somewhere and they're busy and you can, you can kind of say they're doing this with this equipment and it'll come back into your system that they're now available once that's over. Is that something you'd want? Okay.
Sean Walker: it. Also, I want to be able to, man, it's a delicate balance. Like. You rank them, but I don't want to rank them. I want to be able to say like, Hey man, this person's a great fit for corporate shows. This person's a great fit for rock shows or, or concerts. Right?
Nikki Sanz: Yep.
Sean Walker: Also, this person does both. Awesome.
You know what I mean? Cause there are those special people that are like, They can corporate, they can rock and roll. And when you have those corporate shows, they have a band and they're not carrying an engineer. You're like, Oh, I got to have this person cause they can knock that out of the park. Right?
Cause at no time do you want those calls from the client going, ah, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like you got to knock it out of the park every time. Right?
Nikki Sanz: totally.
Sean Walker: to have some of that, like you said, you got, I think you already got feedback or reviews. You can leave some comments with people, right?
Nikki Sanz: So yeah, you can already do like, you know, within your own, with GeekCRM, you upload your contacts in there. It's perfectly private. No one has access to these people. It's just your own private place to
Sean Walker: So when we put Beyonce's contact information, nobody's got it just
Nikki Sanz: No one's got it.
Sean Walker: not getting
Nikki Sanz: Except for our system. Yeah.
Sean Walker: Perfect.
Nikki Sanz: And we, you know, absolutely. And that's completely secure.
So when, um, we actually already have that tagging system. So that's kind of how I instruct employers to do it. I'm like, Hey, I recommend tagging this person as corporate. As touring, as whatever, so that when you are going and you're like, I need to hire six people, you just filter by that and you can pull people up.
So that already exists within this, what we're excited to be building into is like this whole calendar feature.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, that's sweet. And if you start like, if you can integrate with things like Current and Flex and
Nikki Sanz: Right. Flex. Yep.
Sean Walker: to like, get those also on that, because they're, they're always reaching out to us going, how do we do better with the, with the, uh, crew management, right? Or, or whatever, right? And, and Lasso's another one that does a bunch of crew management stuff, right?
And they kind of are trying to have their own, like, network going, but they're Their, um, warehouse or their gear, the gear part of that thing is not very strong, you know what I mean? And so like, there's not really a platform right now, as far as us. You know, event companies go where you've got excellent crew and excellent gear management all under one roof.
And one of them trying to build that is going to be really hard. But if you could either integrate with or partner with one of those to make it so that you're the, the crew management portion of it, man, that would be fricking
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. No, I love that. The crew management part and, and your, um, yeah. And, and where all of your equipment is too. That's kind of, that's kind of the goal, even though I, yeah. The other part about gigs too, is that we don't own all of the people in gigs. It's way more like LinkedIn. They're just, You know, with, I know with LASSo, um, they're, they're sourcing talent, so basically they're all W2 employees that are, that are, I guess, you know, they then staff different um, events or so.
So yeah, we, we don't own all these people. It really would be, you guys would then start to own all these contacts as well. So, um,
Sean Walker: It's a job board and social network for, for the gig community. Not, not a talent agency kind of thing. Yeah, totally dude.
Nikki Sanz: Yup. Yup. And I mean, our prices are very good. Stupid cheap right now because we're just trying to, you know, I think it's, it's just changing the culture is our biggest hurdle is like, Hey, I promise as soon as you get a job out here or you search our database, you're going to find someone immediately and someone that you would have never known otherwise.
And you saved. Hours and hours and hours of time, just give it a shot. Um, so we give everyone a free job post to try it out, but it really is just like, okay, you know, for, for a membership cost, it's 200 bucks a month or 2000 for the year. Um, you know, what is your time worth? Is, is your hour spent searching for someone worth 200?
I think it is. Um, imagine what you could be doing in the 200 for, for one
Sean Walker: a, it's an hour a day. It's not an hour of frickin month, dude. It's, it's an hour or two or five or ten or a thousand a day trying to sort it out. You know what I mean? Depending on how, how many shows you got. You know what I mean? Some, that's somebody's whole ass job at most companies, you know? Like, that's it.
Just booking, just booking talent. Just booking gigs, dude.
Nikki Sanz: I know. And, you know, and I think if I had started this before COVID, it would be a different story, but I think it's so needed now, just because of so many people that left, like I was, I was one that realized, damn, I don't think I want to be on the road anymore. Um, and so many people left. So you're, you're, you're missing that in between person to get you to that person that you need.
Um, Yeah, so I think, I think having, we launched five months ago and having 16, 000 people sign it, signed up already is kind of just proving, and these people are, I am like, are you kidding me? You're on gigs? That's really cool. Like, just really, really impressive people, um, majority of the people have over 10 plus years of experience.
So I'm, I'm pretty amazed and I think it's just showing that, you People need somewhere to go.
Sean Walker: That is awesome, dude. How cool. Congratulations. Good work, dude.
Nikki Sanz: Thanks.
Sean Walker: what does it look like from a, like a freelancer's perspective? Right? So as a company, I sign up, I make a job posting. What does it, what, how does it work for the freelancers that are basically, that's who's listening is a bunch of freelancers.
What does it look like for them? How do they utilize this to the best of their abilities?
Nikki Sanz: Uh, you just go into gigs, you sign up as a professional and, um, you know, we just ask that you upload or that you include, you kind of start building your profile a little bit, that that is your application into gigs. We would just want to know, you know, where's your home base? What are your job titles?
Upload a profile photo and add just some experience. And that could be touring or non touring. It just needs to be in the industry. Uh, we review that. We do that once or twice every single day. Our team looks at people and we're literally just looking for experience. Um, and that's just our first level of vetting.
So if you, if you got experience, if you're fitting our requirements there, you're into gigs, you can then really flesh out your full profile. You can add, you know, All your, you know, about section, we even have stuff on the profile where you can fill out like your top five concerts that you've ever worked or been to, to kind of showcase your personality a bit.
Uh, adding in your references, you can start connecting with other people on the platform with the networking tab. So you can search your friends, uh, and connect, which is kind of like Facebook and LinkedIn. Um, and then you go to the find a gig, Page where you're looking at the full job board and we have every category I think we're up to like 450 different job titles that you can select.
I mean, it's everything from we got all of audio. We have corporate events, festivals, uh, you know, we got makeup artists, security, VIP, like everything. Everything you can possibly think of, and we're adding them every day, you know, we, Special Effects, Pyro was in our other category, and we've had so much, so many amazing people signing up, that we actually just created a full Special Effects category, um, with all the different, all the different, uh, job titles in it.
So anyways, that's our full job board. That job board is completely private. So, if you want to apply to a job on gigs, you have to be a member, um, you have to go through kind of our vetting and, and again, we check it every day. Um, and then you apply, it's super easy to apply to jobs. If you see something that really fits you, you click, you know, I agree to share my profile and you can share a link to anything if, if that's your portfolio, if it's a link to your resume, um, and then any additional information, boom, apply.
We actually launched, uh, earlier this year, the ability to, uh, boost your application. So for, I believe now it's like 14 bucks to boost that application, which means you are at the top of that employer's list and it automatically sends your contact information to them. So if you don't boost, what happens is when you apply, you show up, that employer has access to your full gigs profile and sees all your, your experience, but they don't have your phone number yet.
Email. So they push contact if they want to talk to you. Um, and then you'll get an email from Gig saying, Hey, this employer wants to contact you. Do you approve? And then you say yes or no. If you say yes, that employer now has your email and phone number. So if you want to kind of bypass that and just, you're like, I want this gig.
I want them to have my phone number right away. You just boost.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's super cool.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. That's just the whole, that's the whole thing. We're going to be adding in. So many more exciting features, um, especially 2025, we got a lot of really cool stuff coming
Sean Walker: Like what dude? Give me the, give me the juice. What's up?
Nikki Sanz: thing is going to be, um, background searching, like, so that basically you can just be gigs background verified.
So we will kind of, gigs will have, uh, this is what we're checking on, you know, there are certain things of like, hey, if your misdemeanor is more than seven years old, like, We're, we're not looking at that, you know, just certain, certain things that make it more industry conducive, but hey, can you get into Canada?
Sean Walker: Yeah, right, exactly. Can you get in and out of the country? Totally. Is it clean? Is your passport clean, bro?
Nikki Sanz: Exactly. Is
Sean Walker: DUI last week means you can't get on this bus right now, you know what I
Nikki Sanz: That's it. That's it. And also those people can still absolutely be hired, but you know, a lot of employers are like, Dude, I gotta go to Canada. I need someone. I don't have time to then hire them and then realize they can't get in.
So, um, it would basically be kind of like a, like a care. com or Rover where the individual, they'll pay super cheap to like get that background check. And then we give a little badge to their profile so that when they apply and employer sees they're clean, it gives them that next like leg up that, um, hell yeah, let's hire them right away.
Yeah,
Sean Walker: Which is great, dude, because let's be real candid. For most events, we don't care, dude. If someone's gonna show up and do a good job, we don't really care. Like, your past is your past, right? But there are times where, like, the government cares to get in and out of countries, and so you've got to know, like, hey, man, Sorry, bud, can't use on this one, but we can use you in the next one kind of a deal, you know what I mean?
Nikki Sanz: 100%. And you know, those absolutely, if you can't get into Canada, you might still could be hired. And then, you know, getting someone else to do your Canada run. I think the thing that just talking with employers so much of like, the thing that's so tough is finding out, you You know, a couple of weeks before you got to go out of the country.
Hey, I already have someone lined up, ready to go. It's like, they just want to know that, you know, they usually might not have a problem with it at all. Like they want to make this work. Um, but man, yeah, this is a way to kind of just for next level of screening and then kind of what we want to do next.
There's, there's just so many things, but you know, kind of, you were just saying having someone who's, A baller with music shows, but then also a baller with corporate, if you can have both or one or the other, um, we'd love to do like a formal corporate screening of like, these are, you know, you have made it to this pool of people within gigs that, um, would crush corporate events too.
Cause there is a different, different, uh, standards, I guess.
Sean Walker: Is there a way, thinking from the employer side, is there a way that I can, like, pick from a premium pool of talent?
Nikki Sanz: There will be,
Sean Walker: Yes.
Nikki Sanz: That's kind of the start is with with corporate talent with or with just the most experienced um and and you know with that comes a lot of questions on our end of like hey all these different tour managers don't want to get a call from gigs being like can you verify that this person worked with you?
Um so we're figuring that out because this is definitely
So we're figuring out, how are we verifying these people's work histories, uh, without being too invasive? Um, but making sure that, you know, you as an employer, if you want the top of the top and you want to pay for that, access to that, we will, we will have.
Sean Walker: I always want that.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah, exactly.
Sean Walker: want that.
Nikki Sanz: And you might want a newbie too, to, to, to add to your, your team so that you, you know, put them in a, a, an event with some really skilled people and start building them up and training them.
You're shaking your head.
Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, sure. That's what we want. Yeah. Yeah. I should say yes. I should say yes. But
Nikki Sanz: Some people want
Sean Walker: yeah, right. Totally. Well, I mean, but from an employer standpoint, right? When I'm, when I've got shows, I'm just thinking about the show that I've got and how to plug that position. Right? So like, if you've got your like bog standard corporate show, then I just need an You know, and A2 that are good and do fine, and I won't get any calls, and everything's gonna be just fine.
Client will be happy, everything's cool. If you've got the frickin governor, or the mayor, or the president, or the pope, right, some of our listeners have done, like, presidents and popes and stuff, right, where it's just like, it's a huge, that's a huge deal, right? That's a big show and a huge frickin deal.
There's only like, you know, maybe five people in the world that do that, or ten people, I don't know. You know what I mean? There's not like, I just need somebody that can operate a Yamaha console and everything will be fine. Like, that's not the kid you're sending, you know what I mean? So it would be cool if we could have a like, in addition to the rating system, right, or whatever, the like, hey man, here's the like, premium A1s, A2s for corporate, or whatever,
Nikki Sanz: Yes.
Sean Walker: because like, and I don't do as much, like, as much concert touring, that kind of stuff, so I don't know how that rolls with, with that, you know what I mean?
I already, I know that there are guys that are getting their rates and work for bands and that kind of stuff. But like as an employer, we're thinking about it differently. You know what I mean? I feel like on tours, the band or the TM or somebody's calling their guy, they're like, yo, man, I need so and so for this band and I already know what I need.
But like I need a bunch of people. If you've got a convention center full of full of general sessions and breakouts and some of those breakouts, you think, Oh man, it's a little thing. No, man, some of those breakouts are as big as anybody else's general session. Right. So I need two, five, 10, 10, Superstars to show up, right?
How do I, how do I know they're superstars is basically what I'm saying, right? Like, where's this pool of like, these are the guys to call, or gals, right? It's not guys. These are the people to call when it has to be fucking right. Has to be.
Nikki Sanz: Ooh!
Sean Walker: be fucking average, right?
Nikki Sanz: I think that's what we'll title it.
Sean Walker: Gotta be fucking right. Here's the pool.
Nikki Sanz: Gotta be fucking right. Yeah. I love that. You know, I also want to have another pool of people that's called like, uh, you know, Subs, we're not trying to take your job, we're just subs, you know, cause like, wouldn't it be cool if people in this industry could go to weddings and funerals and things that they, I mean, and that's, and that's touring specifically.
If they can find really quality subs that can come in and like really know what the hell's going on, um, without trying to steal your job, you know, that'd be, that would be changing the culture a lot. I think that would make people want to stay in the industry longer if they have more of a balance.
Sean Walker: Totally. You know, the other thing about that is that like, kind of like you said at the top of the, the conversation, a lot of that's also about the personality or the fit too, right? So the sub, the, the, the problem is not the necessarily the technical ability for the sub. The problem is, are they a good fit for the culture and the artist? What if they're a better fit than I am? Right? Like that's the, that's the rub, right? Right? What if I got the job, right? And everything is fine ish and they don't know any better. And then this sub is, let's say just as good technically, but a way better fucking hang and fit for the crew. Right? Like, that sucks.
You know what I mean? Like, you're, that
Nikki Sanz: get territorial over it. Yeah,
Sean Walker: But there's, there's nothing you can really do about it. You know what I mean? There's nothing you can do. So it, it's a, yeah, don't be a dick, dude. Like,
Nikki Sanz: Just don't be a dick.
Sean Walker: sorry for you, dude. Be better. Do gooder.
Nikki Sanz: But yeah, we're thinking of like, what is the easiest and this is why we haven't done it yet, because there are just too many questions about it of like, ratings and reviews on someone's profile. So if you've ever used Upwork, you see like, oh, this person's been hired 100 times before they have all these reviews.
So many five stars. Okay. Yeah. I want to hire this person to run whatever they're they're on Upwork They're doing like research and all that good stuff What does it look like for us? like who would be able to rate and review like if my gigs profile is there and Nikki's like an uber rating too. Like I have a 4.
9 review and here's why and you can read And I think that's something that we're interested in kind of incorporating if we, we get payment included possibly. So like after you, and that's what, there's just too many things to do. So I'd be curious what you think if you can pay your crew directly through gigs, um, and they, and they get it.
And then right after you're like, Hey, how did Andy do? And you can actually rate one to five stars and give a little review as an employer. Then you can have access to those reviews. Like is that something you would want?
Sean Walker: I definitely would, I definitely would want the reviews because I would definitely want to know, man, I don't know if it's just me being neurotic or if it's all people. So I won't speak for everybody, but I'll just speak for myself. I want to know about people's personality. Right? Not just their technical.
I assume they have the technical skills because they're On the job board asking a certain amount of money, right? And you can, in a five minute chat, you can know if somebody knows what time it is or not. Right? What I want to know is, is this the kind of person that is going to make sure I don't get any phone calls from the client that are poor other than Oh my God, they're amazing.
Is this the kind of person that's like basically going to do their job, but they're camping on their phone all day and not really doing anything. And they're just like, they're getting through it and nothing's really wrong, but they're kind of just getting through it. Or is this the kind of person that's like knocking it out of the fucking park all day and the client is like, dude, this person is freaking amazing.
Where'd you find them? Like, those are the people that I want to hire, right? Every, those are the clients that I got. Those are the people that I want to hire, are the ones that like, everybody's just like, oh my god, who is this? Where have they been? Right? And I need to know how to, how do I suss that in somebody's online profile, which is hard, right?
Like, how do you find those intangibles? How do you Like, I don't care that they're Dante level whatever certified, I don't care at all, like, don't care. I got lots of people that are certified that can't figure out how to operate a Dante network, and I got people that have never been certified that are Dante fucking wizards, you know what I mean?
So like,
Nikki Sanz: Hey, how do you hire on trust?
Sean Walker: right, exactly. How do you build trust? That, you know what? Giggs. How do you build trust? Or gigs. Building trust. Like, that's it. That's all you're doing is building trust, right? Between, between employers and potential freelancers, right? How, how do I know this person is fucking awesome?
Not
Nikki Sanz: and there's, there's so many different personalities, too, that mesh well in some places and not in others, that, that, man, it's just, it's so, It's so specialty. That's why we haven't, we haven't gone into this just yet. Cause do we allow anyone to leave a review? So could all of my friends say, Nikki's the best, you should hire her.
She's hardworking and positive and all, you know, whatever it is. No, it needs to be previous employers that have paid you for the work you've done. Um, so then that does require user input, but if they're also benefiting from seeing other, you know, So it's really hard to get employers input on marketplaces.
If you want to get employers input then heck yeah, ding, ding, ding. But when you're when you're relying and that's why marketplaces are so hard to build as a company, you're relying on both sides of the marketplace to to grow at the exact same speed, which is really difficult. So if you're relying if you're if your product if the product of, um, you know, seeing these ratings and reviews from employers.
is dependent on the employers actually rating and reviewing, uh, it's just tough. It's tough to like make sure we're doing it well. So that's where like the payment came in of like, well, just like Uber, if I had a horrible experience in an Uber, I will say why, you know, if it, whatever it is. And, um, I don't know, maybe I just like giving feedback.
Do you do that? Do you always give feedback?
Sean Walker: Uh, I, I give feedback when it is remarkable one way or the other.
Nikki Sanz: Exactly. When it's remarkable.
Sean Walker: You know what I mean? If it's just, just fine. I feel like there's no need for comment.
Nikki Sanz: No, yeah.
Sean Walker: like, if it was excellent or a disaster, I want to make sure that people know that it was excellent or a disaster, whether that's Uber or a restaurant or whatever, right?
But if it was just fine, like, I don't have the time to just be like, everything was okay ish. You know what I mean? Like,
Nikki Sanz: Oh yeah. No, last week I was picked up. I was downtown on Broadway. I'm in Nashville. And, um, and I got an Uber and I mean, they were like 10 minutes late. They couldn't find me. And then they finally found me. And, uh,
Sean Walker: how did they not find you on Broadway in Nashville?
Nikki Sanz: listen, I was off Broadway. Okay.
Sean Walker: oh, sorry, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am. Oh,
Nikki Sanz: made it easy for them. I was at the hotel.
Anyways, uh, they were, they were picking me up and they were like, Oh, we thought this was Uber Eats. We've never driven someone. And like their car was a disaster. There were two people in there. So I just sit in the back and it was just, They're like, this is our first time picking up a person. We thought we were picking up food.
We're like, well, can I just, oh, that was, I shouldn't have gotten in that car. So I gave feedback after that one. I gave
Sean Walker: Yeah, I bet you did. You were like, no go, dude. No way.
Nikki Sanz: no, but no. Yeah. Otherwise I'm like, all right, tip. Five star. No, I'm not saying why. Yeah, exactly.
Sean Walker: Same thing. It was fine. Everything was great. It's fine. Just move it on.
Nikki Sanz: Anyway, so if, if someone is outstanding on gigs, then you can give them that review, but I want them to give reviews no matter what.
So how do we gamify it? You know, do we give, uh, you get this amount off on your membership if you, the, the, the more you review or whatever. Yeah. So there, there's just so many ways to, to bring this. The other thing I was
Sean Walker: Give me a deal on my fees to leave reviews and I'll leave reviews. Totally,
Nikki Sanz: can we save money?
Sean Walker: And also, it's probably, to be fair, it's probably beneficial if freelancers can leave reviews about us companies as well, right? Because
Nikki Sanz: Oh, yeah.
Sean Walker: If I'm being really candid without getting myself fired, but I'm the guy that's going to get fired for saying something stupid in the air, so here we go. The bar is pretty low, dude. You know what I mean? Like, by and large, the bar is pretty low. So if freelancers are flying across the country or across the world, and they show up and it's Somebody's fucking garage with no cable management and it's just a disaster like people want to know just because you built a cool website and a cool logo You don't want people just going like what the fuck did I just walk into dude?
Nikki Sanz: Mm hmm.
Sean Walker: what am I doing right now? You know what I
Nikki Sanz: you didn't get paid, if you didn't actually make the per diem that they said that you would make, if, yeah, how they treated you, if the people you were working with were a disaster, that's, that's very important. And it could help with wages, it could help with, I mean, it could help with a lot of things.
So, two way. For sure. Yes. I love that you said that.
Sean Walker: Because that also then helps us employers When we're like those of us that are doing the best that we can, right? Then you get those reviews like, Hey man, everything was great. They were organized. They did great. The check showed up on time or, you know what I mean? Whatever it was, everything was wonderful.
Then a potential freelancer is looking at three companies for the same date and they're like, Well man, this one's got no reviews and this one, like, everybody's paid on time and they're happy as a clam in sand and they're fricking bringing sparkly water and cigars. Like, I don't know what else you want, man.
I'm going to Seattle, dawg. You
Nikki Sanz: Yes. That's it. No, that's, that's exactly right. And it's crazy again, that something like this doesn't exist yet, that you can sign up with this company and you have no idea if the gig is really real or not, you know, that, that's, that's crazy. So more accountability. You know, um, with, with the feedback loop and, um, so figuring out how to do that right.
Sean Walker: totally. Do you, uh, do you see in the future that you guys are, like, having phone calls with potential people or whatever? Doing more of that kind of stuff. I used to, back in the day, long, long time ago, long, long time ago, I used to work for an IT placement firm and, and was like hiring freelance, uh, IT people.
And we spent way too long on the phone, but like I was saying earlier, like, in a few minutes on the phone, you could tell if somebody knows what time it is and kind of where to, what bucket to put them in or whatever. Do you foresee in the future having a service like that? Where as employers were like, dude, they're so well vetted.
Like if it came from gigs, we're good to go kind of a deal.
Nikki Sanz: Totally. I totally see that. I think, didn't want to start out that way because those, you know, staffing firms exist. I was working for a small boutique one, you know, I was, I, I learned it. Um, but it would be crazy if we didn't. You know, we have all the people, why not? I don't think it would be our core business model, but I think, you know, especially for people who don't have the time to like post a job or look through a database, even though that's even easier than the traditional way of Facebook, um, it's, it's like, hey, I need someone tomorrow.
Can you get us three people? Absolutely. So yeah, no, we're, we're definitely looking into that.
Sean Walker: And I was,
Nikki Sanz: 2025.
Sean Walker: that's super cool. I was also thinking more like just in the like vetting process for the people that are on the platform, not, not specifically like head hunting people, but like as people are joining, if they're going to be specifically in, let's call our premium pool that we were chatting potentially about.
Right. Maybe that includes a five minute phone call to be in there to go like, Hey
Nikki Sanz: Oh, exactly.
Sean Walker: You know, here's our call with our tech person. Do you really know what time it is? And at the end of this five minute phone call, do I want to barbecue with you or do I want to punch you in the face? You know what I mean?
Cause
Nikki Sanz: Oh, yeah. Oh,
Sean Walker: that, that'll help a lot. I think, you know,
Nikki Sanz: Totally. It would be that, you know, that first level of vetting to get into gigs, that next level. Yes. And then the next level to be in the staffing pool, in the, in the premium. quality people where I, as Nikki Sanz, would want to recommend this person to work for you. Yeah. That's, um, that's totally in the book.
Yes. And, and, you
Sean Walker: pool is called Nikki's pool or Nikki's club or something where it's just like, Nope, this is from Nick. This is from Nikki's phone. Nikki's people, dude. Like this, here it is. This is, this is who you're calling. Like if you had to get on a bus tomorrow, who are you taking with you? You know what I mean?
And here's the 10, 000 people you're putting on the bus with you, right?
Nikki Sanz: I love that.
Sean Walker: Cause there's gonna be like 2. 7 million people in gigs next year. So like,
Nikki Sanz: go. You're
Sean Walker: what's the top 10, 000 that's in Nikki's club, dude. You know what I mean?
Nikki Sanz: you know, the crazy thing too about that is like that, that does take a different level of vetting. We were such a small team, like this very small tech startup still. Um, once we can grow this team more, um, We will absolutely have capacity to do that.
Um, but man, like people have bad days, especially if it's long, long days, not a lot of sleep. And, you know, it's, it's tough. Cause I've had people that I love working for, working with, working for that have had those bad days where like, if someone that didn't know them, saw them do that, they would. Put them on a blacklist, you know, and so I think it's just different in this industry.
We're working with different levels of stress and sleep, um, and, and, and living
Sean Walker: get to sleep? What, what industry are you working in, dude? Now I see why you got out of the tech side of it. Holy crap. You get to sleep.
Nikki Sanz: That's it. That was it. Yeah. I went from the, I went back from, yeah, COVID out back on the road, sleeping one hour a night. And I was like, Oh, wait a minute. Why am I a miserable person right now? Oh, I'm just tired. I'm tired.
Sean Walker: Totally. Yeah. You got back out. You were like, what the fuck was I thinking, dude?
Nikki Sanz: was I doing? My bed's so great. What's going on?
Sean Walker: I was cozy and warm and now I'm frozen and exhausted. I don't know, man. I don't think this is for me anymore,
Nikki Sanz: Let's sell.
We're selling the dream of the industry. Yeah. Nothing like it.
Sean Walker: You know what? It's part of like, I don't know, man.
For me, it was part of growing up where I was stoked to be at the bus for a while. And then now I'm like, man, I don't know, man. I'm cool with my own bed, dude. I'm, I'm real, I'm real cozy there.
Nikki Sanz: Okay. Right. And so let's, that's the other thing I didn't even touch on is like, okay, for those people who are so, so damn skilled, but they just really want a different pace, a different lifestyle, but they can like, they, they are super, super talented. They don't see where that can really transfer. That's where gigs comes in too.
So if they're used to just getting, you know, Touring gigs, that's when they start taking the local and the non touring. Um, you know, right now, we have, we have, uh, I've been talking with them. They have jobs posted on gigs now that, uh, you know, 200, 000 a year salary gig looking for a lighting director with laser experience.
That's so damn niche. But if you can,
Sean Walker: a year, I'll learn to do lights and lasers.
Nikki Sanz: Hello.
Sean Walker: Right?
Nikki Sanz: We got really good paying jobs and someone who wants to, to is qualified for that and they want to take that full time position. Or, you know, um, we have another, like a payroll company that just posted looking for a director of like, uh, live event sales. So someone who knows that. The live event industry, the corporate world, the touring world, the production, TV, whatever it is, can then step into a, a normal nine to five role if they have a family, if they want to get off the road, and then they can use their skills of knowing exactly who to be selling to and the way to sell.
So there's just a, I'm hoping that this can be a good off ramp for people because it's what I needed. I was
Sean Walker: Yeah,
Nikki Sanz: So, what does an assistant tour manager do when they get off the road? They just go into management. Like, what else do you do?
Sean Walker: project management or management. Yeah, yeah, totally. real estate's brutal, dude. Real estate is brutal.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. Did you try it? Mm
Sean Walker: I was a mortgage broker for years, uh, before this, and my wife is a, is a real estate agent. And it, I mean, well, a lot of it is great. There's a lot of cool things about it. But, like, it's, you know,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah.
Sean Walker: a lot of people that are really part time and so like it's super saturated with people that are like, I got one listing this year, you know what I mean?
And you're like, that's cool, man. Let me just walk you through the entire transaction and do double the work today because you have no idea what's going on and your aunt wanted to sell her house. You know what I mean?
Nikki Sanz: Exactly.
Sean Walker: shoot me in the face.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. I wonder we're going to see like real estate just kind of collapse since I feel really bad for all my real estate friends, but something's, I don't know. We're going to see it come, come back down. I think.
Sean Walker: The investor in me is really excited for that. The human in me is not really excited for that. You know what I mean? It's like,
Nikki Sanz: Well, I know, I
Sean Walker: at odds, dude.
Nikki Sanz: established, like your wife, like I think people who are established are going to be fine. It's all the people who are like, oh my gosh, I can buy an Airbnb and I can, you know, all of that. Unless BlackRock just owns everything and then we're
Sean Walker: they already do, don't they?
Nikki Sanz: I know, it's
Sean Walker: Like, without going too far off on a squirrel tangent, like, don't they already,
Nikki Sanz: dark.
Sean Walker: between,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah.
Sean Walker: oh, those sons of bitches.
Nikki Sanz: your wife's gonna be fine. Sorry, I didn't mean
Sean Walker: oh, no, it's cool. She's totally fine, dude. Totally fine. It was, it was, uh, it was crazy during, during the lockdowns when real estate went crazy. I was like, well, thank God she does that, dude. You know what I mean? Like, Thank God she does that. I've mixed more Microsoft Teams meetings than I should ever admit to trying to sort it out and she was just silly in real estate.
It was great, but,
Nikki Sanz: That is amazing. Yeah, I
Sean Walker: would have been perfect then,
Nikki Sanz: That's what, that's what I'm saying. That's what, yeah. Well, that's when everyone needed it when there were still small events happening, but now no one could really find people. I think that's, I mean, I felt it like crazy. It was, I got into real estate actually a little bit.
I was like in the flip houses, um, which I enjoyed, but then I was like, man, there's something about music that like, once you're in, like, it's just really hard to leave.
Sean Walker: Dude, it's so hard to leave.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. And I'm sure everyone has tried at some point.
Sean Walker: I've got, man, it's, I got, dude, I'll, I'll, I'll, little anecdote, like, I've got friends that, that are, that own construction companies, or, You know, big, big ones or little ones or whatever. And they make a of dough and they're like buying new trucks, buying Ferraris and shit, you know what I mean?
And they're like, Walker, why you got this used ass car? I'm like, cause I love this music thing so much, man. I just want to do this music, run my music company. You know what I mean? And you're like, Oh, if I just did something I hated every day, I could, I could go have a fucking Ferrari. Oh,
Nikki Sanz: and also going to a show is really fun when you don't have to work it. Like actually, they are really fun when you get to go to a show.
Sean Walker: they're not. I just sit and pick apart the fucking rig and the mix. And I'm like. Why does this snare sound like shit and how come I can't hear their fucking
Nikki Sanz: That's true. The control of
Sean Walker: artist? Like,
Nikki Sanz: true. Yeah. The control of it is, is wild. Yeah.
Sean Walker: they pay you to make this good? Why isn't it good? You know?
Nikki Sanz: Yeah, talk to me about, um, about that, like, as an, as an engineer, like, when you go and you're hearing something, you're like, like, have you ever gone up to someone and said, hey, can you adjust it like this? Have you ever done that?
Sean Walker: Absolutely. I should not admit to that in public forum, but I fucking absolutely have, dude. Cause usually it's like, it's never on, uh, it's rarely on the huge shows. It's always on the, like, let's say midsize club, like thousand, 2000 cap, right? Where it.
Nikki Sanz: Yeah.
Sean Walker: Dude or dudette is trying really hard and they're a friend of the band and maybe they're pretty good ish But they just don't quite They like they just don't quite have the toolbox to solve the lots of problems that are in a show that size and they're like Trying their best and you're like, yo, man, this cannot be symphony of a kick drum I need to hear this fucking vocal today, please, you know,
Nikki Sanz: Yes. Yeah. I feel that like at church, like, yeah, just small, smaller rooms where you're like, Oh, there's just like tiny little things you could do that could just make everyone feel. Yeah. It's a, the control part is, is, is not good
Sean Walker: Totally totally but there's not really like a couth way to say that, you know I mean so like rolling up to front of house at this show me like hey, man You Why don't you, uh, turn that kick drum down like nine fucking DB and can I have some more vocals so I can hear what This girl's saying cuz it is in fact a pop show, right?
Nikki Sanz: Right. Oh my gosh.
Sean Walker: Why does this sound like a metal band and it should be fucking Katy Perry sounding right like
Nikki Sanz: That's literally how I feel at church. I'm not kidding. I'm like, this is, yeah, anyways, all right. Yeah, yeah.
Sean Walker: where they're nailing it, you know, I mean, but it's It's hard to turn it off though, it's hard to turn it off, right, like, and I'm sure just like, in a lot of things you've done, but now in this thing, when you see LinkedIn, or Fiverr, or whatever, you're like, What the fuck are they doing with this thing or who's who posts like that or you know what I mean?
You just like you can't just like look over it go. Yeah, it'll be fine tomorrow. You know what I
Nikki Sanz: oh my gosh. Oh, I love when there's like a glitch with Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn and we're like, with the giants that have, you know, they're worth billions of dollars and they're still having glitches. Like it does make my day
Sean Walker: not just me. Yes. Yeah, totally.
Nikki Sanz: have the tiniest team.
I can't wait to grow, but yeah, it's, it's crazy too, because no one has any idea how long we discussed the shape, size. Placement, font, color of a button and why and where and like, what is the sales behind it? What's the marketing? What's the brand behind it? Like, I definitely took for granted all of tech and what, you know, I mean, we're going to be putting AI or buzzword AI.
Um, I'm really excited to implement some, some AI stuff in there to like read a profile, you know, to basically be telling us these are the top people and, you know, all that good stuff. But, um, yeah, I definitely took for granted. All the tech, all the tech previously until building it and realizing it's an absolute nightmare.
But it's, it's, it's, it's cool when it does the thing you want it to do.
Sean Walker: Totally Well, I I got a bunch of friends that do let's say tech. We'll keep it simple Just say tech right the coolest part about tech or software as a service or whatever is the exit The coolest part of it, the whole thing is like, Oh man, I worked my balls off for like 10 fucking years and then sold this motherfucker for 20 million.
See ya!
Nikki Sanz: You don't
Sean Walker: on the beach with a fluidy
Nikki Sanz: of me, front of me, I have a bulletin board. With, with like, yeah, with that, with that, with the dream of that, of like, why am I still doing this every day? It is, it's such a, it's, it's the hardest thing I've ever, I've ever done.
Sean Walker: Palm trees, blue water. Yeah.
Nikki Sanz: DreamHouse, DreamCar, yeah, VisionBoard, right in front of me.
Sean Walker: What's the dream car?
Nikki Sanz: Okay, honestly, I, it's up there just because I, I don't, I don't really care about cars, I'm sorry. But, if I
Sean Walker: Click, click, grrrrr, no, just
Nikki Sanz: I know, I know! I would much rather just like, go live, um, in, you know, on an island in scuba dive for a living. Like, that is the dream, you know, than having a car. But, if I'm gonna have a car, I would like, I love the, uh, like, the, uh, Jeep or Land Rover, whatever.
That kind of look like you're on an African safari.
Sean Walker: Defender
Nikki Sanz: green. Yeah, that. I like those.
Sean Walker: totally. Those are sick. They're the only ones that don't break down, too. Those things are sweet
Nikki Sanz: That's, there we go. Yeah. They're, uh, they're, go ahead.
Sean Walker: that have their like the Range Rovers or whatever and they're like the fucking thing is always in the shop. It's so nice to drive around and it's always in the shop.
And I was like,
Nikki Sanz: Well, the reason people get that is the tax write off too, because they're hella, uh, heavy.
Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally,
Nikki Sanz: Yeah. Which is beautiful. But, um, but what's your car?
Sean Walker: Oh, dude, I'm like, oh, my dream car? I don't know. I don't know what my dream car is. I've been, I've been lusting after an Acura NSX since I was a little boy, I think, like, but it just doesn't fit, like, two, two kids, wife, like, you gonna put two of us in there? Like, what are you gonna ditch the kids? Every time I'm like, I'm like, Babe, this year's the year.
She's like, but what do we do with the kids? And I was like, leave them with grandma and grandpa. What do you mean? What do we do with the kids? Fuck. Sports cars and private jets. That's what I'm talking about. And
Nikki Sanz: That's
Sean Walker: babe, we are definitely decimal points away from that. And I was like, that's fine.
I'm still thinking about it.
Nikki Sanz: You're so close. Come on.
Sean Walker: I'm only like 10, 000 decimal points away from that. No problem.
Nikki Sanz: how old are your kids?
Sean Walker: Seven and nine.
Nikki Sanz: Okay, listen. You got, you got 12 years, okay, ish, uh, more than that, but you got, you gotta, no, 12 years, sure. They're out of the house, that's when you get, yeah, that's when you do it. When you're an empty nester.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Ferraris and PJs. That's what I'm talking about. Let's do it. Let's figure it out. I'll meet you in an island someplace. We'll just fricking tell bad jokes and have fruity drinks.
Nikki Sanz: That's it, done. Free drinks, scuba
Sean Walker: re reminiscing about, like, the horseshit you had to go through to get here.
Nikki Sanz: Dude, I have so much respect for any business owner because it is an absolute. It's beyond a nightmare. It's a daily, you know, you'll, it's like rollercoaster, you know, whatever, but, but the rollercoaster isn't often going up. Like the rollercoaster is mostly going down and it's just like, how do you now handle this stress and this pressure and these shitty things that are happening down here?
Okay. Oh, we had one good day. Boom, back down. You know, and it's like anyone that is owning a business and putting so much risk, I put 200, 000 of all my savings and investments into this and I've had to raise. Capital. And, and, you know, I'm all in on this and the risk is crazy, um, to believe in a dream. And so, you know, I think any business owner, um, my heart is with, with any business owner, you know, I just, I just respect
Sean Walker: Same. Same. I had a CEO one time, a colleague of mine, he said, Success is never owned, it's rented. And the rent is due every day.
Nikki Sanz: Ooh,
Sean Walker: was like, Oh, he just got me to my core! Right, right, right through the heart, dude! Totally! Totally!
Nikki Sanz: Yeah, that's
Sean Walker: Success is rented and the rent is due every day. And I was like, fucking,
Nikki Sanz: Well, and if that's what you want, like, I think this is pretty cliche, but I don't know why this analogy just kind of got to me was like, you do not go on a hike to get to the top of the mountain. Like you just go on the hike to go on the hike. And it's like kind of the same as the journeys, you know, it's not the destination.
But if the goal is that exit, you know, that's the top of the mountain, like. It really is, I'm understanding, like, the way I'm able to now handle issues or, or, um, communicate and, and, and speak. I mean, the little things that have been improved because of this. And it's, yeah, it's like the person you're becoming on the hike and all that good stuff.
But, but, once you get to that top of the hill,
Sean Walker: on the hike. The person I'm becoming is exhausted on the hike.
Nikki Sanz: I know, you want more
Sean Walker: going to be more dad, less bod. And I still come back dad, bod and tired, dude.
Nikki Sanz: I'm tired.
Sean Walker: And now I'm just unmotivated. Now I'm like, you know what, man? It's nap time, dog.
Nikki Sanz: This hike sucks. It's too hot. I didn't bring enough snacks. Yeah, I feel you. It's a shitty
Sean Walker: and a nap. Like what is going on right now? Like
Nikki Sanz: Gosh. Yeah, but you know, I think all of it, it's so worth it. I think there's a reason. You're still in it and crushing it in this industry. Like there's a reason I am wanting to do this because there, these people that are working in this industry are so special. The job itself is special. It's hard. A certain type of person can do it.
And, uh, yeah, if gigs can, can make it easier for people to keep living this dream and having these jobs and making more money and keeping more consistent income coming in, then my job is done.
Sean Walker: love it. That's awesome. And what, where do people find it? Giggs. live.
Nikki Sanz: Giggs. Live, yep, and sign up to be a professional, uh, or an employer, employer to post jobs. You can follow us at, at Giggs. Live, um, and reach out to us with anything at info at Giggs. Live too. Um, yeah.
Sean Walker: That's awesome. Nikki, thank you for hanging out. Thanks for freaking making time. Uh, you're, you're ripping just like I am. So it's like, we, we've spent a bunch of time trying to find the town we could all meet up. So thank you very much. Thank you for freaking putting your passion, your life on the line to put gigs and money in people's pockets, dude.
We really appreciate you. You're
Nikki Sanz: Thank you, Sean. You're awesome. When you're in Nashville, we'll get you on, uh, the gigs podcast.
Sean Walker: Sweet, let's do it. All right, y'all. That's the pod. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us yap about audio and all things fun and gigs. And we'll catch you next week.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
