Speaker 1: Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to soft a Gradio, special operations,
Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the community. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to SOFTWAREP Radio. Apologize for the delay, but I'm
Speaker 1: back Brandon Webb. Those of you probably noticed a few
Speaker 1: changes lately. Jack's gone. Without getting into too many details,
Speaker 1: I will say like, you know, we're sorry to see jacko.
Speaker 1: He's been a part of the show for over five
Speaker 1: years now. Yeah, I would just say, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: change is good, and part of the things I want
Speaker 1: to do with this show is really give you guys
Speaker 1: an update on kind of the state of affairs with
Speaker 1: with the company. You know, we've just been through a
Speaker 1: lot of changes. We you know, launched our e commerce
Speaker 1: division a couple of years ago. We did those of
Speaker 1: you guys know the Craig Club. That business took off
Speaker 1: and we got really kind of grew too fast. One
Speaker 1: of the lessons I learned was, once you're experiencing that
Speaker 1: that rapid growth, everything seems fine. But when it kind
Speaker 1: of starts to to taper off, um, you start realizing
Speaker 1: potential or not potential. You start realizing the problems, like
Speaker 1: real problems, right, And I think, just to be honest
Speaker 1: with you guys, what one of the things that happened
Speaker 1: to us as a business that we we just got
Speaker 1: behind our our supply chain. We we didn't have a
Speaker 1: good forecasting in place, and I had you know, just
Speaker 1: the team was was junior and good people, but none
Speaker 1: of us had really experienced with with really the kind
Speaker 1: of growth that we experience with the e commerce product
Speaker 1: the Great Club. So you know that said, you know,
Speaker 1: now we're at a point where I brought on new
Speaker 1: president Ryan. Ryan's a great guy, comes from eight years
Speaker 1: at Way Watchers Awarden n b A. And we're really
Speaker 1: you know, focused on getting the business back in good shape.
Speaker 1: Part of that is investing back into the content side
Speaker 1: of the side of the business. And and over the years,
Speaker 1: like we started with the original website software up you
Speaker 1: know to cut or kind of special operations, news and
Speaker 1: in history, and that's like kind of morphed into a
Speaker 1: news site and then morphed again and then we we
Speaker 1: started all these other websites and it's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: tried to bring it in under one house. But what
Speaker 1: we realized, you know, I would say the last six
Speaker 1: months is we really need one site to house everything.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, all of our content, podcasts, our store,
Speaker 1: and so you know that the update is now we're
Speaker 1: we're building kind of supersite. Domain name will be a
Speaker 1: surprise for you guys, but it's coming probably by September latest,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna house everything under one house. So I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the fans of this show, if
Speaker 1: you're fans of the old site softwarep dot com, a
Speaker 1: lot of the changes I think you guys will be
Speaker 1: be happy with. So we're bringing bringing back a lot
Speaker 1: of popular features that you guys probably miss I mean,
Speaker 1: I know most of you most of you have missed
Speaker 1: because you right in. But anyway, that's a lot of
Speaker 1: changes going on there, and you know that I think,
Speaker 1: you know, without getting into any drama, you know, Jack,
Speaker 1: Jack and I just you know, agreed to part ways
Speaker 1: and and we wish him to Beth. He's a great writer.
Speaker 1: I told Jack he's always welcome back any time, but
Speaker 1: you know, he has to go his own way. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll be standing in as the host. I think the
Speaker 1: format will be a little bit different now that Jack's gone.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we're covering a lot of author
Speaker 1: material politics. I kind of want to get back into
Speaker 1: the storytelling. I know that this this show first started,
Speaker 1: and you know what, one thing we're big on is
Speaker 1: kind of telling and sharing different experiences that the guys had,
Speaker 1: whether they served overseas in Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan. So kind
Speaker 1: of bringing some of those those interesting stories back and
Speaker 1: letting these guys share the experiences. Um. And also you
Speaker 1: know we're not going to shy away from the entertainment
Speaker 1: as well. I've I've act. My guest for the next
Speaker 1: show is going to be Todd Robinson, who's a film
Speaker 1: director in Hollywood. Todd just finished a movie called The
Speaker 1: Last Full Measure. The Last Full Measure is about a
Speaker 1: Air Force pair of rescue operator that I think it
Speaker 1: was twenty or thirty years later, got awarded the Medal
Speaker 1: of Honor. Todd just finished that movie. The movie's out October.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get some special pre screening codes for the
Speaker 1: software listeners audience, So so stay tuned for that next show.
Speaker 1: I'll give you guys some some special access. Potentially maybe
Speaker 1: even be able to convince Todd to give us, uh
Speaker 1: maybe a red carpet ticket or two to give away
Speaker 1: to you guys. But the movie looks great. You can
Speaker 1: go see the trailer online right now. Again it's the
Speaker 1: last full Measure and Todd will be joining us next
Speaker 1: episode of Software Radio. Todd and I go way back.
Speaker 1: Todd and I worked on my first book and sold
Speaker 1: it to CBS, which we ended up they bought it.
Speaker 1: We we end up getting it back when Nina, one
Speaker 1: of the executives there left, they scrapped all our projects.
Speaker 1: So we end up getting the Red Circle back and
Speaker 1: and Todd and I are talking about working on another
Speaker 1: project together. But Todd and I also are part of
Speaker 1: the same flying group. Those of you that follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram now, I'm a huge aviation nut and I
Speaker 1: fly planes in my Instagram handle for those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know, is at Brandon t Web. But Todd
Speaker 1: and I are part of a former military group that
Speaker 1: fly twice a year, and we fly Yak fifties Nan Chang's.
Speaker 1: It's some crazy former military trainers when we get together
Speaker 1: kind of twice a year for this kind of fight
Speaker 1: club of airplanes, and it's at some undisclosed location in
Speaker 1: southern California. And that's actually how I initially met Todd.
Speaker 1: He's one of the only non former military guys that
Speaker 1: is allowed to fly with the group. He's he's a
Speaker 1: great pilot. He was recently out promoting the movie on
Speaker 1: the East Coast and him and I got to to
Speaker 1: fly together. He actually flew his marquetting out here. He
Speaker 1: has a Italian marquetty s F two of six. So
Speaker 1: we did some form I did a couple of couple
Speaker 1: of days. We flew to Block Island for the lunch run,
Speaker 1: and then over the last weekend we we ended up
Speaker 1: flying to Oxford in Connecticut. What's a little airport with
Speaker 1: a nice restaurant. So, you know, Todd and I had
Speaker 1: a chance to catch up on on the movies. He said,
Speaker 1: he's excited to get on the show and talk to
Speaker 1: you guys more about kind of what it was like
Speaker 1: to make that movie. I know he spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time with the Active Duty Air Force Special Ops
Speaker 1: community has some great, great technical advisors on there. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I know that having worked
Speaker 1: in a little bit of production, and you can have
Speaker 1: the best military technical advisors in the world, but if
Speaker 1: the producers and directors aren't gonna listen you still end
Speaker 1: up with with kind of some cheesy product. Those you
Speaker 1: guys know my friend is Kyle, whose book American Sniper
Speaker 1: was made into a film. My initial reaction to that
Speaker 1: movie wasn't very positive in the sense from a military
Speaker 1: technical point of view, because I just thought they did
Speaker 1: they didn't do the sniper scenes justice. But I kind
Speaker 1: of came around when I noticed, like the main message
Speaker 1: of that movie, which I thought Clinics Would did a
Speaker 1: really brilliant job delivering on, was the kind of toll
Speaker 1: that the military service takes on the family life. And
Speaker 1: I think the movie really showed that that human toll
Speaker 1: or it's not just the guys going overseas and operating
Speaker 1: that that are affected. It's like the wives, the brothers,
Speaker 1: the sisters and and the kids back home that that
Speaker 1: also sacrificed quite a bit. And I thought Clinics Would
Speaker 1: did a great job on that. But the technical side
Speaker 1: of that movie was pretty pretty bad. But anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get Todd back on the show. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try and probably take a little bit different direction now
Speaker 1: that that I'm I'm back in the in the host seat.
Speaker 1: We're also interviewing potential candidates to to kind of help
Speaker 1: me host the show again because I do have a
Speaker 1: day job running the running the main business. We've got
Speaker 1: some guys that are from the Air Force Special ops community.
Speaker 1: We've got a Marstack guy, and plus the regular all
Speaker 1: the writers from all the different websites will will be
Speaker 1: filling in in the meantime just to kind of pitch
Speaker 1: in until we can locate permanent host. We're also talking
Speaker 1: to those of you guys know Phiel Campion the British
Speaker 1: sas a friend of mine over over in London. He's
Speaker 1: offered to pitch in as well, so the radio show
Speaker 1: will continue. I know you guys are a couple of
Speaker 1: guys are putting posts on my on my Instagram account
Speaker 1: saying bring back Soft Up Radio. I think we've only
Speaker 1: been down for just over a week. Um then we're
Speaker 1: back up. So I appreciate you guys staying with us.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to just finish up on
Speaker 1: so you know, as a business owner and somebody that's
Speaker 1: that's started the business us about six years ago, we're
Speaker 1: kind of, you know at a point where we're you know,
Speaker 1: building the supersite to house all of our content. We're
Speaker 1: potentially looking at you know, how do we what domain
Speaker 1: name houses everything, so kind of one domain name to
Speaker 1: rule them all. And then we're going out to do
Speaker 1: some fundraising towards the end of this year to really
Speaker 1: take the company to the next level and and go
Speaker 1: kind of back all in into the content side of
Speaker 1: the business. So more video. We've got. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got the team Room series which I know everyone really
Speaker 1: really enjoys that currently lives on the Spec Ops channel,
Speaker 1: which is our app, our video channel app. But that
Speaker 1: series we've already got date picked out in October to
Speaker 1: kick off another series of the team Room Show, this
Speaker 1: time with the Marine Corps Special Operations. Guys, we're going
Speaker 1: to be having some great content up on the site
Speaker 1: in early October from the Greig Club Academy that's going down.
Speaker 1: We we actually we had a few we filled up
Speaker 1: the academy pretty quick, but we had a few people
Speaker 1: have to cancel because the schedule. So we do still
Speaker 1: have some spots available if you guys are interested in
Speaker 1: in that Create Club Academy weekend ind September. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna get some great video and trying to
Speaker 1: try and provide that experience. For those of you that
Speaker 1: can't make it for that weekend, you'll definitely be able
Speaker 1: to kind of see what the Create Club Academy is
Speaker 1: all about. But really just you know, focused on going back,
Speaker 1: getting back to basics and what we do with the podcast,
Speaker 1: the videos, the writing staff, and kind of going all
Speaker 1: in on the content side of the business to to
Speaker 1: really kind of grow the digital footprint. So that that's
Speaker 1: kind of our plan. And look, it's it's been a
Speaker 1: up and down journey for me personally, and it and
Speaker 1: it sucks, you know, one at one point we we
Speaker 1: probably had you know, sixty people an hour, down under thirtyes.
Speaker 1: So but hey, we're you know, we started the business
Speaker 1: with no outside capital, and so we've just had to
Speaker 1: to kind of adjust, you know, thinking in sailing terms,
Speaker 1: you kind of gonna adjust the sales to the to
Speaker 1: the changing wind conditions. The digital environment was not what
Speaker 1: it was like five six years ago when we started
Speaker 1: the business. So that's that one of the things I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about as well. I've been working on
Speaker 1: a novel now for over four years. I've been chipping
Speaker 1: away at it at the side, and the novel is
Speaker 1: called Steel Fear is a working title, and that that
Speaker 1: book is based off of of a true story. You know,
Speaker 1: the book I wrote is about a serial killer on
Speaker 1: an aircraft carrier. What gave me the inspiration behind that
Speaker 1: idea was we we ended up having Before I was
Speaker 1: a Navy seal, I was a search and rescue swimmer
Speaker 1: on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and we had women
Speaker 1: on the ship. Was the first time they allowed to
Speaker 1: integrate women on onto the ship. And on that deployment,
Speaker 1: we had a sexual predator on the boat and this
Speaker 1: guy assaulted like I think eight times he assaulted these women.
Speaker 1: They never caught the guy, and so, you know, it
Speaker 1: just shows you like that environment is not when you're
Speaker 1: working on an aircraft carrier with launching airplanes. You know,
Speaker 1: there's five thousand people, it's a mini city, but there's
Speaker 1: really like no police and FBI or investigatives, you know,
Speaker 1: unit on that ship. And so I remember when this
Speaker 1: was happening that women were terrified on the boat. Because
Speaker 1: you also know, like everybody knows each other's schedule. Usually
Speaker 1: it's like twelve on, twelve off. Everyone knows where everybody
Speaker 1: lives and so, and there are like multiple female living quarters.
Speaker 1: But this guy got away with it, and it just
Speaker 1: made me think, imagine if it was a serial killer
Speaker 1: on the ship. Not to mention, you can't just pull
Speaker 1: an aircraft over to the side and just go okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's have a time out here. You're in the
Speaker 1: Persian Gulf, basically protecting the straits of Hore moves to
Speaker 1: make sure the oil world's oil supplies flowing in and
Speaker 1: out of the Persian Gulf and those straits um. As
Speaker 1: those of you guys have seen in the news recently,
Speaker 1: things heating up with with Iran. It's mainly they're threatening
Speaker 1: their potential straits of hore moves like ships getting in
Speaker 1: and out of the out of the Persian Golf through
Speaker 1: that that narrow straits um. And so I pretty excited
Speaker 1: about the book. That the point is, you know, I
Speaker 1: was working on for four years and then you know,
Speaker 1: you guys that are familiar with my my first book,
Speaker 1: The Red Circle, John Man, you know, similar situation. I
Speaker 1: had finished largely, you know, finished the bulk of the manuscript,
Speaker 1: and then my agent brought in John to help me
Speaker 1: finish the book, and he just made it much much better.
Speaker 1: And so I've been working with John just about on
Speaker 1: every every book project since then, aside from a few
Speaker 1: few that I've done on my own. But I reached
Speaker 1: out to John. I said, look, John, you gotta help me.
Speaker 1: I've just been too busy. This is a great story.
Speaker 1: Everybody I talked to about it in Hollywood thinks it's
Speaker 1: a great screenplay. And so let's get this thing done.
Speaker 1: So we're just wrapping that up and I probably will
Speaker 1: start sharing some excerpts on the main site, so stay
Speaker 1: tuned for that, and they'll just kind of like share
Speaker 1: that whole experience with you guys. I'll keep you posted
Speaker 1: even as we go out with with my agent and
Speaker 1: sell the book. Hopefully my friend Mark Resident at St.
Speaker 1: Martin's Press picks it up. St. Martin's Press is the
Speaker 1: great company. Typically they don't pay big advances, and this
Speaker 1: this has got to be a big book. I want
Speaker 1: to make this make a big splash with this book.
Speaker 1: And the thing about selling books is it's not about
Speaker 1: me wanting more money. I just know the more that
Speaker 1: they offer for that book on the advance, the more
Speaker 1: pot committed they are on making sure that book is
Speaker 1: a success. Right, So as opposed to you know, first
Speaker 1: time off author selling a book for fifty grand grand advance.
Speaker 1: It's really kind of they just and they do a
Speaker 1: lot of those deals, but the books, you know, don't
Speaker 1: get a ton of marketing support internally because they they're
Speaker 1: just they know they're going to make their money back
Speaker 1: no matter or what. Given the distribution channels they have,
Speaker 1: they know, at a minimum they're gonna make money on
Speaker 1: that book. But when they when they have to put
Speaker 1: in a pretty big advance, then they there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of skin in the game. So that that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why you know, John and I want
Speaker 1: to shop this around and and get the best price
Speaker 1: we can because it just makes sure that the book
Speaker 1: is is going to be get out there in the
Speaker 1: world and and make some noise, so steal fear. I
Speaker 1: think it's a great title. Um, we're still looking at
Speaker 1: a subtitle to go along with that, but based on
Speaker 1: a true story. And I can't wait for you guys
Speaker 1: to to kind of read a few a few excerpts
Speaker 1: on the main site when we get done. But that's it, um.
Speaker 1: I would say, please right in to radio at software
Speaker 1: dot com with any questions. You can also hit me
Speaker 1: up on my Instagram account. I know I was getting
Speaker 1: harassed when the show was down for a week in
Speaker 1: the comment section, but you know, go to at Brandon
Speaker 1: t Web on Instagram and feel free to drop me
Speaker 1: a d M. I pretty much manage my Instagram myself.
Speaker 1: You can't comment or message me, I think, unless you
Speaker 1: follow me. I just was getting too many weird spam
Speaker 1: and comments, so I really restricted the comments on the
Speaker 1: Instagram site. But I'm happy to answer your questions on
Speaker 1: the next show, So please please write in and I
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys staying with us while we're down for
Speaker 1: for just over a week there, And make no mistake,
Speaker 1: the show will go on and as much as we'll
Speaker 1: miss Jack and wish him the best, we've got some
Speaker 1: great guests and great content lined up for you guys.
Speaker 1: So that's it, signing off. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Self Rep Radio. New episodes up
Speaker 1: every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Twitter at self Rep Radio.