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JD Uhler – XP League
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You have found
Authentic Business Adventures,
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the business program that brings you
the struggles stories and triumphant
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successes of business
owners across the land.
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My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur,
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author, speaker and helpful coach to
small business owners across the country.
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And today we’re welcoming/preparing
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to learn from JD Uhler,
the league commissioner of XP League,
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as well as the co-owner
of Code Ninjas Sun Prairie. So JD,
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how are you doing today?
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Great, I’m doing well,
thanks for having me on.
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Awesome.
Yeah, thanks for being here.
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So let’s start with XP League.
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I have to apologize because outside
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of your email address,
I’ve never heard of it.
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So you can just tell me
or tell us what it is.
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Yep.
So XP League.
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So I am the league commissioner
of the Madison Division of the XP League.
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It is in the US and Canada.
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It’s a youth e-sports league
for ages 7 to 15.
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So elementary middle school
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in Sun Prairie we have upper
middle school up to ninth grade.
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So we have the cut off before they get in
the 10th grade or they can drive a car.
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That’s kind of what we talk about.
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And so, yeah, it’s competitive video
games. Competitive video games?
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So playing them or creating? Competitive
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video games or they’re
playing against others.
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Oh, interesting.
So.
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Yep.
All right.
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It is.
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Is it limited to a certain type of video
game or is it just whatever you got?
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We limit it to games that are appropriate
for the 7 to 15 age group.
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OK. So we do not do Call of Duty.
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People want to know if we do Call of Duty.
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We don’t do that,
but we do do Overwatch,
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which is a team of six game, Fortnite
squads, which is a team of four,
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and then Rocket League,
which is also a team of four.
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And then we’re adding more
games this year yet too so.
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All right, interesting.
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So my buddies and I back
in the day we used to play Halo.
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Yeah.
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Online and I was terrible because I
didn’t really play it that often.
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My buddies were good, but we always
joked that they weren’t Internet good
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because you go into a room and I
would get smoked in five seconds.
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Yep.
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And my buddies would
maybe last two minutes.
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Yeah.
Oh yeah.
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Which is that in five seconds.
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But I’m like how are these kids this
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good.
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The equivalent
to Halo or Quaker or something like today.
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Because I am old school too, first
generation gamer as they call us.
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But now
like Fortnite.
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Yeah exactly.
Yeah.
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Fortnite is the is like super popular
of course and that’s a battle royale
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format when you play it on the Internet
and battle royale, meaning you,
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you get up from an airplane and
you parachute down to a place and then you
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have to be the last one
standing and then you win.
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So it’s like, oh, all right,
winner take all type of thing.
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What we’ve done at XP
League is change that.
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So we’ve changed into a team game.
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So you actually have a team of four
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that drops down into the world
and plays against another team of four.
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And the last man standing of those eight,
the team with the last man standing wins.
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So it’s a team game.
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We actually have to team
up to beat another team.
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All right.
So that’s what that’s all about.
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It’s all about team sports.
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And we play seasons rather than events.
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A lot of people are used
to these like every quarter.
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There’s like a pop up event
that has like five hundred people.
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Well, this is like a team of four, like in
your local community that you play with.
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You get a rapport with your team,
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you build teamwork and you have
a coach and you get better and better.
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And then you compete against teams all
across the country, California
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to North Carolina, to Ottawa,
Canada, and back to Madison.
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I’m just picturing a lot of Mountain Dew
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instead of Gatorade is the kind of thing
That is interesting.
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So the kids are coached.
Yes.
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Yes.
So who is the coach?
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Yeah.
So we have
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we have all of our coaches are certified
by the Positive Coaching Alliance.
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Okay.
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The PCA also certifies Major League
Baseball, NBA, college coaches.
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And we’re the first E-Sports
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brand or on in the PCA.
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So we have like E Sports
have certified coaches.
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All right.
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So they they are
we have like a head coach.
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That’s like a hired position.
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He’s like our head coach.
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So he coordinates all coaches.
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And then our coaches are. Full time job?
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He’s like, yep, he’s like
a full time job with us.
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Wow.
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So he does like coaching guides and
you works with those coaches on being
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a better E-sports coach or just
coaching techniques dealing with.
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And these are kids.
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So sometimes it’s their first
opportunity to be coached,
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especially in E-sports,
is probably definitely the first time.
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And so like at the beginning level,
they have to be good with kids about like,
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OK, you’ve never played soccer before,
you never played basketball before.
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Well, you’ve never
played Over Watch before.
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So we have to get to the
basics of how you play.
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What are the controls, what’s the goal?
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How do you work as a team?
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And like the advanced players are like
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thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
year old they already know.
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And so they just need to get drills done,
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become better technical players
and come become better communicators.
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So that’s what the coaches
focus on at the different levels.
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And our coaches are we have dads,
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the coach that we train
and get the certification.
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We’ve got college students,
we’ve got high school senior captains of
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the Edgewood High School overwatch team
that are coaching.
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And those are like assistant coaches,
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we call it, because they’re really there,
because they know the game so well
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and they’re on they love it because
they’re on a path to an E sports career
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in playing, coaching, streaming,
which we know is the gateway to getting
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into STEM jobs and computers
and automation jobs in the future.
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All right.
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When you say a career in gaming,
are you talking the kind of the YouTube
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kids that go on there and play the game,
comment on it and then, yeah,
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there’s so there’s professional E Sports
players that are making multiple.
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Multiple.
Multiple million dollars a year.
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Now New York Times has an article about
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how much money they’re making,
which is professional level sport money.
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That’s just one thing, though, because
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there’s also the business of E sports,
which is every job you can think of,
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just like an NFL team or
an MLS team or whatnot.
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They’ve got a whole group of people
behind them doing a promotion, doing
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equipment,
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even like there’s a chef for the team,
things like that, to be eating healthy.
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Yes.
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I’m just picturing like, here’s
a bag of Doritos and a frozen pizza.
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Yeah, that’s exactly.
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And that’s what we’re trying to change
the the way that’s looked at because.
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Yeah, like I literally have an energy
drink by me here too, with rock star.
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But
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but for EA Sports playing, I mean,
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it is grueling because you can be
in a tournament all day long and all
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night, especially at the pro level
where it’s like, you know,
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bathroom breaks and bad
eating habits come into play.
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So at a young youth level, we teach them
healthy eating habits.
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Fitness, even carpal tunnel is real,
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especially in and oh,
I’ve been playing video games.
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And so we do stretches.
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We do
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get up, move around.
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It’s breaks that are needed in this too.
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So it’s yeah, it’s E Sports is becoming
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you know, it was the Wild West
when when we were younger,
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it wasn’t even that.
It was just like getting together
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with buddies and things
and playing LAN parties.
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Yep.
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We would do LAN parties and I was
not the IT guy, all my buddies
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IT guys.
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So they would spend the first
three hours connected.
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Yeah.
Yeah.
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And then the next couple hours
people dropping off the network.
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Yes exactly.
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And then you get it going and then because
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it took so long to get going you didn’t
sleep because you just wanted to go.
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Yep.
Yep.
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Exactly.
And it was yeah.
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It was just surreal to watch
them like these
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some of these guys would bring these
computers where they got like this is
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pre typical led
like lights are everywhere.
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Now back then it was like,
whoa, your box is glowing red.
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Right.
Right, exactly.
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That was also the age of fifty
six K modems and stuff.
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Yeah exactly.
Yeah.
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I grew up in that at that time as well.
Yeah.
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I was that IT guy though.
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So.
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I was that IT guy. I imagine you must be
to be where you’re at now because I
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like something interesting.
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Yeah I know enough to be
dangerous but what they.
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Yeah I’m sure you can figure it out now.
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Do they still have LAN parties.
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You don’t have to have that now.
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I mean you can but it’s not.
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So typically the Internet’s fast enough so
you just all jump on the Internet and say,
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hey, what’s the room code or
what’s the game code map code?
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I want to ask you about that.
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So you you come in a room and it’s
basically only people that are invited.
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It’s not necessarily
the entire world, correct?
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Yeah.
So it’s very organized.
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And so we have teams all over the country
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that are coached by the
same type of coaches.
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We have a league
office that coordinates all the games
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across and we have follow
the same standards, you know.
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And so,
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yeah, it’s supposed to be a safe
environment where you’re free of no
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bullying, no negativity, positive
and teaching, good sportsmanship.
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Raging is a thing, right?
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When you lose,
you like throw your controller across
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the room and things like that,
like that’s a real thing.
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I had a buddy lose TV
because he got a little.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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And so we you know, we teach about
how to how to rein in those emotions.
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And especially when you’re in a team
and sometimes you won’t know these kids
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you’re playing with right away,
like the first day of practice.
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It’s kind of like quiet like.
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But now you’re like in a public setting
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where you need to behave yourself a little
bit and that that helps kids grow
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at that development age level to be better
team players and better human beings
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overall. Interesting.
That’s pretty cool,
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you mentioned drills and it triggered
something in me like
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how do you do a drill? Because I’m
thinking of soccer,
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you kick the ball or whatever. Do they
set up drills for specific games?
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Yeah, we have like there’s of course,
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there’s software to drill kids
on improving their their e sports skills.
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OK, so like aiming rapid fire type stuff
like these are first person shooters.
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A lot of the time we have stuff
like rocket league which is different.
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But first person shooters,
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you need to be able to pivot and aim
and snipe and and do it quickly.
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So you know the best players in the world are
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going to be able to to do that
better than others.
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But then it’s also the drills
about communicating too.
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So we’ll be like, OK,
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everybody is going to drop end of the map
and I’m going to time you you’ve got
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to get to this location as fast as you
can and then we’re going to do it again.
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All right.
Improve your time.
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Do it again.
Do it again.
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And part of it is like
communicating like where are you?
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Like, where are you guys?
Like, I’m headed here.
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And like we also have, like,
you know, pick up these items.
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You have to have these items before I get
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there and like, all right,
I’ll get this one.
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You get that one.
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And so it’s a lot of that teamwork to
teamwork drills to get to get better.
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And then they’re pushing each other,
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you know, to like, hey,
we need that better time
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giving each other,
giving each other each other tips on like,
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all right, maybe go here,
jump here to make it quicker.
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And and so it’s you know, they help
out each other then to become better.
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Nice.
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So these guys, they have headsets
on and they’re communicating that way.
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Right.
OK, yeah.
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Yep.
They have gaming PCs.
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We have our all of our own a high
powered gaming PCs that the pros use.
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All right.
So these are high refresh graphics cards
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and then they have good,
great processors, great memory.
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So they’re they’re really powerful.
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So we want to be able to compete against
these other cities that have yeah.
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We want to beat them.
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And so we make sure we have the best
and and that’s what we give them.
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So I want to talk about the systems
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themselves right the gaming PCs,
because for the business that I have,
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I usually buy used gaming PCs
for my my answering service.
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Right.
So we get a lot of stuff going on,
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but nowhere near the level
that the gamers use.
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Yeah.
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I’m the guy that buys the second
hand stuff from you guys.
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That’s some of those video cards.
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Oh my gosh man.
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From a pricing point of view.
Yep.
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You’re talking thousands of dollars.
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Yeah.
Yeah.
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The market right now.
Yeah.
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So like we we have partnerships with
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HP, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo,
Alienware, Dell, where we can get
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good gaming laptops at a good price, we’re buying them in bulk because we have
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dozens of them.
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And so and this is like
maybe a tip for people that are watch this
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or I tell this people too, if you try
to build your own computer right now.
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Yeah.
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You try to buy an individual
graphics card.
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It is like a thousand bucks
just for the graphics card.
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It’s not like I built my own computers in
the past and and it was reasonable to do.
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But you’re dropping a lot of money
just on the graphics card alone.
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So really right now it’s the package
or those those big manufacturers that get
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these better prices
with the graphics card vendors.
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All right.
Where they can get competitive prices.
[00:14:05]
So it really, at least in the short term
[00:14:07]
here, it’s hurting
people that want to build their own
[00:14:09]
computers are still going to do it,
but it’s going to cost a lot of money.
[00:14:12]
So is the reason for that because China
[00:14:15]
was shut down for a little bit, or is
it a Bitcoin mining thing? Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:19]
So I know from firsthand experience
[00:14:23]
that there is a shortage because
of the China thing in in multiple computer
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components, including processors,
graphics cards, primarily those.
[00:14:34]
And so, yeah, it’s
it’s like who’s got some.
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It’s like we need we need more.
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And we’re also working with our players.
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The parents be like, hey,
here’s where we found
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this is a recommendation on something you
can get because yeah, it’s, it’s,
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it’s tough right now to to get
the pieces that are that you want.
[00:14:52]
Interesting.
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So does each individual kid have their own
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computer, their laptop that they
bring to and from know.
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So we set up for them.
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They’re all ours because we need
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a standard configuration
for all of these PCs.
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OK, so they can they do and can play from
home practice when we’re not practicing.
[00:15:14]
We have an hour and a half practice once
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a week or we come in with
the coaches and we have like
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an agenda of learning a valuable skill,
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becoming a better teammate or, you know,
working with your emotions like that.
[00:15:28]
But then we give them things to do
at home as like homework practice, too.
[00:15:31]
And they use their own.
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Systems for that, and that’s where their
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cross platform games like Overwatch,
you can play on any thing,
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you can play on anything,
so they’re going to have lower power.
[00:15:43]
So a lot of times that they’re home
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on whatever that is,
but they’re still playing.
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They could still jump on Discord server,
which is the Communication for Gamers app.
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They can get on there and talk
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to the teammates so that they’re staying
connected even outside of game devices.
[00:16:00]
Can you tell me about the monitor
setup that you guys have?
[00:16:03]
Yes, so we only have laptops and so reason
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we have gaming laptops.
[00:16:09]
OK, a lot of kids bring in their own
keyboards and mice or controllers.
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So we definitely allow that.
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And they hold them different ways and have
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different styles and bring that and just
look it into the USB of the laptop.
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Yeah, we use we use laptops because we
want to be mobile and we’re like a nomadic
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sports league.
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So we want to go where the people are.
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So we don’t want to be hunkered down
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and just like a land center or
that that exists or an arena like you
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like, they have like awesome computers
at those locations.
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And we’re partnering with those like we’re
part of a bunch of arenas around Madison.
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All right.
But we we want to be able to go
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into school and do a school, a church,
wherever it is that they want to play.
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And we bring the we bring
the league to them.
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And so we have
all laptops for that reason.
[00:17:00]
So I want to back up a step here. When you
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say a bunch of a bunch of these places
around Madison, how many are we talking?
[00:17:08]
Yeah.
[00:17:08]
So right now we have two
locations for the XP league.
[00:17:12]
It is
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at the Code Ninjas of the Sun Prairie is
like our northeast Dane County location.
[00:17:18]
And then we also play at Edgewood College.
[00:17:21]
It’s actually the Edgewood College,
High School and Campus School.
[00:17:25]
It’s the K through college
experience there.
[00:17:28]
We play at their science center and in
their arena at the Edgewood College.
[00:17:32]
We have the Edgewood.
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I’m an alumni of Edgewood College and Edgewood
[00:17:36]
high school they are both partnering
with and sponsoring us to play there.
[00:17:41]
Wow.
So that we rent we rent out space
[00:17:45]
in the Science Center at Edgewood
and we would play like on the first level
[00:17:51]
and have lots of lots of room for
our setup and the college.
[00:17:57]
Luis is the Edgewood College
director and coach.
[00:18:00]
They’re sponsoring us and we have
a very tight partnership with them.
[00:18:04]
And we’re going to do more and more
events with them going forward.
[00:18:06]
So that’s kind of our
central Madison location.
[00:18:10]
Then we’re looking we’re adding a new one
on the northwest side of Madison,
[00:18:15]
kind of by Middleton,
close to Middleton Madison,
[00:18:18]
close to where I grew up
on the west side of Madison.
[00:18:21]
And we’re also looking at like a SE
like Monona McFarland location as well.
[00:18:26]
So we’re wow, we’re looking to have
[00:18:30]
hopefully four or five locations
by the end of the year.
[00:18:33]
Well, that’s cool.
[00:18:35]
So what kind of band width do you guys
need from an Internet perspective?
[00:18:38]
A lot
[00:18:40]
has got a three fiber lines
coming in or something like that.
[00:18:45]
Yeah.
[00:18:46]
So, yeah, it’s ridiculous how much
throughput we have for our our games.
[00:18:50]
I mean, we’ve talked about streaming
[00:18:52]
to which we stream all of our games
on our Twitter feed.
[00:18:56]
XPL Madison, OK, is our twitch.
[00:18:59]
And
so the parents and cousins and grandmas
[00:19:02]
and brothers and sisters can come
on and watch their, you know, their
[00:19:06]
game or play and becomes a family
event like like a family watch party.
[00:19:11]
And it’s all online, of course.
[00:19:12]
So especially during Covid times,
it’s just, you know,
[00:19:15]
you don’t have to be there watching
like a soccer game or basketball game.
[00:19:19]
You could just you know,
[00:19:20]
we have parents that sit in the parking
lot and watch the twitch or run home or
[00:19:24]
they’ll go like I’ve even done this where
I’m like running through Costco and I’ve
[00:19:29]
got my twitch up on my phone
as I’m shopping, you know?
[00:19:33]
So it’s just like, you know,
it’s just so cool.
[00:19:36]
You can watch this
competition from anywhere,
[00:19:39]
anywhere you want.
[00:19:40]
So I’m sorry, but is there
any sports betting on the.
[00:19:46]
There is sports betting
at the professional level.
[00:19:48]
Of course, there it is.
[00:19:49]
It’s illegal at our level, of course.
[00:19:51]
But
[00:19:52]
this is a whole new world for me.
Yeah.
[00:19:55]
I remember watching
[00:19:58]
my little brother, big brothers,
[00:19:59]
big sisters, little brother, and he
was watching some kid play video game.
[00:20:04]
And I just looked at it and I
just could not understand it.
[00:20:08]
And then he explained to me, it’s like
it’s no different than watching baseball.
[00:20:12]
Exactly.
And to me, I’m like, well, I get bored.
[00:20:14]
Watching baseball is boring now.
[00:20:16]
So, I mean, just great to have in the
[00:20:18]
background listening to when
you’re doing something else.
[00:20:21]
Sure.
And listen to Bob Yukako call home run of
[00:20:25]
entertaining.
[00:20:26]
I guess I can watch hockey,
but outside of that.
[00:20:28]
Yeah, the patience to watch.
[00:20:30]
Yeah.
[00:20:31]
Fast moving of course
is actually constantly.
[00:20:34]
And so there’s an education
to it like everybody.
[00:20:37]
Well you know, I like when I was a kid
I was like, how do you play football?
[00:20:42]
You play soccer,
how do you play basketball?
[00:20:43]
Everyone learns.
[00:20:44]
And so parents now a lot
of parents are gamers growing up.
[00:20:48]
So they know some of it, but
a lot of moms who aren’t
[00:20:51]
gamers are like, what is my son
doing in the basement all the time?
[00:20:55]
Well, now you can see and you can see how
[00:20:57]
he is becoming a good teammate
and becoming a better person.
[00:21:02]
Because he’s part of a team now and not
[00:21:04]
just sucking up five hours of life
every day alone in his basement, so
[00:21:10]
so we make our streams educational.
[00:21:12]
So we’re like, OK,
here’s how overwatch works.
[00:21:15]
And we explain to the viewer who is
brand new to it how it works.
[00:21:18]
And then they’re like, oh, my gosh,
now I know what he’s doing.
[00:21:21]
It’s not that complicated.
[00:21:23]
It’s just like a team sport is
just like conventional sport.
[00:21:25]
Sure.
[00:21:26]
It’s just something that he
already loves to do.
[00:21:28]
And he is not athletic or we have a lot
[00:21:31]
of athletic kids, too, and they just
want to do this because it’s awesome.
[00:21:33]
But it really opens up a whole new
[00:21:38]
group of kids that can find
a way to play a sport.
[00:21:41]
All right.
That’s what’s amazing about it.
[00:21:44]
Interesting.
[00:21:44]
And I imagine, like, it’s I don’t know
what it is, 10 below or something here.
[00:21:48]
Yeah.
[00:21:48]
There’s not a whole lot of soccer going on.
No way. You can play this anywhere.
[00:21:54]
Yeah.
[00:21:54]
We have seasons that run
all year long every season.
[00:21:58]
We have running running winter season
[00:22:00]
right now and we have spring season
starting here at February 20th is
[00:22:06]
the first games of rocket league
and then the twenty seventh.
[00:22:10]
We have the first
[00:22:12]
ones for overwatch and fortnite
[00:22:14]
so we’re running tryouts constantly
[00:22:16]
at Edgewood and at Kodansha Sun
Prairie. Hold on, tryouts? You got to tell me about this.
[00:22:21]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:23]
So and tryouts meaning that you come
[00:22:26]
and you come and try it
and it’s like it’s try it out.
[00:22:30]
We call it when, when they get there
it’s like this is this is a try it out.
[00:22:33]
This is not a tryout.
[00:22:35]
You’re not cutting people
from the team or something?
[00:22:37]
Everybody makes the team.
[00:22:38]
This is youth level. OK.
[00:22:40]
When you get to high school,
[00:22:41]
there’s junior varsity, varsity, whatever,
you’re going to make a team or you’re not.
[00:22:44]
All right at this level,
everybody makes a team.
[00:22:48]
So there’s different levels,
so we have silver and gold,
[00:22:51]
so like the beginning,
players that have never played before,
[00:22:54]
like we had a kiddo that came in a couple
of nights ago, that he’s like I play
[00:22:58]
fortnite and we’re like and we have
kids try out all our games
[00:23:04]
overwatch, fortnite and rocket league to see
what they really like, because it’s like
[00:23:08]
you may have not been exposed
to these other games.
[00:23:11]
And so he tried overwatch and he
fell in love with it immediately.
[00:23:16]
And and he was good like
within an hour tryout.
[00:23:19]
He was like doing so well,
could not believe the growth.
[00:23:23]
That’s what the kids can do, like
[00:23:25]
give him a give them even give him a
soccer ball or give them a tennis racket.
[00:23:29]
And you’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t
know you could be that good so fast.
[00:23:33]
So yeah.
[00:23:35]
So he joined our overwatch team then
[00:23:39]
and the tryout is you’ll realize like,
OK, how what your skill level.
[00:23:44]
OK, you’re new to overwatch.
[00:23:45]
You’re going to join our silver team.
[00:23:48]
That is cool. But then we have like 14,
15 year olds that come in, it’s like, OK,
[00:23:52]
you’ve been playing for five years,
you’re on the gold team and you might even
[00:23:55]
be good enough to get to a regional
tournament or a national tournament.
[00:23:59]
So we have a national tournament in August
[00:24:01]
where the best of the best play against
each other, too, and they win prizes like
[00:24:05]
college scholarships and
cool gaming gear and stuff.
[00:24:08]
So, yeah, there will have scholarships,
college scholarship of this.
[00:24:14]
Wow.
And what type of college are they?
[00:24:16]
Would they get a scholarship
from for something like this?
[00:24:19]
Yes.
[00:24:19]
So Edgewood College right here in Madison
has scholarships for E Sports now.
[00:24:24]
And so Lakeland University that we partner
with Ahman Green,
[00:24:29]
we have we iHeart Radio and Fox Sports 10
70 Madison and we partner with
[00:24:35]
So Ahman Green is the E Sports coach
at Lakeland University in Sheboygan.
[00:24:40]
And so he he’s a phenomenal
coach, by the way.
[00:24:43]
I, I enjoy talking with them
[00:24:46]
and obviously he knows E Sports
and he’s of our generation,
[00:24:50]
grew up gaming and and and whatnot, so.
[00:24:55]
Yeah, it’s quite the community.
[00:24:58]
How recent are we talking for college
[00:25:00]
scholarships coming
into play with E Sports?
[00:25:04]
Yeah, just in the last five years.
[00:25:07]
And it’s growing like this year.
[00:25:09]
It’s growing big time
[00:25:11]
because of the pandemic to
the number of people playing E Sports
[00:25:15]
at the high school level
has increased greatly.
[00:25:19]
And so they’ve had to create scholarships.
[00:25:22]
And and
[00:25:24]
one path that I’m working
[00:25:26]
on with the college is that some of their
E Sports players are in psychology or
[00:25:35]
computer science or whatnot,
but they all come in thinking,
[00:25:40]
I’m going to use technology in my job
and I’m doing E Sports too.
[00:25:44]
So like I can like you have focus at this
college on technology and future jobs.
[00:25:49]
And I can play E Sports like
that’s exactly what what young kids
[00:25:55]
are looking into now,
getting those opportunities.
[00:25:58]
So, yeah, they want to they want to offer
them scholarships to to get them
[00:26:02]
there academically and for sports too.
[00:26:04]
I’m getting some glare from my window here.
[00:26:10]
That’s interesting.
[00:26:11]
So I’m wondering from a from an equipment
point of view in in my mind,
[00:26:18]
I got a I got a seven year old kid
and there’s certain sports that I feel are
[00:26:23]
pretty expensive to play and there’s other
sports that are dirt cheap like you.
[00:26:27]
You never hear of a rich kid getting
[00:26:28]
into boxing, but you never, rarely hear
of a poor kid getting into hockey.
[00:26:34]
So where where do the E Sports fit in there?
[00:26:37]
Yeah. There’s some kids that the
[00:26:39]
families can’t afford
to get them in there?
[00:26:42]
Yes.
[00:26:44]
Yes.
So then we we have all the equipment,
[00:26:47]
we buy all the equipment,
which makes it a cheap cheaper to enter
[00:26:49]
right away because you don’t
have to buy hockey equipment.
[00:26:54]
And
[00:26:56]
my daughter does dance, which is like
expensive for lessons and stuff too.
[00:27:00]
But so yeah.
[00:27:01]
This we feel like competitively with other
sports, it’s actually pretty low.
[00:27:06]
It’s kind of like soccer.
[00:27:07]
It’s kind of like high
level soccer though.
[00:27:10]
It’s like, it’s not like your your
it is competitive and we want to make
[00:27:15]
these kids better gamers
and better people.
[00:27:19]
So the our coaches and our philosophy
is about professional level experience.
[00:27:23]
So.
All right.
[00:27:25]
We do things like interviewing of players
and so they can get on camera right away
[00:27:30]
and get that experience of like talking
about yourself,
[00:27:33]
talking about other people,
talk about your team, the experience.
[00:27:37]
And it’s so cool to get
these kids on a camera.
[00:27:39]
And this age, you know,
cameras and videos are everywhere,
[00:27:42]
but being in, again,
a responsible environment with that.
[00:27:46]
And
[00:27:48]
so it’s it’s priced competitively
[00:27:52]
with with people that are like,
you know, not like overly serious about
[00:27:56]
sports, but especially in this area
that it’s the gateway to stem careers
[00:28:01]
and getting kids into STEM, that parents
are on board with it like very quickly.
[00:28:09]
Yeah, this is a whole new world to me
[00:28:10]
because, like I said,
I only have a seven year old kid.
[00:28:13]
So before I didn’t really
know any of this stuff.
[00:28:16]
I didn’t know there are things
like hockey, high schools.
[00:28:19]
Oh, yeah.
I had a buddy of mine that said he was
[00:28:21]
moving to a different community for his kid to go
to a hockey high school like what?
[00:28:26]
Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:28]
It just blew my mind.
[00:28:29]
So this isn’t surprising.
[00:28:31]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:33]
And
[00:28:35]
the best part about this is like you don’t
[00:28:36]
need a hockey arena or you don’t need
a basketball court or some other
[00:28:39]
infrastructure that it’s very
costly to get up and running.
[00:28:42]
Oh, my gosh.
[00:28:43]
So my kid in the beginning was into hockey
and then I saw how much goalie gear was.
[00:28:47]
Oh yeah.
[00:28:48]
That he would fit in for six
months or whatever.
[00:28:51]
Yeah.
Well yeah exactly.
[00:28:54]
That is crazy.
Yeah.
[00:28:55]
And just like renting ice time is
[00:28:58]
so expensive and they pass that on to the,
to the parents.
[00:29:02]
To consumers so.
Yeah.
[00:29:03]
And even renting soccer fields or
[00:29:05]
basketball courts,
it’s just like a huge competition that’s
[00:29:09]
got to have all the logistics
involved with it.
[00:29:11]
And we’re like do you have
Internet that’s reliable and fast.
[00:29:16]
You’re in, you’re in, you know,
and the kids can play from home
[00:29:21]
and it’s very real during covid time
especially, it’s getting better now.
[00:29:24]
It’s like, yes, in Wisconsin.
[00:29:26]
But, you know, back in November,
it was pretty, pretty hard here.
[00:29:30]
And we had kids that would play remotely
[00:29:32]
then and we’d let them we’d like loan them
out a laptop, be like, oh, interesting.
[00:29:37]
Dude, I’m so sorry.
[00:29:38]
Like, you have a covid scare.
[00:29:40]
We’re going to we’ll bring it right over
[00:29:41]
to your house or you can come pick
it up and it’s all set up and stuff.
[00:29:45]
You just have to connect your wifi to it and you’re all set to go.
[00:29:49]
We had a kid
[00:29:51]
play from an airport one time because he
was between in between flights.
[00:29:57]
And he’s like, I’m not going to miss this.
[00:29:59]
Or a kid played from his cabin
up north Wisconsin like that.
[00:30:03]
So it’s it’s so cool.
It’s like, well,
[00:30:05]
I’m going to miss a couple of games
because I’m going on vacation or I’m
[00:30:08]
traveling or I’m seeing
this person or doing that.
[00:30:10]
It’s like, do you have a PC?
Do you need one?
[00:30:14]
All right.
[00:30:15]
So you don’t. The chance of missing
a game and failing your team.
[00:30:18]
You know, I’m so worried about
being a good teammate.
[00:30:22]
It’s like, well,
you can play from anywhere, so.
[00:30:24]
All right.
So you raise an interesting point
[00:30:27]
the do you guys have subs
[00:30:29]
that somebody can’t make it
for whatever. We do.
[00:30:34]
Exactly.
Yeah.
[00:30:34]
So we do.
We do.
[00:30:36]
We’ve had that where and we plan for that.
[00:30:38]
It’s like we have like gold teams and like
the better kids on the silver
[00:30:43]
teams will be like, hey, you’re going
to be an alternate for the gold team.
[00:30:47]
And so it’s a great opportunity for you
[00:30:48]
to play up a couple of weeks
if there’s people gone.
[00:30:51]
So and we’re going to have you practice
[00:30:53]
with the gold because we think you can be
a gold player in one season,
[00:30:57]
two seasons, you’re going to beef up your
skills and then be able to join that.
[00:31:01]
So, yeah, we we do that silver team level,
same thing where we have multiple teams.
[00:31:07]
So it’s like, hey, you know,
Jimmy is going to be gone today.
[00:31:09]
Do you want to play two games today?
Just jump in and.
[00:31:12]
All right.
Yeah, no problem.
[00:31:14]
Yeah.
I suppose it’s much easier to improve your
[00:31:16]
skills if you’re playing with people
that are better than you.
[00:31:18]
Yeah, definitely. Playing with people
that are worse than you, you’re probably
[00:31:22]
no doing yourself
any favors.
[00:31:23]
Yeah.
[00:31:24]
So yeah, it’s not,
it’s not age dependent too.
[00:31:27]
Like I grew up being a soccer player so I always
[00:31:29]
make these equivalents but there’s
like you eight, ten, twelve, you fourteen.
[00:31:33]
And they do it differently now or I don’t
[00:31:35]
know, they switch back,
they keep changing it.
[00:31:36]
But
[00:31:38]
then you’re playing
with just people your age.
[00:31:40]
But like there’s an eight year old
kid who is like awesome at Overwatch.
[00:31:43]
We’re not going to hold him back.
[00:31:44]
Like, just play your age level.
Yeah.
[00:31:48]
I Imagine there’s
[00:31:48]
You’re an adult man, you’re you’re moving up.
[00:31:50]
The physical limitation
is exactly equation.
[00:31:53]
Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:31:54]
The maturity level and the communication
level that these young kids have.
[00:32:00]
It’s like you showed us that you
can compete at a higher level.
[00:32:03]
So, yeah, we’re immediately moving you up.
[00:32:06]
So it really doesn’t hold people back
from being really good really early.
[00:32:10]
So.
All right.
[00:32:11]
And I suppose that doesn’t
the people that they’re playing
[00:32:16]
may not even know that they’re 8.
They don’t.
[00:32:19]
Yeah.
[00:32:21]
I’d probably be mildly depressed
if I was playing somebody and
[00:32:24]
I was like I got beat
by an eight year old.
[00:32:26]
Yeah, exactly.
So I guess it’s probably at that level.
[00:32:29]
Probably completely.
Yeah.
[00:32:31]
My 10 year old daughter and my 12 year old
[00:32:33]
daughter that they both beat
me at rocket league every time.
[00:32:36]
Funny. Like three years ago when we
played it, when they’re younger,
[00:32:40]
I was like, oh, this is how you
play it, you know, and stuff.
[00:32:42]
And now it’s like, OK, I got to catch up.
[00:32:47]
So that is cool.
[00:32:49]
We don’t have a ton of time left.
[00:32:50]
So I want to talk about what you
have going on with Code Ninjas.
[00:32:54]
Can you touch on that a little bit?
[00:32:55]
Yeah, definitely.
[00:32:56]
So Code Ninjas is very related.
[00:33:01]
It is teaching kids how to code
by building video games.
[00:33:05]
So we
[00:33:08]
we have like a belt system that goes
white to black belt,
[00:33:11]
like a martial arts studio,
like your karate,
[00:33:14]
and you’re going to complete
coding projects
[00:33:18]
by building video games to earn belts and
then move up until you get a black belt.
[00:33:23]
And then at the black belt level,
[00:33:25]
we help you build a game,
come up with an idea,
[00:33:29]
build the game and then publish it
for others to buy it, play it
[00:33:34]
something you can put on a resume
and you’re like 12 years old.
[00:33:38]
Again, we’re creating like
a prodigy’s of the of the future, so.
[00:33:43]
And then they learn three different
[00:33:45]
programing languages,
at least along the way,
[00:33:47]
there’s some optional things they get
to do along the way with robotics and with
[00:33:54]
Internet based coding,
things that are out there.
[00:33:57]
But we have our own core
proprietary curriculum that we’ve built.
[00:34:02]
And so it’s the best path for kids
as young as actually five years old.
[00:34:07]
We start to learn how
to code. Five years old
[00:34:10]
they’re starting to learn how to code?
Wow.
[00:34:13]
And what what language is what are
[00:34:15]
the three languages? What are
the three languages that you get?
[00:34:18]
Yeah, the core core program is
[00:34:22]
JavaScript and which is like most
up most popular in the world.
[00:34:28]
And then we do Lua, which is what kids
play roblox it’s built on Lua,
[00:34:35]
which is the like a C programing
language and then and then Unity 3D,
[00:34:42]
which is the development environment
as our higher level belts.
[00:34:45]
And that’s what C Sharp, which is
at a professional level.
[00:34:49]
I coded in C sharp.
[00:34:51]
So it’s like, you know, I’m a I’m a 10
year old or 11 year old programing.
[00:34:56]
And
[00:34:58]
this like we know they can do
it at that young of an age.
[00:35:01]
They by building games,
they’re super engaged and they love it.
[00:35:05]
I mean, it’s that it’s it’s amazing.
[00:35:09]
And they’re building like 3D games
that like you like
[00:35:13]
like you play on your phone, like apps
like on your phone or web, Web-Based apps
[00:35:20]
and games.
And so it really then opens them up
[00:35:23]
to a world of, like a lot of our advanced
kids are like on the path to, like,
[00:35:29]
get into a new program
at a high school college level.
[00:35:32]
And that’s where my prodigy management
is working at the high school and college
[00:35:37]
level to have a path for these kids
to continue that that learning journey
[00:35:43]
to be a game development game
designer with like a studio.
[00:35:48]
So I’m trying to move from my sun again.
[00:35:51]
This is like I just closed
that window. We haven’t seen sun in years.
[00:35:57]
But yeah, so I’m working with
[00:36:00]
some institutions in the area to get
better programs for these kids
[00:36:06]
to and also like game design based
curriculum where it’s just fun to do it.
[00:36:12]
And they’re engaged with it like.
[00:36:15]
when I was going through
[00:36:18]
my high school, had a couple of computer
classes and my college was using these
[00:36:22]
like old old programing
languages is just boring.
[00:36:26]
But I was like, I got to get this degree.
[00:36:28]
But now you can make it so much better
and so much and more engaging
[00:36:32]
and with gamification,
a lot of corporate everything,
[00:36:39]
corporate trainings and just,
you know, the Gen X or the Gen X, the
[00:36:46]
millennials that are coming through are
[00:36:49]
like they want it to be a cool place,
cool work environment thing.
[00:36:52]
And so they’re not going to want
these dry old videos to watch.
[00:36:57]
They’re going to want cool stuff.
[00:36:58]
So there’s got to be programmers
and stuff that build that.
[00:37:02]
And and so that’s what
we’re looking to do.
[00:37:05]
So, yeah, it’s interesting.
[00:37:06]
I learn to code way back when in basic.
Yeah.
[00:37:10]
And you thought you’re the coolest thing
in the world and you can turn the screen
[00:37:14]
red or make these little
boxes and stuff like that.
[00:37:17]
And I remember taking a college
course in C++ that I got smoked in.
[00:37:25]
I didn’t do so hot in that.
[00:37:28]
But it’s interesting,
like we couldn’t I know that you could do
[00:37:31]
a lot of stuff in C++ that I didn’t even
scrape the tip of the iceberg with.
[00:37:36]
Well, then you see these newer
languages, what they can do.
[00:37:38]
Yeah, it’s way cooler now, way cooler.
[00:37:42]
You see the apps that they’re coming up
with, they’re pumping out apps
[00:37:46]
and long every day there’s
new stuff coming out there.
[00:37:49]
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s it’s impressive.
[00:37:51]
It’s pretty cool.
Yeah.
[00:37:53]
Yeah.
[00:37:53]
And just there’s such a there’s still such
a shortage of like you talk
[00:37:57]
to corporations and businesses,
they still can’t get enough high quality
[00:38:01]
talent and they don’t want to spend
the money to train them right there.
[00:38:05]
So
[00:38:07]
that’s that’s a whole nother conversation.
Oh my gosh.
[00:38:10]
You argue about loyalty there.
[00:38:12]
Yeah, but yeah.
[00:38:14]
So that’s why we want to get as many kids
and parents have this upward demand that,
[00:38:19]
like, look,
we’re where we are here to learn it.
[00:38:22]
So you got to up your game.
All right.
[00:38:24]
The upper levels,
high schools and colleges to meet the
[00:38:29]
meet the high quality education
demands that are there.
[00:38:33]
Right.
So the prodigy management,
[00:38:36]
you are reaching out to universities and
colleges and high schools and essentially
[00:38:41]
saying, hey, let’s get
some curriculum in place.
[00:38:44]
Yeah.
And and partners.
[00:38:47]
And that’s where we have gaming studios.
[00:38:50]
We have Raven.
[00:38:52]
in Madison here, they’re tough nut
to crack, though, to get them involved.
[00:38:57]
We’re working on that.
[00:38:59]
But we have other ones that are all that.
[00:39:02]
We’re working with global companies to get
the programs in place at our local
[00:39:08]
colleges, universities that are
that are engaging
[00:39:13]
high quality things that more kids are
going to want to do and equates to jobs
[00:39:18]
coming right out of college, internships,
all these opportunities.
[00:39:23]
And a lot of them in MySpace are going
to be in the gaming E Sports world.
[00:39:28]
But we find that knowing those coding
[00:39:31]
skills and if you learn one language or
learn to work as a team to build something
[00:39:39]
that’s transferable to any industry really
[00:39:41]
and any industry is looking
for to become better at technology.
[00:39:45]
So totally they’re going to want
they’re going to want these.
[00:39:50]
These these high, highly educated people
coming out into the entry level workforce,
[00:39:56]
yeah, it’s interesting that I don’t
feel like software is going away.
[00:40:00]
All right.
[00:40:02]
There’s some job security there,
I think, if you get into that world.
[00:40:06]
Yeah, I think you and Mark Cuban said just
[00:40:09]
teach your kids to code
and they’ll be fine kind of thing.
[00:40:13]
Yeah.
And that’s what the so Code Ninjas to.
[00:40:16]
And this is the thing.
[00:40:17]
And I went through this path of my own
father and my own life is that my father
[00:40:22]
was working full time making
a living to support his family.
[00:40:26]
I like coding when I’m seven,
[00:40:28]
like I did the same thing I
coded in Basic when I was seven.
[00:40:31]
Yeah.
[00:40:32]
And and but he’s he can’t
nurture that very much.
[00:40:35]
He’s just like throws a computer at me
like, you know, the ten best intentions.
[00:40:41]
Sure.
He, he’s teachable moments here and there.
[00:40:43]
But like our Code Ninjas
we have sensei’s which is like a ninja
[00:40:49]
dojo model.
[00:40:51]
They’re there to support your
kid all the way through.
[00:40:53]
So they’re that’s like
what’s why do I do this?
[00:40:56]
It’s because you get somebody who knows
[00:40:58]
how to teach coding every day
that is an expert at it,
[00:41:03]
that you can send your kid in for an hour
to a week and drop them off and and get
[00:41:08]
rid of them for a couple of hours
and turn it into productive screen time,
[00:41:12]
because lord knows there’s so much
unproductive screen time right now.
[00:41:17]
And get them with a mentor.
[00:41:18]
The sensei’s that will
will teach them how to code.
[00:41:21]
And you don’t have to do it yourself.
[00:41:22]
Like my dad couldn’t do it for me,
[00:41:26]
class is harder because
he’s doing other things.
[00:41:28]
But we’ve got these
they’re paid sensei’s that are teaching
[00:41:33]
coding like that’s their skill is to teach
kids out of code and they’re engaging.
[00:41:38]
They’re fun.
[00:41:38]
Like all of our stuff is like,
you know, you build.
[00:41:41]
Code, and then you play like you play your
[00:41:43]
game, you play other people’s games,
you play the all the like,
[00:41:46]
we play Minecraft and we have like
Nintendo switch and Roblox and stuff.
[00:41:51]
We allow, like, the fun time, too,
because you got to make it fun, too.
[00:41:55]
So it’s this environment of mentorship
and like like peers that are with each
[00:42:01]
other that, you know, can form
this kind of community center
[00:42:06]
in neighborhoods that feel so.
[00:42:08]
So how long have you been
involved with Code Ninjas?
[00:42:11]
So we two and a half years.
[00:42:14]
OK, so that’s fairly new.
Yep.
[00:42:17]
OK, and it’s a franchise I believe.
Is that right?
[00:42:20]
That’s correct.
All right.
[00:42:21]
How long is the franchise been
around? Since twenty sixteen.
[00:42:24]
Five years.
OK, so still relatively new as well.
[00:42:27]
Yeah.
[00:42:27]
We were the first one to open
Wisconsin and Sun Prairie.
[00:42:30]
All right.
[00:42:31]
Sun Prairie because it’s the best
place to live in the state.
[00:42:35]
Now there’s three of them.
There’s one on the west side of Madison.
[00:42:38]
There’s one in Brookfield
by Milwaukee there.
[00:42:41]
Can you tell me how tough is it to
to bring awareness to parents like, hey,
[00:42:48]
you can bring your five year old kid
in here to learn how to code or even bring
[00:42:51]
your 12 year old kid in here
to learn how to code?
[00:42:54]
Yeah, that’s I think that’s somewhat
of a paradigm shift from,
[00:42:57]
you know, bringing a kid to learn
whatever karate or soccer or basket is.
[00:43:03]
Yeah.
[00:43:04]
The last two and half years
[00:43:07]
yeah, the first goal of for us is
to educate the area about
[00:43:14]
the benefits of coding,
like we just described some of them.
[00:43:17]
And and once that’s the thing,
[00:43:21]
the kids come and they’re like,
oh, this place is amazing.
[00:43:25]
And they fall in love with it immediately.
[00:43:26]
So it’s just like getting them there.
[00:43:28]
And the parents then are like,
[00:43:31]
oh, yeah, like I’ve heard that we
need to get them into coding.
[00:43:33]
And and it’s not just about the coding
[00:43:36]
because there are articles out there
that’s like, well,
[00:43:38]
it’s another skill to learn,
but it’s also about getting an environment
[00:43:42]
with mentors and and
peers that are similar,
[00:43:48]
that are into tech. Kids
[00:43:50]
you just need to nurture that that love
of technology in a healthy way
[00:43:56]
because they can like we’ve got lots
[00:43:58]
of dads that are like technology
focused and they’re awesome.
[00:44:01]
But again, like it’s just about the time.
[00:44:03]
And and then the kids are learning more
[00:44:06]
than they are then the kids
are teaching the dad.
[00:44:08]
Well, I learned this today
and we’re doing this.
[00:44:11]
Let’s
[00:44:12]
check it out type of thing.
[00:44:14]
So it’s just.
[00:44:17]
It is very cool, that sounds cool.
[00:44:20]
What got you involved in all this?
[00:44:23]
Is this ownership entrepreneur?
[00:44:25]
Yeah, I was a programmer for 15 years,
[00:44:28]
so like hands down
full stack developer, as they say.
[00:44:32]
I wouldn’t call a full stack back
[00:44:33]
in the day, but I did all the programing
you can do from back end, the front end
[00:44:38]
data bases and front end web development,
back end development, all that.
[00:44:44]
And my my wife is a teacher.
[00:44:46]
So we took my programing and her teaching
[00:44:48]
and we’re like kids and we
have kids and that.
[00:44:51]
And there were seven and nine at the time.
Yeah.
[00:44:55]
Right in the wheelhouse of these programs.
[00:44:56]
So for our own kids,
we knew it’s very important.
[00:45:00]
My my 10 year old just codes for fun,
[00:45:04]
like when she has a few minutes,
you know, it just
[00:45:07]
it just part of her life now.
All right.
[00:45:09]
And
[00:45:11]
and so yeah, we,
we found this opportunity.
[00:45:14]
We I’m an entrepreneur because of prodigy
[00:45:16]
management that I have
two mentors like Prodigy.
[00:45:19]
The whole point was to get more kids like
[00:45:22]
myself as like this child prodigy
that needed more nurturing.
[00:45:27]
And
[00:45:28]
in in in this, I like it was seeing 20
[00:45:32]
years in the future when the job I wanted
is the job I currently have right now,
[00:45:36]
you know, and in in gaming and
video game design and development.
[00:45:41]
So, yeah.
[00:45:44]
So now we can just you know,
that’s a real thing.
[00:45:47]
That’s real jobs now.
[00:45:48]
And we can get those kids in there
early and we’re like, let’s do that.
[00:45:53]
That’s, you know, that meets what we do
as far as education and and technology.
[00:45:59]
Yeah.
[00:45:59]
And so boom then we we
opened the Code Ninjas.
[00:46:02]
That’s cool.
Did you were you looking for a franchise
[00:46:05]
that offered this or did
you stumble upon it?
[00:46:08]
We were looking for concepts
[00:46:11]
like to build ourselves in Sun Prairie
like we knew where it was,
[00:46:14]
like we were even we were looking
at spaces in Sun Prairie to do that,
[00:46:18]
to start from the ground up
with our own business model.
[00:46:21]
And then we saw this.
[00:46:22]
We’re like, oh my gosh,
that’s exactly our talents.
[00:46:25]
And and we can do it right here.
[00:46:28]
And we’re like, well,
that saves a lot of legwork for
[00:46:32]
doing all that up front work of building
our own curriculum and stuff.
[00:46:34]
Yeah.
[00:46:35]
So yeah, we just they already
have that ready and we just
[00:46:40]
able to bring it in and then we just add
our own personality and community
[00:46:43]
relationships to it and,
and then there you go.
[00:46:46]
Interesting.
[00:46:47]
What were some of the surprises or I guess
challenges that you didn’t necessarily
[00:46:51]
anticipate through the few years
you’ve been in business doing this?
[00:46:54]
Yeah,
[00:46:55]
it is like you talk about educating
the public about about what we do,
[00:46:59]
the the importance of STEM education
and computer science and
[00:47:06]
just really making people aware of it,
because we do feel, and especially with XP
[00:47:10]
League now, to like gaming
and STEM kind of go together.
[00:47:15]
And so now with that package,
you can do both for both and kids do
[00:47:22]
that, you’ll you’ll come
in there and be able to do it.
[00:47:25]
So.
[00:47:28]
Yeah, sorry, I lost the question,
too, but it’s just a
[00:47:33]
thing that we
[00:47:35]
know we knew that our community needed
something more like we get a lot
[00:47:39]
of parents that say we needed
something like this around here.
[00:47:42]
There’s not there’s like nothing around
here like this that we we can do
[00:47:47]
for this new tribe of kids that
don’t have a place.
[00:47:52]
Like I didn’t have a place, I had a place,
[00:47:54]
but I had to like those kind of like
forced to do some things that I was
[00:47:57]
uncomfortable with, which are good
to uncomfortable is fine, sure.
[00:48:01]
But in my comfort zone and where I could
expand, it’s getting these kids that are
[00:48:06]
looking for their group
and then can do this.
[00:48:10]
Nice.
Do you have any competition?
[00:48:15]
Not in our area,
[00:48:17]
there is there is on the west
side of Madison. OK?
[00:48:22]
Our primary competition
is virtual offerings.
[00:48:25]
Oh, sure.
So there’s
[00:48:28]
like WhiteHat and iD Tech, OK?
[00:48:32]
And these these things are like
[00:48:33]
a conglomerate, like people in remote
parts of the country that are not local.
[00:48:40]
They’re just people they could find
[00:48:42]
at a cheap labor price
and then are willing to do it.
[00:48:46]
So like iD Tech charges ridiculous
[00:48:48]
amounts of money,
like triple what we charge.
[00:48:50]
And it’s just it’s just criminal.
[00:48:52]
And they because they have a broad
[00:48:55]
marketing thing, budget that they
can spread across the world.
[00:48:58]
All right.
They they can compete with us.
[00:49:01]
But we have we’ve got surveys and stuff
that our programs are better than them.
[00:49:05]
And we have that local connection to that.
[00:49:08]
Like these are we have people
[00:49:09]
from Waunakee and Janesville
and Madison that work for us.
[00:49:14]
So these are like Midwest
[00:49:17]
values, local Madison, Dane County
values like that that work for us.
[00:49:22]
And and so they can connect
[00:49:24]
with the community a lot better
than these virtual programs.
[00:49:27]
Yeah, there’s something to be
said for teaching in person.
[00:49:30]
Yeah.
Even now.
[00:49:32]
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
[00:49:33]
So we have that and we are in person.
[00:49:35]
So we’ve been in person.
[00:49:36]
We did close when it was mandatory
[00:49:38]
to close back in March
through May of last year.
[00:49:42]
We did virtual for that time.
[00:49:43]
We do have virtual programs too
and we still run those virtual.
[00:49:48]
But we are primarily in person because we
[00:49:50]
want that sense, mentorship,
relationship with the kids.
[00:49:53]
Yeah, someone that can look over
the shoulder and I think there’s a.
[00:49:57]
There’s an authenticity
[00:49:59]
in a warmness energy that you
get from being with people.
[00:50:03]
Yeah, and I guess, yeah,
you’re asking about trouble like.
[00:50:05]
Yes, the education part.
Right.
[00:50:07]
Or troubles in the beginning getting the word out.
[00:50:10]
I mean, I think we are pretty strong.
I mean, covid hit,
[00:50:13]
which is a big struggle, of course,
because we are primarily in person.
[00:50:18]
I think that and I say this
on all podcasts and interviews.
[00:50:22]
I do.
[00:50:22]
Is that the point of sale system
for a franchise is is a joke.
[00:50:28]
It’s terrible.
Oh, no.
[00:50:30]
And it’s been like that for a long time.
[00:50:31]
And that’s like a system for a technology
franchise that is just so bad.
[00:50:37]
And we’ve been fighting,
[00:50:38]
fighting for years as franchises
together to get a new one.
[00:50:42]
And I hope this year we
can finally do that.
[00:50:45]
But well, they make you go
through their system.
[00:50:48]
Yeah.
And it’s it’s a terrible system.
[00:50:50]
You cannot easily sign up for something
[00:50:52]
over the Internet, which is are just like,
are you kidding me?
[00:50:57]
You can’t do that in your
technology education company.
[00:50:59]
So
[00:51:01]
that’s the only thing that’s been tough is
[00:51:03]
that system is very manual,
very difficult to use.
[00:51:07]
Yeah.
And and
[00:51:10]
we’re you know,
we wanted that to be better.
[00:51:13]
And that’s that’s kind of that’s
the only complaint so far.
[00:51:18]
I’m going to compare.
[00:51:19]
That’s a franchise model issue.
Yeah.
[00:51:21]
So compared to a lot of stories
that I’ve heard of people starting up.
[00:51:25]
That is on the verge of negligible.
[00:51:28]
I mean, getting paid is a big deal,
but that’s yeah, yeah.
[00:51:31]
When it’s questionable every week,
[00:51:32]
if you’re going to get paid, it’s like,
you know, that’s not good.
[00:51:36]
Yeah, not ideal not ideal.
[00:51:38]
Well, awesome JD this
has been super cool.
[00:51:40]
This has been interesting.
[00:51:43]
I’m just there’s a whole new world
that I have never even known existed.
[00:51:47]
Yes, not in a not an organized
professional level.
[00:51:53]
Yeah, that’s cool.
[00:51:54]
So, yeah, if you want to come out,
you’re near by us here,
[00:51:57]
check out Code Ninjas Sun Prairie.
[00:51:58]
We also call it
the Code Ninja’s XP League Arena.
[00:52:02]
It’s our Madison area headquarters for
the XP League as well.
[00:52:06]
Cool.
Do you how can people, I guess,
[00:52:09]
find you either on the Web or even physical?
Yep, so codeninjas.com
[00:52:14]
for Code Ninja’s and then xpleague.gg/wisconsin.
[00:52:21]
You can also go to our Facebook page.
[00:52:23]
And I did mention our Twitter, XPL Madison,
[00:52:26]
you can check out our games.
[00:52:27]
They’re free for anyone to come on in
and check those out and follow us.
[00:52:32]
And you guys have the Twitch channel?
Yep.
[00:52:36]
Which was
[00:52:43]
XPL Madison.
[00:52:43]
Madison.
Sorry.
[00:52:45]
Yeah, yeah,yeah.
[00:52:47]
Codeninjas.com.
We have yeah.
[00:52:49]
We have summer camps coming up
for ages 5 to 14 for Code Ninja’s.
[00:52:53]
We are working with Edgewood College on
[00:52:56]
E-Sports summer camps,
which should be three weeks in July.
[00:52:58]
We have the date set.
[00:52:59]
We’re just working on the content,
of those E Sports summer camps down
[00:53:05]
at the college and maybe, maybe next year,
maybe this year doing overnight.
[00:53:11]
Stay for a week.
[00:53:12]
E-Sports.
Wow.
[00:53:15]
Floodgates open.
E-Sports all week long.
[00:53:17]
Sure.
Drop the kid off.
[00:53:19]
Drive, drive down from Fond du lac
drop them off or for the week and see you
[00:53:23]
on Friday, you know
overnight camps for E-Sports.
[00:53:27]
Oh that’s cool.
That’s very cool.
[00:53:29]
That’s impressive.
Yeah.
[00:53:31]
Awesome.
Thank you JD.
[00:53:32]
Yeah.
[00:53:34]
Thank you for having me.
Yeah.
[00:53:35]
This is, this is fun.
[00:53:37]
I love it.
This has been
[00:53:38]
Authentic Business Adventures, the business
program that brings you the struggles
[00:53:42]
stories and triumphant successes
of business owners across the land.
[00:53:46]
We are underwritten locally
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.
[00:53:48]
If you’re listening to this on the web,
[00:53:50]
which you probably are,
just give a thumbs up,
[00:53:52]
subscribe and comment, as well
as share with all your friends.
[00:53:56]
My name is James Kademan
and Authentic Business Adventures is
[00:53:59]
brought to you by Calls On Call offering
Call Answering and Receptionist Services
[00:54:03]
for service businesses across the country,
on the Web at CallsOnCall.com. As
[00:54:08]
well as, Draw In Customers Business
Coaching, offering business coaching
[00:54:12]
services for entrepreneurs looking
for growth, on the web at DrawInCustomers.com
[00:54:16]
And of course,
The BOLD Business Book, a book
[00:54:19]
for the entrepreneur in all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.
[00:54:23]
We’d like to think you our wonderful
listeners as well as our guest,
[00:54:26]
JD Uhler, league commissioner of XP League
[00:54:28]
of Madison and co-owner
of Code Ninja’s in Sun Prairie.
[00:54:32]
JD, thank you so much.
It’s been awesome.
[00:54:34]
Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:54:36]
Past episodes can be found
morning, noon, and night at
[00:54:38]
the podcast link found at
[00:54:39]
DrawInCustomers.com.
Thank you for listening.
[00:54:42]
We’ll see you next week.
I want you to stay awesome.
[00:54:44]
And if you do nothing else,
enjoy your business.
