Trevor Hightower: Welcome, Jonathan Lusk.

Jonathan: Hello. Hello.

Trevor: So, Jonathan, the first thing I just want to ask is, you answered the call to start BirdDog. Tell us the story of that call, and, tell a story of you starting this company.

Jonathan: Yeah, man. So when I think about your story, and I just think about the hero's journey, you know, growing up, I grew up very poor in a little bitty town called Whitesboro, Texas. My dad's a fish farmer, and so we grew up, you know, in the outdoors, and I never fished, we just like stayed in ponds and all this stuff, never got to hunt, do any of that stuff. Then I went to A&M, ended up, and, you know, after a few years going into the wealth management business for Goldman, came out of Goldman, and 8 years ago started my own shop, because I didn't want to be poor anymore. I was like, what do you, this guy's got a nice house.

What do you do? He's like, I'm in finance. I was like, that sounds good to me. I want to do that thing. And so, what was funny is I was managing money for a couple of my buddies who started a company called Icon, it's a 3 d printing company, and so I managed money for those guys, and the CEO, Jason Ballard, was like, hey, Lusk man, I need you to not just manage my money, but do my taxes and manage my ranch.

I was like, Bro, I don't do any that crap. That's like way too much work. He was like, Can you just double my fee and do it? I was like, yes, I can. I will double your fee and do this.

I'm not an idiot. And, so I was trying to find like an Airbnb for hunting to put his ranch so we could show some income in his LLC, and it doesn't exist. So I went back to him, I was like, hey man, I'm gonna start this company, give me capital, and let's do it. So he did, the next month I was hunting with Colt McCoy, and he was like, dude, I love this idea, I wanna invest in it. So he's my 2nd investor, so we raised a little SAFE.

We came up with the idea like in January, and I don't hunt. I mean, I like hunt like twice a year, you know, when I go on a pheasant hunt or something, I went on 22 hunts last year actually, I have a lot of catching up to do, but we raised some money, and the whole idea is that you've got like 95% of the land is privately owned in Texas, and so like you only get to go hunt if you own a ranch or are invited, but all these ranches have got commercial operations, so they've got lodges, guides, game, and food. They're just terrible at marketing. Like, their website's 20 years old with old pictures on the 8th page of Google, and they're all in trust, they're in an LLC owned by 5 kids, one kid loves to hunt, the rest don't care, but everybody gets capital called for feed bills, property taxes, and insurance. So they're just trying to make 50 or $100,000 a year, cover OpEx, and then you have this whole slew of people that want to go hunting.

And so we're like, hey, let's go take professional photos, understand the game that people want to hunt, and put it on one website and then go see how it does. And so we started with 10 Ranches, we launched a site last August, ran like 112 hunters through. It was gangbusters. We've got like 35 ranches now, and the hard side of the marketplace is typically the ranch side. We've got people calling us every week going, I want to put my ranch on this, which increases supply, lowers pricing, and we're just having fun.

And for me, I go, I just wanna have a blast on this. Like in the hunting community, it's like, hey man, is that high fence or low fence or is that bow or rifle? I'm like, bro, I don't even care. All I care about is happy hunting. I want a big smile and a high five when you leave because you're gonna keep coming back and it's gonna be so much fun.

So Colt, I was like, hey man, do you know any country music singers? It'd be awesome to have them come play on a Monday or Tuesday. He's like, dude, I know everybody. I was like, well start hooking me up, man. So he's like, let's, he's like, how about Pat Green?

I was like, dude, freaking Pat Green, man, I love him. So I took a Pat. I was like, hey man, you want some options in the option pool, you know, be a part of the company? He's like, yeah bro, I'm there. So he, we got Pat, we got a guy named Roger Crager and Josh Abbott, and so we just started doing this, like let's make it fun and accessible, and it doesn't exist.

I mean, there's nothing out there. I'm like, you cannot imagine because the tech bros cannot relate with land owners. Like, hey man, you want to put your wrench in my app? Like bro, get off my property right now. And so for us, we were uniquely qualified to develop deep relationships, and I call our cap table Red Dirt Road because it's like a bunch of land owners and business owners and musicians and there's like 40 folks on it, and like everybody's aligned to go make this thing really, really big, so that's how we started.

Trevor: So you can see, Lusk has very low energy. And the, one thing you said about that that really struck me, you kinda keyed in on the experience that someone has on the trip. And I think that I mean, to kinda summarize, I mean, BirdDog, Airbnb for matching ranches to hunters, but I think the way that, you know, we can all maybe understand even more of what BirdDog does is to tell a story. And I mean, I'll share very quickly, I went on a father son trip that was arranged by BirdDog, and it was one of the more meaningful trips, and it we we hunted, which was great, and and my son, got his first deer, but it was all the intentionality around the experience that, made it really special where it's something that my son still talks about. And that's where I saw the magic of what you're doing.

So do you have a favorite story, or maybe a story that can bring home what it is that BirdDog is doing?

Jonathan: Yeah, we do 2 things. Like on the landowner side, we're helping steward people who are stewarding land and families. It's like 99% psychiatry, and just loving on people and helping them think that there's problems, which is my background in wealth management, and the other thing is we're creating deep and abiding friendships on these ranches. One of the coolest things, like for me, people are like, What's your favorite thing to hunt? I'm like, Whitetail deer, and they're like, That's super boring.

I'm like, Bro, I didn't grow up hunting. So when I go take my son in the blind and go shoot a doe, I'm like, this is so awesome, you know, most people my age, you know, but it's also makes me uniquely qualified to connect with other guys because most of our hunters are folks who didn't grow up hunting either, but they've got kids who are 9 to 15 years old and they want to get into it but they don't know what they're doing, so we do a lot of hunter's ed and we put the kids in the front row and the parents in the back, and usually the guy's like, I know what I'm doing. I'm like, no, you don't, neither do I, so it's fine, we'll figure it out together. And then you like teach them and then they go shoot guns, and then you open the laptop and say, here's a father son hunt or a mother son hunt or whatever it is, and they have a great experience, and I mean, one of the coolest things is hunting on my son, but also Carlos Carvalho in the top right. Hey, I got you over here and your bride.

Did you see that? Yeah, dude, shout out. As Carlos came up to me after this trip up on the top right, he said, This is one of the most important trips I've ever had in my life. He's like, I had a rite of passage with my son and I'll never be the same. He's gone on 4 hunts with us.

Like when people come they just keep coming back and coming back and coming back, and then they go tell everybody. It's like a 5 star experience, and so they become your sales team, but that's what's cool about this, is we're impacting lives, and it's like, it's gonna be really big.

Trevor: I believe that, and it's not easy either. And, using that same framework that I was talking about with, going through either struggle or abysses, And I think where my thought goes is to the person in the audience who is looking at accepting the call to venture to start their company. And what what you've done over the past 2 years, what have been what's been either the the hardest abyss or the the struggle that you weren't expecting when you started the journey?

Jonathan: Well, the way I think about life is a frame, like a Christian framework, and my marriage and my children are like the most important thing to me. So my mom's on her 4th marriage, dad's on her 3rd, a lot of just the craziest story you've ever heard, and so I think a lot about my family, I think a lot about my marriage, I think a lot about just my children, and the legacy that I wanna leave for generations of lusts forever is very important to me, and this call to go beyond 22 hunts last year, you're gone all the time, and you're at the point where my kids are 8, 6 and 2, and they're like, hey, when are you not going to go on this stuff and be here with us? And it just, it breaks my heart, so I've gotta deal a lot with shame and guilt for being away, but also know that I've got a calling in my life to go build this, And one of the blessings, I got kicked off a ranch about 2 months ago.

Trevor: Can you tell that story? Yeah.

Jonathan: The outfitter who was running the hunts did not like that I was getting to know the landowner, and his wife wrote this long email that was like, Jonathan Lusk is not allowed on this ranch anymore, and I had 2 more big corporate groups coming in the next 2 weeks at Belvont. I've got these 2 young folks who work for me. I was like, dude, this is awesome. My son was just like, when are you gonna be back home and all the stuff. I was like, well, I just got kicked off a ranch, man, so I'm gonna be here the next 6 days.

It's gonna be awesome. And so they they went and crushed it. It was awesome, and I was like, I don't even care. I was like, this is awesome. So yeah, I got I got ousted.

It was amazing.

Trevor: You take this obviously a number of ways, and you've maybe alluded to parts of it, but what is your hope for BirdDog? What's your, if you could fast forward, 20 years, what's your hope for BirdDog?

Jonathan: 100 of thousands of ranches all over the world that are vetted, that people are booking. It's the go to spot that if you want to go hunt and you want to have an experience with your friends, families, colleagues, whatever, that you go to do that, and we see lives changed, we see families that stay together, that keep their ranches, that say, hey, our life was, you know, our life was way better because we partnered with you, and we get testimonies from people who go on these hunts that say, if it wasn't for BirdDog I never would have gotten to do this. I mean, I care deeply about life change, and that's the process that we're doing, that's why we're doing what we're doing. You make a lot of money, it's great, the investors love it, but that's what I hope, and that's what I care deeply about.

Trevor: Going back to the person in the audience who might be considering starting the company, and they I mean, maybe uniquely mid career or in a different career and contemplating, do I take that call, what encouragement would you give him or her who who's thinking about starting a company right now?

Jonathan: The framework that I use for making decisions is this guy Terry Looper who mentors Trevor and me, and one thing that he talks about in his process is getting neutral. Like we typically want to get another gear and just keep going, if I can just grind and keep going, but he actually says, Get neutral. Pete Oakes is another great guy, And he talks about, like, he sits in a chair mentally, and he goes and looks for doors to open, and if the door opens, he walks through it, and if it doesn't open, he doesn't try to kick it down. And so I think that's the biggest thing for me, the fact that we're running a hunting marketplace is not something that I like dreamt of doing. And most people are like, dude, if it was an outfitter or a guy trying to do this, it could never happen, because, like, I don't know what I'm not supposed to do.

I don't know the politics and the culture around bred deer versus natural deer, and hunting in the west versus hunting behind a fence, like, I don't care. But what I would say is like, if there's something on your heart to do, I would go for it, and I would say, hey, man, like I always think about when I make decisions, I go, what's the worst thing that can happen to me? This company could fail, I could lose all my investors' money, they could be mad at me, I could be ashamed, embarrassed, or whatever, and that's something that you must consider, but at the same time, like freaking leaders lead and they go do it, and you go as hard as you can by being neutral, but there's this give and take. I would say go for it and get wise people around you who can help coach and guide you, and and and, I mean, that's what I would say, like seek wisdom, and if you've got a motor that can get it done, like, go get it done, and networks are very important in doing that. I love this

Trevor: question that our friend, to a lot of people in this room, Chris Powers, asked, and it's something along the lines of to know the story of the man, you need to know the story of the father. And it might make you cry, but the, this is my hope. But in your company, you now get to work with your dad. How has your dad shaped you? And tell us a little bit more about, working with your dad and what that means to you.

Jonathan: Yeah. He's the best, man. My dad raised 6 of us on $30,000 a year. And, you know, these are fake tears. This isn't even real.

Just kidding. But he he raised this, man. Think about this. The guy got up every morning at like 4 in the morning. He would go blow bluegill up and bass on a truck, and he'd go drive 8 hours, and he'd go stock ponds with fish, and he worked his tail off, and I was talking to Carl about this today.

He was saying the same thing about his mom. If I needed him right now, he would get up and do whatever I needed, meaning he just, he is my hero. He's definitely flawed like we all are, but you know, it was so funny when I was at Goldman, like everybody's like, hey, and I was in Houston, like hey, I know your dad, Charlie Lusk, man, he's a great guy. I was like, you know, some rich developer. I was like, that's not my dad.

My dad's Bob Lusk, you know, the pawn boss, and oh, okay, got it, okay. Well now in this industry, I go call up a wrench. Hey, man, is your dad Bob Lusk? I'm like, yeah. Man, he helped me start my pond.

I love that guy. He's one of the nicest guys I've ever met, and I wanted to be the furthest thing from the outdoors. You know, my whole life was like go to Wall Street and go make money and all these things, and now I come full circle and we get to work together, and so, you know, I'm like, hey, this guy's got a great lake, he needs help on it, you should talk to him or he'll call me, say, hey, he's trying to sell some deer, you should talk to him, and just the conversations that he and I have had, it brings, like I just go like, Lord, like you're up to something. This is amazing, and I could never have dreamt it, I could never have wanted this, and it's one of the best things. He is my hero, and he's, I mean, yeah, he's just my hero.

He's like, he's amazing,

Trevor: Yeah. Well, he'd be really proud of you right now. He is proud of you, and, I'm proud of you. And, thank you for sharing your hero's journey with us and, for answering the call. And, just know that if you ever need anything, I'm a I'm a companion on the journey.

You know that. Yeah. And, but let's hear it for Jonathan Lusk and Birddog.

This transcript was generated with Transistor AI