From Snowshed to CEO with David Thomas Tao

Another Way to Play

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with David Thomas Tao CEO and Co-Founder of BarBend.com a media brand providing platform coverage of news, analysis, training in opinion and strength training sports. David started by training in weight lifting, before it was really well-known, in a snowshed with some buddies and later took that passion for sports along with his skill for journalism and created a successful and unique media company.

Let’s dive into David’s incredible story and learn how he was able to leverage his passion and skills to create something diverse in a niche market

Things you will learn in this episode:

[00:01 - 08:45] Opening Segment

• I introduce today’s topic
• I welcome David to the show
• David gives us a bit of his background
• Barbend.com
• Became interested in strength sports which wasn’t well known at the time
• Created a sense of community

[08:46 - 21:40] From Snowshed to CEO

• David tells us his story of how he started
• They had to start lifting in a cold snowshed since gyms wouldn’t take them in
• I talk about the value of hard labor
• David talks about how the market started to open up
• Crossfit paved the way to open this niche
• Strength sports started becoming more mainstream
• David talks about his story going into the field
• Started working in journalism for fitness brands
• Became a brand consultant for corporate wellness
• Started travelling around marketing gyms
• David met his co-founders on a project
• Combined their strengths to pursue Barbend

[21:41 - 32:49] Learning From Early Struggles

• David talks about the start of Barbend
• At first it was hard to know what they wanted to be
• Between blogging and live events
• Not being as revenue orientated as they should of been
• David talks about the importance of revenue streams
• Their are a lot of different ways to make money
• Where to go deep and where to go wide
• How thin are you spreading yourself and how are you allocating resources?
• You can’t go all in on one platform
• Diversify yourself and monetize all your content
• David talks about how to add value rather than just creating noise
• Treating things professionally and diversifying
• Divide and conquer

[32:50 - 44:45] The FOCUS FIVE Segment

• What book have you gifted most often?
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Getting humor in your life
• If you can get an hour of somebody's time and ask questions, who would that be and why?
• Andrew Carnegie
• What is one thing you believe that most people don’t?
• The future of strength sports is female
• Strength sports will permeate society
• Morning routine; How do you start your day?
• Not a morning person
• Making sure to hydrate before caffeine
• What is the best place we can connect with you online?
• See below for social links.
• Final words from me

Tweetable Quotes:

“If you don’t have a critical mass of awareness, it’s very difficult to build an audience…” - David Thomas Tao

“We are strongest when our money comes from a lot of different sources and not all our eggs are in one basket.” - David Thomas Tao

“All we can do is get better and better and make sure that the experience our people have is improving over time, and I think that's easier to do when you have a team that can give feedback to each other…” - David Thomas Tao

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

You can connect with David on Twitter, and Instagram. Be sure to visit his website https://barbend.com/ to learn more about what he does and how you can become a part of it. Don’t forget to check out the Barbend Podcast to get even more awesome content from David.

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