Transcription
What is the roadmap to go from new ball python breeder to the big leagues? For this week's video, we're going to be diving into that question in as much depth as we can, and we're going to be doing it by giving you a sneak peek into a podcast that we are developing with Bob Vu of Bob's Balls and Will Marose of Royal Canadian Reptiles. I am super excited about this episode. We hope you guys enjoy. But my name is Steven with Leviathan and let's [music] get to it.
Yeah, I don't think there's a specific path that you can follow. Okay.
>> Uh, everyone's gotten there in a different way, right? You look at Bob or me or Justin or who whoever it is that you're you're willing to talk you want to talk about. Their path has always been different. They've always made different decisions. Just because Bob makes a decision and I make a different decision doesn't mean that it's they're not both good ones, right? One was good for me, one was good for Bob. I'm sure if you talk go and talk to majority of these larger breeders or breeders that would you consider in the upper echelon of the ball python world, they're all going to have a bit of a different path, but there's going to be a lot of things that are similar, too.
>> All of it together.
>> So, a lot of it sounds like uh seasoned, right? In order to get your seat at the table, some of these major shows, you're pretty seasoned breeder. You've been doing this a while. So, a lot of his time, man. Uh, and it doesn't people think you just go in and uh I see the comments all the time on YouTube. Oh, these guys come in. The only way to make a million dollars breeding ball pythons is start off with $2 million, you know, stuff like that. And u, you know, I didn't start off with a lot of money. I've heard the rumor where I was like, I started off like some millionaire. Uh, no, I was very broke out of college uh and invested a lot of my money in college, like scholarship money and stuff from college in ball pythons. So, each one of us start out differently. you might start out with money. You might start out with no money. You might start out with uh getting animals from a buddy. Maybe uh you had a bunch of money from selling another business. So the the time it takes differs, too, because I had didn't have money and buying in one pastel or spider and then Mojave at a time. It took me 10 years before I So from my first ball python was 2005, right? And I didn't go full-time as a ball python breeder until 2016. That's 11 years when I first bought my ball python. I hatched my first clutch of ball pythons in 2009. So, you're talking a sevenyear span between my first clutch versus me going full-time. In my opinion, it's pretty quick. Um, you're talking really only six generations of animals in between, right? So, in my opinion, that was pretty quick. I went full-time in 2016 and then we built everything now 20. We're nine years in full-time. But for you, it might be faster because you might start off with a 100 grand investment or it might be slower because you have, you know, a full-time job and you have a family. I didn't have a family to feed. Every dollar I made and just go buy more ball pythons cuz I didn't have any other responsibilities, you know. So, every situation is different. How fast you want to take it, how slow, and maybe you don't want to go full-time. You just want to be successful enough where you paying for a few vacations a year and buying new upgrades, new racks, and you just enjoy the industry in the hobby with your family, you know? So, that that I think the definition of success is different for everyone. Do you want to make a million dollars doing this? you want to just produce clutches and have fun with your family and and just and let the business provide for itself. Um, so it's a little the road map's gonna be a little bit different for everybody. There's not like a generic road map we can write out, but I'll tell you now, every road map is going to require time, money, and a lot of effort.
>> Yeah. I mean, like, we've seen it time and time again. Oddly enough, I'll bet you if you go and look at your your top top breeders, the guys who have been in this for 20 years, who everybody would consider at the top of the top of the food chain, I'll bet you the majority of those guys didn't start with much money.
>> They didn't start with much money. And we've seen it time and time again where guys come in with a bunch of money and it doesn't work out. Uh, one of the things that all those guys who have made it, I think all have in common is like an obsession. Like I when I started this, it was all I could think about. It was all I wanted to do. It's just like I wanted to like, holy [ __ ] I want to go to every show anytime someone was like, "Hey, you want to come check out my collection?" "Yeah, I'll drive four hours to come see that." Like I I wanted to do this. There there's a a certain like hunger that people need to have. And I think that goes that does it's not just in ball pythons that's just in like business in general like you know if you're just kind of like yeah I like it but it's you know then it's hobby level and that's completely fine. There's nothing wrong with doing this at a hobbyist level. There's But if you're talking about like who is going to be at the forefront of all these projects, it's the guys who are obsessed with this,
>> you know? It's the guys who take this to a level where it's like for most people are like you guys are nuts. Like
>> you guys are spending how much on snakes? You guys are doing what in like how many hours a week you work? how many shows you how I used to think Bob was insane because he's like I'm like yo you're going to you're driving to what show you're like you're in Atlanta you're like yeah dude I'm going to Dallas I'm like bro that's like 14 hours away and I'm like no chance I'm driving that far you know
>> that's that's a great comparison to the MLB thing right because you're talking about oh that's a I'm use basketball as an example right there's 400 pro basketball players in the NBA right that's just NBA level right so how How many full-time pro ball python breeders are there? Arguably, let's say 450, right? Sure. Let's say there's 450 pro full-time American ball python breeders.
>> Then there's your minor league guys, right? GLeagues, you know, those guys that just they make enough money to get by, right? They make a decent living,
>> but they also work another job.
>> They they still make good money. Then there's a ton of YMCA players. They're good players. Like these guys are still a a step way above that. like that these guys are like maybe D1 that didn't get drafted toward the ACL blah blah blah right there's still a ton of those guys then there's a ton of guys that are like oh we play once a weekend we play every other week we play once a month I can still ball right so there's that level too so which one of these levels are you going to be at and if you want to be a NBA pro level when Kobe talks about this you are obsessed you go in and you shoot a thousand free throws a day because that's what you do to get to that pro level you need to shoot a thousand three-pointers a day. You need to do your your scrimmage, all these things, right? You put in two a days, you train and all this stuff. And if you're not willing to do that, that's okay. Not everyone's going to be that extra top tier pro level.
>> There's still going to be a ton of uh semi-pros, ton of YMCA levels, ton a ton of the these other tiers for sure, right? But that obsession level, if if that obsession level is in your road roadmap, like if you're willing to vent 40 shows a year to build your business like I was in 201 17, 18, 19. All right. So those three years, I did more than 100 shows in three years.
>> I Yeah, I've done like four.
>> Yeah, there's 100. So you're talking about 150 some 150 something weeks and I've ended over a 100 shows in those three years because I wanted to I wanted to grow the business name so much so that people recognize it when they see the Boss Balls logo. They say, "Oh, Bob's at a show. Oh, this guy's going to take care of me because he's at every freaking show." So, I wanted I wanted that. So, every weekend I was at a show and I wanted to learn everything about this industry, everything about ball pythons. So, I wanted to be at every show so I can pick these people's brains. I want to visit these facilities. I wanted to go down to these farms in Florida that are doing it in major levels, you know. So, if you're that obsessed and I I'll tell you out there and for those years when I first went full-time, I was obsessed. Have I taken my foot off the gas? Yes. That's mainly because we've already built the name enough where I feel like when I come to a show, it's good enough that people know me, you know, they've already seen the name. I've vended 200 shows.
>> But you've you may maybe as far as like the vending thing and the like building your name obsession is gone. But your obsession for other like I go downstairs and I see the way like you're like, "Oh, look at this. Look at that. Look at I'm still obsessed with ball python. It's still there."
>> Yeah. Ball python obsession is always there. Right. Cuz I'm still like when you show me a new gene, I'm like I'm I'm nerded now.
>> Right. Exactly. want to throw like, "Oh, I Bob took my foot off the gas and he just did the Southeast Reptile Expo."
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's put on a new show so we can grow the ball python industry. Yeah. So, it's like the the obsession might change, right? My obsession with vending shows so that I can grow the business has changed into now uh marketing and more new mutations and and stuff like that. Hosting the Southeast Reptile Expo, stuff like that. Different obsession, you know, in the reptile industry. Uh, it doesn't have to be with ball pythons, you know, like sometimes your obsession might um it could be one annuous obsession where I'm just like, man, blackheaded pythons are freaking cool and I just go down this rabbit hole researching blackheaded pythons and I just, you know, bought my first blackheaded python mutation uh, you know, this year and starting to breed those, you know. So, like your obsession might change over the years. Will has multiple species that he breeds, you know, and and sometimes it takes time to mature into this industry and realize there's more than just ball pythons, you know, there's a lot of cool stuff out there. Uh condro obviously the big the big hit for last year, you know, like the new um new marketing for it is is great. I I love that because more people need to see more in this industry than just ball pythons and crescent geckos, which even though that's what we breed, you know?
>> I mean, those are the kings.
>> The kings of the industry. Yeah.
>> I Yeah. I I think that like going back to like being obsessed with things like I for sure like as a kid still to this day had like major like ADD can't focus on anything. I just like mile a minute looking at you know I can't I can't like stick with something. And people that have that a lot of one of the things that they do is like they like hyperfocus on something. So like you'll I got into motorcycles like super crazy for like two years and then I was like okay yeah I'm done with this. And then you get into something else super crazy for a a short period of time. You learn everything that you could possibly learn. Like I just like a sponge. I just want to learn everything there is. And then
>> I don't really love it that much. So I'm just like, okay, I've learned a lot a lot about that subject, but
>> it's not and then I just put it on the back burner.
>> Y
>> the reptile thing is like the only thing that like stuck. It was like I I got like I got hooked. I was into them as a kid. I was into them as an adult. And it just it's like that one thing for me that stuck. And I'm sure I don't know if everybody has ADD like I do, but I'm sure like a lot of people have that like the guys who really have made it have that like I I truly love this.
>> I I man I've we both worked corporate jobs. I I remember going to the office and being like driving through traffic and getting to the work getting to work and you know, oh hey Linda, how was your weekend? I don't give a [ __ ] how your weekend was, Linda. You know, and then I log in and check my emails. And you know, I we've all done that. But I can tell you like no job that I've ever worked has me get up at 3 in the morning and be like, "Oh, I wonder what's going on with work." I do that with snakes. If I wake up in the middle of the night and I have stuff paired, oh, I'm going to go check. You know what I mean? I do that. And I You still have that like I I I like doing this. This is fun.
>> Yeah.
>> And when you lose that spark, which luckily for none of us, we haven't. uh when you lose that oh man I wonder what's in the incubator today
>> you know I don't know if you ever but then that's that's one of the signs for when guys get out of the industry
>> for sure
>> you know and u and it doesn't have to just be ball pythons obviously a lot of us are obsess over over the reptile industry overall I am obsessed over reptiles overall I travel the world just to see reptiles but a lot of guys are ball python obsession which is fine it's great actually preferably because uh that's that's all they're going to hyperfocus on I it's just reptiles Overall, everything intrigues me. But ball pythons, uh, it was just a a little different because I was just like, how I'm more obsessed with the mutation aspect, right? The breeding aspect, the mutation aspect, and the industry aspect. The fact that there is an industry is like what intrigues me, right? When when you explain to other people, I love it when I go to a poker game or I go somewhere and they ask me what I do for a living. I was like, I breed snakes for a living. And they're like, what? And then now there's a 30-minute rabbit hole of like, yeah, we actually have an industry. There's not just like a, oh, I breed snakes and I go to swap meets. No, we have an industry thing. We have like we don't have like a leaderboards, but let's just be honest, we kind of
>> that'd be hilarious, right?
>> People switching.
>> I thought I thought I Okay, so I pitched this idea to I pitched this idea to Justin when I was in Japan. Okay, if we had a leaderboards, man, how pissed off would some of these breeders be? Right. You have like a top 100 breeders
>> 99 bumps down. You're like, "Oh, I'm off of the list." You know, if you don't make the top 100 list, oh my god.
>> Yeah. I've been bre I've been breeding full-time for 10 years. I don't make top 100. Oh, but yeah, I mean it's uh we are a legit industry, you know, like trying to explain we're like a real industry. And that is what I was just thinking. I was like, man, for some people to even grasp that like, oh, you guys breed
>> it's not that we just breed reptiles. We breed one species.
>> Yeah.
>> That it revolves our whole life around
>> like and and some people I've heard will like argue that. They say like, well, it's not really a a true like industry. And I I I would definitely push back on that. When you have individual like there are companies whose entire product every everything that they produce caters to like reput love shadow JT everything he produc like his whole business caters to bedding for for reptiles just the bedding let alone freedom breeder and ars everything they do caters to housing the animals housing the rodents there's entire companies that produce the the food for the rodents like
>> genetic testing.
>> Exa Exactly. Like there's so much and that that to me is what like really defines an industry when there's like spin-off businesses. You could have a business, you don't ever produce a snake in your life and have an very very successful business that just complements that industry. That to me is when it's like, okay, this is a real thing. And we've watched that grow over, you know, when I first got in, there was no individual business that was like there there was the caging companies, but there was no individual business that was like, we sell reptile bedding.
>> This what we do.
>> Yeah.
>> That would didn't exist. I had to like call around and I found a place that like had coconut for like a garden center and I could get coconut. Now, you know, it's it's coconut that's
>> for reptile that has repi. Repty in it. Yeah.
>> Repty coco. Yeah.
>> Repy. [laughter] Yeah.
>> Yeah. So on the analogy metaphor of like professional sports to the reptile industry and since we're all talking about like getting to the big leagues, we're talking about the obsession and you also talked about the idea of like going in and shooting a thousand free throws, things like that.
>> What are those like skills that new breeders need to practice if they are going to have a chance at getting to the big leagues? What are their thousand free throws? you talked earlier about will the um people coming in with a lot of money and that doesn't always work out well and I don't know I'm just kind of like guessing on this but I wonder if it has to deal with not developing the kind of like risk analysis that we talked about in previous episodes so they're just buying whatever and they don't realize like this is overpriced or this is like not right for your collection.
>> Yeah. I think guys come in well one of the things I think people mess up and again like so back to so there's a lot of things that people mess up we won't even go into that actually um what do people like what are the thousand free throws
>> the thousand free throws are incubating your first clutch like learn sitting there like I I don't know about you but I used to sit this is before we had morph market bush league breeders um king snake there was Reptiles Canada, which was a a forum up in Canada that we used. I used to like have that I would be on my phone when I would be at break on work. I'd be scrolling that. I'd be reading what's going on. This new gene just came out. This is what it did with Enti. This is what it did with such and such. Like, understanding all of that stuff is so beneficial for you long term. A lot of these new guys that are coming in like they can't idea basic three gene combo. We've hatched those multiple multiple times. One of the things that I I would think that some of the new guys are going to struggle with. Some of these new guys, their first pairing is DJ Hypoclown combos.
>> The very first clutch they've ever hatched. Whereas like mine was a entie and then a pastel entie and then a pastel yellow belly entie and then I got caramels and a caramel pinstripe and a and it just it was like a I got to see the slow progression. We saw banana and then I saw uh banana entie, banana pi, banana clown.
>> That's why we can ID him on the run.
>> Exactly. That's why when someone opens a bin like I come over here and you open that up like you think that yeah that has yellow bell you know the same thing at my think that yeah that's lace you know you you have that eye for it you've done it so many times that um that it ends up it ends up you know helping those are the things those are your thousand free throws going I have been to how many Tinley's [ __ ] 30 of them like every twice a year for 20 years basically you know,
>> um I missed a couple here and there, but
>> those are your free throws. Those are the
>> going and meeting each other. Like Bob and I really good buddies, but we started this in different countries and different places that without both being obsessed about this, the chances of us meeting would be pretty low. Me living in Canada and you living in I think you were in Florida at the time.
>> Yeah.
>> That that those chances of meeting would be pretty low. But because you're obsessed with this, we both go to the same shows. Oh, hey, you're like the same age as me. You're doing the same stuff as Oh, hey. What's up? And and you build those relationships. Those
>> those are your free throws.
>> Can I tease you real quick?
>> Yeah.
>> Um, so Courtney did not realize that you were the same age as Bob. She thought you were like 40s.
>> That I was 40s.
>> Damn.
>> Damn. It's cuz I got no hair, man.
>> Damn, Courtney, that's messed up, yo.
>> Damn.
>> Yeah, Courtney, that's messed up. But, um,
>> Bob's actually 54. Yeah, I'm actually Yeah, I'm [laughter] actually in my early 50s. But, uh, so I'm stick to that analogy, right? So, the guys that start off with a lot of money, u, if you start off with a lot of money, it's like you being a seven foot tall dude thinking you're just going to make it in the NBA, some of those sevenfooters don't make it because they don't have the thousand reps that they put in.
>> Still got to put the work.
>> You still got to put the work in. And there's also luck involved, which staying healthy. And there's also talent involved, skill involved, all those things. So, when you're talking about like a complete breeder, you talk about LeBron James putting in the work, you you got you're a good salesman, right? You have a good overall, you're an overall breeder, like everything is good, but also takes a lot of practice, right? So, you're talking about those thousand reps being the shows you've vended, the amount of times you're you're connecting to people online, all those things. And that's what makes you successful over the long run is that you sure you're going to have to have some of the talent. You have to have a good base to start with. You have to have some salesmanship. Let's be at the end of the day some salesmanship. You have to have uh some type of direction for the these breeding plans, right? A good mentor obviously helps and and all these things. So that makes a complete package of a of a breeder. Sure. You might not make it to the LeBron James level, but
>> I was going to say there's very few that make it to that like Kobe level, LeBron level. You get I'll give you [ __ ] to Justin again. Justin has the creativity, the marketing, the sales, the size, the infrastructure. Yeah. The the the the passion for it. All of those things is what makes him like the Kobe, right? Where like I am missing the the marketing aspect, the social media aspect. I think I have the creativity. I do some dumb stuff sometimes, but you know, I think I have like
>> three out of four of those things which keeps me at like the like
>> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] Lonzo ball.
>> Hey. Hey. We still made it in the league.
>> Yeah, I'm in the league. But [laughter]
>> I might not be an allstar, but I'm in the league.
>> What's a what's a Brownie James? Yeah,
>> I'll be Bronny.
>> Hey, Bronnie would just be like if uh if Justin
>> Justin's kid wanted to bring ball pythons. [laughter] Yeah,
>> he's automatically in the league.
>> But yeah, I think some people don't have all of them, but can still make it without all of it. But the guys who have that full package, they're your superstars. Yeah, you can still be in the league and not be able to shoot a lick of basketball. There's dudes in the leagues that cannot shoot.
>> Just block, man.
>> All you do is play defense. That's fine. You know, and all if all you do is all you can do is shoot and you know, you're one of those white boys that all you do is stand in the corner and hit the three. Hey, those guys made a career. JJ Reic, those guys made a career doing one thing. So maybe some of these guys are farmers. You know, these guys are ball python farmers. All they do is produce 500 or thousand clutches of ball pythons a year.
>> Really good breeders, right? They can breed
>> breeders. They don't have any marketing. You don't even know their name. Most of these new breeders don't know the names of the guys that are producing a thousand clutches a year, but that's all they do. So, like maybe they're very niche, but they still made it in the industry. They're still prolevel. They're still making a living doing this, but they're only doing this. But if you want to be a complete breeder and do, you know, good at every aspect, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. You want to practice each part of that that that game, right? You want to practice the social media, you practice the vending, practice the sales, practice every piece of it. Or you can be very niche and just say, "Cool, I'm just going to be a defensive player and just that's all I'm going to do. I'm just going to produce animals." That's fine, too.
>> Make the blue-eyed Lucy's and like I'm going to kill it at local shows.
>> 5,000 blue-eyed Lucy still pays the bills.
>> Hey, man, it work whatever works for you works.
>> Yeah,
>> right. But there's there's a handful of people that are on the court and then there's a lot of people in the bleachers
>> telling everybody this is why he's not successful. This is what
>> there's a lot of there's a lot of D1 guys that didn't make it and they're like, you know, those guys
>> they got sour.
>> Yeah. Those guys got lucky. You know, many guys tell us we got lucky.
>> You know, oh, they're lucky. They they, you know, they
>> blew up overnight in 2023 after you've done this for 17 years. Yeah, Justin was an overnight success. Yeah, I know a lot of guys that don't like Justin, man. It's it's surp, you know, not not surprising, but I know a lot of guys that don't like Justin.
>> Uh, you know, I travel a lot. I've been to a lot of shows and these sometimes I'll mention, you know, something Justin produced and they're like, "Great, another Justin animal." I'm just like, "Hey, man.
>> It's okay.
>> Why? They're good." I mean, let's be serious. He makes the nicest stuff in the industry. What do you mean?
>> But then you're going to have haters. You got to have haters.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> You got to have haters. You know, it's part of the deal. It's just like guys don't like uh LeBron, guys don't like Michael Jordan. It's part of the deal. If you don't have haters, no one's noticed.
>> You ain't doing that. Yeah, you ain't doing that good.
>> Yeah.
>> Huge thanks to Bob and Will for taking the time to do this video with us. And like I said at the beginning of the video, this is a sneak peek of a podcast that we have in development, but it's not fully fleshed out yet. We actually need to get a name for it. And some of the initial episodes that we recorded, their files ended up getting corrupted. So, it's going to be a weekly podcast probably starting sometime in February. and it's going to be posted right here on the Leviathan YouTube channel. So, if you guys want to see it when all of the full episodes genuinely come out and we don't have to worry about the technical difficulties, hit the subscribe button down below. But my name is Steven with Leviathan and we will see you next week. [music]