Frograck: Welcome to episode 20 of the Frog Rack podcast. For many of us involved in the amphibian hobby, breeding the animals we keep is an important part of their captive husbandry. With the production of offspring comes the need to find them new homes. many of us, this experience of producing and selling becomes a rewarding part of the hobby that we want to manage and grow. Providing healthy captive bred animals to other hobbyists, justifying the time we spend on the hobby. and generating some income that can support our animal husbandry lifestyle. But you might guess that there are levels to this, from simply moving a few capture bred dart frogs to new homes, filling half your basement with 100, 150 terrariums, or even selling frogs as a primary source of income. If you as a keeper are anywhere along this spectrum, and let's admit it, you probably are, There are lot of factors to consider when selling live animals becomes a part of your amphibian hobby. Today's guest has decades of experience at all stages of this progression. He brings to today's conversation, a lot of wisdom and encouragement. While Wally isn't known for frogs because he's more of a gecko guy. You'll soon find out why he was at the top of my list of people to have this conversation with Wally Kern of Supreme Gecko. Welcome to the Frog Rack podcast.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining. It's a pleasure. It really is a pleasure. Thanks.

Frograck: Well, you you recently had Alex on to talk fruit flies. And so I know that ⁓ mentally you're plugged into the amphibian hobby, even if you don't have a basement full of frogs yourself. why don't you help my audience who may not have migrated over to the gecko side of YouTube in the last few years. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about who you are in the hobby ⁓ and you came to be a ⁓ gecko

Wally- Supreme Gecko: love to. I'm going to jump way back. This is a hundred years ago or so. It feels like a hundred years for me. I started as, boy I can remember this very well, as a 13 year old my parents moved out of the big city into the country because of some school problems that I got into. So we moved out to the country.

Frograck: Okay.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And we moved right next to this little creek and it was just perfect for me. could play hockey on the ponds that would freeze over the winter time and in the summertime. I was always down at the creek collecting tadpoles ⁓ crayfish or whatever I could find and just bringing them home and putting them in a little tank and watching, watching, watching, watching. ⁓ Escalated from you know a teenager into my early 20s and I kept a couple of fish tanks tropical fish not tropical fish, but game fish I love to watch and I started getting into fishing to watch the fish interact and it was funny because I had a bluegill and a bass I thought all this bass is going to grow up and eat this and the bluegill just dominated the tank so that interesting behavior just ⁓ real hard for me In my later 20s, I joined Milwaukee Aquarium Society and I started growing my tropical fish hobby, ⁓ on cichlids live-bearers and killy fish and cichlids. we went from, you know, ⁓ I think had 10 tanks when I had an apartment, we bought a house. My wife would look at the kitchen and the bedrooms. I would look the basement. I'm interested in the, let me run down to the basement. you know, we bought a small house in one from, you know, the 10 tanks or 12 tanks that we had, over to 125 tanks, 125 gallon was my biggest with discus. And we were breeding and actually took that into a business. This is again, back 35, 40 years ago when the internet really wasn't out there and everything was hard copy. and took that into a business. I was importing from Europe and in shipments from Africa and all over the United States. So that was my introduction into the business world from a We had three and at that time became family, or... business. had to, I could choose two. I couldn't choose all three because it was just way too much time. So, you know, the family was there for forever and I loved, loved my career as an IT person and the fish had to go. had our last son and he had a medical issue and I was at the hospital for a week with my wife. And I came home one day and I had discus on their sides. had brought in a imported fish and it wasn't careful and spread it to many, many tanks. And I literally packed up everything in one weekend and sold 125 tanks and a big blower and all the fish. I was done. Done, done, done. come another 10 or 15 years and I got that itch again. Got into orchids big time. That didn't really do anything for me because I couldn't breathe them. I love seeing the babies. orchids for about five or six years, got out of orchids and then got into reptiles. ⁓ that's a cool ⁓ gecko at a reptile show. Purchased a couple of leopard geckos. Next weekend, purchased a couple of crested geckos. Super easy to take care of, super easy to breed. And that's the key for me. And then the next year, I went from two or three reptile tanks to 20 or 30. I'm all the way up to right now, my gosh, 800, 800 enclosures that I'm working through. ⁓ And is my full-time job. Seven, eight years ago, I retired.

Frograck: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And I thought, can this reptile thing and ⁓ the income that I was making before. And within two years, three years, I was right back to the same income. So it wasn't a far jump for me to do that. The key though is, I never ever ever, and we'll talk about this later I'm sure, the key though was it was never a, ⁓ I can make money with this and look at the market and I can do this and that. It was always, that's a cool animal. I wanna learn more about that. And ⁓ my gosh, I bred it and now what do I do with the babies? And then examining the market and looking how to sell the animals and. marketing and PR and you know websites and all of that stuff. So I've gone this route from a hobby to a business and I'm enjoying the business part almost as much as the hobby part. I still going down to the incubator every single day first thing in the morning and opening it and seeing a baby any baby whether it's common or super super rare on the hobby. ignites the same fire that it did, you know, 20 some years ago when I started reptile keeping. And I've said this so many times that I feel bad about saying it again, but for your viewers, the very first day that I walk downstairs and I see a baby and I say, ⁓ I've got to set up a new tank or where do I put this or how am I going to get, I don't have time, I'm done. I'm absolutely done with the hobby because every single time I look at a baby, it's like, this is so cool. I get to do this every single day.

Frograck: Yeah, man, there's a lot I can relate to in that story. For me, was Wood Frog tadpoles in kindergarten was the first like absolutely fascinating. And they were in my kindergarten classroom. And like day one, ⁓ the teacher the tadpoles in. Every single kindergartner has some level of interest and fascination. But for me, like I couldn't wait to get to school every day to check on them. And so like I was... a little bit more obsessed with them than all the other kindergartners at the time. And then, you know, like I said in my opening remarks, for those of us who really enjoy breeding as part of the hobby, it sends us down a different path than some other keepers do. I really admire people ⁓ who fewer... fewer and single animals, like they're not worried about like having a pair of everything they keep and they just really enjoy setting up a beautiful habitat and giving excellent care year after year after year to that animal. I personally don't relate to that though. That's not where my interest lies. My interest lies, I love, if I want something, I want a group. Like with amphibians, it's usually more than a pair, it's a group. And I want to make sure I have males and females and I want to see if I can provide the husbandry I need to get them to the point where they breed. For some reason that seems like a ⁓ goal in husbandry is to see if they can reproduce. then the last thing I'll say is for years I kept dart frogs, for maybe 10 years I kept dart frogs and they were very rewarding because they consistently give you a small amount of offspring almost year round. Whereas a lot of other amphibians, a bunch offspring, like tree frogs for example, a bunch of offspring all at once in the spring. and then you spend the year raising them. And I've missed having dart frogs. I haven't had them now for about 10 years. And I just miss, like what you say, every day you can for eggs. Not just in April and May, but almost year round, you could be checking for eggs and seeing if any tadpoles have metamorphosed. ⁓ It's a rewarding part of the hobby for me too.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: like on the same mindset a hundred percent I can't look at something and go ⁓ it's a male what how am I going to find a female it's a female how am gonna find a male I have to have a group I have to have a group of four or five to start out young ones to start off with to try to get that pair or I have to just I'm just gonna bite the bullet and here's the money take my money let me get a pair of these animals my mindset had to shift several years ago probably about three years ago to

Frograck: Yeah, for sure.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: ⁓ wait, people just keep single animals now. I don't get it, I don't get it, but I'll sell a single animal. it was a hard concept for me to understand, ⁓ was out there forever, know, and the hobby, obviously, people want to keep one dart broad and enjoy that and enjoy the setup, you know, creating the terrarium, creating the display tank. But that was something I couldn't, it took me a long time to wrap my mind around the fact that people display these animals and that bond with the animals unlike ⁓ And I have a bond with the animals, but for me, when I was keeping fish, ⁓

Frograck: Mmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: It was all about setting it up so I can get managed, number one, managed and clean and support the animals and make sure they're healthy and everything. And then setting it up so that I get babies. There was no, I want to aquascape and ⁓ a skeleton and a skull ⁓ and ⁓ dog a helmet. ⁓ There none of that whatsoever for me. ⁓ But the same. ⁓

Frograck: Yeah. Yep. So tell me, ⁓ you know, nowadays, what are you busy doing? You mentioned the size of your Gecko collection, so you're breeding, marketing and selling somehow, and I also know you because ⁓ very prolific on YouTube. So give ⁓ an idea of the different things that Supreme Geckos keeps you busy doing.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I don't even know where to begin. I really don't. So I'll kind of explain ⁓ process a little bit. And is going to sound boring to some people, but this is the process that I had to kind ⁓ of through to be able to manage what we're doing.

Frograck: you

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And I tell you what, folks, when I talk about 758 enclosures, that's a lot of grow-out enclosures, but it's also a lot of display enclosures, and it's a lot of different enclosures. So my idea is basically go down, check for babies, that's the fun part, because that's something that I want to do right away, and then check to make sure everybody is okay, make sure that I didn't leave one of the enclosure doors open and 23 geckos are roaming around on the floor at then just a basic check, you know, half hour, 45 minutes about in the morning. Then I come upstairs and I look on social media and I answer questions, lots of questions. We get probably, this going to sound weird, but we probably get about 20 ⁓ to questions a day about just care, not ⁓ sales but just care. ⁓ And, know, where do I find information about? So that's another probably half hour to 45 minutes of doing that. Then I get into the sales mode and I start posting on Facebook and Instagram and start thinking about my next YouTube. We do both shorts and we do long form YouTube videos. I'll plan that a little bit. ⁓ some point I might start doing research. I've got notes here, you know, on researching some of the animals and learning more. Every day is a learning experience. I never ever ever ever... stop learning. then usually in the afternoons, we like, it depends the day, like today we have shipping. So I'll be packing animals and doing the shipping for probably about three or four hours today. ⁓ got lot boxes. The weather here in Wisconsin just broke and we have a lot of shipments going out today. Some days, some and I'm talking about three or four hours in the afternoon, it's feeding, you know. ⁓ It takes me If I were to do all of the animals one day, it would probably be the whole day of feeding. So I try to break that down a little bit. Some days are YouTube videos. I sit down and I do the script and the recording, the editing, the posting, little short clips and stuff like that for the YouTube videos. That might be another day. Usually I try to put out my YouTube videos on a Wednesday, so I'm usually recording either on a Monday or Tuesday and then editing on Wednesday. Thursday nights are our lives. We do a live every single Thursday night, morning then gives me pretty much the whole morning to look at the animals, feed, to do some management like moving animals around, setting their enclosures a little bit different. Works into Friday. Friday is really like my free day. would say Saturday and Sunday, but I use Saturday and Sunday because my wife is here. She works special needs kids teaching. So here and she can help me with some other different projects where I need, you know, four hands instead of two. And ⁓ is sometimes family and ⁓ a little of relaxation. But Friday is my day to just kind of go down and do projects downstairs, like set up a new ⁓ rack system. or something like that. So that's kind of my week and it's scheduled like that because I don't want to miss a day of posting or you know my feeding is kind of in here and I know what I have to feed in the next couple of days so I plan around stuff like that too.

Frograck: Nice, all right. you're known in the community, just for, like I said, it's pretty prolific on YouTube, covering all sorts of stuff, live streaming, care videos, day in the life type videos. But also, I think maybe you'd describe it as like ⁓ one of the ⁓ jewels your crown of building is the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas. Assume some of my audience in the frog world ⁓ has never. ⁓ been involved in that. you give us just a broad overview of what that consists of?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: love to. We just finished up 2025's 12 Supreme Days of Christmas simply because we, my wife and I, were both ill for three or four weeks and we just had to stop the event and then restart it. So we've just finished that up and we'll pick up the 2026 12 Supreme Days of Christmas coming up. We start like in September-ish in planning and organizing and then by November I'm collecting donations. Basically the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas is a 12 or 13 day giveaway where we have donors come in and give us, donate animals and reptile supplies, isopods, geckos, hedgehogs, snakes, ⁓ kinds of reptile-related jewelry, I'm forgetting, ⁓ mantises, kinds of different gifts. So people are probably asking so you know you get a couple of gifts a day and donate and do a giveaway We had two years ago. We were at $35,000 in giveaways for the entire event this year. I think we were at around I don't even know I don't even know 30 30,000

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: 375 gifts, 375 gifts over 12 days to give away. I like one of those guys in the ad, I can do that, blah, blah, blah, ⁓ So give away a lot of gifts every single day of the event. And the most thing is, there's a lot of important things. Number one, it's all free for anybody that wants to jump in and participate and try to win a gift. Lots of people win gifts. There's no cost whatsoever, no shipping costs, no entry costs. You don't have to click and like and you just have to fill out a form. And sometimes, you know, it's I want to this, this, this, and this, this gift. And what's your favorite part of the holiday season? And they have to answer a question. ⁓ make it interesting. I make it fun. A second big thing about the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas is that we have some amazing mind blowing donors. Last year we had a couple of $1,000 gift certificates for A of ago we had a, ⁓ if ⁓ remember $3,000 gecko donated. So we have an amazing set of donors. We have great participants as well. I just don't have the feeling like, hey, I didn't win today, I better win tomorrow. And most of all, here's the cool thing about the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas. This is so cool. ⁓ go on social media and I'll see a Facebook post. Hey Julie, ⁓ saw you in the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas. I saw that you like to keep these animals. Can I ask you a question about that? And this connection. that I know people aren't connecting without the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas. the icing on the cake for me, it really is. ⁓ is a community, this is number one, bring a little cheer during the holiday season. But most importantly, it's bring the community together and have people talking to each other. We very much encouraged in the chat during the 12th Supreme Days of Christmas, people talking to each other. And I asked the donors, come on 12th Supreme Days and share what animals you're keeping and start the conversation. So everything else, ⁓ key is that, you know, we're trying to build the community in a ⁓ positive way. Number two, we're trying to ⁓ recognize good donors. in this community that we have. And number three, we like to give away gifts to people. Lots and lots and lots of gifts.

Frograck: That's awesome. In the last few years, you've noticed that online live streaming auctions have become sort of a, they're A lot of people are spending time ⁓ every or each evening logging into various vendors, online live auctions. ⁓ And I that's popular because of the sense of community. Like you said, might, you might just be checking it out, but you're, you're participating in a live stream. You're in the chat with all the other people who are there. Maybe you're looking for a good deal on a snake or a gecko or something, but it's an experience, ⁓ probably and foremost, which I think is what 12 Supreme Days of Christmas is.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: exactly that. you know, I don't if I want to name brands, but these auctions that are popping up, they, my mindset was a long time, this is just an auction. ⁓ Here's animal, here's supply, buy an animal, buy a supply. And my good friend, Adam from Proper Royals, snakes. He does these live streams and sometimes he doesn't sell an animal and his intent is not to sell an animal. Watch me thaw out my to the snakes ⁓ and questions. So he treats it just like a live stream on YouTube. And think that that's super cool and people will go into a shop and buy stuff from the shop. But his intent is to open the conversation and talk to people. And I need to wrap my mind around that as well and start doing some of these other auctions and do them more as an educational than a real sale.

Frograck: Yeah, well, you put out plenty of educational content, so don't sell yourself short. ⁓ But yeah, we'll get to a question later on when we're talking business about the importance of your online footprint or marketing, and it'll probably fall into that category. What similarities do you see between the gecko and the amphibian hobbies? Because see a lot of overlap.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Thanks. I see a lot of overlap as well. the biggest is, my gosh there's so many. If we remove the word gecko or frog or horse or fish, it's a community of sharing. Sharing ideas, hey this worked for me, I want to set this up from a breeding standpoint. done this for a couple of years and it hasn't worked, how do I change this? Well you need to look at this because this animal needs this requirement. I frogs are requirements for different species. The tiny thumbnails are different from the bigger frogs. Rain, we talked earlier about some of the other bigger frogs and having different requirements and different management things going on. So I think it's a matter of sharing information, of ⁓ animals we're keeping. I think it is also ⁓ a way for people to connect and ⁓ their passions and kind do a little chest thumping and say, hey, look at my animal. It's super cool. And I have passion about this, but I also have an attachment to this animal. So I think there's a lot of that going on. I think it's 99 % positive and ⁓ single hobby that you run into you're going to get that 1 % negative. ⁓ you shouldn't keep it like that, that's too small of an enclosure. ⁓ ⁓ know it is what it is. You you can't say the fraud hobby or the gecko hobby is so toxic. ⁓ always going to be people that kind of challenge that. But again 99 % positive and just you you look on Facebook and you look on Instagram and all the sharing and positiveness there, I think that's kind of ⁓ whatever type of animal you're keeping.

Frograck: Yep. Could you describe, you you've helped a lot of other hobbyists along in their journey. So I'm not only asking this from your experience personally, but from what you've seen amongst other people. ⁓ you describe the growth path from starting as a hobbyist to becoming a breeder with a big collection? What sort of like phases do people go through?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: think your frog just answered the question for me. So I'm just gonna go, ⁓ completely agree 100%. So I think we've covered that quick. Here's what I look and I'm probably skipping some steps here, but for me it was, buy a gecko and ⁓ you buy an animal.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: and then you might want a second animal or a third and maybe it's different animals like we talked about before but maybe it's the same animal maybe it's a male and female and you get your first and this was ⁓ my gosh this is so huge for me and in fish with Crabenzas first babies it was like game on game on i need i have i have a pair in a 10 gallon and they bred now i need you know 19 more tanks So you go through that transition of I have one or two ⁓ now I have you know 20 babies ⁓ I have some setups for the 20 babies of learning and researching connections connections this person answered my question and helped me this person Wasn't good As far as, you know, didn't answer quickly or didn't give me a whole lot of information. So I'm going to pull this name and I'm going to store that. I'm going to store that. So you build up this networking and you build up your ⁓ knowledge of the animals. So you have, you know, maybe two three. ⁓ hair going and you have babies and different species what do I do with the babies? ⁓ my gosh, now what do I do? I can't keep them all. You could if you had enough space and money and time and lots and lots of resources. But you need to start an outlet for those babies. So you check your local pet stores. Again, some of this is for reptiles, some of it is for other animals. You check your local pet stores. You post, well you don't post on Facebook because Facebook doesn't like that anymore. They used to say, ⁓ that's fine, post it, not anymore with animals. You go to Instagram and show pretty pictures of your animals and get people to say, hey that's pretty cool, do you have any, you know, available? Maybe you do some YouTube videos and spur some interest on there as well. Maybe you start doing reptile shows. I love, love, love reptile shows. We do 12 to 15 reptile shows a year ⁓ will never stop doing that because I can share the passion there. Maybe jump on again trying to stay away from brand names but some of the auction ⁓ places, of these sales places. and you post your animals there. There's a cost there, maybe you do the free service. Eventually, maybe you get into creating your own website. Oh, I've got a website now. Now I can post care sheets and I can share the collection, the breeders, and I can have a little shop where you can buy the animals. And oh, if I'm buying 2,000... deli cups at a time maybe I'll start selling some deli cups to cover my cost with the deli cups. So you progress through this and then as you're doing that progression, hopefully every single year, you're kind of looking at that and saying, okay, now I'm a business. Now I'm a business. I have my tax numbers. Now I want to kind of take it to the next step. I want to set up a goal. So I want to use spreadsheets ⁓ apps and I want to put together goals of what I'm going to budget for this year and what I plan to breed and what I plan to sell. Now, if you have that going on, now you have to start digging. into the marketing aspect and maybe you're watching dart frog videos on how to sell animals maybe you're watching I don't know shoes because it's kind of the same thing from a sales and marketing standpoint. You dig into that a little bit. Maybe you're digging into how do I create better YouTube thumbnails to give a better presence online on social ⁓ media. ⁓ you moving forward. ⁓ You you've got your core animals, you're building that, but you're also building this knowledge base of the animals care and requirements and believe me you know over 20 20 years of keeping animals every single day I look and think of a different way to keep the animals and maybe Improve this or improve that You're also you also have to if you're in this sort of business You also have to hone your skills sharpen sharpen the tools on things like marketing and sales and inventory control and shipping and all kinds of things like that. in touch with your ⁓ Keep in touch with what's going on in the market, even though it might not apply to dart frogs or geckos. ⁓ might be something you can pull from that that goes, ⁓ I can use that. I can emulate that ⁓ ad use it for my business. ⁓

Frograck: Yep, thanks. You covered a lot and I'm going to ask a whole bunch of follow up questions.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I thought I covered everything. Everything you'd want to know.

Frograck: Yep. A lot of people who experience growth in ⁓ hobby, whether it's geckos or frogs, they get into the hobby ⁓ like described. They discover they like it. They like the breeding aspect. More tanks, more species, more breeding. And let's assume, though, that they're doing all this as ⁓ a hobby. And they have a real job, a real career of some sort. One of two things can happen. I think the most typical path is they reach the point where not fun anymore. Like they grew too big and now the daily chore requirements of everything you just described, basically running a small business on the side because it grew bigger than a hobby because you have animals to sell. So you have to, all the things you just described, you really have to engage in. And so they realized maybe it got too big. And through discernment, they whittle down their collection or they give up on it all altogether. The other thing that they could do that I am more interested in is what if they decide, well, my hobby is pretty big, but it's not big enough to be a full-time job, but I want to make that leap. So what does it look, what sort of things, what would someone ask themselves? What considerations would they need to do if they didn't want to dial back? but they wanted to go big or go home and maybe turn their hobby into a full-time job.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: outstanding, outstanding perception of what can happen here. So let's cover number one. think there is not a week, ⁓ day in one of the weeks where I walk downstairs thinking, this is the greatest thing in the world. I'm the king of the world and I love what I'm doing. There's some days that I'll walk downstairs and go, why? doing this. is silly. Eight hours, 10, 11, 12 hours from, you know, caring and research and social media. Why do I keep doing this? I didn't sell anything for this last week. How am I going to keep it? So you're going to go through that cycle. You're going to go through burnout. You're going to go through the other extreme. Oh Oh

Frograck: All right.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I bring in more animals, am I going to bring some out and sell at reptile shows or how I going to manage that? So planning helps a lot from that. But at some point you also have to just internally accept the that you're going to be burnt out. They're, you know, I'll say honestly, you know, every month I'll go through maybe a day where, you know, I'll get up and eat my Cheerios or Captain Crunch and just go, I don't know, I don't wanna go downstairs right now. It's not what I wanna do. And I'll sit on the couch and watch the Flintstones for an hour. And then I'll get up and go, okay, I'm re-vigorated, I'm fine now. Accept that, you know, personal forgiveness. And move past it. We all have to take breaks. it's an or two, whether it's the whole day. If mentally challenged, just the break and forgive yourself. ⁓ Don't go downstairs, the worst keeper in the world. Don't do it for a week. ⁓ But if you need break, do the break thing. ⁓ Talk to somebody online. Know how you ⁓ ⁓

Frograck: Yeah, right.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: that fire going again. me, it's talking to my network of friends and looking at their pictures of geckos and going, I want to do that. then get back into that mode again. That's my feeling is that you're going to go through it, realize that you're going through it, take the break, get over it, and move on. Now, on the second part, it's you know, that transition into, you know, getting bigger and better and having more animals ⁓ how, if remember the question right, it's how you make that transition, right?

Frograck: Sure, yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah, and that's the tough part. again, planning helps you a whole lot. Again, I have spreadsheets and I kind of at the beginning of the year, I know the animals that should be breeding and I put percentages of eggs hatching and blah, blah, blah. Okay, this is going to give me 4,653 babies and I need to accommodate that. You just need to know, you know, if you have enough resources to handle that, if you need to hire somebody, if you need, you know, your wife or your husband to help you with with some of the chores of management. I'm so blessed. My wife ⁓ the shipping. 100 % she does the shipping she handle handles a lot of the Hard goods that we have we have a wall of hard goods that we're selling from and she handles isopods I'll go in and I'll check in everything but she does all the isopods and she helps so much with the reptile show So we have this division of power or responsibilities that's ⁓ only thing that gets me through any of this. So think that as you're ⁓ getting and you're starting to produce more animals...

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: The biggest thing is that you're going to be in there before you get there and a plan. And that plan has to include knowing where your market is and knowing how you can outsource, how can source out these animals to pet stores or shows or online auctions or sales platforms. Do you need a website? Maybe you need to build a website. And websites are a dime a dozen now. and it doesn't take anything to on a website, put your animals out there and start selling and recoup the cost of a website. And I have a big ⁓ that you should be involved ⁓ ⁓ yourself down too much. You should be involved with all of those really. Because there's certain aspects ⁓ with single one of them, ⁓ different with each one of them that have different to ⁓ animals. The key there is, getting back to your answer to your short question, is making sure that you know that you can move your anus. It doesn't make any sense at all. I'm going to use an example here to breed crested geckos or ball pythons right now. If you don't have a very, very, very, very niche down, look at what you're breeding. only breeding, just of an example, I'm only breeding red crested geckos, but I'm breeding the best red crested geckos out there, so that's my niche and that's where my audience is, that's where my market is. So if you're 200 animals ⁓ and at of the year you've sold three, that's a problem. And you need to recognize that before you produce 200 animals. ⁓

Frograck: Great. Yeah, yeah. I will say I'm really optimistic about the amphibian hobby currently in 2026. I see overall that there's more demand than there is supply. And just like all of the her hobby, it's steadily growing. Even though ⁓ right Ball Python and Crested Gecko people are concerned about the market because it's in a boom bust cycle. I don't see that in the amphibian side of things. ⁓ So I You know, I hope a lot of my audience is considering breeding and selling animals and taking some of your advice to heart. Okay. So if you're really trying to expand your collection, it's going to take space and let's assume we're only talking about in our homes. so like and I have our animals in our basement. Other people in parts of the country that don't have basements are going to dedicate some sort of space, big rooms or bedrooms or ⁓ a converted garage. So give me an idea on how to scale up having like a few shelves of animals to a room, a room of animals that is ⁓ for breeding. Do have any tips, any advice you'd give someone who's starting down that path? Even just little set up and ⁓ space efficiency ideas any advice at all about space?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: have done dozens of these interviews and that's the very first time anybody has asked that and that's that's my that's in my wheelhouse a hundred percent because again I'm a Tetris kind of person and I like to play you know the numbers on spreadsheets and I guess that would be CAD CAM or something like that where you can manage spaces and so I love doing this but you know I kind of have to do it in my mind But again, it's all planning and it's all, you know, at some point, ⁓ it's the beginning of the breeding season. Well, you better be thinking about how many babies we're going to be producing and how much storage space you need to. Storage space, that's a terrible way to phrase that. How much space you need for ⁓ enclosures. then plan ahead before you get to the point of where am going to put this new baby? My biggest thing is utilizing your space. when I say that, what mean is, you know, utilize baker's racks. We have, don't even know, four, five, or six baker's racks downstairs. I should know these numbers. ⁓ And the cool about that is that I can have that baker's rack with... either 24, 19 quarts to raise out two months to six months for the crested geckos. And I can put them in these 19 quarts, but I can wheel that baker's rack all over the place downstairs. I can put it really in front of a breeding enclosure. We have shoe boxes, these little shoe boxes, which are about, I don't even know, eight, 12 quarts. So we have the one, we have a six quart for the babies after they're about a month old and I'm managing, I'm watching it, then they go into the shoe boxes and after a couple of months in the shoe boxes then they go over to the 19 quart. So kind of you know managing their growth progression that way. But ⁓ Baker's and take out the middle shelves and just stack up the enclosures that way. The ⁓ PVC where they have the pullouts. We, we've been doing this for 20 some years, so we, ⁓ know, I've made probably about 30 racks ⁓ melamine, plywood, simple shelves, and you can things like that where you can just pull off the tubs, you know, ⁓ for babies, and your space way. just have to kind of have a floor plan. have to kind plan out where you can move animals. I think the baker's rack is one of the key things that helped us utilize more space downstairs. One thing that you want to avoid though, the one thing that you want to avoid is saying, okay, this animal can by with this ⁓ enclosure. ⁓ you start doing that, then you're of setting the precedence and ⁓ just in the wrong direction. You want to give these animals, especially when they're growing out, you want to give them lots and lots of space and keep moving them up to a bigger enclosure.

Frograck: you

Wally- Supreme Gecko: What else can I say about that? Don't start moving animals into like your kitchen and bedroom because you are done at that point because it just means that you're way over over where you should be.

Frograck: Yeah. I even, all my animals are in the basement right now, but there's, notice as I'm doing my animal care chores each day, there's a bunch of times that I have to go back upstairs to get something ⁓ and hate that. ⁓ And so I'm trying, I'm in the process of maybe, like I haven't actually made a list of every single detailed chore, but I think I want to do that so I can identify like cutting out inefficiencies. So I don't, I'm not always backtracking.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yes.

Frograck: Stuff like that, ⁓

Wally- Supreme Gecko: ⁓ my gosh, yes. So when you're working with, know, we've expanded this last week in fact. I had a fish here with 20 different fish tanks on it and I took them down because I just didn't have time for fish anymore. I hate that and I'm going to miss them every single day but now it's a gecko rack ⁓ every single day that I have to walk downstairs to get calcium supplements or food dish I'm not just going to bring up one I'm going to bring up two or whatever I need and then I have a know cheapy Walmart $12 you know

Frograck: Okay.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: drawer thing and I'll just throw extra supplies up there because I know that I don't want to keep walking back and forth and doing that. Another thing is consistency. Now if you you know this probably way better than I do but if you ⁓ I'm the worst person with consistency because I have all these rare geckos that have different requirements everything but if you can keep everything consistent I am good I am good with having the food dish here ⁓ having the water dish here so that when I open an enclosure, I don't even, I'm thinking of so many things way off. I'm thinking of the 12 Supreme Days of Christmas next year and I'm literally opening and food and water. Hopefully I don't do that opposite. And moving on to the next enclosure. When I'm doing multiple, when I'm in that mode of feeding and watering, I'm. just boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. And then like I said before there's days where I just go down and I look at and I hold and I move around and things like that. But if you can get everything consistent in a pattern that helps so much consistency. That's the word of the whole podcast here.

Frograck: Yeah. Nice, nice. For my listeners, and would know this Wally just from ⁓ observation, frogs are probably the amphibian you can standardize the most because you can keep tons of different morphs and species ⁓ in the size tank. So you could choose ⁓ one brand one or one size tank, figure it out for your shelves, fill your wall. It would look really... really organized because it would all be so standardized. then tadpole care is pretty and froglet rearing. It would be very similar to like having a wall of crested geckos, egg boxes, juvenile grow outs. I have a big hodgepodge collection right now. I have newts, ⁓ have I have tree frogs, have mantellas. I even have crested geckos. And so things are a little less organized than I want them to be. ⁓ but I'm working on it. I'm getting there. my next question for you, if we were, if I was asking you how to be a, ⁓ ball python breeder, then you would tell me how important it is that I raise my own rodents as a, as a, ⁓ good, consistent source of food and to save some money. ⁓ you and I keep insect eating animals. So tell me what role, what insects do you ⁓ buy? insects do you culture and, ⁓ do you manage? manage that task.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Another great question, again, fish, I realized that at least a third of my time was managing ⁓ foods, either brine shrimp or raising, I hate to say it, but raising guppies to feed other ⁓ animals. That a third of my time. that's not to be the case with geckos. It's more than that now. It's way more than that for feeders. So you can do this a couple of ways. You can raise your own. What does that mean? Well, you have to get the expertise in raising crickets or mealworms or dubias or fire rats or something like that. And then go through the process of killing about three or four batches of those before you kind of dial it in a little bit and then start producing your own. ⁓ I produced stuff by own. With. Here's my take on it though, and I'm going to show this and going to backtrack a little bit. My take though is with 800 enclosures, I can't do that anymore. I can't raise my own. I raise my own dubias, so that helps a little bit. But I have found that the time that it would require to raise crickets would be so much so much, the value in raising those is not worth going out and paying $150 for the crickets that I use every couple of weeks.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: That's just written into cost of doing the hobby. I have to have these feeders shipped into me. And you know, the savings is then that I can plant it out and I can get two weeks worth of cricket or I can get two months. And this is what I do. I get like ⁓ 40,000 at a time. And I get, you know, I set up a quarter of them and put the other three quarters into the refrigerator and they stay cool and I can bring them out as I need them. That saves on both, you know, purchases and also on shipping. So I have to kind of whittle down the costs as much as possible by doing things like that. If I didn't have 800 enclosures, I would raise my own mealworms. If I had 5 to 10 to 20 animals that I'm carrying for, I would raise my own mealworms. I don't know if I'd do crickets, but I certainly would do dubias and firebrass and fruit flies. Absolutely. That's the one thing that is easier because it really doesn't take a whole lot of time. The other feeders you have to feed every other day. You know, have to manage and look at every other day and that just takes a lot of time. And crickets, I think it's every hour or else they'll die. So I have to utilize my time the best that I can. So I raise mealworms. But I raise them because, and I've said this before, raise mealworms not in a huge volume. I certainly couldn't feed from what ⁓ raising, but I can feed a couple of feedings. And what that does is in the middle of summer or the middle of winter, ⁓ I can't order 40,000 mealworms ⁓ it's so cold or it's so hot. What am I going to do now? Well, I go back to my supply that sits there breeding for 50

Frograck: Right.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: until I absolutely have to start pulling from them because I can't get out feeders any other way. So the only reason I raise any of my own at all, simply because I don't want to run out. I can't. I can't run out.

Frograck: you Yep. Right. So listeners of the podcast, if you should take a second right now, go on over to YouTube and bookmark a recent episode that Wally did interviewing Alex. They did a deep dive, Frog Daddy deep dive into fruit flies. Really good in depth look at, you know, raising. be having high quality, high productivity fruit flies. So if you're in the dart frog world, that's your episode to go check out if you're thinking about scaling up. I have just one or two mealworm questions. have a, I just have like two shoe boxes of mealworms and it's, have them exactly for the reason you said. If I can't get crickets in the dead of winter, cause it's very cold here, then my Crescent geckos and my toads will eat some mealworms. I haven't done a ton of research and I'm obviously not like optimized in my care of them. Answer, what's the best way to sift and sort them? And then do I need to be cautious about not developing an allergy to them? Because I've heard both of those things. ⁓

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Excellent, excellent. I'm gonna go back for just a second real quick. So an interviewer, I had Alex on, Alex Menke from Frog Daddy. So who in their right mind as an interviewer in this hobby would have Alex, like ⁓ one the bigger frog breeders in the market? Why ⁓ would person have him on and talk about fruit flies? So I mentioned that to him, we're going to talk about fruit flies. And he came back and said, sure. Then I'm like, I'm having you on and we're talking fruit flies. a waste of time. ⁓ it wasn't. We dug so deep into every single aspect. So thank you very much for ⁓ that. For mealworms, ⁓ you asking about sorting. What was your other question, sorting and what else?

Frograck: Yep, just ⁓ I know that I should have a better way of sifting and sorting them so they actually produce better. And then my other question was, I've heard, but I've never really researched that people can develop an allergy.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm gonna talk about that one first. I remember sorting, sorting, sorting, I'm gonna the story real quick with mealworms. I had a good, good close friend when I started off ⁓ out this ⁓ hobby was raising leopard geckos and he shifted over to crickets. Jason, you do mealworms. Yeah, I did and I can't anymore. Why can't you? I developed an allergy. Well, you can wear them as an- He came back said well actually here's what happened I went I I took the hour-long trip to Chicago to pick up a shipment FedEx shipment from Chicago and in the ride back home with the mealworms in the box I developed such a bad allergy that I was actually bleeding and and day I said no more so Viewers, please realize that you might get a little itchy and I'm... Sniffling a little bit because I'm working with me. It can happen to you just like that It can develop from from a little bit of an irritant to a major allergy So be very very careful So what we do is I haven't I don't have any allergies to mealworms, but I do have a huge allergy to dubious So I wear one of those pull-down not the full, you know Darth Vader respirator kind of masks, but I have a you know, white mask but a good quality I think they were like $35 for six of them. It's not expensive. I can reuse them over and over again, but I'll throw that mask on and just make sure that, you know, I'm covered that way. I just don't want it in the hill because once you do that, that's there for a long time. that covers the allergy. Please, you know, ⁓ you have any concerns at all about itchiness or anything, wear gloves, wear a good mask. And if anybody got...

Frograck: And I should do it proactively. I shouldn't wait till I feel like I'm developing. I should do it proactively, right? Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah. Yes, exactly. And if anybody wants, know, just message me on Facebook, Wally Kern. I have mask I use. I'll give you the numbers. I don't have it on ⁓ hand but I'll give you the numbers of the mask. You can buy it from any of the home, you know, building supply stores. Sifting, sifting. actually did a video on sifting on the Supreme Gecko channel, ⁓ complete guide mealworms. You can watch it there, but. It was all based on this whole 20 minute long, which actually I had to cut way down. 20 minute long video was based on one person asking me, hey, I've got these mealworms. I don't know how to get the mealworms away from wheat and dead beetles and the live beetles. I just have this mix going ⁓ consistently. perpetually and I don't know how to get the mule worms out without all the sifting and separate. The easiest way that you can do it, I'm going to give you the secret right now without watching that supreme gecko video, don't watch that if you just want to know about sifting. What you want to do is don't use the sifters and stuff like that. There's two methods, two methods to do this. If you're bringing mealworms in like I do, what I'll do is I'll set them up and once they come in, will go into the freezer, freezer, ⁓ my God, into the refrigerator, and some will go into ⁓ long sweater ⁓ know, little plastic boxes, and ⁓ use to feed out for the next two weeks. I kind of planted two weeks. And those, I'll gut load with wheat and carrots. That's what I use, wheat and carrots. But I gut load just the amount that they're going to eat in two days. So when I come back to feed in two days, this is so huge and so easy to do. When I come back in two to then get mealworms to feed to the geckos, there's no carrots and there's no wheat. All that I have to do is use a little sifter and pull up the mealworms and all the frass comes out. So I don't have to do anything with

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: It literally takes 30 seconds to clean the frass out and then I'm ready to feed. So that's if you're bringing him in. If you're raising your own, the secret is here's the thing you don't want to watch that video for because he's going to talk for 20 minutes to get to this point. your enclosure, plastic, whatever you're keeping them in, whatever you're growing them in, and you're going to have all this wheat and other stuff in there. Take a potato and slice it thin, thin, thin, thin. then ⁓ you egg carton on top, ⁓ because the like to climb on egg carton, take all that stuff out of there. Try to brush all of the dead beetle carcasses one side. And then just right on top of ⁓ the wheat bran whatever you're keeping them over, put these ⁓ thin slices of potato down. Come back in an hour with your collecting pan or pot or whatever, or deli cup or whatever, and then pick up a potato, put it over, and then just brush off that potato because the worms will be attached and eating off of that potato. Brush, brush, brush, brush, potato down. Brush, brush, brush. Do all the potatoes, come back in another hour, and you're going to get another huge supply. Now what you can do is if you want be... you're gonna get babies. Now you can take it to the sifter and can if you want the small ones you know keep them in another pot. Now can sip the babies out and now you have adult mealworms and you have the babies or if you just want to put the babies back into the grow out you know just sift over the the grow out container. Yeah! ⁓

Frograck: Great. Yeah, that sounds like what I would do. Because again, I'm just working with one or two shoe boxes full, feeding once a week maybe. So, cool. All right. You have a lot of geckos, ⁓ there's probably even more geckos that you don't have that maybe you want. How do you ⁓ which species to work with? Like what goes through your head? What criteria do you use?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yes.

Frograck: because you could easily just start buying up every single thing that catches your fancy. But I assume you have to show some restraint. So ⁓ do you decide what to keep and what to breed?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I have no discretion. have no I over the boundaries every single. No, ⁓ seriously, ⁓ I asked this to one of the bigger breeders of geckos, ⁓ kind a very similar question. What's your dream gecko? What's the gecko? And he came back and said, this ⁓ is so hard up here. ⁓ He back and said, well, don't have one right now because what that mean while he is that if I...

Frograck: you Nice. Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: If I got that gecko, I have to take one of my geckos currently and move them out of the collection because I don't have time. don't have resources. Resources are limited and I just would not have the time to work on more geckos. Sorry, right now I can't. Now it might happen in the future but that means that have to plan first and then I can bring in the gecko. I don't have that control. I have a little bit of that control. It was a very, very valuable point that he made and I...

Frograck: Mm-hmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: try to follow that as much as possible. what initiates bringing in another gecko? of gecko or whatever. I have my favorites. I have my favorite genus is just like in frogs, you know, there's certain and I I knew the names better but ⁓ The little thumbnails maybe somebody wants to specialize in the thumbnails then they might want to get the newest and Most colorful new thumbnail and that's kind of the same with the geckos, too. I specialize in Species a genus called period or

Frograck: That's right. Yep.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: So if there was a period or that I've not worked with or I haven't worked with in a long time, if it came on the market, would have no hesitation because I do have several empty right now. ⁓ And I that's one of the keys is you have to have something ready and prepared, bioactive, ready to go. So I really wouldn't, seriously, I wouldn't have any discretion in getting one of geckos. But that ⁓ also,

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: is from a lot of experience and research, years of research in that gecko and knowing that once I get it in, I would know how to take care of it. would have... ⁓

Frograck: Yeah, it already is your niche and you're already, like you said, totally set up to care for that, that it's care parameters would easily be met because you already have other similar things to put it right next to. Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Right on, exactly, that's exactly it. Other than that, sometimes look at the market and what's hot. But ⁓ really, know, know personally, if I went out and got something because it's hot in the market and everybody wants this in, and ⁓ I not the passion for that animal, I would have it for two years and I would get rid of it anyway. So I try not to go with things that are. more market driven than my passion driven. And my passion is, I strongly if I have a passion for something then through media I can share that passion and I can ⁓ generate interest in an animal that maybe there wasn't. I'm gonna period or a pic, I mean, four or five years ago, you'd see one once in a while on ⁓ marketplaces and but they're. ⁓ and I hope I'm a little bit of that. more popular because of the different colors and patterns and you know, ⁓ easy to care for and blah, blah. But I share that passion. I'm hoping that maybe the market has caught up with some of that passion and they're going, ⁓ these are pretty cool animals. So.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: But ⁓ would have to be something with special ⁓ know, behaviors, special colors, something different about it that would really have to... It's not about, there's an animal I'm going to go ahead and...

Frograck: Yep. Yeah. I, I, so my, my interest is work with what you're passionate about. It just seems, there's so many amphibians that I'm passionate about. that that'll keep me busy forever. and so my limiting factors are what, what, would fit in this room, you know, as far as temperature sensitivity, like that there's ⁓ some types of frogs, like it really, really hot. and that's not what I can provide. I just, gonna choose not to work with them. But some temperate tree frogs or some toads, if there's another species out there that I like, they would fit in here just fine. There's space for them, there's parameters, so I'd happy to work with them. Yeah. ⁓ All right, question here.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yes, yes. Yeah.

Frograck: Hidden expenses. ⁓ you have any advice? you can quickly and easily figure out that like, well, I'm going to need to buy animals, ⁓ and food. But beyond that, what are some hidden expenses to breeding and selling and having a large collection that people overlook?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah, in my mind I'm kind of going through some of this. you're raising to breed, I think the very first thing that you want to start thinking about ⁓ is shows, shows. So now we've got some kind of hidden, everybody knows about business cards and a tablecloth and maybe even know about a banner, ⁓ a sign up, you're ⁓ probably not thinking ⁓

Frograck: Mm-hmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: you're going go through a bunch of paper towels, going to go through a bunch of signage, little signs on the table, you're going to go through a bunch of deli cups, you're going to go through a bunch of stickers. and dime, but it still ⁓ up fairly quickly. ⁓ think about a reptile show and think about how to do that. doing first reptile show doesn't mean that you have to have everything. Get good business cards, get a good tablecloth, ⁓ and display animals ⁓ nice clean and neatly. to go and then as you're making a little bit. year sink that money into a nice banner, sink the money into you know better signage things like that. But it adds up from a from you know the experience downstairs some of the expenses that we incur and it's like I gotta pay for that again. jungle mix, any of the substrates because ⁓ don't just do you know again we have many many enclosures with bioactive and they just go and go and go. But a lot of our enclosures are breeder setups with maybe sand so You know I can clean I can spot clean then do a deep clean You know every month or every two months a deep clean, but eventually you know once a year You know I have to throw that sand out. You just can't take it anywhere though. You know too much, and you can't do a bioactive Sand so now I've got to go to Amazon. I've got to buy you know pallet of sand ⁓

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: a lot of jungle mix and that's something that you know you don't think about you don't ⁓ you're unless you're geeky like me and you're doing spreadsheets it's just an expense that ⁓ of can disappear in the background and then creep up to you and say ⁓ my gosh I've got to spend a hundred dollars on sand ⁓ or I'm trying to think of other expenses my gosh ⁓ lighting you we're at the point where ⁓ You know, we're raising a lot of animals and putting UV light on every year, you know, or sooner ⁓ couple of months, it seems like now we've got to go out there and buy, you know, new tubes or whatever for lighting. You a light that goes down. ⁓ I fix this. So now I've got to go buy one. So. The one thing that you can do with expenses like this is bulk up. Don't just buy a light, buy six lights. You can't do that with Arcadia $100 light, but if you're just buying strip lights, buy a six pack instead of buying one. If you're buying a jungle mix, instead of buying a quart or six quarts, buy a bag of 27. Buy five of them and get a discount on the bulk buy.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: So you try to bulk up a little bit on that to save a few dollars here or there.

Frograck: Yeah, yeah, especially when you have to pay shipping on things. Best to buy it once and pay shipping once. ⁓ This is sort of small business 101, but what do you do to keep track of your expenses? How do you ⁓ make sure you a good job keeping track of all these things you're spending money on?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Absolutely. I have a shoe box and you know once a month once a year I take it to the tax guy and no I don't I'm I'm that's kind of a fun part I'm so nerdy

Frograck: You That's fun to you?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: That is fun to me. It is fun because I can kind of track that and I can do the comparisons and analysis. an IT guy. I'm an old IT guy. So that is kind of interesting to me. The best thing that you can do is you can ⁓ a spreadsheet and just categorize, you know.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I don't categorize to lights and deli cups. I categorize to shipping supplies, to facility accounts, to the animals. I do want to track down to the different types of animals that we mostly sell. The top 85 percent, the others just go into other gecko.

Frograck: Mm-hmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: But I'll do a spreadsheet and I'll have income and I'll have expense and I'll have the same items ⁓ ⁓ other tabs or other sheets for January, February through December. I track it that way. So when I get a sheet, I don't go in every single day and record my income and expenses. have, I'm You know, I have my little, ⁓ I have two or three receipts sitting over here that have to go in. but I'm organized to point where it's a organized mess, where I know where the things are. So, you know, I'll utilize my batch time and I'll go through, you know, once a week or so, I'll grab all the income and expenses, and then I'll just type them into the Excel spreadsheet. So, you know, this is the time of the year, my wife says, okay, we need to go run the taxes through. So I can literally in two minutes, I can go click, click PDF. Here you go, let's go do taxes. that makes it so much easier than trying to find everything at the end of the year when you're ready to do taxes. If you can't, you don't want to spend the money on something like a Quicken or one of the other, a Rocket or whatever, just ⁓ a small spreadsheet. If anybody has any questions about that, I have a spreadsheet that I can share with you that has, it's to go right from the beginning and you can change the items and call it whatever you want and you can start ⁓ using within 10 minutes.

Frograck: Yep. Cool. I don't want to delve into the world of giving anyone tax advice because we'll leave that to the professionals. do you recommend if you're moving several, you know, 20, 30 or $1,000 or more worth of animals, do you recommend doing it through an LLC and having a separate bank account? Or do you have an opinion on how people should handle that?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I have a huge opinion. So I do consultations on reptile care, gecko care, and social media, and business, and especially reptile shows, and business. I had one just recently, exactly that question. Do I need an LLC? How do I go about it? So I asked, how big are you? Well, we do three reptile shows a year, and we're probably around the $2,000 $3,000 range of sales.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Don't do it. Don't do an LLC. It takes so much time and now you have to for the LLC and you also have to pay yearly, there's yearly costs for an LLC. I didn't have an LLC until about probably ⁓ or eight years ago. So I ran for ⁓ years-ish without LLC. ⁓ Why you do that? Because there's really no risk. There's no risk. There's no tax advantage whatsoever. ⁓

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: The only thing is that you get to put LLC in with professional. I'd never, ever change any of my names to LLC. also you have LLC, liability. You have ⁓ less ⁓ And was the big thing. You have liability to your personal income through If ⁓ your ⁓ gecko, two gecko takes off somebody's ⁓ fingernail, It just, it's limited liability. So that's the main reason why we did that. no, no, no, delay it until it's almost painful that you don't have an LLC, which, you know, at that point it was like, yeah, you've got to have an LLC. Good question.

Frograck: Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yep, All ⁓ in all your analysis of your business, do you aim for a certain profit margin? Like, do you try to keep overhead and profit margin at a certain place? And you don't have to share your personal data with us, but if you were giving someone, ⁓ if just needed to point me in a direction of how I should be thinking about expenses versus income and the percentages that the two take up.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: No,

Frograck: What do you think is a healthy number?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I get a question every three or four days. What's my gecko worth? don't share prices. I don't share prices. I don't say your gecko is worth $125. I don't do that because there's so many factors involved with.

Frograck: Hmm. Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Are you selling locally? Are you selling nationwide? Are you selling on an app? Then you have to consider that as part of the cost. So there's so many factors. Is it a baby? Is it an adult? So from a business standpoint margin, it's tricky. But...

Frograck: Mm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I can give you a really simple answer and then I can give you the answer that will take two and a half hours to go through. I'm going to give you the simple, nobody wants to hear that. The simple answer is try, shoot for 50%. Double your costs. So if you can do an analysis on your cost to raise, have 10 breeder female crested geckos and raise up 100.

Frograck: Let's keep it simple.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: 200 babies and if you can do that cost and then add in the cost of doing shows or your selling app it's so hard not to name brands but you can put in that cost and a couple of the other costs and you can get to a certain point then you start going backwards reverse engineering back out to okay if this is my cost then here's where I want to end up ⁓ every I want to double that double that

Frograck: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And then now I've got to go back through and define each baby. it's 100 babies, it's pretty simple math to just go back and sell. Then I've got to every single baby at this cost, this price. That's the easiest way. But then you get into these animals are super hot. So now I'm going to triple my cost. These animals, these are kind of hard to move. So I might just up it 25%. These items on my page, I have on my page, my store just to get people in here. So I'm gonna sell them for just about my cost, but I'm hoping that they'll see these items and they'll buy. ⁓ gonna take an example. We sell isopods in our store. I sell ⁓ because my son goes out and collects leaves and throws them in black bags in our garage. So it's like no cost because you're eat. Only if you go out and get me twin bags. So, you know, it's a no cost so I can sell the leaves for like nothing. But my hope is that on the store somebody will buy a bag of leaves because they're so cheap and then go no shipping. I'll just buy some ice pods because I'm paying shipping one time.

Frograck: you

Wally- Supreme Gecko: So the profit margin is kind of a tricky thing per item. I would say generally, in what we're doing, if a business can shoot for the cost, so a profit margin of two times what your cost is, then I think you're fine.

Frograck: Yep. Okay. That's, that's great. Yeah. Just a ballpark to aim towards. That's helpful. Yeah. And you have experience and I, I value your opinion on that because you've looked at your own numbers for years. And if you say like, that's a good place to aim for, then I think it's reasonable. know, the term snake math. ⁓ you ever heard that term? ⁓ I've heard it kicked around as like when, a ball Python breeder.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I am not.

Frograck: starts sitting down with a pen and a paper and mapping out how rich they're going to get breeding the next morph of ball python. think I know I can fall into that big time. You can easily be like, you know what? I'm going to get some whites tree frogs because they sell for 40 to $80 each. So $80 each. And they make between 200 and a thousand babies. So a thousand babies, $80 times a thousand babies. I'm going to get rich. How do you make sure you're being realistic and not getting carried away when you're sort of planning on paper what be possible?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Take man. Number one. I'm unique. don't know. Maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm kind way off in left field, but I'm ⁓ gosh can't remember the last time I bought an animal because of a financial reason to buy the animal Number two, I'm gonna go back to the spreadsheet the budgeting so I picked up some animals last year ⁓ and know, I'm gonna put them together the first time, you know this spring and I hope to get some babies They're not in my equation for budgeting

Frograck: Okay.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I don't include them at all. Simply because if I get babies and I sell some babies, score, ⁓ know, I might be getting babies and I might be holding them back. Which means no sales at all. So I'm kind of different in that. you know, again, I'm looking at animals from my personal passion of raising the animals. number two, I don't factor that in and I don't set my expectations. I'm ⁓ conservative, so conservative. I don't ever, ever, ever want to say, I'm gonna make, you know, ⁓ on this gecko and then come in at none, nothing, ⁓ 1,000 or 2,000. I'd rather ⁓ much, I'm ⁓ of...

Frograck: Mm-hmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: strange this way. I'd rather record zero and then make ten thousand dollars so that my bottom line so I can go up to my bottom line and say ⁓ look how good I did. I look so good.

Frograck: Sure. It looks better than expected. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, think ⁓ in realistic expectations is something all got to do.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And if you don't, you're going to be so disappointed. Maybe not all the time. Maybe not all the time. And from a budgeting standpoint, that's probably the worst thing that I could be doing is not accounting for some of the income that could be generated. But my expectations is zero, so I'm maybe going to be pleasantly surprised. Rather than be far disappointed because something didn't come in and now, you know, self doubt, uh, doubt about the industry, doubt about the hobby, doubt about my decision making with these animals. Oh my gosh. What should I do? What should I do? I'm done. I'm done.

Frograck: Yep. Yep. Right. You already mentioned that ⁓ think you recommend having a diverse ⁓ of places to market to. So ⁓ sales, expos, ⁓ maybe auctioning apps, et cetera. So we'll take it that your advice is to diversify and not necessary. maybe if you discover one does way better than the others, then you can focus on it. But no matter how you're selling, do you think it's important for people to have some sort of online presence nowadays?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Can I just leave it at that? Oh my gosh, can't express how important it is. And when I see people saying, I'm not an Instagram person, I'm not a YouTube person, I don't like to post on Facebook, then set your expectations accordingly. If you're not promoting,

Frograck: Sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: you know there is no such thing you know we can do whiskey and there's a certain marketing plan for whiskey and we could do car sales there's a certain marketing plan for car sales but what we're dealing with is more of an emotion and there are emotions as well but we're dealing with an emotion something that you know I really enjoy this animal, the company of the animal, the appearance of the animal. So we have to share that. We have to share our passion on that. And I think that if you don't, how are people going to see you? How are they going to know? I'm going to have the best animals around. That's super cool, but if you don't post a pretty picture once in a while. I recently did a video. more trying to promote my friend that does these watering devices for feeder insects. And I posted it and I had firebrats feeding little tiny feed. They look like silverfish, but they're hot. They require hot and they're great for babies. Anyways, I posted this video and said, ⁓ this is watering devices, know, the bees knees or something and all these firebrats. And we sold, I sold out of firebrats within a week.

Frograck: ⁓ Wow.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: you know before that I'd say for the previous maybe two or three months we'd sold two or three cultures but we sold I've boxes and boxes downstairs of firebrats that are going out today so ⁓ I doing something like that but what you can't do is go ⁓ I in my opinion, what you can't do is post on social media and say look at my animals, they're for sale, you should buy these animals, you've got to take the sales out of it and make it more emotional. You have to think about why people would buy. Are they going to buy because you just posted a picture of your crested gecko or whatever? They're going to buy because they have a need or they get some excitement from that and that's why they're... So you have to focus your... hate to say it like this but you have to focus your marketing because a lot of times that's what it is and I'll post pictures of the family and stuff like that but sometimes it's all about marketing and

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: You have to post pictures or videos to sell your animals. But don't be using the word sales or price or this is the best thing. Do it in a more emotional and a need factor. Do you have a male like this? This female is really looking for sugar daddy. I don't know.

Frograck: Yeah. ⁓ I've noticed ⁓ you in particular, you said this already, you're sharing, it's marketing slash sharing your passion. They're kind of one and the same. ⁓ And it comes across as sincere, I imagine that leads to trust from customer. I think of you, think of the Pictus geckos ⁓ and like that's something work with. That's something you're known for. I imagine it's something you sell a lot of, but I really think it's because of your enthusiasm for them online, in the ⁓ community and all the different social medias and YouTube, I think that has something to do with why they're popular. So essentially you sharing your passion about them markets the geckos for you.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I think you're right and I think that that holds true. We're talking about social media but it also holds so much value at reptile shows as well. I can't sell something on the table that I don't 100 % believe in and have a passion for but I tell you what to see a family walk up and...

Frograck: Okay, yep.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And you know, do the, oh, those are reptiles and they're icky and they feel, and then, you know, after 10 or 15 minutes, do you want to just touch, let's talk, talk, talk, talk, let me share the passion. Do you just want to talk? Here, I'm going to hold it like this and you can just touch the tail, just feel the tail. Oh my gosh, that wasn't too bad. And then mom and dad, you know, that's the kids, oh, that's really cool. And then mom and dad are still sitting, you know, standing two feet away. Mom. You don't have to, but if you would like to, I'll hold it right here if you want to just, and now their kids have already touched the tail, so they kind of, so, now they just, oh, that's not what I expected. Oh my gosh, that's such a win. So, you know, it's social media, but it's also, you know, reptile shows. It's so important to share, number one, share your passion, but make that connection with your.

Frograck: Yeah, yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I to say customers, but make that connection with other potential hobbyists or hobbyists.

Frograck: Yep, I have a little tangent about this topic though, ⁓ about the importance of...

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah.

Frograck: It's sort of my appeal to people to have some level of online presence. And it's really as an antidote to scamming because one thing I've seen over and over and over again, I work with newts and there's just not a lot of people breeding and selling newts. But sure enough, every couple of weeks, someone will join a newt Facebook group and post ⁓ hey, how do I find these? Does anyone have these for sale? Because like I said, they're not ⁓ available, commonly available. And soon as you post that, I'm looking for this, I want this, their inbox fills up with scammers. ⁓ saying, ⁓ I have that, I'll sell it to you, no problem. And all scammers, they either take just one or two stolen photos ⁓ or change their profile picture to like try to indicate that they have something. But if they're not a known person in the hobby, it's too risky to buy from them. So if you do actually have... animals for sale, have a profile on an app, have a Instagram page with a ⁓ history of posts ⁓ that you're legit. You don't just have one picture of only the animal they're asking for and two followers. That's sketchy. That indicates that you're probably a scammer. And so for the sake of all these new people, just I think everyone animals should have an online footprint of some sort.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: you think people still will get something like that and go, oh, that looks like a good deal or oh, that looks like a cool animal, let me go ahead and buy it without doing any simple one minute research on the person? Do you think that that still happens in the hobby?

Frograck: every now and then because it's it's something so rare and it's like ⁓ maybe I did find it ⁓ they said they they weren't gonna post it but they are willing to let go of two hold backs so I'll here is my only chance to get this animal and so I think it you know not everyone I think most people are pretty keen to online scams but it happens every now and then so

Wally- Supreme Gecko: The very first thing I do with you know, it's basic as friend requests. The very first thing that I do is I go to their page and I see if they have interactions, if they have a lot of, not a lot of, but posts, regular posts. I look at their friend list, oh seven friends. Sounds kind of fishy to me. So I'll do that and if I get a friend across I'll, I hate say this, but I delete it right away if I don't feel like they're a legitimate, you know, keeper. ⁓ I think you have to. You have to do some filtering out you can like that.

Frograck: Mm-hmm. Yep. What's your, make your appeal or your opinion on what level of customer service should we, as breeders offer? Like what should be sort of like the industry standard? Like should customers ⁓ expect you'll spend hours and hours and hours explaining things? Should customers expect ⁓ the opposite? Where's like, I'm too busy breeding animals, either give me money or shut up or, ⁓ whereas obviously there has to be like a, a middle space. So what's like an achievable but high quality level of customer service that you think we can all bring to the table?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yep. I think it's not based on the industry. I don't think it's based on the customer. I think it's based on the breeder and what their expectations are. If you expect to minimal interactions, ⁓ then adjust expectations for sales immediately. If you're going to spend all day on social media, you're going to sales, but that means that you're not going to work with your animal.

Frograck: Okay.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And that means that you're not going to be doing other things as well. So set your expectations I kind of balance that and I started doing I literally started doing YouTube 17 years ago For that purpose, I'll create a YouTube and then I never have to answer another care question ever again And that's not me. It's not me. So I'll get questions How do I take care of helmeted geckos and the very first thought is let me just share the link and

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: And I'll do that. Okay, here's a care video on helmeted geckos. But also, let me explain some of the kind of gotchas and let me give you a couple of tricks to do this. So that never worked out. I could never just share, just push out. Just look at this care guide. Look at this YouTube video. how I've set it up is, you you talk about...

Frograck: Mm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: you know, your interactions with customers. I have a customer that started looking at some geckos probably about two weeks ago. This is a random, you know, kind of thing. And I'll say that we've probably gone back and forth 200 times with messages-ish, and they just purchased. Cool. Would I have at some point stopped the interaction and said, listen, you know, do the thing or get off the pot? I know I wouldn't that's just me that's not what what I I couldn't walk away from something like that and say yeah that was the right business move to do it's just not me but

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: It is for some people and I understand that and I don't judge at all but just set your expectations that you minimal what you should be doing with interactions like this is number one realize that 90 % of the people that are asking questions based off of one of the sales ⁓ probably will never buy from you. Don't get upset. Don't upset. Just realize that and ⁓ try you know treat them just like a beginner because number two, they could buy something from you. So don't treat them like just another tire kicker. the, ⁓ you very much. Here's some information. Let me know if you have any questions. Here's a link to my store page or here's a link to how to contact me more directly or the animal for sale. Excuse And then, you know, continue that conversation back and forth until they don't have any more questions. And if you don't hear from them for a couple days, here's a key to don't get all, you know, upset. Message back and say, hey, were there any other questions that I can answer for you? What other questions did you have about this animal? And if you don't hear something back, drop it and move on. Don't get upset. Just drop it and move on. And because your time is going to be more valuable somewhere else and you're going to

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: the wrong impression for your business if you come back and say, I messaged you and you never messaged me back. That's not good manners and that was rude. doesn't help anything. Just move on. Boom. Ask the question, no reply, move on. But from somebody that keeps asking good questions, my is keep it up if you can, if you have the time and answer those questions because they might be somebody that just doesn't know. Now if I get a question about what's the care for a leopard gecko, I'll go to chat GPT. ⁓ hate admitting this now, but if I did something so doggone general I almost used a bad word there. I'll go to chat GPT and I'll say what's secure for Lover Geckos and I'll completely copy that whole response and I'll type it I'll copy it and paste it into you know that question. That, that feel is gosh you could have taken ⁓ two seconds and done exactly what I did.

Frograck: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, I've, I've found, I don't feel like customers have asked anything of me that's not reasonable. but I do link care sheets often. if they give, if, if they ask a question or they give any sort of indication that they're new to this, I just try to kindly and politely be like, Hey, I have a care sheet on my website. Here's a link. And then I always say just what you said, let me, after you read that, let me know if you have any other questions. cause that

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Okay.

Frograck: That way it doesn't come across as like accusative, like you didn't do your job or you should know this or, you know, so, and honestly doing that with the hundreds and hundreds of DMS that I've answered, I don't feel like people have demanded more, too much more of me than that. So that's good. your involvement in the reptile community goes beyond just what you have to do to market yourself or what you have to do as like a motivation. ⁓ You're involved broader than that, ⁓ supporting and of yourself to the community. How and why do you think it's important to invest in the broad reptile community?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: mentioned earlier you know you came up with a question that I've never been asked before this is probably the most difficult question I've been asked in any of you simply because I don't have a good answer other than I feel I don't sound so corny here but I feel like it's my responsibility people have given people I'm paying it forward people even me such good advice I remember starting out when there

Frograck: All right. Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: internet, well there was internet, but it was all forum based, know back and forth and forums and posts and everything, no Facebook or anything like that. And as a beginner I asked a lot of questions on these forums and I was kind of shy and I didn't want to call people and questions and I had so many good people answering those questions.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: At this point, I use them as an example and say, at some point, I wanted to be like those people and answer these questions. And now, I kind of feel like that's my role. is but it's not you know for other people that realize that you know time is of an essence and time is limited that's maybe not a good answer because people don't have a lot of time to go out and say ⁓ your crusty gecko ⁓ breeding because of this and and type because For me, I feel like that's what I need to do ⁓ having said that I have also ⁓ From my health standpoint, I've got to stay away from some groups that are, that you say is going to be looked at from an opposite angle. ⁓ somebody messages me, I'll answer that question, 100%. If I see something wrong on Facebook.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I still feel like I have to go out and say from my experience, from making many mistakes like this, just this, I feel like ⁓ here's good answer for you. So that's why I do it. Number two, I think that people should do it anyways to get their name out there. a certain quality, there's a certain impact, there's a certain advantage, there's a certain benefit from being the ⁓ subject ⁓ expert some of these. And now you've kind of... And again, not why I do it, but now you've kind of risen a little bit in I trust this, just like you'd said before, I trust this person to answer the question. And if you're doing it in a kind and respectful way, I think that instead of writing, you dummy, you could have gone to Google for this. If you do it in a kind and respectful way on social media, I think that you gain that, you gain a point or two every interaction for being that subject matter expert.

Frograck: Yeah. The time that you spend online in the community, you're a generous person and you're positive. Some people who are also generous and positive end up getting burnt out because of negativity and they just give up. they just call, they're like, I can still be involved in this hobby. I'll still maybe private message my two or three friends. But as far as general involvement, ⁓ ⁓ in the online community, you know, there's too many negative Nancies out there. I just give up on it completely. How have you managed to not sort of burn out and give up like that?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Hard, hard, hard, because I know several, I can ⁓ of five people just immediately that have messaged me and said, yeah, I don't reply to messages anymore ⁓ all on Facebook. I don't reply to messages, ⁓ like that.

Frograck: Okay.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I actually stood in front of a big, big time reptile person at a show and said, know, you get, you're so knowledgeable in this hobby and you're so kind and you're doing so many other good things. How do you handle messages that are kind of, you know, basic? And he just said, I don't answer them. I said, ⁓ my gosh. That was really surprising, but I can comment. immediately five different people that just don't go on social media and answer anything anymore because they might have been burnt once in the past. said, I'm done. I'm not going to spend the time that people are going to treat. And that's the problem sometimes with social media. What keeps going is ⁓ And again, I sound so corny here, but one good reply makes up for a hundred different bad replies. One person comes back and says, hey, six months ago, you helped me understand how to find period or a piped up eggs. I wasn't finding any before. wasn't in... ⁓ good example. And this is real life. I've been working with this animal for two years and I've not been getting any babies. And six months ago, you messaged me and said, what you need to do is these two changes. I did those and now I'm getting babies. winner. ⁓ And that will cover a year's worth of bad comments. ⁓ Wally, you don't know what you're doing. That's not what I read on Facebook. You don't know what you're, whatever.

Frograck: Nice.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Whatever, I'm good. I'm good with that because that other person said that I helped them. So that's what keeps me going.

Frograck: Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Yeah, that's helpful to know. And I ask not because, you know, all of us need to discern for ourselves if time on social media is time well spent. And if it's not, if it doesn't put you in a positive headspace, it's not good for your mental health, then by all means, it's OK to step back from it. ⁓ But I just wanted to know, I had noticed about you that like for years you're consistently present there. And so as like a positive influence, I wanted to know how you did that.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yes.

Frograck: On a different podcast, Andrew Huberman is a health and wellness podcaster. And I recently heard him make an observation that was pretty good. He said, drama gives us an illusion that something important is happening. he using that to explain why does it suck us in sometimes? Why do we have this visceral reaction, like I need to respond angrily to something? you know, dramatic emotional language, accusing people of things, not talking about nuance and gray area, but like, it's all black and white. has to be this way or that. It tricks us. ⁓ like the part of our brain, he was, you know, he's like a brain scientist. The of our brain that perceives threat and injustice gets indulged with a little dopamine hit when we get outraged about something. And ⁓ of are susceptible to it. and we're all sort of like how to be humans when we're constantly connected on social media. I just want to encourage people like this is such this has been like you said, I've received so much from other people in this hobby. Great advice, encouragement, knowledge, tips, deals on I've received so through the community related to the frog hobby that I am also motivated to pay it forward. So for anyone out there If you just need that encouragement to, you know, ignore the haters, brush the negativity off your shoulder and just keep investing in ⁓ online and in-person Herp go ahead and do it. That wraps all my questions for you, Wally. Where can people find Supreme Gecko online? There's a couple different places they could look, huh?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I'm going to take the next hour of your show to get, I've got a list here. Let me just go ahead and start reading. You can find me anywhere. do.

Frograck: to make a list.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Instagram. Instagram unfortunately is my least favorite platform. I just send half the viewers somewhere else. Instagram is one my least favorites. It's hard to interact on Instagram. Facebook is my favorite. I'm always on YouTube. If I post a video and you ask me a question within one day, I will 99.9 % of the time reply back to you unless we have something, show or something like that going ⁓ my gosh, all over the place.

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I don't dance. You'll never maybe you'll see me dance at some point, but I don't right now I'm not dancing on TikTok, but you can find me on TikTok as well the best place to contact me is through my email Wally Kern at gmail.com ⁓ on a direct message a direct message a private message on Facebook Wally Kern, that's the best place and generally I'm

Frograck: Mm-hmm.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: again responding within wife will say minutes because I'm always on Facebook but I'll say within an hour or ⁓ most a day.

Frograck: All right, if someone listened to this whole podcast and they're thinking about their hobby in more business terms and they wanted to have a consultation call with you, how do they go about ⁓ finding your Buy Me a Coffee program?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: buy me a coffee Supreme Gecko. It's as easy as that and you can set up a quick question. You can set up a 10 minute consultation. You can set up a half hour and you can set up an hour. And unfortunately, if you set up a half hour, it's going to be an hour. And if you set up an hour, it's going to be two hours. So kind of plan your day accordingly. I can't not blab.

Frograck: Hehehe. Do you give any advice, someone who's gonna schedule a consultation, conversation with you, did you give them any advice on how to prepare well for that?

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. best thing that you can do is kind of think through your problem or where you want to be, your goal. In a short term, you know, I've had people say, I want to understand how I can start raising geckos and doing and have an online presence. And also what ⁓ platform should I sell my animals and how do I build a website? Kind of narrow it down to maybe something that can actually, ⁓ you know, cover in a half hour or an hour. ⁓

Frograck: Yeah.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: Let's narrow down your goal. Let's narrow down your problem and kind of put down your problem and obviously email it to me or message me. But also through that and have in your mind where you want to end up after the session with. I want these questions answered. And if you can send me those questions. ⁓ half hour sessions, hour long sessions. If get that ⁓ in I'll spend a half hour to an hour even before the consultation kind of getting some notes together. I always send, ⁓ most the time I'll send a Word document with. your questions and I'll put a ton of solutions or links or something like that in a Word document and send that to you after the consultation.

Frograck: Right on. All right, well, I think, Frog People, just because Wally's known for geckos, I think if you're scaling up your hobby, your business, he's a great guy to talk to, as you can tell from this podcast. Easy to have a conversation with, knowledgeable, and experienced. So thanks for that, Wally. Thanks much for coming on the Frog Rack podcast. I want to encourage all the listeners to subscribe the Supreme Gecko YouTube channel. That's where I know Wally from. So ⁓ link the for there. ⁓ And help me. peer pressure Wally into keeping some amphibians. He used to have fish, so it wouldn't be that big of a stretch to get some newts in an aquarium. And I know he wants to build an addition to his house so that he can have 100 dart frog tanks after talking to Alex the other day. So we'll just put that pressure on Wally till he joins the group here.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: If I did that, and believe me, was thinking about dart frogs before I started thinking about geckos, and I realized if I got one and they bred.

Frograck: Yep.

Wally- Supreme Gecko: I would fill up, wait I did that for geckos. If I started with dark frogs right now, ⁓ would be almost impossible for me to not have a hundred tanks in this house. And unless, ⁓ you said, I build upwards, it's gonna happen unfortunately.

Frograck: Yep. I believe it. believe it. All right, Wally, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone out there, please like, subscribe, and share the Frog Rack podcast. Until next time, see you later.