Free to Work and Free to Hire – The Red Balloon – with Andrew Crapuchettes [Ep. 101]

Linda:

Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics Podcast! My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host, and the author of Prosperity 101®, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, and the Creator of the Breakroom Economics Online Course. The book, the course, and the entire podcast library can be found on prosperity101.com.

I seek to connect boardroom to breakroom, and policy to paycheck, by empowering and encouraging employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit prosperity101.com.

Thank you for joining with us today. I have a guest that I know you will enjoy hearing from. Andrew Crapuchettes is the Founder and CEO of RedBalloon. RedBalloon's mission is to unite a community of businesses and job seekers who value and preserve the freedom to work. And Andrew, I would very much like you to introduce RedBalloon to our listeners. And I know with that comes your background and how you became the Founder and CEO of RedBalloon.

Andrew:

Thanks so much, Linda. I really appreciate, obviously, being on the show. Prosperity is such an important word, right? Because it describes a whole way of life. It's not just how much money you're earning, but are you enjoying and prospering in your life? So I think it's so important what you're doing.

So my background, I live in Moscow, Idaho, beautiful Moscow, Idaho. I have been blessed to be able to start a variety of businesses, everything from a 3-D printing business, to student information software business, to a very large economics firm with hundreds of employees. And was able to run those as the CEO, and ended up selling them a number of times. But as the woke world closed around us, as we're all experiencing in so many different ways, my board decided that I was just a little too conservative and a little too Christian to be running the company. And so, I found myself delightfully unemployed about six months ago.

And that was a hard period because you start to decide, hey, what is my identity? What am I supposed to do? And so I was just going to spend some time focused on some of the real estate stuff I have going, but a friend of mine said, "Hey, you really should start a job board." You should start a place where freedom-loving employers and freedom-loving employees can find each other. It's just simply a matchmaking service. It's not overly complicated, but it's an opportunity to push back against some of the woke encroachment that's happening in employment today. And so redballoon.work was founded literally four months ago. And for the first month, I just wanted it to be a local Moscow, Idaho job board, because it was just a side hobby job for me. But God had other plans, and so here we are.

Redballoon.work, the name comes from the fact that if you've ever ridden on a hot air balloon, it's super fun and a little bit terrifying, just like looking for a new job. And there's lots and lots of people who are traveling to red states to find freedom, and work, and a place where they can support their families, and do what they want to do. So, that's where the name comes from. So redballoon.work was founded not that long ago, and freedom is in demand in America today. And so, the thesis around freedom, the thesis around treating your employees like adults, agreeing that the Constitution still matters, has really exploded.

And so RedBalloon in our four months that we've been in business and three months that we've been really going after it, we have over 1,400 employers who have signed up on the site. We have over half a million unique visitors who have come to the site. And it's the only business I've ever been part of, and I've been part of a lot of businesses, it's the only business I've ever been part of where I get unsolicited thank you notes from people all over the country, literally every day. People saying, "Thank you for standing up for freedom. Thank you for giving us a place where we can go and find a job where we can work with someone who doesn't hate our worldview, but wants to support and bless our worldview."

And in fact, one of those thank you notes, this is a fun story, was from somebody in New York. And they said, "Hey, would you like a billboard in Times Square? Because we also believe in freedom, and we want to help you with this." And so, redballoon.work has a billboard in Times Square, and we have a ten-second ad that runs 100 times a day through the end of the year.

And so the fun part about that story... I don't know how many people in New York are looking for freedom, but billboard's there anyway. But the fun part of that story is, there's a lot of people that are eager to see freedom in our country. And so, I think what the liberal media today really wants all the conservatives to think is that they're the only ones that think the way they do, and that they're alone, and that they're crazy. And so, this should be encouraging to everyone listening that if a little job board based in Moscow, Idaho can go from 0 to well over 1,000 employers and hundreds of thousands of employees in three months, it means that there's a lot of people out there who are eager to see prosperity continue to thrive in our country, to see freedom and respecting workers' rights to decide what they want to do with their body. It's encouraging to me, and it's been a super-fun little ride.

Linda:

Oh, that is fantastic, and God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes those closed doors that are so disappointing to us or so unexpected are actually the open door to amazing opportunities and amazing ways to make an impact. And for our listeners, you might like to know how Andrew and I came to know each other...

But we recently met at a Christian Employers Alliance summit. And Christian Employers Alliance is another organization for employers who love freedom, especially religious freedom, that you would love to be a part of. We'll give the website for that at the end. But we met at this summit and really felt a kinship of ideas, and I'm so glad that Andrew's on that podcast today. You mentioned that you don't know how many people in New York are looking for freedom... I imagine most.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Linda:

Exemplified by the number of them who are moving to states like Florida or Texas. And the complaints that you have from business owners in New York and California, and these other states that are totally limiting the freedom of employers and employees to be able to really conduct their business in the manner that they choose. And we have these health mandates, we have religious freedom mandates, we have all the gender pronouns, the SOGI laws, and things...

Which, another partner with Christian Employers Alliance, is Alliance Defending Freedom. And in a previous episode, I interviewed Bob Pruitt from Alliance Defending Freedom, and we talked quite a bit about those laws and all these compliance laws based on speech and religious freedom. And it is just horrendous what's happening to employers. But like you, I believe that there's more of us than there are of them.

And part of why I do Prosperity 101® is to encourage and empower employers to speak to their employees about these issues, about all of these policy issues, and discuss how it truly affects their ability to employ them and to honor the freedom of the employee. So it's just a great fit that you have this job board, this amazing company that you started. Can you give us some examples of companies or people who have come to you to find a job? Some of their stories.

Andrew:

Yeah. I've been very blessed to just be part of this whole movement with RedBalloon. And we've had some employers who are like, "I'm nervous about signing up for a conservative job board because what if I lose some of my customers?" And the thing is, so they are concerned about that. But I said, "Well, you should just give it a try." And so they did. And they said, "We didn't lose actually that many customers. Because if we continue to drive the best products, people are going to come to us no matter what. But we actually ended up getting more customers who had a similar way of life, and a similar way of thinking about things, and they were the best kind of customers." They're the customers who weren't whining all the time, or blowing us up on Twitter, or all the things associated with that.

On the employment side, I just got an email from one of our employers, TruPlay, T-R-U Play, which is a Christian video game company. CEO wrote me, he said, "Just so you know, we have gotten the best kind of employees out of RedBalloon. These are people who are like-minded in the way they're working, and they don't spend all their time in the HR department whining about various things and such. They just want to actually focus on work, focus on getting value, bringing value to their employers."

I talked to another employer actually in Tacoma, Washington. He said, "I started posting on RedBalloon and what happened is, I got a flood of applicants. Some of them were willing to take a pay cut, and they were overqualified for the job, but they wanted freedom. Freedom was more important to them than money." He's like, "And I still wanted to pay them well and compensate them well..." But that the employers who are raising their head up and saying, "I stand for freedom. I'm not going to march to the woke drumbeat anymore," are really being blessed with the best kind of employees.

And we're in a extremely, historically tight labor market right now. You see the help wanted signs everywhere, right? And organizations just can't find enough people. And I can talk about that, that's a whole nother issue with demographics. And I used to run a labor market data company, so I could go deeper into that rabbit hole than probably anybody wants to know. But there are reasons for all of this. But the thing is, these employers who are posting jobs, they're finding there's more Americans who want freedom.

I talk to a doctor, and he's just a little family physician. He had an opening, and he had 12 applications in two days, in a very tight labor market, because people want freedom. The other story that's fun... I was at a conference in Tennessee, and this couple came up to me, and they're like, "You're Andrew from RedBalloon." I'm like, "Yes, I am." And so the husband started talking. He said, "So I've worked for a woke business for the last 10 years, and they've made me wear a mask to work for the last two years. And they really have made it as obvious as possible that they hated my way of life in every way they could." He said, "I just went on RedBalloon..." He was in Dallas. "I just went on RedBalloon, and I found a Christian employer that I'm now working for."

And his wife comes over and just gives me this big bear hug. She's like, "You've changed the trajectory of my family's life. He comes home from work happy, and thrilled, and prospering." And that's why I love the word prosperity, and why I think this podcast is so important. Just getting money is not prospering, right? It's having the joy of work well-done. It's having a vocation where you know that you're doing something great and blessing other people. Anyway, this couple went on to say that this has made a difference in their family, that the husband now has of with a conservative Christian employer that allows him to bring his best self to work every day and not be watching his back all the time and worried about office politics, but just focus on work that's being done.

And so I think we're in a moment in America, where if people are willing to raise the pirate flag and say, "Yeah, I guess what? I'm a conservative or I'm a Christian, and I want to bring the best products to market... And we're going to spend less time on office politics, and HR, and CRT training, and we're going to focus on just getting work done," they're going to get access to the best kind of employees out there. And not only that, they're also going to be an encouragement to the millions of employers, or employees that are out there as well. Because not only will you get great employees, all of the people around America will know that there are more, and more, and more employers who are willing to raise their hand and say, "I will stand for your freedom, and I'm going to be a conservative," and it's okay. So anyway, it's a fun and exciting time.

Linda:

Oh, it's great. And courage is contagious, right?

Andrew:

Yeah.

Linda:

Courage is contagious. And it seems like if one person stands for freedom, there's other people who will follow. They just needed that person to go before. So by starting RedBalloon, you really created a pathway for these people who really didn't know what to do. They want to do something. They want to make a change. They want to make a difference. They want to stand for freedom. But your idea to connect them and bring them together, in jobs and employees, is just brilliant. It's really great. And as I said before, there is more of us than there are of them.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Linda:

In the sense of people who care about freedom, who care about the history, and truth of the founding of our country, our founding documents... We want our children and grandchildren to grow up with the freedom that we had. We want them to have the same opportunities for prosperity, the same opportunities to flourish, and thrive. But we can see that with current policies, especially within this last year with this administration, there is no way that that will happen. And the trajectory of current policies is not prosperity.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Linda:

And we're seeing it all the time. And these businesses are being caught in the middle, and jobs are being impacted. Families are hurting. You mentioned that family, what a beautiful story, and that has to make you just want to get up every morning!

Andrew:

Absolutely.

Linda:

Just that one story alone. And that's what I try to do as well, is just really encourage people to speak out. And it doesn't always have to be on a soapbox or partisan. It's not partisan. It's policy. It's simple policies of freedom.

And for the Christian employers, I always tell people this quote that I use often from Dawson Trotman, the Founder of the Navigators ministry. And he said, they don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. And when you have employers who are deeply concerned and caring towards their employees, and they are deeply concerned and caring towards our country, and to protecting freedom, you create a relationship that employers and employees work together to elevate all. And it's really a fantastic synergy that comes together, but people just have to be bold enough to take the first step and to speak up for the values in which they believe.

Andrew:

Yeah. No, and it is a blessing that we're seeing a lot of people start to do that more and more. RedBalloon.work is an opportunity for people. We are the largest ideological group in America, and yet we're the least likely to say anything.

And so, this is an opportunity for a employer, or even an employee out there, to say, "You know what? I do stand for freedom, and I do care about this." The other thing that we did about three weeks ago, so it's brand new, is we had a lot of these employers who came to us and said, "Look, we filled all our positions through RedBalloon.work, but we'd love to have the hundreds of thousands of conservatives that are now on the site shopping with us." Because how many of us are beholden to large, woke organizations? Whether it's AT&T or Google, and we couldn't really live without them.

And one of the ways to push back and give us security on that front would be to say, "You know what? I'm going to shop with people who share my worldview, who are not trying to destroy my way of life." And so we launched a RedBalloon Marketplace. It's not super complicated, think of it as conservative Yellow Pages. So if you still have some Christmas shopping left to do, you can go there. There's everything from freelancers who are conservatives who can do websites, or graphic design, or marketing. We've got a couple of media companies on there. We've got some retailers on there. If you want to have someone take over your technology so you don't have to use AWS anymore, we've got people on there for that as well.

So this is just another opportunity for conservatives to band together, focus on making sure that they're delivering a great product. We don't want someone to have a shotty product just because they're a conservative or a Christian. We want them to have the best product because they're just focused on blessing their customer the most. So that's another opportunity for people to participate in RedBalloon.work and be part of the movement.

Linda:

Oh, well that is really a great opportunity. So employers and business owners, even if you might not be looking for an employee now, you could definitely offer your products and services there on the marketplace, and hopefully create a customer base, and then of course then you'll need more employees. So you'll-

Andrew:

Yeah, it all comes to a nice-

Linda:

You'll have to hire.

Andrew:

Virtuous circle. Yeah, it's a great-

Linda:

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Andrew:

It's a great circle of growth. So, this is just fantastic. And you had shared a bit about this family and what it meant to them, regarding having a job where their freedom was valued, where their individual rights were valued. And I think that cannot be underestimated. People all across the country, their mental health, their relationships have suffered under these last two years. And while the economy was beginning to rebound, and doing very well, and the jobs were coming back, and it was really rebounding... Now in the current administration, we see this inflation. We see prices. We see supply chain issues... There's more and more mandates. Every time you turn around, there's another mandate, and another booster, and all these things...

And employers are so caught in the middle. And so, but if we stand up as employers and say, "No," we have this opportunity to unite our voices peacefully with honor and integrity. Like you mentioned, these employers, they want to add value. The employees want to add value. We want to work with integrity and excellence. And we have an opportunity to really make a difference by uniting these voices and showing the world that one, freedom-loving Americans are the majority. And two, if they are also Christians, there's a basis of belief to Christians, whether they hire Christians or non-Christians, whatever, but there's a worldview of valuing people. And it is being misrepresented in our culture today. So, it's just a wonderful thing that you're doing to bring these people together. So, if people would want to reach out to you personally or to RedBalloon, what would they do?

Yeah. So you can go to redballoon.work, again, redballoon.work. It's not .com, it's .work.

Linda:

Love the website. Love that.

Andrew:

Yeah, yeah. Redballoon.work, you can go check it out. We've got the videos. Also, if you're an employer out there, side note, we have a blog there. And I have Laura the Labor Lawyer, which is fun to say, and she's super helpful. She writes a weekly blog post. She has been a 20-year labor lawyer and she's just a wonderful, Christian woman. And if you would like to know, hey, how do I navigate some of the legal waters associated with being an employer that stands for freedom? She's writing articles every single week on how to deal with things. And you can actually write in and ask her questions. And if it's a good question that a lot of other people want to know, she'll write an article on it.

So, you can do that. You can also just email me. It's andrew@redballoon.work. You can reach out to me directly. You can fill out the form there. But we would love to have more employers and more employees on this site because with momentum comes encouragement for everyone else. I think, Linda, you said it well, it's hard to be courageous when you're the only one, but it sure is a lot easier when you know that you're part of a strong army that's focused on saving our nation and building a future for our kids that can be prosperous, and pushing back against the policies that are destroying prosperity for us and for our children.

So, the more people that are part of this, the more strength that it has, and it's a huge blessing to lots of people. So, go to redballoon.work. Also, tell people. If you've got friends and family who are... Whether it's a vaccine mandate or just CRT training in the workplace, send them to redballoon.work. We want this site to just be a blessing to people so that they know that they have options and they can make the right decision for their family, for their health, and not have to be coerced into doing whatever the woke agenda tells them to. So, that's what I would encourage everybody to do. Go to the site. Tell your friends about it. Let's make this as big a movement as possible because it's going to give us as much leverage as possible to push back against the craziness.

Linda:

Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for that. And employers and employees, please do go to redballoon.work. Before we close, do you have three points maybe that you would share with employers about how they can protect freedom in educating their employees? How they can explain the impact of policy on paychecks?

Andrew:

So, as a CEO of a company that had hundreds of employees, there are a lot of things that you can do. You have a leverage point that you can help people with in a way that other people can't, because they have to listen to you because you're the employer. And obviously, you don't want to do anything illegal, but I know that one of my focuses was always... Look, if I can live out my faith at work, it's going to show people something that they have not seen and is going to give them a place of peace and joy at work.

And sometimes, if you just live it out, they realize... Oh, wow. I should think about these woke policies because they don't work. When I had to leave my last business, I had a lot of employees that don't share the same worldview with me come and say, "Look, this is the best work culture we've ever had because we don't talk behind each other's back. We don't have office politics. We just focus on doing great things."

And so, I'd say if you're an employer out there, start by living it out. You always want to do the walk before you do the talk. Next, I think actually do things that are connected to the way you think about the world around you. So when I was an employer and various, I'll say political, issues came up, whether it was BLM, or any of those things... Well, I'm actually an economics firm, and I'm going to focus on economics, not on political activism. And there's a lot of pressure in today's world for employers to speak out on various political activism items, and you don't have to. Just focus on doing your job, and focus on that. And that actually speaks volumes to your employees and to everyone around you.

And then the last thing is, go find like-minded organizations to work with. And that's whether you're using the RedBalloon Marketplace or anything else that's out there... Go find folks that are great to work with because they share your worldview. And then when you do all of these things, you're going to have an impact on the way your employees think about life, and policy, and politics. Because they see you making great for your organization that actually are following your worldview. And when you do that, it has an even more profound impact than when you just try and tell everyone and jam it down their throat necessarily. And so, I was very blessed with lots and lots of employees that, some of them, became Christians, but most of them just enjoyed being at work. And they said, "Our family life is better because our job is squared away." And so, you have an opportunity to bless people in a way that nobody else can. And so, it's a blessing. Use it.

Linda:

Truly. And it's truly a win-win. The company wins, the employer wins-

Andrew:

Absolutely.

Linda:

The employee wins, and the country wins. And I always say, when America is strong and free, the world is a better place.

Andrew:

Amen to that.

Linda:

We are truly the last, best hope for freedom in the world. And so, if we can all work together to protect and promote freedom, and liberty, prosperity here in America, and freedom of religion here in America, that spreads across the world. So, I really appreciate what you're doing. And again, please give the website and your email one more time?

Andrew:

Yeah, redballoon.work, redballoon.work. And then andrew@redballoon.work. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to know ways that we can bless you more, and we can all work together to drive prosperity in this country. And thank you, Linda, for having me on the show. Such an important topic, such an important moment in the history of America, and as you pointed out, the world. So, keep up the good work. I love it.

Linda:

Well, thank you so much. And before we close, I do want to give the website that I said I would in the beginning of the broadcast. And that was for Christian Employers Alliance, so the organization that facilitated our meeting at a summit. And so, christianemployersalliance.org. And Andrew's part of that, as well as I am part of that, and it's a great organization. And like Andrew said, when you can align with people who are like-minded, and have similar goals, and worldviews, it really helps you. And for everybody out there, stay strong, be courageous, and stand up for freedom, and good things will happen. So we're all in this together, and we need to preserve our nation. So thank you, Andrew. Thank you.

Andrew:

Thank you, Linda. And, yeah. Thank you, everybody, for standing up for freedom. The more of us that do that, the easier it is for everyone else.

Linda:

Amen to that, thank you. Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity: The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck, or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics Online Course.

You can also receive the free ebook, 10 Tips for Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity as you become informed, involved, and impactful. I give special thanks to our sponsors, Mathews Archery, Incorporated, and Wisconsin Stamping & Manufacturing. Please contact us today prosperity101.com to let us know how we can serve you. Thank you.