This is the full transcript for Episode #257 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Stephen Stinis – Skytyping and Skywriting, President of Skytypers. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Stephen Stinis 0:00
Sky is not the limit. But it definitely is the next point that we’re going to.
Max Branstetter 0:21
Hi in the sky. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode Heinz 2-57 get it? And today’s guest is Stephen Stinis. Stephen is the third generation president of Skytypers the incredible and incredibly unique and fascinating skytyping and skywriting company that has been around since 1932. In this episode, we talk the difference between skytyping and skywriting, some of the coolest messages you yourself maybe have even seen in the sky that are probably thanks to Stephen and his family and team, and how his family business has survived and pivoted and innovated and innovatipivoted if you’re gonna make up words here like that, for almost 100 years and counting. It is Stephen from Skytypers. Enjoyyyyyyy the showwwwwww!
Aaaaaalrightyyyyyy we are here with Stephen Stinis, President of Skytypers, one of the coolest companies out there and and literally one that you can see all across the sky. Stephen, so excited to learn about you, your family business, everything today. Thanks for joining, how’re you doing today?
Stephen Stinis 1:58
I’m doing great. Thank you for having me, of course. And
Max Branstetter 2:01
I often make a joke at the start that you know, sometimes there’s companies that have alliteration in the name and I’m a sucker for alliteration, but you literally have alliteration in your name, your personal name. Right. So thank you for that. I know you worked hard for it. Roger, I want to start off on the ground. And for you. Going back to when you were a little kid, what was that environment like of you learning and being exposed that, hey, we actually have a pretty cool family business in our history.
Stephen Stinis 2:34
As far back as I can go back, five years old, I grew up in the business. Now I’m third generation in this, you know, as a little kid, most every kid wanted to learn how to fly or thought it was cool. The cool part is my family and my father. That’s what they did. I grew up going to the airport, working around airplanes, sitting around airplanes going fly with my father, you get that passion and, and how cool it is to go out and fly and have that exposure at a young age, which led to me where I am today. But you know, just having that exposure, I think at a young young age was key factor. And of course, you get to that point in your life where you’re like, hey, is this this is so cool. And you start realizing that and you start getting in your teens. And it goes from there.
Max Branstetter 3:28
It is so cool. And I think back to when I was a little kid and there’s there’s that like magic and wonder of just having toy planes are looking up and seeing the air shows seeing planes in the sky. Like there is something really exciting about that. And you had a much richer family history of being close to that than most people. What is it about planes in the the world of things in the sky that unleash that magic for you in the first place?
Stephen Stinis 3:58
Well, it’s a sense of freedom. And when you’re up there, it’s it’s peaceful. And there’s an art art behind it in flying a milestone and achievement to become a pilot to get certain ratings and, and move upward and onward. When we were growing up, whatever wanted to be an astronaut. That was the next thing we were just in that space era were the shuttle was launching and it was as cool going to the moon and all that stuff. And it’s like hey, that’s the next level. Let’s take it to the next level. The world of flight it you know, start in the early 1900s really have 100 years of flying and look how far we’ve achieved. So it’s it’s all about taking that path and and going to the next level with it and seeing where aviation is going to go in the future. It just keeps me driven.
Max Branstetter 4:53
It keeps you driven and it keeps you flown
Stephen Stinis 4:56
or flying. And you know, it’s a little unique in the business that we are in, in two worlds, I’m in advertising, I’m an outdoor advertising. People don’t look at it that way. And I’ll also have an aviation background, we use aviation to advertise our messages to millions of people. I like to say I’m in the aviation world, but really, I’m in the advertising world. And but I use aviation, which is my passion of flying, to complement that to reach millions of people. And it’s very unique. I mean, people, to this day, even when I was growing up there, like, you know, my father would be outside, you know, maybe doing a hard or happy face or marry me proposal, and I’d be at school looking out the window and say, hey, yeah, that’s my dad. And like, yeah, right now, it’s not, we don’t believe you. Who’s that? You know? That’s my dad. No, no. And eventually, you know, I get him to come to, you know, schools and, you know, give little talks. And then like, that’s so cool. And, you know, like you said, going back to your conversation, like when you know, so cool. I think, your friends and people you’re hanging out with going, that is cool. I wish I had that. And you don’t you take that for granted. Because you don’t realize that when you’re in it, it’s it’s when you step back and look, look at it, and you hear it from third parties and how cool it is. And that’s where it all kind of circles back.
Max Branstetter 6:26
I just had a visual of like a little kid on a TV show who points at the sky and goes, That’s my dad. Actually, that might be part of Superman or something. But yeah,
Stephen Stinis 6:38
well, you live, I mean that that type of reaction is very similar. And, you know, I grew up in Southern Orange County in California. And that was a major market that my dad would be flying overhead when I was in grade school. And it wouldn’t be too often that I would not see him up in the sky. But it was when he did. Everyone knew. And then it’d be like, Hey, I saw your dad this week. And I saw this, I saw that What was he trying to write what you know, it’s all these questions that come up. But it was cool.
Max Branstetter 7:14
So speaking of cool, let’s get to your family business. So So skydivers was super legendary, historic. I’m trying to think of new adjectives, but it’s a legendary historic company and one of the only in the world to do something like this. And I know the seed of it really started going back to 1932. But can you just expand a little bit on how long and storied of a history your company has?
Stephen Stinis 7:44
Yeah, in fact, we actually made a documentary a little bit on it. 1932 You know, my grandfather came over from Greece migrated out migrated over here. He got excited and boxing and racing motorcycles and aircraft was one of his other thing. He learned how to fly himself, was quite good at it, and then met a small little company group founders, called the Pepsi-Cola Company. Back in the day, no one knew where they were. They’re trying to make their name. This is down in Flushing, New York. My grandfather learned how to spy right and was quite good at it and started writing Pepsi in the sky. For many years, back then, there was no television there was no good advertising methods. This was the major form of communication and out and advertisement was outdoor. And skywriting was a big deal. And they started a company called Skywriting Corporation of America that grew to like 22 Airplanes over the years writing Pepsi and other types of major brands, cigarette brands at the time. My grandfather, when he started doing all this stuff and takes when he skywriting is one airplane, like you’re writing your name with a pencil on a piece of paper, we write it upside down backwards, so you can read it right side up. And normally it takes about two to three minutes to form a letter. These letters are massive, they’re like 2500 feet tall. My grandfather was like, hey, there’s got to be a better way to do this, where we can say slogans and words and sentences. And so through the years and about 19, late 50s They start experimenting with doing multiple aircraft and came up with the terminology as we know today is Sky typing. And sky typing is five aircraft, it could be more in alignment, brass formation, that’s the back then wasn’t computer control, but we’ll use the terminology that was computer controlled for lack of better purposes. And it would do a dot matrix print are in the sky, for me large messages in the sky and it would take about four seconds to do a letter versus the skywriting that took about three to four minutes. That grew through the years. It’s a novelty item. It’s cool, it’s spectacular. No one knows where we’re going to write, they see a letter, and curiosity compels everybody to look up the sky, where they’re going to say next, which makes it the perfect advertisement because it embeds the words and branding into your brain. And you remember it. And we advertise Coppertone tan for 20 years as an example, all over the beaches. And to this day, I have people that come to me and say, I remember when used to write Coppertone almost every weekend I cook Yeah, I go, you remember that advertisement? Oh, yes. I said, What was the last billboard you saw off the side of the road? No one can remember. You know, so sky typing has a good impact. Through the years, we expanded into in 1965, we took the company and came out west for Loris, gutters, potato chips, it was a two week campaign back in the day. I was not a twinkle yet, in My Father’s Eyes. My grandfather, my dad actually grew up in the business, he learned how to fly before he learned how to drive a car. That’s all he did his whole life from growing up. And my grandmother would take him to the airport, and he’d go fly where were to airplane, which was crazy. To think about it to this day. He was like 1415 years old. And he learned how to sky right with my grandfather and learn how to Sky type, my grandfather, and then he kind of took on the role. And he came out with my grandfather in 1965. And California. My dad loved it here so much. The weather is beautiful. He goes on that going back to New York, hence how we started the East Coast and West Coast Division. My dad never left and he met my mother shortly after that. And the rest is history when I came along. So for a period at that point in time, my father ran an East Coast and West Coast Division for about a period of 10 years. But the company itself has expanded. And we have operations now in Las Vegas. We have three fleets in the United States right now we have another fleet in, in London in Europe. We have traveled, we’ve taken the whole fleet and gone abroad to Japan, to China, to South Africa, to France, good key places all over the world doing major branding campaigns. So the expansion at that point, when I started coming in the company was basically putting this all on the 21st century page, which is technology was major technology upgrades with the system that was in place that I made everything digital, it was computer controlled, it controls the output of the smoke puffs that we put in the sky and we have all these variables now we can get technical, we can do logos, we can put multiple airplanes in the sky. So before the system wasn’t replicatable it was one of a kind. And now that we build computer, basically sky typing systems that we partner with certain partners if they want to start up an operation internationally or be a partner of ours in the States. Like I said, I started when I was five years old flying right and I grew up in the business I lived it I got my bachelor’s degree in Finance minor in economics and, and financial management. And went the corporal route. I still have my pilot’s license on the weekends helping the family business out and saying there’s, there’s ways to make it better and grow. It took me eight years to make the new sky typing system. And which I read patented. My grandfather patented the first tightening system in 1964. And there’s been iterations of that throughout the years. And everything’s Wi Fi controlled. 2004 is kind of when I came in the picture in the business full time as president, one our first jobs that I was involved with, we took all the aircraft at we recently acquired and took them to Japan for a Pocari Sweat campaign for 45 days all over Japan and we traveled all over Japan and had tour bus and TV stations following us around and we’re on 22 different TV some newspaper articles and 45 days it was really cool.
Max Branstetter 15:04
You mentioned the progression from skywriting to Skytyping, which, you know, the the next generation says, SkySnapchatting, no I’m just kidding, but what’s actually going on in skytyping like you don’t need to reveal all your secrets. But like when somebody is looking up and sees these letters forming really quickly, as you mentioned in the sky, how is that actually working with the planes,
Stephen Stinis 15:27
it’s basically formation flying, and we have a five aircraft and a line abreast formation. The one computer is in the master computers we call it is in the lead ship in the middle, it basically syncs up to the other aircraft to be a Wi-Fi, I have a massive computer on board that whatever I type basically will come out. So all the all the pots need to do is get into that land abreast formation and then hold it. And I start the computer and automatically, it lets out smoke puffs in a sequence that form letters as tall as the Empire State Building. And every four seconds we’re doing a letter. So it’s a dot matrix layout. So you know, just imagine from left to right, like hello, world, h e l l o w coming out. And it’s in curiosity. Just you know, everyone just stares at the sky. What is it gonna say?
Max Branstetter 16:26
You didn’t know you were signing up for a spelling bee today? No, no, I will start off with an easy one. Hello? No, but that’s really quite what actually piqued my interest for reaching out to you in the company in the first place for this interview is we’re in the Hamptons this summer and saw sky typing up in the sky and I don’t know if this is your a different company, but it was for Mohegan Sun. Yeah. Yeah. So it just
Stephen Stinis 16:53
to clarify, we’re the only company in the world that does this.
Max Branstetter 16:57
All right. Well, it was definitely when we saw the spot, like you said, we just stopped what we’re doing and we’re looking up at the sky like wait, what like what is we’ve seen something like it before, but how does it work? We it’s it was high enough in the sky that you can clearly see the letters but you couldn’t see the plane so we’re like as as planes as it drones. Is it like as a one plane is it five planets, so it’s there’s definitely some magic behind it, of how it actually works. And any way you slice it, the letters are legible, loud and clear, and was just such a cool thing to see in an a beautiful sunny day.
Stephen Stinis 17:36
Yes, blue skies definitely. Sure work the best. We’re usually why you can’t see the aircraft is because we are actually two miles in the sky. Up in altitude, we fly about 10,500 feet up in the sky. That makes the plane look very tiny. The reason for that atmospherically the smoke lasts a lot better up an altitude. It keeps us away from most conventional aerial, other aircraft in the area. And it keeps us high. And the reason for that because the messages are so long, that message you saw in the sky was five to seven miles in length. And when we do it two miles up in the sky, you can easily read read it from 10 to 15 miles in any direction. So even though we’re ever you were at and you saw this message, it was probably done 10 miles away or five miles away, at least it wasn’t done over your head because when it does, it looks like it’s just right over top your overview. But if you saw it and you saw the whole message, the sky has infinity to it. You know what you can see. So when you put these large messages in sky You don’t realize how big they are. And that’s the reason why we fly at that altitude. We reach millions of people so I can go downtown New York and I can cover 20 million people in a couple of hours. I can cover all of New York with we got grand Mohegan Sun Mohegan Sun Mohegan Sun Mohegan Sun, you know, I can cover everybody and in a two in two hours
Max Branstetter 19:16
and that’s exactly what it said Mohegan Sun Mohegan, Mohegan Sun, the tongue twister there but how you mentioned the smoke dissipating or or, or the lack of that. How long does it typical sky typing message stay visible for?
Stephen Stinis 19:29
Well, I’m going to be very conservative in my my communication on this. It’s an average five to seven minutes in length. We’re doing a new message a 20 character message takes about three and a three and a half minutes to make so easily. You can see two messages in a row if we’re circling the area without, you know, the other ones starting to fall apart. In a traditional advertising world, typical The commercials are 15 seconds long, you know, or 30-second clips. So you know, we have messages that are lasting five to seven minutes. So the last last ability and the readability. And if we’re repeating it, they’re getting multiple impressions on that message. So it makes it from an advertising standpoint, you know, home run,
Max Branstetter 20:23
I would venture and say Grand Slam, but that’s just to be conservative here. It is, like it, it has that wow factor
Stephen Stinis 20:32
in, for example, we can fly over the stadium. And we can do 360, we can orbit the message all the way around the stadium, you know, not saying there’s a lot of people at a stadium there is there’s 40 50,000 people at a ballgame being done. And we can circle that message all around that and we’re covering that. And we’re covering 10 miles in any direction, where that message has been laid out around the stadium, for example. It’s mind boggling if you start thinking about what we’re doing and what we’re covering and who’s watching it and who sees it.
Max Branstetter 21:06
Yeah, I have my calculator and an abacus out here. Trying to put it all together.
Stephen Stinis 21:10
Yes, yes, we’re just a mass advertiser. It hasn’t been towards its full capacity. Yet, I don’t think there’s definitely room for improvements on everything. And expansion. I like to see this in every major city being done on a on a regular basis. And it’s taken for granted that it’s more of a niche, industry or way of communication. I know we use a lot of the internet and social media, and this is a perfect trigger for social media is, you know, we have online advertising. But we are the Mecca when it comes to outdoor advertising. Not everybody is always indoors every day, there’s millions of people outdoors. And this is the way to get your message across public service messages, all the way up to you know, private messages from a small wedding to, you know, the Superbowl or the Olympics, which we’ve done both.
Max Branstetter 22:19
Yeah, those are not bad ones to have on your your resume. So on the advertising front, you mentioned from very early days of the company, like one of the first clients in the more skywriting days was Pepsi. And now they’re, I think more than two or three people know what Pepsi is now. But how have you and the family and the team over the years and you know, over decades and almost a century now continue to attract, you know, clientele that includes some of the biggest brands in the world.
Stephen Stinis 22:53
You know, it’s a lot of dedication, and work, companies constantly rebrand, including with their staff and everything like that. Back then you’d meet somebody, you didn’t have an advertising agency back then you had, you knew the owner of the companies, and you had a relationship. And a lot of it was relationship building. And knowing these people, they trust you, you trust them. You build these brands together. And now we’re at a point where our roles oversaturated. And the people that run these companies are sometimes newer to that world, meaning they’re younger. They haven’t seen this type of work before. And to them. It’s like a newfound brand. Oh, I’ve nursing sky typing for Wow, just like you did. You saw it over the Hamptons, it’s been around for 80 years not saying, you know, you see it a lot. The United States is a big world. And you know, we want to be out there pretty much every blue sky day, putting our messages across and attracting more and more bigger clients and clients that want to brand long term campaigns. Sometimes clients just have a small deal that you know, maybe they’re over a NASCAR event and you know, they’re having this event and they want to make a big splash. And they hire us to put a couple of messages up, which is cool, but it’s not really our forefront. But what we do we want to do is be a mass advertiser and a Brand Builder. Some of the other big brands like I telling you we did for 22 years was Coppertone. We also were known as the Miller squadron. Miller Brewing company hired us and we painted the airplanes and put Miller over the side and went to Miller Brewing events and a lot of that was for ambush advertising against Budweiser back in the 80s. We’ve had sponsorships with you know other brands and insurance company. We’re known as the Geico Skytypers for a while with Geico, GEICO Insurance advertised As in GEICO all over the United States, East Coast, West Coast, we did some sponsorships with AT&T, I can go on and on, that these big companies use us. And most of these companies, the same people are not there today. So it’s just going back with them with the relationship and saying, Hey, we’ve worked with you for many years, you know, what about using this, continue to use us for your brand building and online social media campaigns or whatever is working for them. It’s a constant battle for us to you know, reaching out, getting hold of the right people, and there’s plenty of events, I’ll tell you that to keep us busy.
Max Branstetter 25:43
What do you see is the split of how often these campaigns are, you know, like big brands want to target, you know, residential areas with high visibility versus more precise, you know, over a specific sporting event or concert, something like that.
Stephen Stinis 26:01
You know, it gets it gets down to very precision to very non precision approaches. Some companies just want to get their name out there and they pick an area, I want to cover LA Metro or I want to cover the beaches. Other clients sometimes get down to a specific address, I get, you know, I got this guy in the backyard wants to see this. And you got to be at, you know, a North heading five degrees, and it gets down to crazy stuff
Max Branstetter 26:30
like that. But that leaves the room open for lots of prank opportunities, I think.
Stephen Stinis 26:34
Yes. Yes. It is something with Joe Rogan. Oh, I heard about that, actually. Yeah, yeah, it’s it went viral. You know, we do a lot of Netflix and Prime Video, new new movies, and, you know, cinema movies, to to online movies, just anything, you know, when the client wants to get out there and get their message across. And it can be, I want a specific location, we also opened up, you know, straight out of Compton, with that movie that came out. And we were all over Compton and all over the beaches area doing that stuff,
Max Branstetter 27:14
the possibilities are endless, or I would even say sky’s the limit. I’m sure you haven’t heard that one before. But there’s so many great partnership opportunities there. And as you mentioned, at the start, it combines aviation and advertising. So it’s a it’s a shame that your family has such a boring business, like really nothing exciting about it was just it amazing history over the years. If you were to look back and think to your tenure, as well as the 10 years before you, what would you say is kind of like the main pillars that have helped you stay in business and stay thriving, you know, generation after generation.
Stephen Stinis 27:52
Oh, let’s see, obviously, a lot of its rebranding and innovation, what the computer technology has helped us, and just what things happen in the world, we went through a pandemic, we put a lot of public service messages up in the sky. Everybody stay stay safe, stay inside, we’re going to get through this motivational words in the sky. And it brightens people’s days. And, you know, one day, we just go up sometimes and just put a heart in the sky. Get back to the community and and you know, just you know, it brightens people’s days, some some of that stuff, and it’s remembered, every time we go up. We’re our own advertisement. And I think the more we go up, the more we get phone calls to phones ringing off the hook. So we know it works. And we just constantly reinvent ourselves. We you know, we’ve been the same company for over 8080 years now. We’re looking to grow it more and more every day.
Max Branstetter 28:58
If Skytypers is where aviation meets advertising, then the Podcasting to the Max newsletter is where entrepreneurship meets podcasting, or even where podcasting meets entrepreneurship. You can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter He had a short and sweet and cringy funny funny, maybe just cringe, email and joke every Thursday. That also includes some short, sweet insights on how to become better at podcasting and how to become a better entrepreneur. Sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now let’s get back to the sky with some sky high rapid-fire q&a, which doesn’t rhyme with sky but close enough. Let’s wrap up with some rapid fire q&a. You’re ready for it. Go for it. All right, this one is we’re recording this from the sky – no, I’m just kidding. But
Stephen Stinis 29:51
let’s go out 10,000 feet altitude right now having this discussion.
Max Branstetter 29:57
It’s true. It’s true. That’s inspiration for future Are episode,
Stephen Stinis 30:00
there’s one cool thing I’ll tell you that we do with our customers when we do personal messages, and I’ll tell you technology’s come a long way. But we have a sat phone in the airplane where I can text live to a customer and let them know that if they’re doing a surprise, or will you marry me type of thing, and I can give them a heads up a five minutes, I’ll be over your head, you know, and I get a text message and they get it already, and we put the marry me or special message up in the sky, something you couldn’t do before. And at 10,000 altitude, you just can’t get a cell signal up there. So that’s one enhancement, that’s been kind of cool. And in keeping us moving forward with what we do in the precision.
Max Branstetter 30:42
The technology is always there. Speaking of execution, besides one that you’ve mentioned already, what what was a campaign that you did for a client that was for whatever reason, extra memorable,
Stephen Stinis 30:55
there are several, and they’re all different shapes and forms. Literally, one minute, my dad to the Olympics and Kenny for in in Los Angeles, he end up putting the Olympic rings in the sky and forming that and teaching five other guys or four other guys to learn how to make rings, because we had to do it simultaneously. And if we were three seconds off, the smoke ring, or the Olympic ring would have been 600 feet bigger in each direction, and it would, it would change those shape of the of the rings. And, of course, also not being precision enough, we would have collisions in the sky, with the aircraft because they all had to do it simultaneously. So that was a major, major deal. They also released about 20,000 balloons in the 84 Olympics on the opening ceremonies. And these were high altitude balloons when we were sky typing over the top writing welcome in the sky. And these balloons actually pass right through us through our formation and everything like that. Trying to do the Olympics. That’s an example of one situation. Another one was, we were in Chicago, we were doing the Ryder Cup. And the interesting part is the European team hired us to fly against the US team. And they thought when we started Skyping because we were writing Hey, go Europe go this go that and writing golfers names in the sky. They thought we came from Europe and we were flying over the airspace and writing these messages. Hence Tiger Woods was in that at the time, Tiger Woods had a lot of situations going on with his personal life with other women. We wrote Where’s Tiger? He’s probably with you know, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla in the sky, who wrote all the girlfriend names in the sky. As an example, the interesting part of that is, then the US tried to call the FAA tried to ground us try to do interesting stuff to not let us fly anymore. Because we were, we were changing the motivation of the game. And people were looking to the skies, and they were concentrating on the ball and all these different hoopla. So what happened, but that was a cool memory. Also, when we were there, we got the Guinness World Book of World Records. The company that hired us wanted to do a world record. So I had the Guinness World Book of Records guy, they’re the official guy, he took note of it, and we became the world’s largest advertiser in the world. I think our billboard that we did was over 33 million square feet. And I have a whole record
Max Branstetter 33:50
on it. Congrats Oh, now you can officially say you’re the largest advertiser in the world, and people can take from that whatever they want.
Stephen Stinis 33:58
Yes, exactly.
Max Branstetter 34:00
What is a dream destination that you would love to do a skydiving execution?
Stephen Stinis 34:08
Well, that’s an interesting question. It hasn’t been abroad very much. And I would like to, you know, Dubai was one a destination that was booming and growing, and definitely, in the Asia market as well. That we were looking at expansion to, I would like to see it out there. It’d be great to go to Greece, for example, but there’s not a big market there. But that’s just a personal thing of mine just because of our roots. And it’d be interesting to put that full circle one day.
Max Branstetter 34:42
Do you have a dream brand that you haven’t yet partner with? That would be Wow, that’d be really really cool.
Stephen Stinis 34:49
There’s a few you know, they changed so often you don’t know if how long they’re gonna last.
Max Branstetter 34:56
This is true. That’s true. Not not as long as you last and this guy
Stephen Stinis 35:00
That’s right. But there’s a lot of there’s a lot of brands out there. But it’d be cool to do something even with the newer technologies with even Tesla or SpaceX programs, just complementing each other of innovation in the sky of what we do. I think it’s a cool thing. Why not have aviation? Promote aviation so to speak?
Max Branstetter 35:23
You live to Greek heritage. What is hands down? The best Greek food of all time?
Stephen Stinis 35:34
Well, I can’t go. I can’t complain about the lamb. The sweets are obviously the second best thing of Greek heritage food. And there are certain traditional things that you can’t go without. There’s a thing called we call it a moussaka. Yeah.
Max Branstetter 35:51
My wife Dana always shouts out the scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding where they say Mouss-kaka?!
Stephen Stinis 35:59
Exactly, exactly.
Max Branstetter 36:01
It’s good stuff.
Stephen Stinis 36:02
Yes, it’s good. It’s a Greek lasagna.
Max Branstetter 36:05
That’s what I always say. Okay, cool. All since since you’re Greek I will tell people that that’s officially certified as Greek lasagna now.
Stephen Stinis 36:13
Yes. Because well, it no one tell you differently. They make a great liquor as well. There’s some ouzo and yeah, have you heard of that and Metaxa good brandy wine.
Max Branstetter 36:27
This is just a walk down memory lane a flight down memory lane now of the dino nice Greek trip a few years back, you know, once you get to experience the islands especially but also had a great time in Athens and wanted to experience Greece. It’s like, you always have a warm fuzzy feeling when actually it may be kind of a burning feeling when it comes to ouzo but it was oh and all the all of the food there dips and oh my god, it’s so good. Oh, yes.
Stephen Stinis 36:52
Ziqi sauce and the hummus and I can go on.
Max Branstetter 36:57
I’m not kidding we at the time of this recording we literally made Greek chicken Greek seasoned chicken and Sikhi that we’re having this week and we hate it. We ate it last night so there’s that there was pregame for this interview.
Stephen Stinis 37:09
There you go. That’s very good. Chicken he has some fed evolves with it. It enhances the flavor. Oh, of
Max Branstetter 37:15
course. Of course why? I like both of those things. But Dana doesn’t like olives because you know every it’s so polarizing. There’s always they say couples often one side likes all this one doesn’t. But I love them. So really, really good stuff. But anyway, we could talk Greek food forever. But last one, what’s your favorite Greek appetite? No, I’m just kidding. What? Yeah, no, but you yourself are a pilot as well. As you mentioned, what’s the most beautiful view you’ve ever seen from up at the sky?
Stephen Stinis 37:47
Sunrise, sunrise on a clear still morning winter. The mountain tops out here in California where I can see the the mount tops with snow on to the ocean is just breathtaking out here in Southern California area. Something we really take for granted with the with the weather. But you know sunrise or sunset has been pretty cool. in a foreign country. When I was in Japan had some beautiful breathtaking aerial shots and scenery I saw things that most Japanese grow their whole life have never seen before. Because generally aviation is not very big out there. It’s growing. Seeing parts of the world just you know your hand a handful people have seen those are
Max Branstetter 38:41
sensational and sunrise sunset are always beautiful, but it’s got to be that much that much more beautiful. When you’re 1000s of feet in the air.
Stephen Stinis 38:50
Yep. The other cool part is actually seeing your own work from altitude. Sometimes I put a heart out on Sunset. Not at sunset, but you know we had there’s a sunset in Hollywood over here, but typically, at around sunset, you as you know the sky sometimes in the winters. With the clouds, they turn red. But if you hit a heart, for example, they do a skywriting heart right at the right moment. It turns red in the sky. Oh, that’s perfect. And it’s kind of cool. And that’s, that’s a tranquil piece where you can do it about, you know, 10 11,000 feet, and then spiral down about 6-7,000 feet and look up and get a picture of it or something like that.
Max Branstetter 39:37
That’s a full day of fulfilling. Yeah. Well, Stephen, thank you so much. This has been incredible and I can’t resist. I’m on cloud nine. So thank you so much for all you do and and sharing super cool company and family history here with us today. Where’s the best place for people to learn more about your company and if anybody wants to connect with you online,
Stephen Stinis 40:01
our website, it’s Skytypers.com. There’s some videos on there and some, you know, just the how tos as well, my contact should be in there and contact us. We also have a good sales department, I have an 800 number, you can find your way to me as well. My email is . So as to reach me directly perfect or just look up if all else fails. Exactly. Yeah, that happened one day, I just I wanted so certain individual call me. And it was over Las Vegas had to be one of the casinos there. And I said, Hey, so and so I put his name in the sky and said call me. And then I wrote sky diapers.com He did call me was crazy.
Max Branstetter 40:51
It works. It works. It’s the ROI or row as sounds pretty good. Last thing, Final Thoughts, stages, years, it could be a quote, just kind of words to live by whatever you want. Send us home fly us home here.
Stephen Stinis 41:02
First of all, I will say thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And hopefully this is a lightning for us. It was for me. I look forward to growing this business being here. To the next level, we might be doing this with drones in the near future. Or different glow in the dark sky writing. Maybe we’ll do it from space. So we’re onward and upward. Sky is not the limit. But it definitely is. The next point that we’re going to
Max Branstetter 41:36
Sky is no longer than limit. Thank you, Stephen for pushing the limits for creating some amazing things in the sky you and your family for years and years and years, many years. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite podcast app and tell a friend about the podcast and think of a really cool way to prank them through this guy. You can also find us on Goodpods, where there are really really good podcasts and podcast recommendations and people. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That’s at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
