Transcript 

Welcome to the Hundredfold Business Podcast where Christian men learn the principles, strategies, and tactics to grow their businesses top line, bottom line, and finish line. I want you to discover the secret to applying biblical truth to business growth for the greatest kingdom impact. So in the end you hear from your Heavenly Father, well done.

Welcome to the Hundredfold Business Podcast where Christian men learn how to grow their businesses top line, bottom line, and finish line. And I'm your host Josh Fonger, founder of 4th Soil Ventures. And today we have a special guest, we have Tony Marcella.

Tony is the co-founder and CEO of Shiloh Technologies and Last Hour Hosting, an organizer of the annual Shiloh Echo Conference. He's also a full-stack developer and low-voltage electrician. His work has been featured on CBS National News and he's passionate about creating innovative solutions for a more secure and self-sufficient lifestyle here in America.

Welcome Tony, thanks for being on the show. Yeah thanks, glad to be here. All right Tony, very excited today to talk to you about how you've integrated your Christian faith into your various businesses.

I know you're an entrepreneur so you always have things going. And I want to talk a little bit about also AI and technology and some of the emerging things that are happening because I know that you've been doing a lot of thinking and research on that. And of course you have a conference about it as well.

So to start the interview, Tony, let's start by finding out how God has directed your path to get where you are right here. Yeah, and it's a great question. I'll do my best to kind of summarize, but I assume like most of your listeners, the Lord has been very much directing the steps that my wife and I've taken in business and did not expect to be in the line of work that I'm in today.

It's been a journey. But I actually, since high school, had been suffering from this undiagnosed illness and it wasn't until last year that we finally diagnosed it as cystic fibrosis. So that plays a huge part in my journey because it caused me to have ups and downs over the years.

But I ended up going to college in Sacramento, California, in that area for a degree in science. So I thought I was going to diagnose myself at the time. I got a Bachelor of Science in kinesiology.

I thought I was going to get into the health field and wound up realizing that that wasn't the path for me and met a very influential business mentor. This was my first introduction to entrepreneurship right out of college. And up to that point, Josh, I really suffered with this boredom at any job I had.

I had, I think, around 20 different employee roles and I'd been in most every aspect of the company. And every one, I just felt like there was more, something was missing. And it wasn't until I met this mentor of mine.

His name was Brian Beauches. He and his wife actually manage the John Maxwell Institute now and really influenced my life, made me realize what I loved was entrepreneurship, because I was always trying to be that guy at the top, you know, directing things, helping organize the company. And I was being told not to.

I was getting into things I wasn't supposed to. But yeah, that really set me on the path that I've been on since then. And that's been like maybe seven years that I've been on this journey of entrepreneurship.

And regarding my faith, I really started out working with, you know, some secular companies in the tech space. And the thing that a lot of people really come across, especially in the tech industry is kind of the godlessness. So I was working for several startups in various different industries and was exposed early on to things that were morally compromising.

And I'll never forget, Josh, I was working for an accelerator at one point and found out there was like money laundering going on. There is, you know, just moral stuff going on. And yeah, I was in a meeting with my team.

And again, this was in California. And I remember leaning over to one of the people in management there. I said, wow, you know, what's going on here? It seems like a HR violation, essentially.

And the guy was like, well, that'd be awkward because I am HR. And that really soured my tone because they were aware of what was going on and they were allowing it. And again, to recap, there was bills being pushed on a team.

There was money laundering. They would open up, you know, people's co-workers' private lives in the business and start making comments about relationships, just really lewd stuff, really gross. And there was a lot of money involved.

This group I was with, you know, they were a billionaire. So they were flaunting their wealth, you know, driving around in like a Bentley. And what I thought I wanted wasn't it.

And from there, I heard the Lord telling me to leave that group, that culture. And essentially, I'll never forget, I sat down with the owner of that company and said, hey, here's the reasons why I'm leaving. And he essentially interrogated me, you know, asking where I was going, what I was doing.

He forced it out of me. And he was super upset. And he said, you know what, Tony, you know, my company doesn't stand or fall based on what you're saying here.

And boy, I was glad that I left because only a couple of months later, it completely went under that company I was at. And I never wanted my paycheck to be held hostage again. And so that moment, I felt the Lord say I want every hour of every day from your work.

And it was a very difficult decision, Josh, I went from making quite a bit every year to less than 20,000. And I was living in a single bedroom, bachelor pad, you know, paying dirt cheap rent. And I was just building a contract work.

That's what I was doing at the time was just finding, you know, one off jobs that I could do, I was starting to learn at that point into programming. And that's kind of the start that I got. And the Lord's been faithful since then to grow that network into a team into a company, so on and so forth.

So it's kind of like the garage story that a lot of entrepreneurs have, but instead of a garage, it was a bedroom. So that's kind of a background. Well, then tell us about your companies right now.

So what is Shiloh Technologies and Last Hour Hosting do? Yeah, and again, it was born organically out of these needs that kept coming up. I kept meeting business owners that had issues with technology, particularly in IT, in management, in the software side. And so I was just taking on these projects.

And every single one that I was seeing, there was a consistent theme, Josh. And that was the business was sick and tired of technology. They were stressed out of their minds by it.

And they didn't own anything that they did. So they were beholden to Google or Apple or Amazon or these companies. And that really annoyed me.

And I went to try to figure out alternatives. And when we got to the right size, we had multiple people on our team, we needed a name. And the name Shiloh just kept coming up.

I didn't quite understand why that name until later on, I realized the meaning of the name Shiloh and it means peace. It means unity. And I thought what a perfect message for the audience that we're trying to reach is to give peace in a very chaotic world and be that solution.

And so Shiloh exists to give stress-free solutions for your peace of mind. And we've got a number of avenues that we do that. We have last hour hosting that we built.

We got tired of dealing with these other hosting companies. And so we built our own from the ground up. It's been over three years now working on that.

The last hour hosting, fully based in the US, all of your managed services, cloud services, SEO software. So that's tackling the technology space. And the niche is, it's all US based.

We're wanting to reestablish jobs here in the US in the tech industry. And then the annual retreat is another aspect of that piece. We're reaching the people that are interested in privacy, off-grid, homesteading, simple living.

And everything that we do is based on biblical principle. So we're seeing how can we redeem this industry, this space. If that gives an overview, I know it's not super in depth here.

That's great. Great to get an overview of all the things you've been involved in. Now, as a Christian, a CEO leading these organizations, how does training, discipleship, or how do the decisions get made as the owner? How does your faith inform how the workplace even operates? From the very start, we have a playbook at our company.

And that's what we hold everyone in the company accountable to, even myself. And that playbook has to have a basis for morality. And we use the Bible for that basis.

That's worked out really great. I've had over the years so many growth opportunities with our team, whether it was holding me accountable or holding them accountable. And so I highly recommend looking into having a playbook for the basis for your company because it helps direct that culture.

And yeah, does that answer your question? Yeah, definitely. So with regards to making your company pretty openly Christian, has that affected who you work with? Do you mainly work with Christian non-profits and churches now, or is it open to the masses? Well, we've worked with quite a few churches and non-profits, and something that has come up over and over is that most every non-profit is understaffed, overworked, and underpaid. And we feel at Shiloh that we want to create new, what we call tent making opportunities.

So new channels of revenue that we can actually donate to our non-profit partners instead of relying on them for projects. And so we have a statement of faith. We're kind of unique.

We're a for-profit that has a statement of faith. That's our filter. We've worked with non-Christian owned companies.

We'll work with any company as long as they pass that filter. So we'll usually engage with them, share our statement of faith, and say, hey, we're glad to work together. As long as you don't ask us to go against this, we can do well.

And it usually self-declares when we talk to a company, they'll read it and say, well, we decided we're not going to be the best partners in this, and that's fine. Most every company has guiding principles and an ethic to it. We're just basing ours on a Christian culture.

So that's kind of the way that we work. We'll work with all kinds of industries. Funnily enough, most every industry except for technology is what we aim to work with.

Top line, bottom line, finish line. If you're not growing all three, we should talk. Too many business owners are struggling alone, stuck in the same cycle, going nowhere fast.

Scripture says that in abundance of counselors, there is victory. And I want to be that resource for you. For over 15 years, I've helped hundreds of small business owners break through their limits, build a solid plan, and multiply their impact.

Go to 4thsoilventures.com, schedule your free discovery call, and let's build your business by the book. Life is too short and eternity is way too long to build it any other way. So then what about prayer in your business? Is that a part of the decision-making process for how you guys strategize and lead your business? Absolutely.

I tell our team that Jesus is our CEO, and it's very true. When you surrender your finances and your business to the Lord and His direction, He will be a wall to you if He doesn't want you to move in a certain direction. I've experienced that before.

It doesn't make sense logically why something isn't working or going through. And in those moments, our team, we recognize it. We see the spiritual side of things, and we'll pray, and we'll seek the Lord.

Usually, there's an alternative that shows up to that situation. But yeah, we're very grateful to openly pray as an organization, and we even pray. It turns into a ministry with our clients, whether it's with Last Hour Hosting or sponsors or other projects that we work on.

It does often turn into an opportunity to pray together and encourage in that way. You mentioned that your business, of course, you have your tech companies that are doing that work. But also, you're an entrepreneur, so you have a lot of things going on.

One of them is this Shiloh Echo Conference. What is that about, and why, as a tech entrepreneur, are you pushing towards simple living, off-grid living that seems very non-tech? How do those fit together? Yeah, I explain to the people that we meet that we're about God's tech. I had a lot of issues spiritually, considering the way the world's been heading.

I know a lot of people that feel the same way. They look at AI, they look at robotics, and this idea of merging with machines, and the virtual, the fakeness, and it doesn't sit well. I'm looking at how we can use technology and still function.

As a business owner, we need tools, we need communications, we need ads, we need all these things, but not succumb to this direction that really makes me feel nauseous. Well, we're about God's tech. I believe that God's creation is natural order, which has to do with the simple living, the off-grid, the homesteading side, is the right direction.

If the world's moving toward merging with machines, we're saying, hey, let's disconnect from machines and reconnect with God's tech, his creation. It's the most advanced form of technology I think we'll ever encounter, what we see in nature. I think the Lord wants us to be students of his creation in that way.

This event, the Christian Family Retreat, we call it Shiloh Echo, is all about echoing those timeless principles. We're going to have Christian technologists there, so people that are looking at how do we make this stuff morally based. There's going to be blacksmithing, there's going to be horseback riding, foraging.

There's over 12 speakers that'll be there in different domains of this. I see it as a jigsaw puzzle. It's not like technology and then outdoors and simple living.

It's all part of a bigger picture that can work cohesively. So what does the average Christian CEO need to be aware of? They're running their business. Let's just say they're a doctor, they're a plumber, they're a home builder.

They run their business, and you're saying there's this immoral technology or technology that goes against God's order. What do they need to be aware of? What does that even mean? Yes. The love of money is the root of all evil.

Scripture is really clear. I would just follow the dollar. If you see that your money is going toward a certain activism or a certain direction, it's our responsibility to, as best we can, direct that money to an alternative.

And so I'm not saying that we have the full solution yet, but it's going to take a community, which is why this Echo event is so focused on community. I think the future is decentralized, small business, basically the opposite of globalism, to create that alternative and support it. We've got a lot of alternatives for business already, whether it's your e-commerce store, or it's your website, or it's your ERP logistics.

These solutions are more in line with, I think, the freedom and simple living because you fully own it. Not only are the dollars supporting a Christian principle, but with Last Hour Hosting, you fully own those solutions. Versus if you have a Shopify, they own your store and your data, and you're not even really sure what they're doing with your data.

I believe in transparency. I think that it's really clear scripturally that transparency is a biblical thing. A lot of the issues we're seeing in technology, the corruption, is from deception and a lack of moral accountability.

That's where I would start with that. For the average client that I have, they have a lot of their materials on Google or Microsoft or one of their platforms. They're using all the standard tools.

Essentially, all of their information is on the cloud somewhere. What is the concern with regards to digital privacy and what data sovereignty? What kind of things should owners be aware of with regards to using those tools? It's no secret what Google, Apple, and Microsoft are doing. There's a famous saying, there's no free lunch.

That would be a good place to start. If you're getting a tool or service for free, why is it free? Well, we know now through numerous lawsuits that these services are selling your data. That's the model that they're making money on.

You got to ask yourself, again, what am I supporting with my dollar? It's very clear after years now of these services being active, what's going on behind the scenes. They're selling your data. They're using it to trade in AI right now.

Then the support that they're giving toward possibly institutions or activism that you might not agree with as a Christian, that's cause for me to start searching for alternatives. Whether it's with Shiloh or another service, there's a lot of great options. And I don't know about you, but there's so many friends and family in our community that are without jobs right now.

And I would love to see a resurgence in the tech space and elsewhere, bringing jobs back to America, in our local communities. And then there's accountability. Like what are you going to do if you found out that Google's corrupt with your data or that you need help with something? The accountability is just not there for these giant companies.

But if you work for a smaller business or use their services, you're often going to get more control, more accountability, more options. So that's kind of my philosophy on it. But probably the biggest undoing for America right now is convenience.

I have a saying that convenience kills, because I don't think that just because Apple and Google and these companies are the most convenient, the easiest to use, that that should be the main principle. I think that these other services should be supported and improved. But I'm going on a tangent here, but overall, that's kind of the view I have on these services is just look at where the money goes.

Do you actually own what you're doing? Because that equates to freedom, right? If you own your services and tools, that allows you to operate decentralized as a company, listening as Christians, listening to the Lord's leading. I'm concerned about more situations in the future where if we're reliant fully on all these services, you're kind of under their direction as far as what they think is right or wrong for you to put on your business or to share. Yeah, I think we've also, you and I have talked offline about just mutual friends in the space where they've been shut down or they've been blocked or they've been had to, haven't been able to operate because certain tech companies didn't like their message because it was a biblical Christian message.

They're kicked off platforms and just realizing that if you're giving money to a platform that hates your ideology, your philosophy, hates your God, that the future might be a bumpy one. That's a space you're trying to to get into as well in terms of start producing solutions maybe before we need them because we will potentially need them sooner than we think. I want to end with this final question.

I ask everybody in the show is what would you say to encourage someone who has not yet fully embraced integrating their faith into their business, into their work? Well, I would encourage them to look around and see what other people have embraced and then consider if you're a Christian, how much better is the message that you're confident in, that you have faith in? Just listen to your coworkers in the workspace or if you are a management level or if you own a business, look at everything that's being espoused, the ideologies. It encourages me to be louder because a lot of this stuff the world is chasing after is just dumb. It's hopeless.

I've had long conversations with Silicon Valley executives or investors advocating for something like transhumanism and it's just not a salvation plan. Jesus has a complete plan and it's the most inclusive plan and I think if they have that confidence and freedom to speak about that in the workplace, we should too because everyone's putting their faith in something, whether it's science or institutions or something like going to Mars. A lot of people are putting their faith in that vision.

Our faith is stronger. I really believe that the solution that we're sharing, hopefully you've experienced personally. We were walking in the darkness, now we're in the light.

We see behind the veil here in the world what's going on. I'm confident to share that because I just get tired of hearing about everything else. I feel like it's just breaking my heart seeing the destruction it's causing in people's lives and really that's the mission at Shiloh.

We're using these things as a vehicle for the gospel. We want to capture interest and I think that's the same game plan that big tech is doing, but for other religions, other ideologies. I'll never forget Mark Zuckerberg brought in his guru, Eastern religion guru to give a talk to his company and you don't see anyone having issues with that, but as soon as you bring in the Christian, I find that interesting how much pushback there is on Christianity specifically and in the workplace, how much restrictions there are when all these other ideologies get pushed.

You could go in depth on it, all these religions that show up. That's my view on it. Perfect.

Tony, thanks for sharing your wisdom on the show today and your perspective. I know it's going to be an informative message to a lot of people who have not really thought much about technology, the morale of technology and the direction of technology. Where can folks go to find out more information about you and your companies? Go to lasthourhosting.org. I would love to have you check it out.

10% of every subscription goes to the Alliance for Defending Freedom. That's what I was talking about with supporting non-profits or if you're feeling like taking a break from the chaos in the world, there's faithfamilyfun.com and that's our annual retreat. All right.

Stay tuned everybody to the next episode. We'll be showing you how to grow your hundredfold business, one that glorifies God as it grows. If you need help with your business, you can always reach out directly to me at 4thsoilventures.com. Again, Tony, thanks for being on the show and thanks everybody for tuning in.

Until next time, grace be with you brothers.