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Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.

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Speaker 1: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank

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Speaker 1: National Association Member FDIC. When I did the podcast with

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Speaker 1: you all, I was telling you probably the most impactful

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Speaker 1: interview I've done in my career, how he.

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Speaker 2: Rolls out as real. He wrote, Troy talk about the

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Speaker 2: tags list.

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Speaker 1: About finance, but we talk in alish that is common

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Speaker 1: to the people.

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Speaker 3: That's from the dreunies that we grew up with.

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Speaker 4: You all are the bright spot thank rudership for Black Americans.

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Speaker 2: This is the knowledge that actually matters.

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Speaker 1: I plaug both of you for the Saint isn't it

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Speaker 1: a country issue. It's not American issue, it's a world issue.

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Speaker 5: You came to earn Lisa.

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Speaker 2: All right, guys, welcome back e y l a special episode,

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Speaker 2: you know, long overdue friends of ours and people that

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Speaker 2: have really built tremendous business and really revolutionized the industry

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Speaker 2: that for a long time kind of was in the

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Speaker 2: dark ages. When it comes to technology in the barbershop,

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Speaker 2: we think of barbershop industry. So yeah, we got a

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Speaker 2: song David from Squire. If you're not familiar with Squire,

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Speaker 2: that's an app that actually allows well i'll let you

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Speaker 2: guys talk about it, but how I know. It is

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Speaker 2: an app that allows you to book for appointments for

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Speaker 2: your barber. Right, it allows the barber to manage the

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Speaker 2: schedule to run a barbershop like an actual operation. Right.

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Speaker 2: What's the other tech that's behind it as well?

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Speaker 6: That allows Another part that's important is the payments.

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Speaker 7: So we make that, you know, really really simple and easy,

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Speaker 7: kind of like that experience and when you're tak an uber,

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Speaker 7: you just get in, you know, through your ride and

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Speaker 7: then get out. You know, we have to worry about

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Speaker 7: tipping and cash and all that. We take that kind

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Speaker 7: of experience like to the barbershop as well.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and when we started this business like

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Speaker 4: nine years ago, you know, it was nothing Uber fifteen

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Speaker 4: twenty sixteen. Uber was just getting traction and the experience

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Speaker 4: of going down to the barbershop, having everything handled, just

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Speaker 4: walking out after. We just wanted that seamless experience. And

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Speaker 4: then we realized once we were in the business, the

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Speaker 4: real opportunity was streamline.

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Speaker 5: No entire operations of the business.

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Speaker 4: So that's kind of how Squire was born as a

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Speaker 4: full management system that it is today.

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Speaker 2: And the valuation right now is seven hundred and fifty million. Yes, congrats,

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Speaker 2: So congratulations. Thank you first and foremost, thank you God

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Speaker 2: for joining us. Man, appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: We run into y'all a lot, Dave. I feel like

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Speaker 1: we've run into each other all the time. So it's

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Speaker 1: good to have you out here, man, And like you said,

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Speaker 1: something that's disruptive, but it's helped our community for sure.

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Speaker 3: Lots of communities.

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Speaker 1: Get back time, which is the one asset that you

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Speaker 1: can't replicate, and you guys have done that.

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Speaker 3: So congratulations.

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Speaker 2: All right, so let's get into it. So, Okay, you

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Speaker 2: guys start an app which seems like that somebody should

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Speaker 2: have been in that, right. It wasn't something that was

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Speaker 2: like too far out of the realm of like thought

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Speaker 2: process as far as being able to book online, being

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Speaker 2: able to process payments correctly, being able to manage appointments

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Speaker 2: for barbers, like, it seems like something that you know

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Speaker 2: should have been in existence, right, but it wasn't. So

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Speaker 2: walk us through a how you guys developed a relationship

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Speaker 2: and the process of actually coming up with the idea

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Speaker 2: and then getting the idea off the ground into market.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: So David and I we were friends before actually starting Square.

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Speaker 6: We both were in New York.

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Speaker 7: I was working at a law firm at the time

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Speaker 7: and he was like in finance. So we had a

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Speaker 7: lot of friends that come and going out. You know,

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Speaker 7: we were in our twenties at the time, and after

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Speaker 7: a few years we were like really wanted to work

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Speaker 7: on something that would be more impactful, and we weren't

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Speaker 7: really kind of fulfilled with the corporate trajectory we were on.

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Speaker 7: So we were literally brainstorm ideas on the weekends instead

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Speaker 7: of going out. We used to sneaking to Columbia campus

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Speaker 7: because we both lived up uptown in Harlem and we

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Speaker 7: were literally just white whiteboard ideas like what could we

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Speaker 7: work on, what could we do that would actually, you know,

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Speaker 7: could have a legacy that they would have a bigger

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Speaker 7: impact on you communities just be more positive. And through

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Speaker 7: that process we came up with this this experience of

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Speaker 7: the barbershop.

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Speaker 6: Like both of us have been going to barber since

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Speaker 6: we were kids.

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Speaker 7: I started going like around six or seven off my

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Speaker 7: pops back in the day, and the experience of getting

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Speaker 7: haircut hadn't changed twenty years later. You go in, you wait,

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Speaker 7: it could be ten minutes, it could be two hours.

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Speaker 7: You might you know, you have to pay cash, you

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Speaker 7: text back and forth as your barber, And didn't make

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Speaker 7: sense that this one experience of life that was like

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Speaker 7: so important and so like joyous and one on the

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Speaker 7: one hand was also so painful. So that that's why

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Speaker 7: we came up the idea like how can we solve

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Speaker 7: this with technology.

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Speaker 4: Everybody got the experience when you go to barber shop

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Speaker 4: there's a big homie comes in and were like he's next.

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Speaker 3: I was seeing that for three hours.

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Speaker 4: Everybody has that experience, and you know, like that used

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Speaker 4: to having me an all the time with a little kid,

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Speaker 4: because you know, I grew up, you know, I used

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Speaker 4: to go to barbershop by myself because my alm was

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Speaker 4: working or whatever the case maybe. But with technology now

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Speaker 4: you can't do that because everything is ready, edgimented, everything

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Speaker 4: is on point.

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Speaker 5: And that's a harder.

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Speaker 4: That's harder pill the swallow for the barbershop, older barbers

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Speaker 4: to like say, nah, somebody else was.

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Speaker 2: Next, and a matter of what happens you used to

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Speaker 2: happen all the time. You make appointment at twelve, and

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Speaker 2: then even if nobody took your spot, the barber's just

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Speaker 2: running late, so it's taking an hour and a half

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Speaker 2: forty five minutes, so you don't actually get into the

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Speaker 2: chair until two o'clock, and it's like you you can't

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Speaker 2: really run your day by like kind of hoping and

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Speaker 2: wishing that there's a ninety minute window that you might

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Speaker 2: potentially get get cut. So if you have set slots

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Speaker 2: every hour right like that, it holds I think it

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Speaker 2: holds everybody accountable.

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Speaker 1: I think it's done a job for barbers. It's made

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Speaker 1: them more efficient with the time, but they're able to

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Speaker 1: cut more efficiency knowing like hey, I got somebody coming

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Speaker 1: out the here, let me be precise with this one,

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Speaker 1: make sure I can because I can get more people

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Speaker 1: in rather than wasting the time where it's like you'll

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Speaker 1: waiting for this dude or your next who I don't

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Speaker 1: know is they're actually becoming more efficient, which actually means

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Speaker 1: more customers, more clients, more.

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Speaker 4: Moment Absolutely absolutely, And now you know, with the AI

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Speaker 4: and being being in the squire now and having then

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Speaker 4: AI kind of like focused companies, the tools that we

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Speaker 4: able to leverage now is just incredible. Like we built Operator,

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Speaker 4: which you know I demo at LV barber Xpo. It's

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Speaker 4: a way for barbers to never have to answer their phone.

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Speaker 4: You know, people just call the barbershop and this human

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Speaker 4: like voice picks up and does all the scheduling for

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Speaker 4: you and really is able to like do like the

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Speaker 4: operations that normally a human would do. So we're just

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Speaker 4: it's just making the barbers and the barbershop owners lives

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Speaker 4: more efficient, and efficiency leads to more money.

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Speaker 1: At the end of the day, when y'all first figure

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Speaker 1: out that you're going to create a solution for this problem,

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Speaker 1: where's the first shop that you go to to tell

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Speaker 1: them about this technology that you're about to use. Do

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Speaker 1: you go back to the same spot, like, yo, bro,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sitting here for three hours, here's this product

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Speaker 1: that how did that go?

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Speaker 4: So the thing the thing with that is like what

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Speaker 4: we did was like we went out like when we

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Speaker 4: first had the idea, then we went out with a

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Speaker 4: iPad and and just ask questions like if we would

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Speaker 4: build this thing, would you use it? Like ask the feedback,

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Speaker 4: you know, interviews and like it's hard to tell somebody

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Speaker 4: know when you're ready been involved in the process all along.

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Speaker 4: So so what we did early on is we built

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Speaker 4: with the guys or with the owners, and we had

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Speaker 4: them a part of the process. And then when it

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Speaker 4: was time to launch, you can't really say you're not

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Speaker 4: doing this because you were lockstep the entire process.

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Speaker 2: So let me ask you this, as far as the idea,

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Speaker 2: it's a relatively it's not a complex idea, right, but

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Speaker 2: what does it take to actually get that tech to

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Speaker 2: make it come to life and make it the application

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Speaker 2: actually happen? Like how much money does that cost? And

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Speaker 2: what was the process as far as on the technical

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Speaker 2: side to actually make that app get up and running

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Speaker 2: in actually in the app store.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, So when we were at that stage, you know,

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Speaker 7: this was like almost ten years ago. There was no

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Speaker 7: vibe coding at the time. It's a total different world

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Speaker 7: where it was a lot harder to build that first

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Speaker 7: like MVP, first vision of the product to get in

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Speaker 7: front of the customers. So the approachure we took was

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Speaker 7: we wanted to recruit a co founder to be technical

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Speaker 7: that's like part of the team instead of outsourcing and

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Speaker 7: like paying And you know, some people do it in

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Speaker 7: different ways, but our philosopher is always like, if you're

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Speaker 7: paying somebody to build your product, you have inverse like goals,

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Speaker 7: like they want to do it for as fast as

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Speaker 7: possible and make as much money as possible, and you

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Speaker 7: want to get the best quality and pay as little

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Speaker 7: as possible. So you're already kind of set up for failure.

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Speaker 7: So we were really focused on recruiting somebody to be

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Speaker 7: our CTO and co founder, and it took some time

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Speaker 7: and we went through some you know, a couple iterations

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Speaker 7: where like it didn't work out, but eventually we did

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Speaker 7: find that person, and that person kind of joined the

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Speaker 7: company at the time and helped us build that first

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Speaker 7: first version of the product.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you guys don't come obviously when Lull you in finance.

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Speaker 1: How in depth did you have to get in the

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Speaker 1: technological side, right, because you're trying to build an app

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Speaker 1: that is going through Obviously you're going to recruit people

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Speaker 1: to find but how much did y'all have to get

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Speaker 1: in the weeds inside of tech to realize that we

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Speaker 1: have to understand this industry just as much as the

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Speaker 1: one that we came from.

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Speaker 7: It was a learning process. Like we didn't know anything

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Speaker 7: about tech, had never you know, started a tech company,

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Speaker 7: didn't have any connections in tech after at the time.

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Speaker 7: So honestly, we didn't know what we were doing. What

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Speaker 7: we did have is pretty good product instincts because we

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Speaker 7: were so close to the customers, so we understood the

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Speaker 7: pain points and kind of like what we were trying

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Speaker 7: to solve for. But in terms of under the hood

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Speaker 7: and act the actual process of like building something and

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Speaker 7: like actually like building the first version of the app,

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Speaker 7: which was an iOS app, were we were completely clueless

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Speaker 7: as to what was actually happening.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and we're it's a consumer facing application, so you know, directionally,

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Speaker 4: we you know what felt right in terms of like

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Speaker 4: a what a product actually operates, but in terms of

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Speaker 4: like under the hood, we didn't know anything.

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Speaker 7: I mean, how would you know, Like you're just starting out.

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Speaker 7: You have an idea and you're like I want to

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Speaker 7: go build this, but you don't actually know like what

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Speaker 7: it takes. Now, of course we've learned a lot, but

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Speaker 7: that you know further was like more reason and why

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Speaker 7: we wanted to have somebody on the team who was

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Speaker 7: aligned incentives and could help help build it out. Because

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Speaker 7: when you're non technical, especially back then before AI was

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Speaker 7: was the way it is now, like it's it's very

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Speaker 7: difficult to like understand from a from a technical process,

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Speaker 7: like what is actually required, Like something could take a

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Speaker 7: day and they could say it takes a month. You

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Speaker 7: have no idea, so you're really at it. There's an

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Speaker 7: asymmetry of like knowledge at that point. So when I

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Speaker 7: talked to early stage founders who want to be you know,

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Speaker 7: tech founders and want to start companies, I said, you know,

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Speaker 7: either learned the code.

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Speaker 6: Now you can learn a lot with AI and.

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Speaker 7: You can vibe code your way to a lot, but

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Speaker 7: really like you want to have someone on your team

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Speaker 7: who has a strong technical foundation if possible.

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Speaker 2: So how did what was a marketing campaign as far

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Speaker 2: as to get Barbers on board. Was it to get

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Speaker 2: barber's on board? Was you get the clients of barbers

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Speaker 2: on board? Like what was the.

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Speaker 4: First you know, we did everything under the sun, but

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Speaker 4: it was just so. So what happened in the beginning

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Speaker 4: is we thought that if we built this beautiful application

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Speaker 4: and folks started to use it, everything would run smoothly.

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Speaker 4: The barbers love it, the customers love it. Early financial

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Speaker 4: models had us get into ten billion dollars in three years.

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Speaker 5: But but that's before.

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Speaker 4: But but what was interesting is it didn't work. You know,

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Speaker 4: it didn't work anything that when we sent customers barberas

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Speaker 4: use would use it as a client acquisition tool and.

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Speaker 5: It would be a jancade experience for the users.

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Speaker 4: So folks would come in and a barber would have

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Speaker 4: them pay twice in the app and in the store

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Speaker 4: again because he didn't trust he or she didn't trust

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Speaker 4: the application. So there was stuff like that. There was

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Speaker 4: double bookings. So even though we would say, hey, use

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Speaker 4: this for your your all your appointments, he would then

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Speaker 4: or she would then just keep on taking appointents appointents

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Speaker 4: to a ways from existing customers. So we realized that if

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Speaker 4: we didn't have the entire back end for the entire barbershop.

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Speaker 4: It would we would still run into these problems over

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Speaker 4: and over and again. So we had to make sure

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Speaker 4: all the appointments and the barbershop went through this system.

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Speaker 4: So that was the first kind of unlock of like, hey,

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Speaker 4: we're not just building app, we have to build a

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Speaker 4: comprehensive system that manages everything through the barber shop.

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Speaker 2: So you targeted the barbershops. Yeah, did you give it

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Speaker 2: out for free at first? Absolutely?

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Speaker 7: So we were literally he and I walk into every

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Speaker 7: shop we could, like near our office in New York

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Speaker 7: or near where we lived, Like we were just like

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Speaker 7: walking ourselves. Wait, talk to the owner, try to get

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Speaker 7: them to use the app. Sometimes, you know, they didn't

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Speaker 7: want to hear from us because they were like, you know,

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Speaker 7: like where are you selling kind of things, especially in

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Speaker 7: New York. And sometimes we had to actually like book

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Speaker 7: a service, like what's the cheap of service you got?

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Speaker 6: Or beer trim?

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Speaker 7: All right, I'll pay you for that time, and then

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Speaker 7: when you're in the chair you can talk to them

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Speaker 7: and kind of get their attention. So we was really

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Speaker 7: like hand in hand combat.

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Speaker 2: How many how many did you give way for free? First?

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Speaker 4: Before you started, I mean, we didn't start charging for

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Speaker 4: the software into.

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Speaker 5: Like twenty twenty eighteen, so how many weeks?

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Speaker 6: Years?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, three years, yeah, just basically here. But we made

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Speaker 4: money on the like the transaction, so it's like, hey,

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Speaker 4: we still had some revenue coming in. But you know,

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Speaker 4: in the first you just got to when you're unproven,

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Speaker 4: when it's a new motion, you got to give it

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Speaker 4: away free to get product market fit.

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Speaker 3: So how did it? Most people probably thinking like how

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Speaker 3: do you guys make the money?

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Speaker 1: So the transaction fee, there's a percentage that goes from it,

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Speaker 1: then the subscription from the barbershops that use it.

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Speaker 3: That's how you built the business model.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: How much is that? How much is the subscription right now?

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Speaker 2: Like today?

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Speaker 4: So it's a one hundred dollars or two point fifty

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Speaker 4: depending on yeah, mo, yeah, depending on what features set

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Speaker 4: you have.

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Speaker 7: He starts at thirty individual parmer, Yeah starts at thirty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so if he has his own salon, that's just

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Speaker 1: like alright, So like now that there's the business part

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Speaker 1: of it, Like you're making the money, but you're giving

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Speaker 1: away for free, but you're trying to get it on

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Speaker 1: it's iOS you said, so you know that Apple's got

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Speaker 1: coming for that thirty percent? How did how you guys

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Speaker 1: envisioned in this and you're bouncing it to say, all right,

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Speaker 1: we need to make revenue.

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Speaker 3: We're giving the product way for free.

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Speaker 1: Yes, we're making some from the transactions, but we need

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Speaker 1: to keep the business alive.

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Speaker 7: Well, you know that's where earlier, when you're that early

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Speaker 7: before you're like making meaningful revenue, if you're able to

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Speaker 7: raise money, that kind of that capital and fusion is

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Speaker 7: what keeps the lights on it. And we were fortunate

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Speaker 7: to be able to raise like some angel rounds from

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Speaker 7: our network of people who we knew, not not big checks,

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Speaker 7: but you know, familiarhere, from like twenty thirty thousand to

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Speaker 7: up too hundred, So that that was our first capital

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Speaker 7: that they were able to raise, and that sustained us

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Speaker 7: over the first two or three years, just these these

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Speaker 7: angel checks that we were getting from from people we knew,

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Speaker 7: and because the revenue wasn't we were definitely not making

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Speaker 7: enough revenue to like support the business.

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Speaker 1: Was that was that a space that you all were

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Speaker 1: familiar with because the angel investment, I mean it's not

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Speaker 1: common to a lot of people.

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Speaker 4: Nothing, it's a network, you know, One of the guys

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Speaker 4: that gave us a big, you know, sign of approval

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Speaker 4: early on was Richard Luke Dennis Uh he invested money

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Speaker 4: when we have anything because what we had traction, but

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Speaker 4: not a lot of traction compared to today, but with venture,

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Speaker 4: you know, and the way we did it, because we

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Speaker 4: didn't have access to the traditional networks. We used to

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Speaker 4: just build something, get a little traction. Look what we built,

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Speaker 4: give us some like, go out to our network, get

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Speaker 4: some more traction. Go out to that network again, because

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Speaker 4: you know, back then it was very it was very

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Speaker 4: difficult to raise, you know, money, like for over four years.

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Speaker 4: It was just this piecemeal type of thing. We went

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Speaker 4: through y Commator, which is a big inflection point in

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Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, so we were able to raise some money

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Speaker 4: out of that. But we were very fortunate because a

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Speaker 4: lot of folks back then didn't didn't make it. But

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Speaker 4: because of our network, because of our pedigrees, because of

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Speaker 4: the hustle mentality, we were able to kind of just

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Speaker 4: raise some money.

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Speaker 2: So at what point do you start, Like the pathway

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Speaker 2: that being died at seven hundred and fifty million dollars,

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Speaker 2: right that comes from you obviously had multiple rounds of

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Speaker 2: being raising money, right, and then you have revenue coming

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Speaker 2: in as well, So when does it start becoming like

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Speaker 2: profitable as far as okay, this is now a real

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Speaker 2: business that we're running full.

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Speaker 7: Time, Say around the time we raised our Series A,

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Speaker 7: which was twenty nineteen, that was the first institutional money

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Speaker 7: so so meaning like a big firm that that will

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Speaker 7: give you, you know, one check that would be enough to

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Speaker 7: sustain you to get to the next How much was

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Speaker 7: that when that was for eight million paper that was

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Speaker 7: the most money we ever had at once and the

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Speaker 7: first time we ever had enough to not be worried

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Speaker 7: about fundraising.

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Speaker 2: So what made them value the company enough to raise

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Speaker 2: to give you a check for eight million dollars? Future

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Speaker 2: future valuations based off of revenue models like what was the.

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Speaker 6: So to raise a Series A?

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Speaker 7: You know, typically at that point they want to see

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Speaker 7: signs of like consistency, so like a consistent go to

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Speaker 7: market motion that you're making, which is called urprov like

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Speaker 7: average revenue per user that it was consistent, So they

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Speaker 7: can kind of see a pathway of like okay, if

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Speaker 7: they can get to this, we can we can see

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Speaker 7: how they can get to that, you know, a bigger level.

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Speaker 7: Typically back then it was like if you can basically

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Speaker 7: a million dollars in annual recurring revenue used to be

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Speaker 7: the kind of milestone when you were about ready for

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Speaker 7: a Series A. And that's where we were at that time.

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Speaker 7: I think now that goal post has moved from what

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Speaker 7: I've heard for early stage founders. But back in twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 7: that was that was it. So we were doing a

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Speaker 7: million roughly in arr We had you know, a consistent

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Speaker 7: sales process, you know that you could see how our

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Speaker 7: art pool would grow over time as the shops were

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Speaker 7: coming on the square. All of that was evidence for

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Speaker 7: an investor to see, okay, if they can do this,

403
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Speaker 7: I could see how they could get to you know,

404
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Speaker 7: ten million, fifty million, one hundred million because they have

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Speaker 7: like a process that's repeatable, that makes sense.

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Speaker 3: How was the retention right for you guys early stage

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Speaker 3: into the Series A?

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Speaker 6: How was our attention?

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Speaker 5: Then?

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Speaker 6: It's a lot better now, we.

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Speaker 4: Love I mean Son, even that fundraise was difficult, Like

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Speaker 4: I just think back like it was a fundraise from hell,

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Speaker 4: Like I think we had about sixty meetings and it

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Speaker 4: got like one term seet like one offer, you know,

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Speaker 4: and based on the numbers.

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Speaker 5: I mean, we should have had at least four or

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Speaker 5: five in my view.

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Speaker 4: So so it was not an easy process with all

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Speaker 4: the credentials, with all the BACKENDU of Y Combinator. We

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Speaker 4: went through a Y Comedy Series A program and we

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Speaker 4: still it was still difficult.

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Speaker 2: So okay, how did you know the process of actually

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Speaker 2: even going through to try to get venture capital money?

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Speaker 2: Would you? Did you have a mentor that was like

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Speaker 2: ushering you through these different meetings or you just cold

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Speaker 2: calling different firms?

427
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Speaker 6: Yeah?

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Speaker 7: So as they adventure, we did Y Combinator in twenty sixteen.

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Speaker 7: So when we did that, we moved to the Bay Area,

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Speaker 7: we moved to the entire company kind of there, and

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Speaker 7: we went through that process. Did that Saying fast forward

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Speaker 7: twenty nineteen, at the time, why Combinator had a Series

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Speaker 7: A program.

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Speaker 2: Can you explain why combination for people that people that

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Speaker 2: may not be familiar.

436
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:11,959
Speaker 7: Yeah, So it's what I would call like the pre

437
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Speaker 7: eminent accelerator program for early stage startups. You know, base

438
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Speaker 7: based in Silicon Valley. Uh, some of the people who

439
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Speaker 7: are affiliated with there is essentially like the highest echelon

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Speaker 7: of tech. For example, like Sam Altman was there when

441
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 7: we were there, so you know, we got we got

442
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:36,680
Speaker 7: to know him pretty well. Michael Seigel, mentor of ours,

443
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 7: and you know, used to run the run the program.

444
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:42,840
Speaker 6: When the co founders of Twitch, you know.

445
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 7: Pretty much they are like the biggest name in tech

446
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 7: for early stage companies, and so when you have that

447
00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 7: stamp of approval, it's equivalent to like going to Harvard

448
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:55,919
Speaker 7: or Stafford or something for in the tech world. So

449
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 7: it was a big deal when we did it. And

450
00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 7: then twenty nineteen at the time, they had a Series

451
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:04,159
Speaker 7: A program. So for the companies that went through the

452
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,280
Speaker 7: core program that they thought were like ready for Series A,

453
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:11,159
Speaker 7: you could kind of reply and then redo it. But

454
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 7: for Series A, so they would help us like set

455
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,400
Speaker 7: up investor meetings, connect us with the right people, help

456
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 7: us with our pitch. So we had about as much

457
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:22,160
Speaker 7: help and support as any company could have in raising

458
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:24,720
Speaker 7: a Series A. And today's point, you know, we still

459
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:29,159
Speaker 7: had you know, sixty meetings of different VC funds and

460
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:32,200
Speaker 7: fifty nine rejections and we ended up getting one.

461
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 6: And that's what allowed us to get to the next level.

462
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 5: But all you need is one, that's it is one.

463
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: What was that process like we talked to a lot

464
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:46,240
Speaker 1: of people who've created businesses and founders that moment when

465
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 1: you take the on money. Right before it was just

466
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: you guys and you got a CTO, and now you

467
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: have investors that you have to answer to and you know,

468
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:57,719
Speaker 1: make sure that they're all on board. What's going on?

469
00:22:57,800 --> 00:22:59,359
Speaker 1: What was that process like for you? Was at an

470
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,400
Speaker 1: adjustment space for sure? For sure it was the first time.

471
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 7: So when it when you get in an institutional UH

472
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 7: fund fund, then invest usually they want a board seat.

473
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 7: So that was the first time that we, you know,

474
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 7: had an actual investor on our board and had to

475
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 7: start being more formal in terms of having like board

476
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 7: meetings and reporting and.

477
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 6: All that stuff.

478
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 7: So at the time it was a bit stressful, if

479
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 7: I fun honest, and it was. It was a change,

480
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 7: but in retrospect, it definitely made us mature as a

481
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:34,439
Speaker 7: company and mature as founders. So so it was a

482
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,879
Speaker 7: healthy thing for the company. But it's it's increased scrutiny.

483
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 7: Like now you're you're you're literally accountable responsible every quarter,

484
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 7: you have to report how you're doing, and someone who's

485
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 7: kind of in a sense a little bit over you

486
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 7: because they you know, they they're the board is like saying,

487
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 7: you know, giving your feedback and really pushing you to

488
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 7: go further.

489
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 6: So yeah, it was a big change.

490
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 5: And the best board members, you know, I think are.

491
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 4: Super helpful because they can use their experience as operator

492
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 4: and or their experience from other boards that they sit on.

493
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 4: So you know, sometimes you don't agree with what they

494
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 4: are saying in the present moment, but you know there's

495
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 4: been times like six months a year later, hey, no,

496
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,200
Speaker 4: maybe it made sense, but I didn't see it because

497
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 4: you haven't experienced that or you haven't lived through that.

498
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 2: So what mistakes did you make or what lessons did

499
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 2: you learn as far as in pitching your company to

500
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 2: VC firms that if you did it now, you might

501
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 2: do differently.

502
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 7: So I think what separated in the early days when

503
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 7: we really struggled, we're getting them excited about the opportunity,

504
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 7: and later on when we got better at it, is

505
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 7: the size of how big can get. I think a

506
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 7: lot particularly a lot of a lot of founders, you know,

507
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,160
Speaker 7: from our communities, like we tend to be like very

508
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 7: practical and like we want to paint a vision that

509
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 7: we think we can really achieve, but like the ethos

510
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 7: of like, particularly like Silicon Valley is like you have

511
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 7: to go big. You have to have the biggest possible

512
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 7: vision imaginable and sell that because that's what gets people excited.

513
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 7: You know, they get excited about, you know, how can

514
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 7: this company be a billion dollar company or ten billion

515
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 7: dollar company or one hundred million dollar company. So in

516
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 7: the early days, like it was, it was hard for

517
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 7: us to like make our native shape our native to

518
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 7: fit something so big. Over time we started getting better

519
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 7: at it. And over time, the more you know, data,

520
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:43,360
Speaker 7: the more that we learned about our business, we started

521
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,439
Speaker 7: being able to see a pathway like, Okay, this is

522
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 7: how we get to a hundred million revenue, this is

523
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 7: how we get to you know, a billion plus valuation.

524
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 7: And then if you believe it, they can believe it.

525
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 7: But if you can't even see it, the investors never

526
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 7: going to see it either.

527
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 3: Is that the goal?

528
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: Like did you guys sit down one day obviously as

529
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: a vision become clear and said, yeah, we're going to

530
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: be a unicorn like this we have the potential to

531
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: do it.

532
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 4: Believe it, I mean, but it's communicating it. In Silicon Valley,

533
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 4: it over emphasizes the outliers. You know, like the whole

534
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 4: business model, the whole VC model is outliers. They want

535
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 4: the folks that is like the zo point one of

536
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 4: one percent because that can return the fund and you

537
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 4: know if you invest, So the math is the math.

538
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 5: They don't out of ten portfolio companies.

539
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 4: One they hope one is going to be that one

540
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 4: hundred x return and that one hundred x return will

541
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 4: pay out the pay back to fund and make the

542
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 4: individual partner very rich. So you have to understand that.

543
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 4: So if you don't, if you don't like pitch one

544
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 4: hundred x type of opportunity, then it just doesn't excite

545
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 4: them as much.

546
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: How does it look for Ford revenu if you guys

547
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: in terms of valuation, Like what's that forward multiple?

548
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 3: Is it like a four five ten?

549
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 4: It?

550
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 7: Honestly, it varies and there's so many facts like macroeconomic factors.

551
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 3: Yeah.

552
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 7: So the last fund raise that we did was in

553
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 7: twenty twenty one, and that was a very different climate.

554
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 7: Interest rates were super low. It was like what they

555
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 7: call it the you know zerp era where the interestrace

556
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 7: from you know, almost zero. So as a result, like

557
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 7: there's an inverse relation on multiples. So multiples were just

558
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 7: much higher across the board for all companies, and you

559
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 7: know that that gives in takes, and that changed with

560
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 7: the economy. So our focus is always on building a

561
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 7: really great business. If you build a great business that

562
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 7: fundamentally is strong, has great unique economics and a pathway

563
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 7: to like being really big regardless of the of the

564
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 7: economic climate, like you're going to you're going to be successful.

565
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: That was one of those things and that you finished

566
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: it was like if you create a business, make sure

567
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:46,639
Speaker 1: you have these components, right, so make sure you have

568
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 1: the tech component and some of it, like all those components.

569
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: As you're doing it, you're checking off those like, oh

570
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 1: we have all those things.

571
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean yeah, I think so, and I think

572
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 7: you know, the more we learn about our business, and

573
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 7: you know, the more mature we get, like we see like, okay,

574
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 7: this is fundamentally this is a really solid, strong business

575
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 7: that's going to endure. And the great thing about about

576
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 7: our customers is that, like people keep getting haircuts.

577
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 6: It's very resilient.

578
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 7: You know, if there's an economic downturn, actually people tend

579
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 7: to get more haircuts because it's one of those luxuries

580
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 7: you can afford even if you're not making as much money.

581
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 7: So I think we're really well positioned to continue to

582
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 7: thrive like kind of regardless of what happens in the economy.

583
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to So, so a couple of things.

584
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 4: And we're seeing that I was at a dinner last

585
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 4: last night and a seed early stage and they're raising

586
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 4: two hundred x revenue, these AI companies. So so it's

587
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 4: just it just shifts with the tie, you know. So

588
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 4: so it's still there if you're the hot the hot

589
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 4: company a hot industry at that time, and this competition

590
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 4: people pay whatever irrational.

591
00:28:57,520 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 5: So so that that's one thing.

592
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 4: And second thing I want to go back to is like,

593
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 4: you know, paint the vision a lot of folks, you know,

594
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 4: because we're two black founders that we're just focusing on

595
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 4: black barbershops, and you know, we made it really clear

596
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 4: that we were not. In fact, in our early pitch decks,

597
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 4: there was no mention of everything was like these hipster

598
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 4: type barbershops. So people can relate to because most of

599
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 4: the investors that that you were, you know, meeting were

600
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 4: not of color, so it had we had to make

601
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 4: sure it resonated with them and those little social cues

602
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 4: that you pick up on that you need to kind

603
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 4: of incorporate the story to make it seem like hey,

604
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 4: And then still some investors said, are you guys still

605
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 4: targeted black barbershops when like it just didn't make any

606
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 4: sense to me, And you know, I get it, but like,

607
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 4: you know, we made it really clear that we were

608
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 4: going after the.

609
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 5: Entire market, not just a slither of the market.

610
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 2: What's the percentage of barbershops as you think you have

611
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 2: that are not black?

612
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 7: I mean, I think it probably matches the population overall,

613
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 7: so probably you know eight.

614
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 2: So marketing to barbershops? Right, are you marketing? At the

615
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 2: beginning you were to face you were going in hand

616
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 2: in hand? So were you doing that with white barbershops? Also?

617
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 5: Absolutely?

618
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 2: Well how did that work out?

619
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 7: So funny enough, when we were first kind of thinking

620
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:36,479
Speaker 7: through how we're going to do this, we had a

621
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 7: bias against ourselves.

622
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 6: We thought we probably couldn't.

623
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 7: Go in there and like you know, resonate with with

624
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 7: with these like non black barbershops. So we ended up

625
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 7: hiring a friend of ours who's actually still with the company,

626
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 7: who's white, and like his job was going to be

627
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 7: kind of BIZDV like going to the shops, So he

628
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 7: was doing that, we were still doing it. And over

629
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 7: time this on experience, we started finding out there like,

630
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 7: actually we were better even at the white shops selling

631
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 7: them than he was. And some of the bias that

632
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 7: we had, you know, the preconceived notion that we had

633
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 7: that these shop owners, because we didn't look like them,

634
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 7: weren't going to want to hear us out. Actually it

635
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 7: was just totally not true. And then you know, and

636
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 7: it turns out, you know, the white guy who we

637
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 7: hire wasn't good at that, He ended up being really

638
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 7: good at other things, so he moved into like product

639
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 7: on the product side. So you just never you never know,

640
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 7: and sometimes there's a tendency to sell yourself short because

641
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 7: you know, you think somebody's going to think something about you.

642
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 7: But if you have a great product and you go

643
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 7: there and you meet them, iy to you know, we

644
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 7: found that for the most part, customers are willing to

645
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 7: hear you out, you know, regardless of what you look like.

646
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, are you solving the hair on fire problem? You know?

647
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 4: And if you solving that problem, I don't get whatever

648
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 4: you are. I think they gotta listen to you because

649
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 4: it's you're addressing a real pain. Point in their lives.

650
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: All right, correct me if I'm wrong on these numbers.

651
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: Thirty two thousand barber shops.

652
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 5: Thirty two thousand barber shops, yet barber's.

653
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 3: Barbers ten million clients.

654
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 6: Last time I checked it somewhere in that.

655
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 3: How are we like?

656
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: This is because like you're talking from twenty sixteen to

657
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: this point, how are we scaling year to year?

658
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 3: Like?

659
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: Are you like what trends are you watching to say?

660
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: He's an opportunity, his opportunity. This is a potemographic this

661
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: is that we haven't touched this place. How are y'all

662
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: going about that? That's a lot. Congrats, Thank you, thank you,

663
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: thank you. It's never enough, though. Let's get to the next.

664
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 7: So what we learned is a super super important to

665
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 7: scales that you really have to scale your team. So

666
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 7: you know, in the early stages, you know, it was

667
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 7: us and then a few other early employees, but as

668
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 7: you get bigger, you really have to bring on folks

669
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 7: who have the experience of kind of getting to the

670
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 7: next level where you're trying to get. And over time,

671
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 7: we built up a really incredible kind of bench of

672
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 7: our executives. Uh, and that that has helped you know,

673
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 7: helped tremendously, and in the early days you do you know,

674
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 7: it's called doing things that don't scale, like walking into

675
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 7: the barbershop yourself and pitching them like that's great, but

676
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 7: like you can't. That's not going to get you to

677
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 7: where we are now. So over time you have to

678
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 7: figure out how do you build like repeatable motions, reputable

679
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 7: processes that's like scalable and you know, that's essentially essentially

680
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 7: what we've been able to do.

681
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 2: So So as far as this number of seven hundred

682
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 2: and fifty million dollar valuation, what can you break that down?

683
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 2: As far as like what does that actually mean in

684
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 2: layman terms for somebody that just they hear that, but

685
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 2: it's like.

686
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 4: That is the enterprise value or the kind of like

687
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 4: market cap of your business. So if somebody were to

688
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 4: purchase the building business, they would have to pay seven

689
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty million dollars for entire business. And if

690
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 4: somebody is investing, you know, based on the dollar mode

691
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 4: they invest, that's percentage amount of the seven hundred fifty million.

692
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: And that seven hundred fifty million would come from investors

693
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: valuing the company at that As far as okay, I'm

694
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 2: gonna put this amount of money in per percentage and

695
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 2: then that equals to seven fifty or does that come

696
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 2: from revenue that is projected to be like okay, ten

697
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 2: x revenue, like what it?

698
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 4: I mean, there's some formula that they create, but that's

699
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 4: essentially the former is like, hey, look, you know, for

700
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 4: one percent, it's seven point five million, so times that

701
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 4: by ten. If you want ten percent, you got to

702
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 4: put up seventy five million. So that's kind of how

703
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:39,240
Speaker 4: the math works. And it's just supply and demand.

704
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 5: Uh.

705
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 4: You know, if you have a great product, if you

706
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 4: have some proprietary technology that they think might you know,

707
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 4: transform the world, they're gonna they're gonna pay whatever they're

708
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,840
Speaker 4: gonna pay for. It's just like, you know, what the company,

709
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 4: what people think the company is worth.

710
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 3: How does the ownership table look?

711
00:34:58,040 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 7: Right?

712
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: Because a lot of times startups, you know, we don't

713
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: have money, right, we haven't got a venture capital and

714
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: so a lot of times people will off of equity

715
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: right like as an exchange or collateral to say, hey,

716
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: I need you a part of the team.

717
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:13,399
Speaker 3: How does ownership look then?

718
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: How does it look Now obviously you've got a board,

719
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 1: you've got investors. Are you guys majority owners still, Like,

720
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: how does this work?

721
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 7: Yeah, So as far as the equity, like all of

722
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 7: our employees have some degree of equity.

723
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 6: We think that's important.

724
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 7: We think it's important one to align incentives, and it's

725
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,240
Speaker 7: also important as a wealth building mechanism.

726
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 6: Our company is I don't know.

727
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 7: For sure, but I would say it's probably maybe the

728
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 7: most diverse and one of the most diverse of a

729
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 7: company like at our scale in terms of like the

730
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 7: breakground of our employees. So we think it's you know,

731
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 7: it's really important for them to have skin in the game,

732
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 7: and like when we do have the big exit, you know,

733
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 7: hopefully we'll be creating a lot of millionaires and creating

734
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 7: a lot of wealth in the community. So that so

735
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 7: that's important. The second was the second part of your question, ownership.

736
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 7: I think, oh, yeah, get diluted. I mean it's natural,

737
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 7: you know, it's the pie gets gets bigger, but you're

738
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 7: you know, year, a percentage of the pie goes down

739
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 7: over over time, so you know, Unfortunately, no, I wouldn't

740
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 7: say we have we have majority, but you know that's

741
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 7: just kind of the name of the game.

742
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know, control, I think is also super important,

743
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,839
Speaker 4: like you know, you know, when you go through this fundraising,

744
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 4: take on more more investors, you know, you lose control.

745
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 4: But we were still like a board can't get rid

746
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 4: of us if they if they wanted to, because of

747
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 4: the structure we have in place, and that's equally important control.

748
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 2: So the decision making process, you guys still make all

749
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 2: able to make decisions without having to have input or.

750
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 7: You get you get input and and you know you

751
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 7: take you know, the feedback. But but today's points, as

752
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 7: you founders are raised, raising and bringing on investors is

753
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 7: super important to understand, like the control provisions and control

754
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:08,240
Speaker 7: mechanisms with respect to like majority of equity, but also

755
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 7: board dynamics. So that's a lot of times people aren't

756
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 7: thinking about that and they raise money, they get these

757
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 7: boards and the next thing, you know, they have a

758
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 7: bad quarter and then the boards like all right.

759
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 2: So can you explain that? Is there a set term

760
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 2: that has to be in the contract to be like okay,

761
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 2: you know, even though I'm not a majority shareholder, I

762
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 2: still cannot be removed from.

763
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 4: I think it's pretty much just a couple of way

764
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 4: this uh, like marks upwork has this uh we don't

765
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 4: have this, but he has super majority voting, so essentially

766
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 4: one of his shares equal like ten or whatever shares

767
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 4: that he has, and ultimately that's super rare way he

768
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 4: has at a public stage, he can do whatever he

769
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 4: wants and they just literally can't get rid of. And

770
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 4: you know, you have to think about like, especially in

771
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 4: the public markets, investors are quarter quarter very short term.

772
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 4: You guys know this, but you know, as a founder

773
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 4: led you know you're thinking three four quarters ahead, so

774
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 4: you might you know, max out cap X for a

775
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 4: couple of quarters, but your vision is you know this

776
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 4: will ultimately pan out, and if you're looking at it

777
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 4: from a quarter over quarter basis, you're not going to

778
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:23,919
Speaker 4: make those long term decisions. So super majority is one,

779
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 4: and then the second is board seats. So if you

780
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 4: have the board, you know controls the company, and if

781
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 4: you have if your investors have more board seats than

782
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 4: you have, they can just vote you out.

783
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 6: You know.

784
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 4: But in our city scenario, we have the same amount

785
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 4: of board seats as investors, so in any case, it's

786
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 4: going to be a kind of like a deadlock situation.

787
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,439
Speaker 3: Okay, so you mentioned the exit.

788
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people get this misconscrewed,

789
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 1: especially if there's no education around it. Talk about the

790
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: vision for that? Is there a number that we have

791
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: in mind? And it's like all right, and then obviously

792
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: there's a borderp proof explain it the process because we've

793
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: seen people sell their businesses and a lot of times

794
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, they sold out the business.

795
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 3: They sell out.

796
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,720
Speaker 1: They don't understand the functionality behind creating a business, getting

797
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: capital and then saying all right, we're going to exit

798
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: potentially just start something new. Doesn't happen too frequently. What

799
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: is there a number that we got in mind? Like,

800
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: what's the vision for?

801
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 4: I think I think we just want to build a

802
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 4: great business. I think our metrics is like, hey, the

803
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 4: best businesses are bought, not sold. And if you are,

804
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 4: you know, continued to add value, continue to build, continue

805
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 4: to you know, drive revenues up untol the right like

806
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 4: businesses will will bigger businesses or you know, public markets

807
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 4: will will come calling. H So I guess you know

808
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 4: that's kind of what we're focus on right now and

809
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 4: you know when it gets there.

810
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 5: But like to answer it, to speak to your first.

811
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,879
Speaker 4: Point, Troy is like capital has to be returned at

812
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 4: some point you know, like, you can't just do this

813
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 4: if you take capital as investors, You've got to return

814
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 4: to capital someway somehow, at some point. So so you

815
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 4: can't have these evergreen situations where you're just building because

816
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,720
Speaker 4: you know, like there needs to be exit at some point.

817
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 3: I got'ta pay back.

818
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 2: So how are you marketing? Is like, I know you

819
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 2: did the barbershop ex bow with Jay, shout out to him.

820
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 2: That's a way to get barbers on board. I'm assuming

821
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 2: you're running ads, Like what is the main source of

822
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 2: actually creating awareness to make sure that the message is

823
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 2: being spread to all barbershops in a diverse manner.

824
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 7: Yeah, so those those are two big ways. We're really

825
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 7: big on events. So we do a lot of trade shows.

826
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 7: We do big trade shows like ct barber Expo, which

827
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 7: which we're you know, I know you attended, which was

828
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 7: super dope. But then we do a lot of smaller

829
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 7: events also we do like local community events. Uh so

830
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 7: we'll partner with like a barbershop that's got like a

831
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 7: good reputation in a certain city or neighborhood and then

832
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 7: invite all the other barbershops around and host things like that.

833
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 7: And part of it is marketing, but part of it

834
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,320
Speaker 7: is also just kind of like being there in the community,

835
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,760
Speaker 7: showing up, you know, where our customers are and meeting

836
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 7: them where they are. We do a lot of advertisements,

837
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 7: you know, online digitally. Our customers are very active on

838
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 7: social particularly on like Instagram and then now like TikTok

839
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 7: as well. Uh so you know, we try to be like,

840
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 7: you know where they are. And then a lot of

841
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 7: it is honestly bordermouth. Like Barbara Barbera's are naturally very

842
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 7: very communal type of businesses, so like in every neighborhood,

843
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 7: each shop knows all the shops around there.

844
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 6: It's like hyper local.

845
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 7: So we we try to incentivize, uh, you know, our

846
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 7: customers to like share a square for other shops that

847
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 7: they know and like it's kind of spreads that way

848
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 7: as well.

849
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 4: And also we have a sales team out in Austin, Texas,

850
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 4: and they they reach out to shops on a daily basis.

851
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 4: They monitor cold call, but more so like warm warm leads. Essentially,

852
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:27,399
Speaker 4: you know, they know where they are, they might meet

853
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 4: them on the show, they might comment on that page.

854
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 4: But they're also always like sourcing opportunities. But you know,

855
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 4: I think the community there in that Austin office is incredible.

856
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 4: Everybody says together, I think there's value now in office

857
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 4: environments because I know a lot of people don't like it,

858
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 4: but you know, we see the value of people coming

859
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 4: to get coming to to work every day, being amongst people.

860
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 4: You're saying at the same age, you sharing stories, learning

861
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 4: from each other in real time. I think it's ready

862
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,240
Speaker 4: impactful and we're seeing it with the culture and also

863
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 4: like the winds and the scale that we're achieving that

864
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 4: in Austin office.

865
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: You guys created something when it needed to be created, right,

866
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,799
Speaker 1: So I remember having squired early on and I'm like,

867
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: in a barber shop.

868
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 3: My barber didn't have.

869
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: It really yeah, yeah, yeah, he was in a bronze

870
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,919
Speaker 1: Jamaican You know, we stubborn. But that was a time

871
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: when you guys were the only person doing it. And

872
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 1: now twenty twenty five, there are people who have apps

873
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: that are some I wonder at this point, how do

874
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: you guys look at the landscape from a competitive standpoint?

875
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 3: What keeps you ahead?

876
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 1: Like, what's the technology that gives you the mode to

877
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 1: keep squire at that evaluation, to keep growing?

878
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 6: Yeah?

879
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 7: No, that's that's a good point at that the time

880
00:43:56,560 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 7: when we started, there were definitely like fewer people trying

881
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 7: to go out to this market. And then you know,

882
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 7: as we've been more successful, people see it, you know,

883
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:06,399
Speaker 7: so they're kind of trying to get in. But most

884
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 7: of the competitive landscape is still software companies that are

885
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 7: really focused on salons, spas, yoga studios, everything, and then

886
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 7: they also try to do barbers like on the side,

887
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 7: but it's not really their focus. So part of our

888
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 7: differentiation is just like we're so laser focused on building

889
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 7: the best products specifically for this this user base, and

890
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,800
Speaker 7: that allows us to go deeper and just build things

891
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 7: that like a lot of these other companies, many of

892
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 7: them are even bigger than us, aren't.

893
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 6: Willing to do.

894
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 7: But then now, like what we're really excited about is

895
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 7: just this AI lens and really having like an AI

896
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 7: first approach. What we see in the landscape is that

897
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 7: there's a lot of attention and a lot of investment

898
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 7: going into too building AI solutions for like at the

899
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 7: enterprise level for like big companies and then at the

900
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 7: consumer level, but for the small business level, like there's

901
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 7: really not a lot of becus I'm bringing this like

902
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 7: powerful technology, like to these small business entrepreneurs and like

903
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 7: that's where we step in, Like we think they were

904
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 7: really really well positioned to do that, and that's what

905
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:09,319
Speaker 7: we're doing.

906
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 2: What was the most recent raise It was you had

907
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 2: a D.

908
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, twenty twenty one.

909
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 2: Okay, So now with Tiger Tiger Global. So walk us

910
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 2: through that that one, Like what was the difference between

911
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 2: that Series D in the Series A, and like what

912
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 2: did you know? How did how did that look?

913
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 4: So so we raised our Series A May of twenty nineteen,

914
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 4: we raised our B, series C and D over the

915
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 4: next fourteen months, so in the year we raised over

916
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 4: one hundred million dollars.

917
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 5: Over the year over year.

918
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 3: Technology was that right?

919
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 4: So over year we raised about one hundred million and

920
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 4: and what happened was like we got that first check

921
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 4: and we executed, you know, we went, you know fast,

922
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 4: We started gaining a lot of customers, and the folks

923
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,439
Speaker 4: that you know passed on the Series A came back

924
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,839
Speaker 4: and led the B six months later, and then nine

925
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 4: months later we raised the C and And that was.

926
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 5: On the back of COVID.

927
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 4: So when COVID went, When COVID kind of was like

928
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 4: an inflection point for us because we were the first

929
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:31,839
Speaker 4: company to you know, wave substution fees, so we didn't

930
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 4: charge our customers. Then we built things tools that allowed

931
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 4: our barbershops to operate during that time, so virtual waiting

932
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 4: room because everybody was trying to do social distances COVID

933
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 4: forms because people need to check they haven't been to

934
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 4: an area in two weeks or whether the case may

935
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 4: be you know, access to you know, low access to

936
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 4: you know, the various government programs, so streamlining the operations

937
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 4: to get the required documentation to get those those those

938
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 4: the the federal government help. So in the matter of

939
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,799
Speaker 4: six weeks, we launched like four or five products and

940
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 4: then we when everything opened back up, like we had

941
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 4: a boom effect because we were a community first, our

942
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 4: message was cleared that we're not going to charge you subscriptions,

943
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 4: and also we built all this product that made these lives,

944
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 4: the lives of our customers better. So coming out of

945
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 4: that best month sales because everybody had to use some

946
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 4: form of technology now because of the regulations. And then

947
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 4: we raised in September, we raised our Serious C and

948
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 4: then ten months later we raised our Series D And

949
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 4: what was coming in is like we weren't pitching.

950
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 5: People were just coming to you, coming to us. So

951
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 5: it was like.

952
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 4: One eighty from our Series A where we had to

953
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 4: guard and do a lot of the pitching to like

954
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 4: VC's pitching us.

955
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 2: Now, when you get the infusion of one hundred million

956
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 2: in a very short period of time, what did you

957
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 2: do with the one hundred million dollars?

958
00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 5: We held on to it.

959
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, like we always remember like how

960
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 4: difficult it was. So so I guess you know a

961
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 4: lot of folks they go out and they spend, they

962
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 4: do all this stuff.

963
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 5: I think we were very careful because.

964
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 4: We were of the of the school of thought that

965
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 4: we didn't want to go out and have to raise

966
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 4: again if we wanted under because we've been in both

967
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 4: sides of the spectrum where we had to really make

968
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 4: it really difficult to us to raise, and then when

969
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 4: it came really easy, we said, hey, we just want

970
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:33,919
Speaker 4: it easy, you know, like we just want to save

971
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,800
Speaker 4: this money, build a business martialwards profitability, and if.

972
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:38,879
Speaker 5: We want to raise, we.

973
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: Will, Like what does that look like all right for

974
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: the average person?

975
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 3: Right?

976
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 2: They think you get a hundred million dollars and like

977
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 2: there's one thing to get a hundred million dollars, but

978
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 2: how do you deploy that properly? Like, because that's deploying

979
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars is not as easy as somebody

980
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 2: would think, right, So, like, how do you know? This

981
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 2: is how much we're going to save to have reserved,

982
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 2: This is how much we're going to put marketing, This

983
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 2: is how much we're going to like is there a team,

984
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 2: is there a board? The people that give you the

985
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 2: money have stipulations on what to do with the money,

986
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 2: like kind of walk us through that whole process.

987
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 7: Yeah, so they give you the money. You know, the

988
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 7: money is in the bank account of the business, so

989
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 7: you can kind of use it as you see fit.

990
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 7: But what they do is they're going to hold you

991
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 7: accountable for kind of the growth and the performance the

992
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 7: performance of the business. So that's you know, what you

993
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:33,439
Speaker 7: have to do is like really be measured about how

994
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 7: you're spending it. And what allows you to do is

995
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,240
Speaker 7: take more risks so you can try to do things

996
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 7: like that you couldn't have afforded to do before to

997
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 7: fuel that growth. Some things will work, some things won't work,

998
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 7: and that's kind of the nature of an early stage startup.

999
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 7: So you know, investors are usually pretty forgiving of that,

1000
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 7: but ultimately, like when you raise a big amount, they're

1001
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 7: investing that based on where they think you're going to

1002
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 7: get to at a certain point and that's going to

1003
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 7: return their money and you're going to be you're that

1004
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,720
Speaker 7: more than when they invested. So if you're not hitting

1005
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 7: those milestones and you're not kind of growing into that,

1006
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 7: eventually they will start being like, okay, like, what's up

1007
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 7: this company's not performing well?

1008
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: Is there a time threshold that they put on it? Right, Like,

1009
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: if they're invested in it, is it have to be?

1010
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:17,839
Speaker 4: I think they want to see it a growth rate,

1011
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 4: a growth rate, and if the thumb is uh for

1012
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 4: late stage, probably at least thirty percent year over your

1013
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 4: growth yeah over yeah, yeah, as far as revenue revenues, yeah,

1014
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 4: and they want to see revenue going up and cash

1015
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 4: burns going down.

1016
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:37,320
Speaker 5: So you're growing.

1017
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:39,800
Speaker 4: If you're growing like one hundred percent, it's different, but

1018
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 4: if you're growing like thirty percent, they want to see

1019
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 4: you growing thirty percent but getting more efficient at the

1020
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 4: same time.

1021
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:51,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, since the we I think about y'all, and obviously

1022
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:54,399
Speaker 1: the thirty two thousand Barbers I wanted to learn about

1023
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: the global expansion, right, like we travel a lot. We

1024
00:50:57,640 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: would just in Dubai, I have to figure out to

1025
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: get barbers for the wedd end. Where in Africa? How

1026
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 1: does this work? Are you guys? Do you guys have

1027
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 1: a global imprint? And is that on the vision board

1028
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 1: to expand into the continent and the broad Yeah.

1029
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 7: Yes, so right now we are in other countries. We're

1030
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 7: in US obviously, UK, Canada, so kind of English speaking

1031
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 7: for now.

1032
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 6: I totally agree with you.

1033
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 7: I think that the global opportunity is crazy because like

1034
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 7: there's barbers everywhere, people getting haircuts everywhere, and the businesses

1035
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 7: don't vary that much, but there's always like the culture

1036
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 7: nuances and things that you need to think about. So

1037
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 7: long story shore, Like I do think eventually there's a

1038
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 7: place for us to be, you know, I would love

1039
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,439
Speaker 7: to be on the continent. Like you know, I spent

1040
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:48,799
Speaker 7: some time in Kenya last year and just there were

1041
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 7: so many barbershops there and like every every time I'm

1042
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:52,800
Speaker 7: going in there be like every when are you coming?

1043
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 7: So but also you know, it's it's not easy, like

1044
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 7: you have to really do it right, and it's you

1045
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,280
Speaker 7: it's easy to kind of mess up in Globaloks mansion

1046
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:07,880
Speaker 7: if you're not thoughtful about it. So it's not going

1047
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 7: to be in the near term probably, but eventually I

1048
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:14,240
Speaker 7: see I see us being like in way more countries

1049
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:14,919
Speaker 7: than we're in now.

1050
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you need a barber anywhere, it just hit me,

1051
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:23,840
Speaker 4: like we have some London based barbers you know, operate

1052
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 4: in Dubai, but they're from London because we operate a

1053
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 4: lotter so you know, everybody goes back from London to Dubai.

1054
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 4: So you ever in the city and they'll have a barber.

1055
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 4: Just messes me.

1056
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 2: Now, I've been pretty good that just referrals. That's one

1057
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:39,839
Speaker 2: thing like I feel like any city, I never had

1058
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 2: a problem finding the ball because like the people that

1059
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:44,480
Speaker 2: I know in the city, I just asked them who's

1060
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 2: the best bar but who do you recommend? And it's

1061
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 2: never really failed me so far.

1062
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 4: And we're building we're building something like that to help

1063
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 4: that from a digital perspective, you know, like hey, we

1064
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 4: have a city pages where you can go in the

1065
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 4: city and then you can look at all the barbers

1066
00:52:59,880 --> 00:53:02,320
Speaker 4: and we have the referrals on that as a product

1067
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 4: we launched last year and you can actually you can

1068
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 4: actually a connection put a video of their work and

1069
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 4: it's really really cool to see the videos.

1070
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 5: And that's like a next level feature.

1071
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that would be good because I mean, fortunately

1072
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 2: for us, we know a lot of people. Yeah, but

1073
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 2: sometimes people they might not know somebody. They might just

1074
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 2: be in Cleveland, Ohio for work and just randomly, like

1075
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 2: they just need a barber. They don't know anybody in Cleveland.

1076
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 2: So that's like a good, good tool.

1077
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 1: That's that's that power of a you talked about launching

1078
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: in terms of customer service. When I heard you talk

1079
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 1: about cash Buran, the first thing when I think AI

1080
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:40,480
Speaker 1: is efficiency. So how else are you guys looking to

1081
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:42,320
Speaker 1: incorporate it to become more efficient?

1082
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 3: Obviously the revenue goes up, cash burn goes down. Yeah, So.

1083
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 4: I think we launched, you know, a product called Cursor

1084
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 4: internally over the last twelve months are engineering efficiency amongst

1085
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 4: other things, we got to do cpt O the VP

1086
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 4: of engineering from Strike. But our output is ninety four

1087
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 4: percent more than last year. And because of that, because

1088
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 4: of all those that I mentioned, but AI plays a

1089
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 4: big part in that.

1090
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 2: In that So from that standpoint, how many employees do

1091
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:17,799
Speaker 2: you have.

1092
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 5: Just a little over two hundred, like around two hundred.

1093
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:26,400
Speaker 2: So do you see AI taking jobs from existing employees

1094
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 2: that you have to run more efficiently at a lower

1095
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 2: cost point.

1096
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 3: So he's dipped us off by his head shape.

1097
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 6: Yeah, we see that.

1098
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:36,879
Speaker 7: We think we'll be able to do kind of more

1099
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 7: with the existing So I don't think that we're like, Okay,

1100
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 7: we're gonna need to cut ex percent, but with the

1101
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 7: two hundred we have, we think we'll be able to

1102
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 7: actually achieve a lot more and then we'll as we grow,

1103
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 7: we'll be able to probably hire a fewer than we

1104
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 7: would have needed to hire like a couple of years ago.

1105
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they think about it like, you know, the

1106
00:54:56,000 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 4: two hundred engineers, well probably get three hundred three hundred

1107
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,760
Speaker 4: engineering output, which is meaningful.

1108
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 2: Okay, So any hair salons.

1109
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 7: We actually have a few and they come on Square

1110
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 7: organically and we have a handful and there we talk

1111
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:18,879
Speaker 7: to them and kind of learn about how how it's

1112
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 7: working with them. Our focus is barberous, you know right now,

1113
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 7: like that that's the focus. But you know there's a

1114
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 7: lot of hair salons out.

1115
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 2: There, probably more than barbershop. There's ten more times ten. Yeah,

1116
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 2: and they spend more money.

1117
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 7: They spend more money. They don't get their haircut as often,

1118
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 7: but when they do, they spend more.

1119
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 6: Yeah.

1120
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:38,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

1121
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:41,279
Speaker 4: And if you go like extensions, if you go like

1122
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 4: you know, color, it gets these braiders.

1123
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 7: Have you all seen these braiders that have been popping up?

1124
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 7: They open twenty four to seven. They're all over.

1125
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: I live in Harlem, there's like five on every block.

1126
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: My system lowers that one ahead in the morning through

1127
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: incredible business.

1128
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 6: I don't fully understand it, but it's it's amazing.

1129
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 3: It's time consuming.

1130
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I just saw something they have like a

1131
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 4: on a like a.

1132
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,280
Speaker 6: Harvard the robot.

1133
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yo, I saw that.

1134
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 5: It just depressure just starts it.

1135
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: They just starts to cut time into like out like

1136
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:15,839
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. Some some crazy.

1137
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 2: Boss of the AI bar You saw the ar thing.

1138
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:18,359
Speaker 6: That's not real.

1139
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 2: That's not real.

1140
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:24,279
Speaker 7: Put your head into the well.

1141
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 2: But all right, that's not real. But do you think

1142
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 2: that that's gonna come as far as having an AI barber,

1143
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 2: I mean or a machine a machine.

1144
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 4: Barber decision cut maybe like twenty twenty five, thirty years maybe,

1145
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 4: but like the cost doesn't like the investment is just

1146
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 4: not worth it at this point to do it, and

1147
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:45,919
Speaker 4: it's like so nuanced. Like you know, I think there's

1148
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:48,520
Speaker 4: better uses of AI, like solving cancer.

1149
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:53,800
Speaker 5: Thing that makes sense from a return expected return process.

1150
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:55,359
Speaker 1: I think I know the answer to this, But I'm

1151
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:59,840
Speaker 1: just gonna ask any of the cost of haircuts beneficial

1152
00:56:59,840 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: for you?

1153
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:01,760
Speaker 6: They've gone up, right.

1154
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:02,919
Speaker 3: They're going up to stay.

1155
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:06,680
Speaker 5: You know, I saw something the other day.

1156
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on it?

1157
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 2: Right?

1158
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: Like we come from it? Ever, was like it was

1159
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: ten dollars and if you're getting fifteen. That was a tip.

1160
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: Recently we've seen numbers inflate, like you said, but that

1161
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: helps business. No, right, the higher the price the commission

1162
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 1: close on yourself.

1163
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 6: It helps. It helps our business.

1164
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 7: It helps the business of the barbers who are able

1165
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 7: to raise their prices and then keep their books full.

1166
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 7: So what I think about I think it's great. I

1167
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 7: think it's capitalism. It's it's it's the market. Like for

1168
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 7: those who over overcharge and their prices go higher than

1169
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:40,479
Speaker 7: their the market of their consumers are willing to bear,

1170
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 7: like they're going to have fewer bookings and they're going

1171
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 7: to have to calibrate real quick or they're not going

1172
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,760
Speaker 7: to stay in business. So every every people, everybody that

1173
00:57:47,080 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 7: you know like that complains about the prices. I'm like,

1174
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:53,640
Speaker 7: the consumers ultimately have power, and people are paying these prices.

1175
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 7: People are paying fifty sixty seventy hundred dollars a cut,

1176
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,000
Speaker 7: So that means that's that's what the market is saying

1177
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 7: that the price should be. If it goes too high,

1178
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 7: maybe it'll come down.

1179
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 4: I don't know, but man, look at Nike's people charge

1180
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty people still paying it. You think

1181
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 4: if they weren't paying like you would still charge that

1182
00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 4: they were cut their prices. But I think, what would

1183
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:19,920
Speaker 4: I try to communicate when I'm talking to barbers about

1184
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 4: the prices in general? I said, hey, it's okay to

1185
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 4: increase your prices, but at the same time, are you

1186
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 4: increasing the experience?

1187
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 5: Because the experience should justify the prices.

1188
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 4: If you haven't your client's rate, you know, fifteen thirty

1189
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:37,960
Speaker 4: minutes for a haircut, and then that's not a good experience,

1190
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:40,040
Speaker 4: Like why am I paying this? You know, and a

1191
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 4: lot a lot of folks everybody can get it do

1192
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 4: a decent haircut, you know. I've gotten a lot of

1193
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 4: haircuts all the time, and like a lot of barbers

1194
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 4: can get you there. What people do understand and the

1195
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 4: ones that are very successful is a customer service. It's

1196
00:58:57,320 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 4: always on time. You get the Olympics, like you get

1197
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 4: in that chair eleven a clock. And and I think

1198
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 4: that is a difference in what people value nowadays, especially

1199
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 4: if you're charging those high dollar amounts. They just value

1200
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 4: their time.

1201
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 2: What how do you like delegate who's making the decision

1202
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 2: or what area you guys are focusing on or who

1203
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 2: you know who's where what needs to be communicated as

1204
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 2: well as your leadership roles are concerned.

1205
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 7: Yeah, So it's funny, so early on when we first started,

1206
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:33,240
Speaker 7: it was just like everybody's doing whatever, like everybody wear

1207
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 7: as many hats and and that works. I think as

1208
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:40,120
Speaker 7: the company gets bigger and more mature, you start bringing

1209
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 7: on these executives, there starts to be more of a

1210
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 7: need for like clearly like defined roles and and and

1211
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 7: and whatnot. So I mean where it is now is

1212
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 7: that you know, I'm the CEO, Davis a president. You know,

1213
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 7: I have like kind of like typical CEO kind of

1214
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 7: you know role that most companies would have in terms

1215
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 7: of you know, the c suite report and all that stuff.

1216
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 7: Davis like has some really really dope initiatives that I

1217
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 7: actually think we should talk about, like the barber school

1218
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 7: and partnerships, and you want to talk about barber.

1219
01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 4: School Yeah, yeah, so so so barber schools initiative that

1220
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 4: you know we're undertaking where you know, we want to

1221
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 4: get we want to get the barber's doing the right

1222
01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 4: behaviors early on. So what we launch is a Square

1223
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 4: for Schools, which is essentially we give the software to

1224
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 4: barber schools for free and it gets some indoctrinated in

1225
01:00:34,440 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 4: the right way to do business, right way to take appointments, right,

1226
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 4: professionalism right, you know, just operational excellence from the beginning.

1227
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 4: So we partner with like one hundred one hundred or

1228
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 4: about one hundred schools right now, and we see that

1229
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 4: program being like, you know, how we step into the

1230
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 4: future a bit.

1231
01:00:55,200 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 1: We start from law and finance, we've become successful entrepreneurs.

1232
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:04,800
Speaker 1: How are you guys doing outside of business right, because

1233
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:08,880
Speaker 1: we always talk about balancing and balancing it's subjective. How

1234
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: have y'all managed to navigate your new found lives over

1235
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 1: the past five years as opposed to what we were

1236
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: prior to this journey.

1237
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:18,440
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been it's been a journey.

1238
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 7: It's been, uh, honestly the best experience that I could

1239
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:26,080
Speaker 7: have ever wanted, just going through this and going through

1240
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:29,600
Speaker 7: the struggles and the triumphs and us being together throughout

1241
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:33,840
Speaker 7: throughout the whole you know process as co founders. And

1242
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:37,400
Speaker 7: you know, during this I've you know, we both had children.

1243
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 7: I've had you know, two kids that they've had a child,

1244
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 7: and I've gotten married, so like we've our personal lives

1245
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 7: have also, you know, there's been so much change, you

1246
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:50,520
Speaker 7: know over the last ten years. And you know, we

1247
01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:53,439
Speaker 7: know at some point we were very broke in those

1248
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 7: early days, and and you make a lot of sacrifices,

1249
01:01:57,800 --> 01:01:59,520
Speaker 7: and then when you start to do better, you know,

1250
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 7: the situation changes and quality of life and lifestyle changes.

1251
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 7: So I think we we've we've really managed there's really

1252
01:02:07,120 --> 01:02:10,480
Speaker 7: no work life balance when you're a founder, Like it's

1253
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 7: just all life. It's all part of the same thing.

1254
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 7: Like you're never really turning off, and it goes with

1255
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 7: you everywhere. And I think, you know, for me, I

1256
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 7: think it's you know, it's important to have other outlets

1257
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:24,120
Speaker 7: and to really be focused on like you know, wellness,

1258
01:02:24,160 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 7: working out, like trying to keep your energy level high

1259
01:02:26,960 --> 01:02:28,240
Speaker 7: because it's a marathon.

1260
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:29,640
Speaker 6: This ship is hard, like it will.

1261
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 7: I've seen a lot of founders like crash out, burnout,

1262
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:34,880
Speaker 7: and like you know, they've had to close the companies

1263
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 7: down and that's mentally they just haven't been there. So

1264
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 7: but I think we're doing you know, doing well now.

1265
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 4: Stress yeah, you know, but but I think outlets, like

1266
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 4: my outlet is like music. You know, I love I

1267
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 4: love music, and you know, you know also you know

1268
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:57,360
Speaker 4: we we have a lounge and a lounge and health.

1269
01:02:58,240 --> 01:02:59,360
Speaker 2: You talk about talk about that.

1270
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 5: I mean it's creative, you know.

1271
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 4: I think the great thing about saying is like it's

1272
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 4: a place where the community gret could like gather. I

1273
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 4: think there was avoid in the market for that avoid

1274
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:15,560
Speaker 4: that you know, folks of color, ages like twenty five

1275
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:18,440
Speaker 4: to forty five come in Manhattan, feel welcome.

1276
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:19,880
Speaker 6: You know.

1277
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 4: We have a great operator James Jones, who you know

1278
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:26,880
Speaker 4: is a friend of mine for twenty twenty years and

1279
01:03:27,200 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 4: he's been doing this so yeah, I mean, yeah, it

1280
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 4: just was an opportunity.

1281
01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 2: And then so you guys, I mentioned like as far

1282
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:38,200
Speaker 2: as exit right, so you're planning for the exit right.

1283
01:03:39,320 --> 01:03:41,720
Speaker 7: Is that it to say, Yeah, I mean you're always planning.

1284
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 7: So we're in building the company and trying to get

1285
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 7: as big as possible like that in a sense as

1286
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 7: planning for the exit because you know that's going to

1287
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 7: help the ultimate exit, but we're not actively like in

1288
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 7: a process.

1289
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, but even that, because it's like even how a

1290
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 2: company's built, like you got to keep in mind to

1291
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:02,400
Speaker 2: build a company to exit, right, like, and that's something

1292
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:05,480
Speaker 2: that people might not be fully aware of also, so

1293
01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 2: like talk about that as far as like having that

1294
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:13,320
Speaker 2: end in mind even when building a company and having

1295
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 2: it structured so it's like eventually gets to that point,

1296
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:19,600
Speaker 2: it's already you don't have to like rework things and

1297
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 2: try to you know, figure it out on the fly.

1298
01:04:22,280 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 7: Yeah, if you if you're raising money from professional investors,

1299
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 7: they're they're investing with the expectation there's going to be

1300
01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:32,200
Speaker 7: a liquidation, a liquidity event, an exit event some time.

1301
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 7: If you have a small business and it's like a

1302
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:39,520
Speaker 7: lifestyle business and you haven't taken on, you know, money

1303
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:42,560
Speaker 7: from professional investors, like that's different. You could just run

1304
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:45,120
Speaker 7: that forever and that's just your lifestyle. It just kicks

1305
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:48,479
Speaker 7: off cash. It provides income for you, and that's cool,

1306
01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 7: but that's a different kind of business what we have

1307
01:04:51,120 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 7: as a venture backed, you know, business of scale. So

1308
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:57,200
Speaker 7: the expectation is there will be some type of event

1309
01:04:57,280 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 7: and that could be an I P O or that

1310
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:04,200
Speaker 7: could be getting acquired. That's really only two ways and

1311
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 7: so those are you know, just like any other company

1312
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 7: like us, like those would be the two options to

1313
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 7: get liquidity.

1314
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:12,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's not many.

1315
01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:14,920
Speaker 1: I'm glad we spoke about why commenty we had did

1316
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 1: episode a couple of years ago to speak about it.

1317
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:19,959
Speaker 3: But if there's like a young group of.

1318
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: Guys of girls that are trying to get to Y

1319
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:28,600
Speaker 1: Combinator have their startup being, I have more eyeballs on it.

1320
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:32,280
Speaker 1: What are the type of qualities that founder should have

1321
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 1: prior to going there.

1322
01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:35,480
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the.

1323
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 4: Founder quality traits are like I think the number one

1324
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 4: trade is resilience because it's not gonna be easy, Like

1325
01:05:45,240 --> 01:05:47,120
Speaker 4: you don't have to be the smartest. You just have

1326
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:50,280
Speaker 4: to be the folks that will like it's a war

1327
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 4: attrician engine that won't give up.

1328
01:05:52,080 --> 01:05:56,480
Speaker 5: I think that's the really the folks. There's folks that

1329
01:05:56,520 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 5: I see.

1330
01:05:57,080 --> 01:05:59,400
Speaker 4: And I'm like, that person is gonna make it because

1331
01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 4: of the nasty and the let's say, hey, I'm making somehow.

1332
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 5: And also.

1333
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,200
Speaker 4: What's really telling if you give somebody advice right on

1334
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 4: how to do something and they they need to do

1335
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,320
Speaker 4: it themselves to find out early on, like later on

1336
01:06:18,440 --> 01:06:22,400
Speaker 4: like hey you live, you have experts or you have experiences,

1337
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:26,320
Speaker 4: but early on, like the best ospregeurs I met, even

1338
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:29,040
Speaker 4: if you gave them the advice, they have to see

1339
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:33,040
Speaker 4: it through themselves to understand it from their perspective, and

1340
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:35,640
Speaker 4: you learn a lesson. But I think that the number

1341
01:06:35,680 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 4: one quality is the determination and kind of grit.

1342
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 3: When you saw Sam, you saw that Sam Oltman.

1343
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:47,240
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. We didn't know what's going

1344
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 7: to be a level Now.

1345
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 4: Sam's cool dude, Like he gets a lot of you know,

1346
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 4: flack sometimes, but you know he's the same person that

1347
01:06:57,640 --> 01:06:59,640
Speaker 4: he was nine ten years ago.

1348
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 3: Very important gun he was.

1349
01:07:02,600 --> 01:07:04,960
Speaker 4: He was he had a Sympsons like he was thinking

1350
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 4: about universal Basic Income UBI ten years ago and there

1351
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:11,600
Speaker 4: are and.

1352
01:07:13,480 --> 01:07:15,840
Speaker 2: So what's next for you guys? And where can people

1353
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:18,000
Speaker 2: you know find you like talk about what's next as

1354
01:07:18,040 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 2: far as initiatives and then website, social media and all

1355
01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:21,840
Speaker 2: that stuff.

1356
01:07:23,040 --> 01:07:25,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, what's next just doubling down on this

1357
01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 4: AI uh and and really trying to incorporate it more

1358
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:32,600
Speaker 4: in the business as well as, you know, continue to

1359
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 4: add value for our customers.

1360
01:07:35,200 --> 01:07:38,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can go to get squared AI Scott. It's

1361
01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:39,520
Speaker 7: got the latest on that.

1362
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 2: And the AI, like you said, it's calling is it

1363
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:46,160
Speaker 2: more than that or is that the main focus more?

1364
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 6: That's just one.

1365
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 2: That's what's what's the what's the other people?

1366
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 7: So we're essentially we're embedding like this AI layer throughout

1367
01:07:53,320 --> 01:07:57,080
Speaker 7: the entire like back in like platform, so it's really

1368
01:07:57,080 --> 01:08:00,680
Speaker 7: going to be touch everything and and is designed to

1369
01:08:00,960 --> 01:08:03,000
Speaker 7: make the barber's lives more efficient and help them make

1370
01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 7: more money. The other way that we already have it

1371
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:10,280
Speaker 7: incorporated is through our marketing future, which is called Engage,

1372
01:08:10,440 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 7: which allows the barbers and the barbershop owners to like

1373
01:08:12,960 --> 01:08:17,400
Speaker 7: message send messages to their client base like email, text, pusification.

1374
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 7: So we've supercharged that with AI now, so now they

1375
01:08:20,240 --> 01:08:22,400
Speaker 7: can just type in what they want to achieve, like

1376
01:08:22,520 --> 01:08:24,720
Speaker 7: I want to get my customers to come in for

1377
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:27,800
Speaker 7: Howiday cut, and it'll literally create the campaign and then

1378
01:08:27,840 --> 01:08:29,400
Speaker 7: tell them who to send it to and then send

1379
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:33,679
Speaker 7: it out, so it's like their personal like business partner

1380
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,519
Speaker 7: that just like executes on things for them. So we're

1381
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:39,760
Speaker 7: in the early early phases. Those are the first two things,

1382
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:41,200
Speaker 7: but we have so much more coming.

1383
01:08:43,120 --> 01:08:45,880
Speaker 2: Well, appreciate you guys, man, thank you, thank you for

1384
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 2: your time and yeah, man, look forward to it for sure.

1385
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,280
Speaker 3: Appreciate thank you for being disruptive.

1386
01:08:54,880 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 2: All right, y'all, thank you for rocking us. To see

1387
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:57,400
Speaker 2: you next week. Peace.

1388
01:08:58,360 --> 01:08:59,120
Speaker 3: Earners, what's up?

1389
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:01,320
Speaker 1: You have a walk into a small business and everything

1390
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 1: just works like. The checkout is fast, the re seats

1391
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:07,960
Speaker 1: are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the

1392
01:09:08,000 --> 01:09:12,080
Speaker 1: door before the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square.

1393
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:15,160
Speaker 1: We love supporting businesses that run on Square because it

1394
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:18,240
Speaker 1: just feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a

1395
01:09:18,360 --> 01:09:20,840
Speaker 1: vendor at a pop up market, or even one of.

1396
01:09:20,800 --> 01:09:21,799
Speaker 3: Our merch partners.

1397
01:09:22,040 --> 01:09:25,840
Speaker 1: Square makes it easy for them to take payments, manage inventory,

1398
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:29,719
Speaker 1: and run their business with confidence, all from one simple system.

1399
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:32,640
Speaker 1: One of the things we love most is seeing neighborhood

1400
01:09:32,640 --> 01:09:36,479
Speaker 1: businesses level up. Business West Indian spired writing our community

1401
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:39,759
Speaker 1: that started with a small takeout counter now with Square.

1402
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:42,439
Speaker 1: They've been able to expand into a full sit down

1403
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:46,639
Speaker 1: restaurant and even started catering events across the city. That's

1404
01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:49,479
Speaker 1: the kind of growth that inspires us, and it's powered

1405
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 1: by Square. Square is built for all types of businesses,

1406
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:55,639
Speaker 1: from the corner bagel shop that turned into a local

1407
01:09:55,720 --> 01:10:00,000
Speaker 1: chain to the specialty market with thousands of unique items

1408
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 1: who's been holding you down for years? If you're a

1409
01:10:02,960 --> 01:10:06,120
Speaker 1: business owner or even just thinking about launching something soon,

1410
01:10:06,479 --> 01:10:09,080
Speaker 1: Square is hands down one of the best tools out

1411
01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:12,360
Speaker 1: there to help you start, run and grow. It's not

1412
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:15,640
Speaker 1: just about payments, it's about giving you time back so

1413
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:18,360
Speaker 1: you can focus on what matters most Ready. To see

1414
01:10:18,400 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 1: how Square can transform your business, visit Square dot com backslash,

1415
01:10:22,920 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: go backslash eyl to learn more that Square dot com backslash,

1416
01:10:28,160 --> 01:10:32,759
Speaker 1: go backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate. Let's Square handle

1417
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:35,439
Speaker 1: the back end so you can keep pushing your vision forward.