Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 1: the team today?
Speaker 2: It was a new game day scratches from the California
Speaker 2: Lottery players everything.
Speaker 3: Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 3: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 3: the game. That's all for now, coach, one more question.
Speaker 1: Played the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco forty nine
Speaker 1: Ers and Los Angeles Ram Scratchers from the California Lottery.
Speaker 1: A little play can make your day. Peace made responsibily.
Speaker 1: Must be eighteen years or older to purchase late or claim.
Speaker 4: All right, So now we're going to talk about apps, right,
Speaker 4: this is this is a conversation that is near and
Speaker 4: dead to our heart because so we you we entrepreneurs man,
Speaker 4: So we try everything more money.
Speaker 2: In every Yeah, and that's cut too. Like we tried
Speaker 2: and we failed a bunch of times.
Speaker 4: Got to so we had we had an idea, tell
Speaker 4: you a social media pay We started, We did a
Speaker 4: lot of different stuff and but one idea that we
Speaker 4: had was to have an app.
Speaker 5: And it was an app. Idea was pretty good in.
Speaker 4: I guess It was good in context, but it was
Speaker 4: about music for DJs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like getting rid of like the
Speaker 2: traditional way of people DJ when people bought creates to
Speaker 2: their sets and had to find records. We had like
Speaker 2: an idea to create a cloud service for DJs where
Speaker 2: they could create their sets and all they needed was
Speaker 2: Wi Fi at the venue, right and they could pull
Speaker 2: up their sets wherever they went. It was right exactly
Speaker 2: and like, now that's happening offers that but like a
Speaker 2: few years ago, nobody was doing it. So we were like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got an idea that can work. And it was
Speaker 2: my selfish god Jamal Mike again and Pull shout out
Speaker 2: to Pull and it uh. It started off as a
Speaker 2: great idea and we wanted to develop an app. It's
Speaker 2: still in an app, so I believe drop drive is
Speaker 2: a name. And we learned some some very valuable lessons
Speaker 2: during that process.
Speaker 4: So the problem the problem was, all right, i'll give
Speaker 4: you a quick version. The problem with us trying to
Speaker 4: develop the app is that we had no idea what
Speaker 4: we're doing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, that's a very welcome to the club,
Speaker 3: that's yeah.
Speaker 4: So we had an idea, we had no idea about
Speaker 4: how to develop the technology, how to development app. So
Speaker 4: long story, I'll give you a quicker because you're going
Speaker 4: you're going to tell my aps. But we we we
Speaker 4: put like thirty thousand dollars into an app, right, be
Speaker 4: all right, let me back up a little bit.
Speaker 5: So we got quotes for the app. We we we
Speaker 5: grew up the idea.
Speaker 4: We got quotes for the app in America and it
Speaker 4: was like eighty thousand dollars to the dolls were like, no,
Speaker 4: that's too much. So one of the members in the
Speaker 4: group had a connection with a developer in India.
Speaker 5: I don't know how we found shout out to India before.
Speaker 3: I told percent, so we are too. So yeah, one
Speaker 3: hundred percent, I got.
Speaker 5: I got stories. Okay, okay, nothing against India, but at
Speaker 5: all man, all right, so we all right, so wet
Speaker 5: so we.
Speaker 4: Okay, So we pick develop as an India because they're
Speaker 4: cheaper and they're very good with technology and they do
Speaker 4: a good.
Speaker 5: Job, we thought.
Speaker 4: So they have the app for about two weeks and
Speaker 4: they completely botch it.
Speaker 5: It's terrible. It comes back to us and it's like misspellings.
Speaker 3: It's like website, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 5: It doesn't work.
Speaker 4: So now me and Mike have to do conference calls
Speaker 4: skype conference calls with the guys in India. The problem
Speaker 4: is that India is like fourteen hours ahead, right, So
Speaker 4: we're like going conference calls at like four o'clock in
Speaker 4: the morning. It's like three in the afternoon there, right,
Speaker 4: and we're on the phone and I could barely understand
Speaker 4: what they're actually saying, and they're saying that they're going
Speaker 4: to do it better at this time, right.
Speaker 5: So there's like different stages that we.
Speaker 4: Have to pay in like five thousand for the right
Speaker 4: first part, then five thousand for the second part. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it gave them like two different payments of like ten thousand,
Speaker 4: and they botched it both times, and we were like
Speaker 4: fifteen thousand in with no prototype nothing. It was like
Speaker 4: so then what I didn't know either. It's been so
Speaker 4: about learning experience.
Speaker 3: In India.
Speaker 4: They have the holidays, like the holidays last for like
Speaker 4: the volley three weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's just no.
Speaker 4: So the guy told me he's like I'm going on holiday.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, okay, I think you know, he he'll
Speaker 4: be back on Thursday. It's like a Wednesday, and they
Speaker 4: didn't come back for a month, like a holiday, like
Speaker 4: last three weeks. So we're just waiting for three weeks
Speaker 4: in there on holiday, right, So then we and then
Speaker 4: we play another Indian.
Speaker 3: Developer to correct it to fly out there.
Speaker 4: So they're in like one part of India, right, So
Speaker 4: we have a relationship with another Indian developer.
Speaker 5: He's like, Okay, I know that I could fix it.
Speaker 5: Could I go to these guys?
Speaker 3: We have to play for his flight. Yeah, we had
Speaker 3: to pay for the flass. I just I'm I'm just happy,
Speaker 3: like I've learned so much because I'm hearing all this.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, because this guy was running another one
Speaker 4: of our friends sights, so he's supposed to be credible.
Speaker 4: So he's like, Okay, look I know these guys. I
Speaker 4: can go there. I talked the lingo. I can straighten
Speaker 4: this out. So we pay his flight. If we pay
Speaker 4: his flight, did we pay his hotel?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, because it was a one day trip one day.
Speaker 5: We pay his flight, We pay him.
Speaker 4: He goes out there, he says, he speaks to them,
Speaker 4: nothing happens, nothing happens at all. So now we're getting
Speaker 4: frustrated because that was like two months in, we paid
Speaker 4: like fifteen thousand dollars and we have nothing to show
Speaker 4: for it.
Speaker 5: Pretty much.
Speaker 2: We can download the app, but it does nothing.
Speaker 3: No, it does nothing.
Speaker 4: So then after that part, we go back and forth
Speaker 4: with them and they just like stop working. It stopped
Speaker 4: working completely stop. So now it's like, okay, we need
Speaker 4: somebody to do this. They're in India. They took our money,
Speaker 4: we have no product.
Speaker 3: That all right.
Speaker 2: And then he said he the second developer, said oh
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 5: Do it in India. Yeah, there is another Indian.
Speaker 2: Not the same guy we used to flew out.
Speaker 3: He was like, I can do it, all right.
Speaker 5: It's going to cost us.
Speaker 3: This everyone's always going to say.
Speaker 4: So the guy, the guy that flew out to talk
Speaker 4: to the guys, he's like, okay, look I can do
Speaker 4: it for you. It'll cost like five thousand.
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: He doesn't do it either. He does it, but it's
Speaker 4: like not done properly. So then comes back and he's like, look,
Speaker 4: actually this is gonna cost way more because it's way
Speaker 4: more involved. Then you gotta do more tech and all
Speaker 4: kinds of stuff. So the long story short of it
Speaker 4: is that we wasted thirty thousand dollars and we had
Speaker 4: nothing to show for it.
Speaker 2: Full transparency. Yeah, we got an app that you can
Speaker 2: probably search that does nothing.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, yeah, like this that just lets
Speaker 3: me know how much I've grown, because like hearing all this,
Speaker 3: like there was forty seven things that I was like,
Speaker 3: oh did you do this? Like oh my god. But
Speaker 3: that's just part of the thing, because I mean when
Speaker 3: I first went on started on this journey, I really
Speaker 3: was just like oh boom. So I get a developer
Speaker 3: and we're like we're rocking. I tell you how to
Speaker 3: make the app, and I get it. It is so
Speaker 3: much more than that, and you start realizing why Silicon
Speaker 3: Valley is what it is.
Speaker 2: It goes back to what we said last episode though, right,
Speaker 2: Sometimes when you try to take shortcuts and pay for
Speaker 2: cheaper labor, it's going to be a more extensive thing
Speaker 2: at the end.
Speaker 3: It's very, very true, undred percent. I Mean I always
Speaker 3: say this is not just in getting cheap, but I
Speaker 3: always say, like free is more expensive than paying for anything,
Speaker 3: because it's just like what you're investing to somebody else
Speaker 3: to do something for you for free. It's sometimes it's
Speaker 3: a heavier burden down the road than just paying to
Speaker 3: get quality things done by by someone who's quality at
Speaker 3: their job. And so yeah, I mean, like my whole
Speaker 3: you know, my whole tech team, our whole tech team
Speaker 3: is in India, but it is it is such a
Speaker 3: different story. But yeah, it's interesting. I mean, let's get
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 5: Alright.
Speaker 4: So my man Cole has has a dope app. We're
Speaker 4: gonna talk about the details of the app, quick track
Speaker 4: what it's called. Yes, but before we go into the
Speaker 4: details of the app. All right, let's back up. So
Speaker 4: we failed miserably in the app world, right, but you're
Speaker 4: actually succeeding in the app world, right. So okay, so
Speaker 4: first off, how did you come up with the idea.
Speaker 5: To start an app?
Speaker 3: So my background in anything before all this, I'm way
Speaker 3: more of a creative guy. I made clothes, I wrote
Speaker 3: songs like that was that was just my life. That's
Speaker 3: just what I did. It was farthest thing from tech savvy,
Speaker 3: all of those things. And so one day a buddy
Speaker 3: of mine, Adam, he's a great illustrator, and so he
Speaker 3: was working at a design agency. He's getting freelanced out
Speaker 3: and we pulled up to go get his check. This
Speaker 3: was about two years ago, and you know, I'm just
Speaker 3: sitting in his car. I'm chilling, you know, just waiting
Speaker 3: for him to come back in. He comes back in.
Speaker 3: He's hot, he's absolutely, He's like punching the steering wheel.
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, like, what's up? Like are you okay?
Speaker 3: And he tells me that they just said that they
Speaker 3: weren't going to pay him and they showed him like
Speaker 3: eight hundred and fifty dollars like out of his check.
Speaker 3: And I'm sitting there and I go, hey, well, like
Speaker 3: I mean, do you have like a contract with him
Speaker 3: or anything? And he's like, nah, man, I don't. And
Speaker 3: I was like, he's like looking through his text messages,
Speaker 3: like he's like sifting through to see like where the
Speaker 3: deal was and whatnot. And I was like, well, you know,
Speaker 3: why didn't you have a contract? And I swear to
Speaker 3: you it was like getting hit by like a like
Speaker 3: a lightning bolt in that moment, because I was like,
Speaker 3: I've done business like this one hundred times. I've done
Speaker 3: so many things where you know, it was just whatever
Speaker 3: handshake and you know it's all good until it's not.
Speaker 3: It's worked. It's worked. You know so many times where
Speaker 3: you know, it kind of reinforces the bad habit because
Speaker 3: you don't even care because you're like, whatever, rest my
Speaker 3: man's we're good, we'll figure it out. And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: there has to be like a fast way to just
Speaker 3: create a contract on the fly. Like I know there's
Speaker 3: a DOCU sign, but you know you got to upload
Speaker 3: something or you know, that's if you're buying a house
Speaker 3: or something like that. It's a little bit of a
Speaker 3: you know, thicker process. And so I just start looking
Speaker 3: on like on the car ride back home from that place,
Speaker 3: I'm looking in my phone, looking through the app store
Speaker 3: because I'm like, I'm typing a contract, I'm talking in agreement,
Speaker 3: I'm doing all these things because I'm like, there has
Speaker 3: to be something that does this, and everything is like
Speaker 3: upload a PDF to sign. My whole point was, you know,
Speaker 3: there has to be a way to streamline this process
Speaker 3: because the thing about contract is in general is you know,
Speaker 3: you're you're signing, you know, a contract to be on
Speaker 3: a sports team. Yeah, it's going to be about this
Speaker 3: thick but all that really matters is the terms on there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know, if I'm asking someone to make a
Speaker 3: logo for me, for five hundred dollars. It doesn't need
Speaker 3: to be the same twenty page packet. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. All that matters is you know what is
Speaker 3: going to get paid, scope of work, deadline, Is there
Speaker 3: a deposit? As long as those things get straightened out realistically,
Speaker 3: that's the terms of any binding agreement. And so I'm
Speaker 3: sitting there and I'm looking through it. I can't see
Speaker 3: anything that is the vision. In that moment, I tell Adam,
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, like, what if there was an after
Speaker 3: this called quick tracked swear? Like it's the first thought
Speaker 3: in my head. I saw the color purple, like all
Speaker 3: of it, and I just I just kind of like
Speaker 3: I forget what we just let kind of let it be.
Speaker 3: Go home. I go home, and I remember, like a
Speaker 3: like a day later, I call my mom and I'm
Speaker 3: talking to her and I just tell her the idea,
Speaker 3: not really thinking about it or anything like that, just
Speaker 3: you know, hey, this is what I was thinking about.
Speaker 3: She was like, you should you should see if that
Speaker 3: domain name is available. So that's like the first thing
Speaker 3: I did is I looked it was completely available. So
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay, Like so I bought the
Speaker 3: domain name off go Daddy for like ninety nine cents
Speaker 3: because I was just like, whatever, every never going to
Speaker 3: do anything with this, but it's fine. And then like
Speaker 3: about forty eight hours after that happens, I swear, it
Speaker 3: just feels like a movie. Like I just get up
Speaker 3: out of bed and I immediately see like the process,
Speaker 3: like I see how it's supposed to look. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 3: it has to be done in like sixty seconds. Like
Speaker 3: you have to be able to create an agreement super
Speaker 3: fast and streamline at all, because what we're at war
Speaker 3: with is not contract. Because you could always get a
Speaker 3: contract if you want to. You'll print something now, it's
Speaker 3: no big deal. The problem is the psychology behind a contract.
Speaker 3: You know, if you ask your friend to sign a
Speaker 3: contract for something, could be for anything, it feels heavy handed.
Speaker 3: There's almost like an element of distrust attached to that.
Speaker 3: If you're just like, hey, man, can you watch my
Speaker 3: dog for the weekend? Here, sign this contract? You're like, oh, bro,
Speaker 3: like what do you mean? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So that was always the first step. I I learned
Speaker 3: how to animate and photoshop off the University of YouTube.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sumakum lad and then and so I do that,
Speaker 3: stay up all night figuring out like how it looks,
Speaker 3: and it was. Believe me, if I could redo it again,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, dude, use Adobe x D, like it's
Speaker 3: gonna be so much faster. But that comes with the
Speaker 3: learning process. And then over months and months of time later,
Speaker 3: it was one of those things where I just couldn't
Speaker 3: put down. I have absolutely no resources. I am not
Speaker 3: in any way, shape or form qualified to do any
Speaker 3: of this. I just have an idea that can't leave
Speaker 3: my head. So then from there, I get up with
Speaker 3: a buddy of mine, Shane, who then has a friend
Speaker 3: named Nick. Nick went to school with him out at UCLA.
Speaker 3: He was originally from India. I meet up with them
Speaker 3: and Nick, essentially he starts understanding the vision and we
Speaker 3: actually start putting some wire frames and stuff together.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he starts getting the vision and we start putting
Speaker 3: some wire frames together, and I'm just paying him out
Speaker 3: of pocket at this point. He's not even a part
Speaker 3: of the team or anything like that. I just remember,
Speaker 3: you want to talk about American prices. I remember he
Speaker 3: flips one thing to me. He was like, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: three grand, and I was just like, like this Like
Speaker 3: I was like I could click three things like what
Speaker 3: are you talking about? And then as and eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: we started becoming friends and I was like, bro, like
Speaker 3: let's just do this, like let's just really go in
Speaker 3: on this and fast forward from there. I actually, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm starting to get a little more momentum just with
Speaker 3: the idea. We have no real infrastructure, no real business understanding.
Speaker 2: How many people on the team at this point.
Speaker 3: So at this point, at this point, there was three individuals.
Speaker 5: This is before you have the app, this is before,
Speaker 5: and this is the idea. Yeah about the idea, this.
Speaker 3: Is this is like I said, it's it's there's no
Speaker 3: resources at this point. It's a guy who knows how
Speaker 3: to make a wireframe essentially. And so then from there,
Speaker 3: so I have so I have an uncle Lee. I
Speaker 3: haven't talked to him in a couple of years. He
Speaker 3: was a very very very smart guy. And originally I
Speaker 3: just I call him just for some guidance. I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: like I I have this idea. I'm kind of like
Speaker 3: over my head, do you have like a couple hours
Speaker 3: to just talk to me through this and see how
Speaker 3: we could kind of you know, see tell me if
Speaker 3: I have anything here. He's one of those guys who,
Speaker 3: you know, if essentially he's gonna tell you if the
Speaker 3: idea sucks, and you know, if it's good, he might
Speaker 3: just say like, oh that's yeah, that's good. So that's
Speaker 3: what I was kind of like leaning into, and so
Speaker 3: I end up talking to him about it and just
Speaker 3: going from there. All while this is going on, Nick
Speaker 3: goes back to India for a little while. Nick goes
Speaker 3: back to India, comes back for like Christmas break. He
Speaker 3: gets stopped at the border. They asked to look at
Speaker 3: his phone. They look at his phone, they see our
Speaker 3: conversations about quick tracked, and they're like, oh you don't.
Speaker 3: You don't have an entrepreneur visa. You have a student visa.
Speaker 3: So they don't let him into the country. They send
Speaker 3: him back to India. So he's in India still, like
Speaker 3: I said, Yeah, So that's why I said, like, our
Speaker 3: tech team is in India.
Speaker 2: Oh he's still there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's still there right now. Oh wow, from India.
Speaker 3: He's from India.
Speaker 4: All right, Okay, okay, so you all right, so you
Speaker 4: have one of your guys get stopped at the border. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then the other so is now it's you and
Speaker 4: in your guys.
Speaker 3: So so it's so it's myself Nick and it's Lee
Speaker 3: at this time. Okay, So one in India, Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: one's ones and know we're all spread at one Ohio.
Speaker 3: I'm in La Nick is in India.
Speaker 4: Right now, all right? So okay, so you have you
Speaker 4: have the idea. First, you reach out to your friends.
Speaker 4: You explained to them the idea. They like the idea, right,
Speaker 4: y'all gonna start working on it. Nick can't come back
Speaker 4: to America. Yeah, he's stuck in India, right, Okay, So
Speaker 4: from that that point, how do you going towards developing app?
Speaker 3: So what happens is is so and I got to
Speaker 3: give a huge shout out here to Lee and the
Speaker 3: eventual party that we brought on Russ as well. So,
Speaker 3: so Lee's in his forties, Russ I think is in
Speaker 3: his sixties now. And the thing about and they both have,
Speaker 3: you know, over twenty thirty years of real business experience.
Speaker 5: How do you know these people?
Speaker 3: So Lee is my uncle. So, like I said, he's
Speaker 3: my uncle. But it was one of those things where
Speaker 3: it wasn't like we were we were always like super close.
Speaker 3: I initially was just like, hey, man, like I have
Speaker 3: this idea. I would love to run it by you.
Speaker 5: Do you call your uncle league?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so and so. Uh So
Speaker 3: we just talk and see what happens. We kind of
Speaker 3: start realizing that his background is more more in line
Speaker 3: than we would even originally had planned. I mean he
Speaker 3: had he had this one company called CIM, which essentially
Speaker 3: was they served like as like the bankruptcy uh like
Speaker 3: data information for like over seventeen thousand law firms, you know,
Speaker 3: like percent. Like he's yeah, he's made his money, you know.
Speaker 3: And so that was one of those things where I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, you know, let's just talk this out.
Speaker 3: It starts feeling way bigger than me at this point
Speaker 3: because at this point he's like, no, like I want
Speaker 3: to let's let's do this like I want a rock.
Speaker 3: Let's let's actually get this going. And then we start
Speaker 3: from there. And a huge component of this, which was
Speaker 3: a very big struggle for me, like I'll be flat
Speaker 3: out honest and transparent about it as I fly up
Speaker 3: to Ohio to essentially like walk through it all and
Speaker 3: see if we could make a partnership work. And I
Speaker 3: sit there and look at this whiteboard that's just full
Speaker 3: of them, you know, so many of the technological hurdles
Speaker 3: that we have to jump, and you know, this is
Speaker 3: way more his space at this time. So yeah, this
Speaker 3: is his board, and I'm looking at it because it's
Speaker 3: it's the same schematics that I've put out, but now
Speaker 3: it's like, actually, this is the actualization process of it all.
Speaker 3: And I sit there and I go, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this is so much bigger than me, you know, And
Speaker 3: in that moment, I realized something that was like really painful,
Speaker 3: which I was like, in order for this vision to
Speaker 3: go somewhere, I might have to curb some of my
Speaker 3: ego in order to make this happen. So what I
Speaker 3: do is I say, you know what, I'm gonna make
Speaker 3: you the CEO. I'm gonna make you the CEO of
Speaker 3: this Like I said, I founded this company. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: make you the CEO of this company. I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: the cheap brand officer. I'm gonna stick with what I
Speaker 3: know how to do.
Speaker 4: All right, So you start the company, rightc you start
Speaker 4: a sea court. You tell your uncle about the idea.
Speaker 4: Your uncle has a lot more business experience than you do.
Speaker 4: So you just have the idea in your head. Your
Speaker 4: uncle he thinks about it. He's like, nah, this this
Speaker 4: can actually do something crazy. He puts it on a
Speaker 4: vision border like this is when you see it execution steps,
Speaker 4: you realize that his vision for your idea is more
Speaker 4: advanced than your vision.
Speaker 3: It more so it was it was the here's how
Speaker 3: of my idea, you know what I'm saying, which it
Speaker 3: builds I mean, like I said, it builds out to
Speaker 3: such a more collaborative place after the fact, But in
Speaker 3: that moment, it was so like, oh, I just thought,
Speaker 3: we hire developers and the app come. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So that that process of saying, you know what this is,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be the CEO of this? How long did
Speaker 2: you wrestle with that?
Speaker 3: Truth be told? It was so I fly home, I
Speaker 3: fly home from being out there, and I remember I
Speaker 3: was talking about mom and I wrestled with it for
Speaker 3: a little bit. But it was one of those things
Speaker 3: where you know, you can't deny it, like it's it's
Speaker 3: such it's such an obvious thing where I'm like, okay, Well,
Speaker 3: as a role player, if you got you know, if
Speaker 3: you got Lebron essentially been like, yeah, I'll play on
Speaker 3: your team, but like you can't be point guard. I
Speaker 3: want to be point guard. You kind of gotta go, okay,
Speaker 3: well do I want to win a championship?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying that that that takes it.
Speaker 4: That's it takes a lot of humility, right, it takes
Speaker 4: a lot of humility to do, because that's like even
Speaker 4: going on Shark Tank right where it's like your yo,
Speaker 4: your baby that you you gave birth to and you
Speaker 4: pretty much let somebody else take it from me.
Speaker 3: I'll take it from well.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: So, so what happens is is so like I said,
Speaker 3: I very much in that moment, in that moment, like
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie, like I'm scared. I'm trying to
Speaker 3: figure everything out.
Speaker 5: Did he ask to be CEO or you just offered that?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, no. So what happened was was it kind
Speaker 3: of was like a meet in the middle where it
Speaker 3: was like it was a conclusion that had to get
Speaker 3: reached on both ends because it was one of those
Speaker 3: things where it's like one I couldn't have been because
Speaker 3: and this is one thing that I want anyone to
Speaker 3: take away from this, this is probably one of the
Speaker 3: biggest lessons I've learned in my life because of this
Speaker 3: is you don't know what you don't know. That is
Speaker 3: point blank period. There are so many phases of life
Speaker 3: where you don't know what you don't know. You don't
Speaker 3: even know the question to ask to get the answer
Speaker 3: for something down the road. Experience is the biggest thing
Speaker 3: in the world. Like you guys said, you know, you
Speaker 3: didn't know what you didn't know about making an app
Speaker 3: until you, you know, made one unsuccessfully. Now you know.
Speaker 5: Something, well, you know what the thing about it got
Speaker 5: to cut you off.
Speaker 4: But sure, if honestly, if we would have had mentors, right,
Speaker 4: if we would have had somebody in the field, we
Speaker 4: might have been successful. And that's the problem a lot
Speaker 4: of times is that we don't have mentorship, right, So
Speaker 4: don't we just winging it as we go? We didn't
Speaker 4: have Uncle Leaf, you know, yeah, if we had somebody
Speaker 4: like that. But that's great that you utilize your resource
Speaker 4: you have. Yeah, a wise man utilizes all tools that's
Speaker 4: available to him.
Speaker 3: It's one hundred percent. It's it's a huge component of
Speaker 3: this is is And that was one of the things
Speaker 3: that was the conversation that we that we really have,
Speaker 3: and we were like, all right, boom, let's lock in,
Speaker 3: let's really do this. It was me understanding, I don't
Speaker 3: know what. I don't know. You can see further than
Speaker 3: just me right here, but I know that this idea
Speaker 3: is so strong and I feel this so strongly, and
Speaker 3: I know that my skills will be best served in
Speaker 3: this area that you know, it's like I said, we
Speaker 3: could say humility, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: like I just I just truly believe that when you
Speaker 3: are fortunate enough to be in that mode of creativity
Speaker 3: where like things are just clicking, you know, it's just
Speaker 3: almost like a lob. At that point, you're just playing
Speaker 3: ball and you're like, okay, like go ahead at this,
Speaker 3: all right, all right?
Speaker 5: So now all right, So you have the business structure
Speaker 5: of Rice.
Speaker 4: You establish that your uncle with the CEO, you're good
Speaker 4: at chief marketing officer.
Speaker 3: I'm chief marketing and chief brand Yes.
Speaker 5: What's the other guy's role?
Speaker 3: So we got so that we got Russ Russell, who
Speaker 3: was another of the older guys who he'd been in
Speaker 3: business with my uncle for Russell Russ Russell, we got
Speaker 3: we got names on this team and so so he's
Speaker 3: been in so he's been in business, you know, over
Speaker 3: forty years at this point, he's been you know, he'd
Speaker 3: been working around with my uncle I think for a
Speaker 3: little over twenty. But so these are individuals who know
Speaker 3: the game very well. And he was the first person
Speaker 3: to say is like, look, you know a lot of
Speaker 3: the times when you go into a VC situation or
Speaker 3: you know down the road, you need some gray hair
Speaker 3: in the room, you know, someone with no experience venture capitalist.
Speaker 5: Yah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just in like put this in anything. I
Speaker 3: think that a great point, you know, to piggyback way
Speaker 3: on the on your social media stuff that you were
Speaker 3: saying about how you know, start with what you have.
Speaker 3: Huge part of making an app is an MVP minimum
Speaker 3: viable product. So it's like it's the same thing with
Speaker 3: making videos where it's like it you have to make
Speaker 3: content some way because no one's gonna give you all
Speaker 3: the equipment if they don't have something to go off.
Speaker 3: And so that's how like a app making works is
Speaker 3: I have to show you the slide show that then
Speaker 3: turns into the wireframes. I have to show you the
Speaker 3: wireframes that then turn into the you know, the first
Speaker 3: like version and then build on so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: So you all right, so you build your team out first, right, right,
Speaker 4: you build your teams, You start the legal structure.
Speaker 5: You have the LLC. I'm assuming you copyright the name
Speaker 5: and all of that. You build your team. This is
Speaker 5: before the tech. This is before tech.
Speaker 3: This is this is it's kind of running congruently at
Speaker 3: this point. Actually no, no, no, so we haven't. We
Speaker 3: haven't started building the full full product yet.
Speaker 4: No, so all right, let's talk about that. How do
Speaker 4: you build that? How do you build that?
Speaker 3: Okay, how much time we got? No? No, So, So
Speaker 3: the thing about it is is, you know, there's coding languages,
Speaker 3: there's things like, I mean, these were words I never
Speaker 3: even knew before I got here. Where it's like are
Speaker 3: you building REAC native? Is it swift? You know? Or
Speaker 3: what are you using symphony on the back end? Like
Speaker 3: there's so many things there. You know, APIs there's so
Speaker 3: many nuances that once again you don't know what you
Speaker 3: don't know, So you're kind of trial by fire at
Speaker 3: this point in time. So you go from there and
Speaker 3: you establish you know, your product manager, which is something
Speaker 3: that when you guys were talking about yours, I was
Speaker 3: like oh, they didn't have a product manager, which is
Speaker 3: that's the guy who Yeah, maybe if you had someone
Speaker 3: here who who had built an app before, who was
Speaker 3: running point for you, guys who knew like, okay, these
Speaker 3: are the tranches, these are the check marks they have
Speaker 3: to get to you guys are coding and react native.
Speaker 3: Let me see you know the gi hub like there
Speaker 3: was there was certain components like that where you need
Speaker 3: to building an app. The reason like a Zuckerberg can
Speaker 3: create an app in his dorm room is because there's
Speaker 3: only one of him. There's only one zucker but there's
Speaker 3: only one of these people. You know, Steve Jobs needed
Speaker 3: you needed his partner, all these people. It's so much
Speaker 3: bigger than just your entity. Apps are, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: it you know, every business is a team game, but
Speaker 3: in my experience, the app one is the most. Like
Speaker 3: everyone has to lean on each other at all times
Speaker 3: because the minute it doesn't happen is the minute you're
Speaker 3: like yo, you're so you're on vacation, Like I like
Speaker 3: I can't get a hold of you. I don't know
Speaker 3: what's going on. The whole products project stalls.
Speaker 4: So you have all right, so the project manager, right,
Speaker 4: where do you find a project manager.
Speaker 3: So I mean for for what we did is we
Speaker 3: were kind of we were kind of lucky. So we
Speaker 3: start building the team out. We got Lee who's on
Speaker 3: top of tech, as well as this other another guy, Scott.
Speaker 3: Those two individuals ton of experiences within that, so now
Speaker 3: they're so they're manning the tech side as long as
Speaker 3: well as Nick. So those are like our three you know,
Speaker 3: those are the three people on the tech part of this.
Speaker 3: Because we contract this out to a bunch of what's
Speaker 3: called a bunch of developers, originally in Eastern Europe. So
Speaker 3: that's where we start from there.
Speaker 5: But why do you use Europe your developers?
Speaker 3: So we we went through a whole process of of
Speaker 3: getting you know, of getting quotes, quotes and everything like that.
Speaker 3: We thought at that time that was gonna be the best.
Speaker 4: Way to gor so so Americans because that happened to
Speaker 4: us too, So we were American app developers are extremely
Speaker 4: They're way more expensive than right, like I said us,
Speaker 4: it was ninety what was the quote that you've.
Speaker 3: Got, I mean six figures everywhere? Yeah, everywhere?
Speaker 5: And what was the quotes in Eastern Europe?
Speaker 3: There were still six figures, it was but this way
Speaker 3: it was. There was conversations where where it was looking
Speaker 3: like you know, hey, it's gonna cost like you know,
Speaker 3: like north of like four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: To do this in America. So four hundred thousand of America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we were just like, oh, like like you know,
Speaker 3: those those those are the those are the beginning things.
Speaker 3: And like I said, the thing about tech is in general,
Speaker 3: is it's so expensive. It is it is. It doesn't
Speaker 3: matter where you do it at. It's also this is
Speaker 3: not a cautionary tale because it's a great thing. But
Speaker 3: the thing about quick Track is is it's such a
Speaker 3: it's such a deep app like it's like it's essentially
Speaker 3: like you're recreating, like not recreating, but it's you know,
Speaker 3: it has it has to have the same level of
Speaker 3: complexities as you know, like an uber Lyft or things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: It's complicated as So all right, so did you use
Speaker 4: the developers in Eastern Europe?
Speaker 3: Yes, so we use So we use them and then
Speaker 3: eventually we transitioned fully after release to Nick in the
Speaker 3: whole team in India. So what what's the cost analysis
Speaker 3: at this point?
Speaker 2: Right, Like you've got the developers, you got the team
Speaker 2: that's saying six figures, is it lower six figures obviously
Speaker 2: build a.
Speaker 3: Little over three total total. Well, the thing about the
Speaker 3: thing about building an app is is the the cost
Speaker 3: never like, it doesn't stop. So it's not like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is how much you paid and then you know, cool,
Speaker 3: the app is done. It's you're there's always there's there's
Speaker 3: you're paying a w S, you're paying for the database,
Speaker 3: You're paying all these things consistently, so across the board.
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Speaker 3: Ever like, oh, you paid for this way, you guys.
Speaker 3: You know you guys put thirty thousand into the app
Speaker 3: or it goes out. That's great, But that thirty thousand
Speaker 3: is is just to MV as the MVP's minimum viable product.
Speaker 3: You have to then from there, you know, for the
Speaker 3: eternity of its existence, you know, you have to pay upkeep,
Speaker 3: you have to pay to continue that. You know, Server
Speaker 3: costs all of those things.
Speaker 2: So from the three hundred thousand, like, how do we
Speaker 2: get funded for that?
Speaker 3: So what we So, what we did is we decided
Speaker 3: to we thought about this and we said, hey, who
Speaker 3: would be the most you know, in general, who would
Speaker 3: be the most anti quick track?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Attorneys?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like attorneys would probably be the most anti quick track
Speaker 3: simply because you know it it may be seen as
Speaker 3: like taking from their practice. So what we did is
Speaker 3: we leaned on, you know, the past relationships that my
Speaker 3: partners had built with these really really like awesome these
Speaker 3: awesome guys who saw the vision, who were like, hey,
Speaker 3: this is you know, this is what we want to do.
Speaker 3: And so we built, like I said, we built from there.
Speaker 3: We ended up we ended up making them shareholders, brought
Speaker 3: them in and that's what kicked everything.
Speaker 5: Off for these people. Lawyers.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, so you all right, so you had investors, yes,
Speaker 4: relationships from your partners, right, they came in and they
Speaker 4: invested money in xact, they got equity. Right, Okay, Well,
Speaker 4: how can so what are you do you know any
Speaker 4: ideas for people that are looking to raise money that
Speaker 4: may not have.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent I mean, I think it's before anything else,
Speaker 3: like the use what you've got mentality you know will
Speaker 3: take you further than anything, because if you think that
Speaker 3: the only way you're going to raise money is by
Speaker 3: leaning on a relationship or something like that, then you
Speaker 3: might miss your moment. You might miss the opportunity. There's
Speaker 3: you know, there's a there's a I wish I wish
Speaker 3: there was a rubric that said, hey, this is exactly
Speaker 3: how you go raise money. One thing that you want
Speaker 3: to do that I urge over anything else is focus
Speaker 3: on the idea before you focus on the raise. So
Speaker 3: focus on creating the best version of your idea, the
Speaker 3: most realized you possibly can. You know, if that MVP
Speaker 3: is a literal beta that you could have someone test,
Speaker 3: or if it's a slide show, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: it is. You have to take it to the absolute
Speaker 3: limit of what you know how to do and then
Speaker 3: from there, Like I said, I know this sounds cheesy
Speaker 3: and corny, and I know there's like a here's how
Speaker 3: to all of this, But at least in my experience
Speaker 3: in my story is it was just if you act
Speaker 3: in a way that has a level of sincerity with
Speaker 3: this and you are not afraid to ask questions and
Speaker 3: it could be dumb. All right, well cool, So who
Speaker 3: do I know in my life that you know may
Speaker 3: do something? Talk to them build it out from there,
Speaker 3: because what I did is all I had was passion
Speaker 3: attached to this. I just said, how do like once again,
Speaker 3: I can't reiterate this enough. I had no experience in
Speaker 3: this up to this point. All I did was say,
Speaker 3: this thing won't leave my head. I don't know what
Speaker 3: to do. And I kept building it into a relationships,
Speaker 3: you know, stack themselves up to say, okay, well you
Speaker 3: know what, it's bigger than you. Because when it has
Speaker 3: to be no one, no one's investing in me, that's
Speaker 3: not the point. They're investing in an overall idea. And
Speaker 3: then on top of that, people aren't going to invest
Speaker 3: their time in something that you want to do if
Speaker 3: you're not willing to go to the limit. And so
Speaker 3: that's a huge component of this. So it's like the
Speaker 3: like you said, use what you have.
Speaker 2: So even if I had five thousand dollars, right, I
Speaker 2: got to build out to that five thousand. But I
Speaker 2: have to have something tangible one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the way it is in general.
Speaker 3: Is like I said, I'm sure there's like romantic stories
Speaker 3: of people going to someone with a bunch of money
Speaker 3: like boom, I got this idea. And there's like the speech,
Speaker 3: you know, the famous the Carnegie speech where he ended
Speaker 3: up kind of bringing together like the Steel Trust. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you guys have heard about that. He
Speaker 3: essentially was a speech that ended up being worth a
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars. But but the thing is is sure
Speaker 3: those moments I would kill for one of those if
Speaker 3: you and Farberteene, I would absolutely love that. But you
Speaker 3: have to have something tangible. You know, I've gotten it
Speaker 3: beaten to my head by my partners and everything through
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of time. But you know, talking is wonderful,
Speaker 3: but it's all about execution.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 4: So okay, so now you raised the three hundred thousand,
Speaker 4: you developed the app, right, you have like six partners.
Speaker 5: At this point.
Speaker 3: So at this point, yeah, right, six partners.
Speaker 4: Okay, so now you have the app built, right, So
Speaker 4: now what's the next steps as far as how do
Speaker 4: you get the app into Apple or how do you
Speaker 4: get the app into to sell it? How do you
Speaker 4: market the app? How do you monetize the app? How
Speaker 4: do you like?
Speaker 3: Right, So, in general, the first thing that happens is is,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a ton of testing. And I can't
Speaker 3: stress this is enough. It really is like a true
Speaker 3: labor of love.
Speaker 2: How long is this process at this point?
Speaker 3: Shoot, August till March. So it was from August to March. Yeah, so,
Speaker 3: and it was supposed to be shorter, but like I said,
Speaker 3: it's if you if you want certainty and making an app,
Speaker 3: they don't go together, like you know, it's just part
Speaker 3: of the deal. But so that happens, they all get that,
Speaker 3: all gets put together, tons of testing, tons of work,
Speaker 3: all of those things at the time. Keep in mind,
Speaker 3: I'm my I'm I'm marketing like I'm building out the whole,
Speaker 3: the whole idea behind how we translate this to everybody.
Speaker 3: You know, we have we have uh Nick flying from
Speaker 3: from India to Belarus and back and things like that,
Speaker 3: you know, negative degree temperatures and things.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, you know, we got Lee and Ohio being up
Speaker 3: at all hours. You know, the time change get everything going.
Speaker 3: And so eventually after a bunch of tests and whatnot,
Speaker 3: it's ready to go. It's ready to go, it's ready
Speaker 3: to get put out into the App Store, Google Play,
Speaker 3: everything like that. From that point, you then go ahead
Speaker 3: and you know, once it's initial release, you gotta wait
Speaker 3: for things with Apple because that's just the way Apple works.
Speaker 3: They charge you for having it in the store. So
Speaker 3: I mean what they do is Apple takes I believe
Speaker 3: it's I believe it's thirty percent of of everything. So
Speaker 3: that's so that's why you know a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of apps, their their payment processing will be outside
Speaker 3: of the app store. So like have you noticed you
Speaker 3: can't pay for Spotify in the app store, Like you
Speaker 3: have to go onto the desktop version in order to
Speaker 3: pay for premium. So it's things like that because they're
Speaker 3: they're kind of like circumventing the process. Well that's what
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. The same thing with like a
Speaker 3: Netflix and things like that. They're trying to, you know,
Speaker 3: get outside of the payment Well that's what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And like I said, I might be wrong that Apple
Speaker 3: doesn't touch it at some point in time, but I
Speaker 3: mean it's A. It's a. That's what people try to do,
Speaker 3: is they try to you know, they wanted to think
Speaker 3: of every possible way to you know, have you know, Apple,
Speaker 3: there's a reason they're the biggest company in world, his three.
Speaker 3: You know, they know how to, they know how to
Speaker 3: you know, accumulate from everything.
Speaker 5: And Apple takes thirty percent. How much does it Android take?
Speaker 3: I don't think they take anything. I'm trying to. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to think. I don't think. I don't think they
Speaker 3: I don't think they touch it the same way Apple does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so and then they approve it, they have
Speaker 4: to what what what's the criteria to approve an app?
Speaker 3: You know, there's I mean there's so there. It's pages
Speaker 3: and pages on pages.
Speaker 2: Of oh no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: Not at all.
Speaker 3: It's like I said, there's absolute pages on on that.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and it happens like you you know, you'll get
Speaker 3: the little the little hit up that says like, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't cleared or it was cleared, and
Speaker 3: then you got to figure out the exact reasons why
Speaker 3: and everything like that, and then you make whatever changes
Speaker 3: that need to get changed, whether it be something in
Speaker 3: the wording of how it's put out on the app
Speaker 3: store or whatnot, and you know, you just go from there.
Speaker 4: So all right, so now it's in the app store,
Speaker 4: it gets approved, but now it's like a ten million
Speaker 4: apps in the app store for sure, how do you
Speaker 4: get your app noticed? How do you market you at?
Speaker 4: What's the profits for that?
Speaker 3: So you know, one of the hugest things that that
Speaker 3: I had spoken earlier before you even started the podcast
Speaker 3: is when you're when you're just getting into the app store,
Speaker 3: what I would not necessarily advise because I'm still learning
Speaker 3: like everyone else is. But a huge part of this is,
Speaker 3: you know, it's essentially a proof of concept. At this point,
Speaker 3: you're trying to prove that there's some validity to your idea.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to outmarket companies who
Speaker 3: are dumping thousands or millions of dollars into making sure
Speaker 3: that they're you know, they're in everybody's eyeline. But at
Speaker 3: this point in time, it's like taking a smaller bite
Speaker 3: and going, Okay, cool, how do I exactly? You know,
Speaker 3: we can't go from A to Z at this point.
Speaker 3: We still got to get to B before we get
Speaker 3: to that level where it's like, all right, sick, we
Speaker 3: got a million users. Now, So what we did is
Speaker 3: we said, all right, we want to focus on growing
Speaker 3: a community very much to earn your like, earn your leisure.
Speaker 3: We want a quality number of users who are going
Speaker 3: to galvanize for us. Right. It's because the thing about
Speaker 3: a quick tract is is that you need two people
Speaker 3: to make one. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: one user turns into two users. So essentially the most
Speaker 3: important thing here is, Okay, let's continue to grow a community.
Speaker 3: Let's really champion our users. Let's really care about this,
Speaker 3: not just lip service. Let's really care about the community
Speaker 3: we're serving. And you know, then from there we'll we'll
Speaker 3: leverage certain platforms and we'll just build. But the most
Speaker 3: important thing is is we're going to keep it as
Speaker 3: organic as humanly possible.
Speaker 2: So in the first let's say the first three months
Speaker 2: of launching an app, was there a goal target for
Speaker 2: how many users you will sell?
Speaker 3: So what we do is, I mean we have like
Speaker 3: a growth rate. We essentially are like trying.
Speaker 5: We are.
Speaker 3: Essentially twelve percent each week. Is you know you want it.
Speaker 3: It's all about metrics. The game is all metric based.
Speaker 3: And it's all about keeping it healthy, and it's all
Speaker 3: about growing that that entity at a at a marginal rate,
Speaker 3: where like I said, you don't want to you don't
Speaker 3: want to be in a situation where you're looking around
Speaker 3: and it's bad if you don't have anybody, and it's
Speaker 3: bad if you have too much because you're not you know,
Speaker 3: you're you're not prepared. The database isn't necessarily built for that.
Speaker 5: So how how did you?
Speaker 3: All? Right?
Speaker 4: So the first like, how did you get your initial
Speaker 4: first group of people to sign up?
Speaker 3: So so what we did is first and foremost just
Speaker 3: out of the mud, like from nothing. We beat our
Speaker 3: phones up. Okay. So so another member of the team
Speaker 3: in in the story that that gets brought in a
Speaker 3: couple of months back is my guy Blake. Now Blake,
Speaker 3: he comes from a sports agent background, uh, former athlete.
Speaker 3: He gets brought into the fold as well. He kind
Speaker 3: of sees the vision and he's just like, yeah, absolutely
Speaker 3: it's run and you know, can't do it without him.
Speaker 3: So me and him first we go like, we gotta
Speaker 3: we gotta you know, we gotta get this out of
Speaker 3: the mud. We gotta, we gotta beat up the phones.
Speaker 3: We gotta go to it. So we hit up every
Speaker 3: single person we know, we you know what I'm saying, like,
Speaker 3: that's that's just what it is, Like five six hundred
Speaker 3: people like initial downloads or whatever, just off that and
Speaker 3: then from there we we you know, we had a
Speaker 3: strategy that said, okay, well, let's not lie to ourselves.
Speaker 3: Instagram is the world, you know, that's that's where everyone is,
Speaker 3: that's where everything is at. Let's attack that as strong
Speaker 3: as we can. Let's get individuals who believe in this
Speaker 3: to champion this. And you know, that's just what's what
Speaker 3: we started to do. We started building that up. We
Speaker 3: started to get individuals who, you know, whether they are
Speaker 3: athletes or entertainers, that believed in what we were doing.
Speaker 3: Influencers yeah, well influencers too, yeah, and so we just
Speaker 3: we we built that out and the key is to
Speaker 3: keep it as organic as humanly possible. What's the budget
Speaker 3: for that? That was free ninety nine do all that,
Speaker 3: like the influence is promoted for freetion. So so what
Speaker 3: we did, so literally what we did was we went
Speaker 3: ahead and said like, hey, look we're building this out.
Speaker 3: We have like at this point in time, there's no
Speaker 3: budgets for these things where it's it's just all muscle.
Speaker 3: It's trying to get to it. I have people who
Speaker 3: I'm very blessed and grateful to call my friends. You
Speaker 3: know that. Ye we first met.
Speaker 2: I was like, when you were telling us the idea
Speaker 2: believe We're in an elevator and I'm like, yo, I've
Speaker 2: heard this idea before.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, I heard it on the radio or
Speaker 2: I know I heard this idea and that's what I
Speaker 2: was saying. Like it took me like until I got
Speaker 2: back to New York and I was on the shade
Speaker 2: room and I'm like, yo, that's cold right there, Like
Speaker 2: that's when I heard this. You were with Jill Scott.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I was, that's gonna say so. So I
Speaker 3: have a very good friend in Jill Scott. I used
Speaker 3: to be her assistant way back in the day. Uh. Shoot,
Speaker 3: it's even before that. It was weirdly enough like that.
Speaker 3: You know those friends where you look and you're just like,
Speaker 3: how did how did we become friends? It's one of
Speaker 3: those where it's like, literally, you know, that's that's my ace.
Speaker 3: But I couldn't put two and two together how we
Speaker 3: got here? But so you know, she she I remember
Speaker 3: talking to her about it when it was on pieces
Speaker 3: of paper, Like I remember coming to her and just
Speaker 3: being excited, you know, not for anything, just say like
Speaker 3: this is what I'm doing. I'm gonna see if this
Speaker 3: goes anywhere. And so she's always been down for the cause.
Speaker 3: She you know, she she she believes in it, and
Speaker 3: she believes in me. And I remember, you know, I
Speaker 3: flew out, I flew out to go see her and
Speaker 3: just kind of was just proud to show her like,
Speaker 3: you know, boom, this is the actual product. Least believe me.
Speaker 3: The craziest thing is about all this is as much
Speaker 3: as you want to say that, like as much as
Speaker 3: look what I did, this is crazy. It's two things. One,
Speaker 3: you start appreciating the progown WE so much more. You
Speaker 3: start appreciating like, nah, this is a we. Like there
Speaker 3: is there's no I in any of this, because I
Speaker 3: is I is an idea that you get to you know,
Speaker 3: sit there and make on your computer at home and
Speaker 3: doesn't get to see the light of day. I is
Speaker 3: an idea that you can put some time into. You
Speaker 3: can get traction. And there's a bunch of eyes that
Speaker 3: have done amazing, wonderful things. But in just my short
Speaker 3: time in the app world, you're like, this is a
Speaker 3: wee thing by far. Just when we went ahead and
Speaker 3: we knew someone over there and they saw the jail
Speaker 3: thing and they were like, oh, a feature on you,
Speaker 3: it was just it was just Instagram posts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like, wait, so Jill Scott
Speaker 4: was one of the influences that help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 4: You just told him about it. They believed in it.
Speaker 4: They did post for you story.
Speaker 3: So it was post. It was a couple of things.
Speaker 3: So it was like they did post. Kevin Love did
Speaker 3: a story. Yeah, that was called that my buddy Blake
Speaker 3: he knows, he knows him really really well. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: and so just you know, coming up from coming up
Speaker 3: from there like that. It's one of those things where
Speaker 3: it's like you said, scrambling. It's just like it's the
Speaker 3: ingenuity part of it where you're like, hey, look you
Speaker 3: you gotta get it however you can do. Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: we we got. It's been so much going on, I'm
Speaker 3: trying to think. Yeah, no, I mean, it was it was,
Speaker 3: it was it was a host of other athletes. We
Speaker 3: have a good friend, she's an actress named Paige Herd
Speaker 3: who's been super, super supportive and just built off from
Speaker 3: there like like it was. It was one of those
Speaker 3: things where you know, truth be told. Money was not evan.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even a thought like, it wasn't even about that.
Speaker 3: It was just like, hey, when can I post this
Speaker 3: for you kind of thing. I mean, it could be
Speaker 3: they believed in it could be that they like us,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever it is. I I was grateful either way.
Speaker 4: O R oh, yeah, absolutely, it's it that is.
Speaker 3: I mean the growth model is is very much, you know,
Speaker 3: understanding the platform or people have and if someone believes
Speaker 3: in something, like I said, my model thing is is
Speaker 3: I can you know, you can't make anybody do anything,
Speaker 3: and I never would try to. So I want to
Speaker 3: make sure that you know, if people believe in it. Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm yeah, I'm you know, I'm a champion you just
Speaker 3: like you champion me. What lot? So the way we
Speaker 3: work is quick Track is a subscription based service where
Speaker 3: it's free to always receive no matter what. It's free
Speaker 3: first two months, regardless of the fact it's free to
Speaker 3: do anything on the app after the next two months,
Speaker 3: it's just it's just three ninety nine a month if
Speaker 3: you want to use all of the features attached to it.
Speaker 3: And the thing about quick Tract is is, like I said,
Speaker 3: it's not just about creating a contract. It's because when
Speaker 3: you create an agreement, like that's just the beginning, Like
Speaker 3: saying you're gonna do the job is just the beginning
Speaker 3: of the job. What happens is the duration of the
Speaker 3: job to the completion of the job. So quick Tract
Speaker 3: is the first app that's a live agreement. So if
Speaker 3: anything changes, if you know, deadlines have to be moved,
Speaker 3: scope of work changes, anything like that, you could actually
Speaker 3: request that amendment in real time and then a person
Speaker 3: if they agree to it, then it gets logged into
Speaker 3: the PDF document that's attached to everything and essentially just
Speaker 3: you know, keeps everybody on the same page. Documents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, us, how do people know, like as far as
Speaker 4: the app right, how do you know how to price
Speaker 4: your app?
Speaker 3: It's I mean it's interesting because there's a there's a
Speaker 3: ton of literature on that that you can go through.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of it. I also less sexy
Speaker 3: answer some of its trial and error. You know, some
Speaker 3: something's worth what people will pay for, And I think
Speaker 3: that you know, we we we feel comfortable at three
Speaker 3: ninety nine for the time being, just because it's you know,
Speaker 3: you could run your whole business for the price of
Speaker 3: a cup of coffee essentially, and you know, so like
Speaker 3: I said, it's I wish, I wish I had a
Speaker 3: sexier answer than that, but it's just very much where
Speaker 3: it's at.
Speaker 5: All, right, So, okay, can we talk about vcs? All right?
Speaker 4: So that the goal a lot of times in tech
Speaker 4: is to either a sell your company or be if
Speaker 4: you really want to, you know, go to the next level.
Speaker 4: You need massive amounts of funding and most people don't
Speaker 4: have that. They can't read that. So this is where
Speaker 4: dented capital firms come into. Blaye mentioned capital firms invest
Speaker 4: in tech companies, right, So, yeah, you have some knowledge
Speaker 4: on vcs. Can you explain the process of vcs and
Speaker 4: funding rounds ABC?
Speaker 3: So so, I mean, yeah, my knowledge is growing by
Speaker 3: the day, but I'll explain the best I know. How
Speaker 3: So you know, in general, vcs they invest in tech
Speaker 3: companies very much like you said, and the way that
Speaker 3: they invest for each firm is different. They may have
Speaker 3: a certain focus in something where someone's like we invest
Speaker 3: in green tech, we want things that are you know,
Speaker 3: environmentally and ego conscious. Right now, so going into you know,
Speaker 3: looking at a VC firm, you know, which is once
Speaker 3: again it's so far down the road from when you
Speaker 3: first create your app. What you're gonna want to what
Speaker 3: you're gonna want to do is you want to focus
Speaker 3: on what they focus on. Because if if you're you know,
Speaker 3: if the VC firm in your neck of the woods
Speaker 3: focuses on green you know, tech and that's not your entity,
Speaker 3: they might not want to put that in portfolio as
Speaker 3: they may not be something that they care about, you know.
Speaker 3: So that's that's a very abridged idea of what you
Speaker 3: want to start looking into with VCS, and then from there,
Speaker 3: I mean, look, the what we're in the process of
Speaker 3: right now is like like we said, it's we're in
Speaker 3: proof of concept phase. We are we are building out
Speaker 3: something that you hope to show. Hey, this is where
Speaker 3: we are, this is what we do. It's a consistent
Speaker 3: formula that's working. Now we want to scale it, you know,
Speaker 3: VCS and everything that's all about scaling. You know, some
Speaker 3: people could could be early stage, and that's wonderful if
Speaker 3: you could pull that off. But for the most part,
Speaker 3: it's you know, they they're the battery in your back
Speaker 3: that takes you from you know, fifty thousand to you know,
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand users.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've seen people, especially in hip hop culture,
Speaker 2: with their own VC firms.
Speaker 3: Like a god like nads. Oh we're killing it, yeah,
Speaker 3: killing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah sure, And most of our you know, our community
Speaker 2: are not even where what what venture capitalists are.
Speaker 5: Like were the different rounds?
Speaker 3: So, I mean you got look, you got your seed round,
Speaker 3: which that's the initial investment of anything. Then you got
Speaker 3: your your A, which is you know that's where we're
Speaker 3: in the process of going to right now. Then you
Speaker 3: got your B C, and then eventually you get to
Speaker 3: a place where you know, the companies if you look
Speaker 3: on crunch base and they're like so and so invested
Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety million dollars, and it's yeah, you
Speaker 3: know that's that's that's where that's the C and up
Speaker 3: kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, how do you find how do you how
Speaker 4: would you find vcs?
Speaker 3: The steps to get to a VC, like, to get
Speaker 3: to that level they have the boxes have to be
Speaker 3: checked before you could even go to the door. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. And that's a huge component of
Speaker 3: all this is like the the sexy awesome answer is hey, boom,
Speaker 3: So you want to go to Sequoia Capital, you know,
Speaker 3: out in California, and you want to get them to
Speaker 3: invest ten million dollars into your app idea, Like that's beautiful,
Speaker 3: Like absolutely, I truly hope you do that. But you're
Speaker 3: not going in there with just an app freshly made
Speaker 3: with nothing attached to it, or no show of traction
Speaker 3: or even in an earlier round of investment attached to that.
Speaker 3: You know, like a lot of these places are they're
Speaker 3: going to piggyback off of you. There's multiple firms can
Speaker 3: come in on on a single round. Like that's the
Speaker 3: thing where you don't essentially just go to like boom,
Speaker 3: this is the idea, Yeah, this is this is the
Speaker 3: idea is the one people are gonna do it eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, it gets big enough, like people want to
Speaker 3: put in forty fifty million dollars into something, Chances are
Speaker 3: there gonna be a couple hands in that pile. So
Speaker 3: you've got you said we're going to a right now?
Speaker 5: Ok yeah, yeah, okay, all right, all right, so quick track.
Speaker 5: What's the what's the future for that.
Speaker 3: So so what we're doing right now is what we're
Speaker 3: very excited about, is, you know, all of us is
Speaker 3: a team. We kind of started realizing that a lot
Speaker 3: of these marketplace apps right now, you know, they are
Speaker 3: they're starting to get a cut out of what everyone does.
Speaker 3: So whether that be making a logo or you know,
Speaker 3: putting up a you know, putting up someone's dresser or whatnot,
Speaker 3: they're starting to take cuts out of that. And they're
Speaker 3: not just normal cuts. They're taking like thirty to forty
Speaker 3: percent out of that transaction just for kind of being
Speaker 3: the intermediary. And so what quick Track wants to do
Speaker 3: and what we're doing with our next release is we
Speaker 3: want to make freelancing free again. So a lot of
Speaker 3: it comes down to, you know, creating that marketplace directory
Speaker 3: that says, hey, you know, if I'm looking for a
Speaker 3: if I'm looking for someone to you know, watch my dog,
Speaker 3: or I'm looking for a yoga instructor or something like that,
Speaker 3: you could look in there see who's on quick Tracked
Speaker 3: in your area, who might do that thing. And if
Speaker 3: you guys link up through there there, we don't touch it.
Speaker 3: We don't take any money. Out of that because at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, it's description based service, so
Speaker 3: we're building it into like the community element. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's a huge it's a huge thing to me
Speaker 3: because look, I mean, something we talked about off air.
Speaker 3: The reason I don't necessarily think it's fair for these
Speaker 3: you know, behemoth companies to essentially still take forty percent
Speaker 3: out of you know, someone's transaction is because let's just say,
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, that customer didn't have like the most
Speaker 3: stellar experience doesn't have to be bad. They could be triven,
Speaker 3: but or like or something actually bad happens. You know,
Speaker 3: that's that's gonna come down on the provider's head, not
Speaker 3: on the company. The company all right under the next
Speaker 3: we'll grab someone else. Yeah, but you know that that
Speaker 3: is a huge component of this to me because at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, you know, let's say you
Speaker 3: you got a dog walker, use one of the dog
Speaker 3: walking apps and you're like boom, like I like this
Speaker 3: person to take my dog out. This is great if
Speaker 3: you want to keep using that same person. You know,
Speaker 3: those apps they are automated, so they don't let you
Speaker 3: do that. Like it's whoever, you know, you just kind
Speaker 3: of it's like uber, right, but let's say you you
Speaker 3: like the guy you have or this is the way
Speaker 3: I do something like you can sideswipe the transaction feed,
Speaker 3: you can come together. You could have something legally binding
Speaker 3: with quick Track that you know, for the duration of
Speaker 3: the agreement. You could also pay and get paid through
Speaker 3: the app.
Speaker 5: So how can the people contact you? How can they?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: Quick Track is on Instagram, on everything's just quick Tracked app.
Speaker 3: That's q U I K T R A c T app.
Speaker 3: We're on everything there, quick track dot com, find us
Speaker 3: in the app store and Google Play. Yeah. Those I mean,
Speaker 3: unless I forgot some of those, those are all the
Speaker 3: methods Facebook, Twitter, Yeah, what every other one?
Speaker 5: All right? Cool? Cool? Well, first of all, we weren't
Speaker 5: thank you for coming, of course.
Speaker 3: Man, appreciate it. Your alumni, I appreciate you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Yeah for coming, man, we appreciate it.
Speaker 4: You know, checking something that a lot of times we
Speaker 4: don't know anything about. Andy's something that even object out.
Speaker 4: He's doing a great job as far as introducing into athletes.
Speaker 4: But it's still like, I feel like people have no
Speaker 4: idea about any of this stuff, Like it's like a
Speaker 4: foreign language. And like I said, that's one of the
Speaker 4: reasons why we.
Speaker 5: Wasn't successful is that we just didn't know.
Speaker 4: We didn't We was just trying to figure it out
Speaker 4: as we go as we went, and we failed. So,
Speaker 4: you know, more information, knowledge is power, hopefully, you know,
Speaker 4: even if somebody can just get a little bit of
Speaker 4: information from it now that you can actually learn and research,
Speaker 4: but you'll have some background on it, because you can't
Speaker 4: really learn about this stuff anywhere and like school and
Speaker 4: stuff like that. For the most part, especially on the
Speaker 4: entrepreneurial side, they might teach you like technology, but as
Speaker 4: far as how to get it up and running, you
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 5: You just kind of like got to watch YouTube or Google.
Speaker 3: And the putting two and two together is the thing
Speaker 3: that's lacking right now is they could, like I said,
Speaker 3: I can teach you how to code. I could. I can't,
Speaker 3: but someone could teach you how to code. And that's great.
Speaker 3: But you know, the but from taking this and make
Speaker 3: that that transition from what I'm saying, that's that's where
Speaker 3: people you know, that's where that's a lot of trial
Speaker 3: and error.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a fact. That's a fact. So all right,
Speaker 5: Troy Housekeeping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
Speaker 2: Patreon dot com backslash Ernialsia.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Patreon, we're growing every week we get new members and
Speaker 2: like I said, it's just a way to support the
Speaker 2: podcast so that we can, you know, push certain initiatives
Speaker 2: in your area. We got a lot of people reaching
Speaker 2: out to us asking how can they help. Patreon is
Speaker 2: one of those ways, and it's good because we get
Speaker 2: to talk to our patrons directly. So we've had Sanna
Speaker 2: who's been a great patron, and Vicki we've scheduled a
Speaker 2: call with her. Charles Tony we spoke about last week.
Speaker 2: We had an amazing conversation with Uh and we got
Speaker 2: some new ones this week. So Mercy shout out to
Speaker 2: her and Dijon Uh and Brenda who literally joined right
Speaker 2: before we came.
Speaker 3: On to film this episode.
Speaker 2: And she said her sons listen and I think one
Speaker 2: of them plays football and one wants to be a
Speaker 2: sports agent.
Speaker 3: So shout out to her.
Speaker 2: She asked a small request that that we're actually going
Speaker 2: to fulfill in next companie. I want to give it away,
Speaker 2: but Branda, we got exactly what you you sent. The
Speaker 2: message about the episode is coming probably in the next
Speaker 2: two weeks. So shout out to her for joining and
Speaker 2: everybody that's been supporting the podcast, whether through Patreon, through
Speaker 2: any leisure dot com, wearing the merch, thank you for
Speaker 2: your support. It's growing, man, So thank you for growing
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, the merchan. You know, I got my emoji
Speaker 5: shirt on.
Speaker 3: I got mine over there.
Speaker 5: For sure. So yeah, we want to you know, thank
Speaker 5: you for coming on.
Speaker 4: Man. The bookship of the week is going to be
Speaker 4: since we talked about tech, Steve jobs biography. That was
Speaker 4: a great book I read. I forget the name of it.
Speaker 4: I think it was called Jobs. That's the name of it.
Speaker 4: It's called Jobs, And I highly recommend the book because
Speaker 4: it talked, it outlined his journey and it's interesting.
Speaker 5: And he's a pretty complicated guy.
Speaker 4: But the tech, you know, since we're talking about tech,
Speaker 4: I think that's an appropriate book for entrepreneurs with people
Speaker 4: interested in business too.
Speaker 5: He's the Goat's Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3: I think he did something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're going to learn from anybody that's the guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely So.
Speaker 5: All right, man, thank you for rocking with us. We
Speaker 5: will see you now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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