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Speaker 1: I went down and found them at the office and

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Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I know what you're about, your

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Speaker 1: full shit like and he's like no, no, no, no, I'm

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Speaker 1: like that, I don't want to hear any of that.

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Speaker 1: Maybe gave him like two or two thousand dollars. I

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Speaker 1: was like, you're running that back right now.

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Speaker 2: Like right now.

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Speaker 1: He's like, I don't have any cash. All right, let's

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Speaker 1: go to ATM. So we walked.

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Speaker 2: I walked him to the ATM.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's

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Speaker 3: most influential brands and the teams that built them. If

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Speaker 3: you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the

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Speaker 3: power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan Bever each week

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Speaker 3: as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because

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Speaker 3: the only way to truly understand success is to look

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Speaker 3: at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is

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Speaker 3: a Will Packer Media podcast. In twenty fifteen, song Laurn

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Speaker 3: and Dave Salvian found at Squire Technologies, a software company

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Speaker 3: for barbershops. In the years that followed, Squire would grow

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Speaker 3: from a simple booking app to a full service barbershop

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Speaker 3: back end software with evaluation of a whopping seven hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty million dollars. But along the way, Squire would

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Speaker 3: go through several literations, raise money from a variety of

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Speaker 3: unlikely sources, fall victim to scam, and even be forced

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Speaker 3: to buy a barbershop in order to save their only client.

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Speaker 3: On this week's episode of All Angles, we talked to

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Speaker 3: founders Song and Dave, headed product development Armridium, and head

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Speaker 3: of Engineering Troy Payne to hear the unique story of

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Speaker 3: how they came together to form Squire and how together

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Speaker 3: they've revolutionized the barbershop industry. But before any of that happened,

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Speaker 3: years before they were to enter the y Combinator, was

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Speaker 3: secure sixty million dollars in funding. Song Laurn was just

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Speaker 3: a kid running around the streets of New York City.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a relatively unconventional type of household.

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Speaker 1: Both of my parents were were artists, very artistic. They

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Speaker 1: actually separated when I was about two, so I don't

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Speaker 1: have any memory of them being together. Both of them

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Speaker 1: were very much in my life as a child. I

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Speaker 1: grew up in Manhattan in New York in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: and I was a real New York City kid, we

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Speaker 1: moved around a lot. I lived in like so many

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Speaker 1: different neighborhoods in the city, from Harlem to downtown near

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Speaker 1: like fourteenth and six. My mom actually had a workout

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Speaker 1: studio there, so she was artistic, but also she used

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Speaker 1: to work as a personal trainer, and she was I

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Speaker 1: would say maybe the first or one of the first

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Speaker 1: black owned exercise studios downtown that she ran.

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Speaker 2: When I look back at it now, I.

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Speaker 1: Think that may have influenced me as an entrepreneur. Seeing

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Speaker 1: that experience her create her own business and run it early.

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Speaker 2: On, I'm sure had an impact on me. In the

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Speaker 2: middle of eighth grade, my mom wanted to move to

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Speaker 2: La so packed up and moved in the second semester

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Speaker 2: of the eighth grade.

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Speaker 1: That was a big change. It was a big culture shift.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is the height of the East Coast

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Speaker 1: West coast kind of dynamic. So it was really interesting.

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Speaker 1: But I ended up really having a great experience in

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Speaker 1: La as well.

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Speaker 2: I knew I.

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Speaker 1: Really really wanted to be successful and whatever that meant.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to be port I wanted to be

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Speaker 1: financially well off. I didn't know specifically what that required

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Speaker 1: was that entailed I gravitated more towards humanities, writing, reading,

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Speaker 1: you know, debate.

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Speaker 2: Those types of classes to me made sense. The law

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Speaker 2: was a good option.

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Speaker 3: While in school, Song had a career in law and

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Speaker 3: IVY League on the brain. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, another

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Speaker 3: Squire partner was also walking the halls of Los Angeles's

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Speaker 3: Westchester High.

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Speaker 4: Song and I actually went to high school together.

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Speaker 3: This is Troy Payne, head of engineering at Squire.

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Speaker 5: So back in LA his locker was next to my locker,

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Speaker 5: the year younger than me, but I knew him from

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Speaker 5: Jaron Hallways Sharon Lockers. I remember he was a class

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Speaker 5: president and I remember him doing like what class president do,

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Speaker 5: some sort of a speech.

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Speaker 4: At the time in high school, I was pushing burn.

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Speaker 5: CDs, so out a CD burner when nobody else had it,

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Speaker 5: and I would buy blank CDs and ripped albums that

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Speaker 5: weren't out yet, like Lil Wayne's four hundred Degree. This

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Speaker 5: made me a lot of money because I had it

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Speaker 5: before anyone else had it.

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Speaker 2: I could charge double.

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Speaker 4: So I was selling CDs.

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Speaker 5: I was helping people chip their PlayStations so that they

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Speaker 5: can burn the games that I was also selling.

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Speaker 3: While Song pursued political science, Troy was into the science

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Speaker 3: of technology, from illegal downloads and burning CDs to coding

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Speaker 3: and developing apps. Troy fell in love with computing.

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Speaker 5: My first computer was given to me by my father

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Speaker 5: when I was eight. Used to play video games for

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Speaker 5: the most part, not a type really, I just knew

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Speaker 5: how to use a joystick. One day we installed AOL

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Speaker 5: because back then it used to just pretty much deliver

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Speaker 5: them everywhere in the mail free. We signed up my

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Speaker 5: brother and I and we were on it. We were

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Speaker 5: participants in a chat space called Black Voices. We're at

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Speaker 5: this at this point, I'm about eleven or twelve, and

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Speaker 5: I'm in a BV team chat talking about things that

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Speaker 5: twelve year olds talk about. And there are other people

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Speaker 5: that are that age as well from other parts of

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Speaker 5: the world Black as well. There were people from Oakland

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Speaker 5: and people from down South, and it was interesting to

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Speaker 5: be able to connect to these kids that were my

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Speaker 5: age and had similar interest within computers.

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Speaker 3: Troy's fascination with the World Wide Web continued to grow.

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Speaker 3: It was a blank canvas and he was obsessed. Song

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Speaker 3: knew of Troy and was vaguely aware of his interests,

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Speaker 3: but at the time, they were just locker neighbors passing

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Speaker 3: like ships in the night.

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Speaker 1: It was a year headitor, but we kind of knew

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Speaker 1: each other, knew each other were running in the same classes.

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Speaker 1: We weren't, like, you know, in the same crew. But

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Speaker 1: I always thought it was cool. He was quiet, you know,

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Speaker 1: quiet guy. I had no idea that he was a

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Speaker 1: codeer or a hacker, or was getting into trouble on

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Speaker 1: the rush from the law or whatever was going on.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: Troy was never actually on the run from the law,

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Speaker 3: but by the time he reached high school, his computer

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Speaker 3: skills had evolved substantially, and he did find himself immersed

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Speaker 3: in the culture of hacking, which maybe led him into

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Speaker 3: some gray areas as far as internet legality goes.

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Speaker 5: I started playing around with creating my own stuff using

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Speaker 5: something called Visual Basic three point zero. It was a

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Speaker 5: great tool because it was simple enough for you to

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Speaker 5: self learn. It was powerful enough for you to do

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Speaker 5: all the things that your imagination wanted you to do.

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Speaker 5: The software was new, it was full of exploits, and

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Speaker 5: everyone was pretty much exploiting all of the exploits. From

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Speaker 5: a happening perspective, From a software perspective, That's what really

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Speaker 5: sort of got me interested in software engineering and development

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Speaker 5: in general, is because I was just trying to look

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Speaker 5: for the next edge for me to do what I

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Speaker 5: was doing as a kid, you know, things that kids do.

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Speaker 5: Instead of doing it on the streets, I was doing

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Speaker 5: it on the internet. So my skills developed really developing

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Speaker 5: products that I made a piece of software called trigger.

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Speaker 4: Happy, and it had a viral effect.

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Speaker 5: Back then, AOL had email, and so you could make something.

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Speaker 5: You can brand it, you can package it, and you

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Speaker 5: can distribute it, and it could go viral because people

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Speaker 5: started to share it. Every time you launch it, it

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Speaker 5: would advertise in the chat room, you know, trigger.

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Speaker 4: Happy has been activated or something like that. People would

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Speaker 4: see that and say, oh, you know, you know, it's.

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Speaker 5: Sort of like a fear fact that people would know

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Speaker 5: that you're about to do something malicious to and back

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Speaker 5: then it was like either terminating your account or kicking

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Speaker 5: you off the internet. I remember I was in a

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Speaker 5: chat room and someone used trigger happy and I had

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Speaker 5: no idea who they were, and that was like that

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Speaker 5: was it right there. That's when I fell in love

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Speaker 5: and I'm like, wow, I can make something like this

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Speaker 5: that's distributed that people that I.

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Speaker 4: Don't know can get a hold of and use and

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Speaker 4: they love it.

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Speaker 5: And ever since then, my focus has really been on

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Speaker 5: sort of chasing that feeling.

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Speaker 3: Troy was down the rabbit hole, and we'd spend the

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Speaker 3: next several years coding, creating games, apps and websites. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 3: Songs still had his eyes fixed on law school.

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Speaker 1: I had in my mind at that point that I

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Speaker 1: wanted to go to law school and if not be

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Speaker 1: a practicing lawyer wherever, at least get a law degreeks.

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Speaker 2: I thought that would open a lot of doors.

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Speaker 1: If you grew up in la like everybody's one step

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Speaker 1: removed from entertainment. I didn't talk about my dad, but

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Speaker 1: he was mostly an actor growing up on Broadway and

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Speaker 1: did a lot of plays in theater, so I was

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Speaker 1: somewhat familiar with that world. So I thought, you know, entertainment,

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Speaker 1: law could be a good option.

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Speaker 3: Song went to UCLA for undergrad and then to Yale

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Speaker 3: for law school. He got the Ivy League experience that

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Speaker 3: he had dreamed of and also got his first taste

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Speaker 3: of entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 1: Junior year of college, one of my best friends and

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Speaker 1: I we used to do tutoring on the side.

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Speaker 2: We started seeing that there's a lot of demand for it.

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Speaker 1: So we ended up starting a tutoring company and hiring

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Speaker 1: other college students and matching them with the families that

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Speaker 1: we knew were in need of tutors, and then like

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Speaker 1: charging a percentage as well as tutoring ourselves.

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Speaker 2: So that was my first taste of entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 3: Upon graduation, Song moved to New York City to pursue

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Speaker 3: his career in law.

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Speaker 1: So I was doing with M and A like Murders

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Speaker 1: and Acquisitions law, where I would work on these big deals,

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Speaker 1: multi hundred million billion dollar deals. All the lawyers would

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Speaker 1: celebrate when the deals were closed. But like, I saw

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Speaker 1: who was really getting patient these deals. It wasn't the lawyers.

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Speaker 1: And I felt like the guy's on the business selling

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Speaker 1: weren't any smarter than us, weren't working harder, and they were.

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Speaker 2: Making millions and tens and hundreds and millions of dollars

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Speaker 2: on these.

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Speaker 1: Transactions, and you know, we had our salaries and our bonuses.

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Speaker 1: I was like, why am I on the side of it?

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Speaker 1: So I knew I want to do something be on

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Speaker 1: the business side. I just didn't know what to move.

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Speaker 3: Was at the same time. Dave Salvin, co founder and

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Speaker 3: president of Squire, was also in New York City working

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Speaker 3: in finance.

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Speaker 6: Grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Mom was a single mom.

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Speaker 6: I worked a couple of jobs so you know, get

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Speaker 6: us through. Went to college in New York at the

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Speaker 6: University of Already.

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Speaker 7: Entrepreneurship was something you think about, but you don't know.

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Speaker 2: Exactly what it is. It wasn't a goal.

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Speaker 7: I think growing up was like, Hey, how do I

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Speaker 7: make money?

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Speaker 6: And the folks that I saw make the money were

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Speaker 6: lawyers and doctors. After I finished college, I started working

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Speaker 6: at a market Firman in Rocket County, part of the

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Speaker 6: Info group. I started hanging out in New York City.

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Speaker 6: It was like a wait nine, and I saw this

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Speaker 6: level of wealth that I didn't see before, like young

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Speaker 6: guys with a decent amount of capital, and they looked

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Speaker 6: like me. These guys worked on Wall Street in finance,

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Speaker 6: and I was like, Hey, this is where we can

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Speaker 6: make them some money. And then I decided to be

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Speaker 6: in finance. Actually moved to the Bronx and I started

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Speaker 6: applying for jobs in New York City and I was

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Speaker 6: lucky to get a job at Dakeon Morgan and the

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Speaker 6: job was personal banker or type of thing, but it

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Speaker 6: was at one of the more affluent bad branches in

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Speaker 6: New York.

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Speaker 3: With Dave working in finance and Song in the adjacent

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Speaker 3: field of corporate law, it was only a matter of

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Speaker 3: time before the two cross paths at a downtown happy hour.

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Speaker 1: Dave was also young black professionals and finance. We would

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Speaker 1: go out a lot with a party a lot and

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Speaker 1: then at some point I think we both were feeling

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Speaker 1: versed in there, like this is just like a rat race,

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Speaker 1: doing the same thing over and over again, and we're

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Speaker 1: working at these corporations that we're like, don't care about this.

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Speaker 1: Guy's more life than this. And he was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm feeling the same way. So we would start brainstorming ideas.

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Speaker 6: We spent so much time and effort basically going out

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Speaker 6: and having fun, why don't we channel that some of

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Speaker 6: the effort, even a small part of it, into trying

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Speaker 6: to start a business.

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Speaker 1: We were like, what can we do this better than this,

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Speaker 1: that can be more impactful. They could create a legacy,

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Speaker 1: and that was the process.

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Speaker 6: We actually went to Columbia on Saturday. Columbia had a

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Speaker 6: public library. Well, we don't know it's public or not,

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Speaker 6: but it was public for us. And we went into

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Speaker 6: the library and we got into one of the classrooms

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Speaker 6: and we used to just sit there for hours on

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Speaker 6: end and think about ideas we can create this song,

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Speaker 6: and we would actually go through the motions. And the

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Speaker 6: third or fourth session of that idea of square came about.

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Speaker 3: Song and Dave were determined to come up with a

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Speaker 3: business of their own. After settling on barbershops as an

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Speaker 3: area of opportunity, the two went to work figuring out

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Speaker 3: exactly how they would break into the market.

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Speaker 1: We stumbled on this idea of barbershops. It was really

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Speaker 1: born out of both of our experience.

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Speaker 2: Havn't gone to barbershops, you know, since we were kids.

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Speaker 2: You love it, you feel.

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Speaker 1: Great, you get a fresh lineup, whatever, But like the

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Speaker 1: process was just so antiquated. Sometimes they waited an hour

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Speaker 1: or two hours, sometimes not. It was very painful cash

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Speaker 1: space businesses at that time, and it didn't make sense that,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: This is like twenty fifteen.

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Speaker 1: There's already Huber out there, there's already YELP, there's already

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Speaker 1: all these.

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Speaker 2: Software that are improving our lives.

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Speaker 1: When it came to getting a haircrat there was no

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Speaker 1: innovation enough technology. That was an interesting idea and we

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Speaker 1: both were like, wow, that's true, Like I've had that experience.

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Speaker 1: You've had that experience, Like this is something that I

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Speaker 1: think would resonate with a lot of people.

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Speaker 6: And thisial idea was finding a way for customers to

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Speaker 6: book pay. Here go into a barbershop and you pay,

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Speaker 6: you walk out.

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Speaker 7: See what experience.

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Speaker 6: The ideation of this was solving for what we thought

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Speaker 6: could work for ourselves.

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Speaker 7: And then the real opportunity came was like.

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Speaker 6: When we started applying it and seeing the feedback and

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Speaker 6: seeing how users engaged with the platform.

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Speaker 1: We started trying to learn as much as possible about

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Speaker 1: our customers. So had the idea then started trying to

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Speaker 1: seek we could validate it. We go walk in the

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Speaker 1: barbershops and just like try to talk to the barbers,

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Speaker 1: talk to the owners, talk to the guys sitting in

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Speaker 1: the chairs waiting to get a haircut, and just see

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Speaker 1: what were their paying points, what do they want to

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Speaker 1: improve on, like what.

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Speaker 2: Could we solve for them? And then we started getting.

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Speaker 1: A picture that painted it was pretty clear that there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of frustration on both sides. On the

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Speaker 1: client side as well as the barber side, and we

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Speaker 1: started trying to figure out how could we solve those frustrations.

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Speaker 1: The hard part was building the product because neither one

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Speaker 1: of us were our developers a coder as a technical

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Speaker 1: so we looked at our network and thought of who

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Speaker 1: could refine to help us build this and that was

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Speaker 1: a struggle that took almost a year of just back

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Speaker 1: and forth and failing until we eventually were able.

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Speaker 2: To find somebody that could actually build the first version

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Speaker 2: of the product.

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Speaker 3: The vision for Squire was coming into focus, but they

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Speaker 3: needed someone to help them bring it to life. The

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Speaker 3: two had no experience in technology, and that learning curve

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Speaker 3: was leading to some costly mistakes that would threaten to

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Speaker 3: end the business completely.

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Speaker 7: It was a shit show.

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Speaker 2: We were hustling and we works.

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Speaker 6: We met a guy that worked for us startup, but

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Speaker 6: he ended up being a total fraudster.

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Speaker 1: Neither Dig or I are technical, so we immediately started

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Speaker 1: trying to think about how we could find somebody to build.

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Speaker 7: It for us.

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Speaker 2: We wanted to recruit someone and sell them on.

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Speaker 1: The dream and get them to be part require and

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Speaker 1: be like our CTO. Essentially, we would go to meet

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Speaker 1: up a man's startup events try to meet people.

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Speaker 2: We met this guy that like seemed really interested in

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Speaker 2: what we're building. He was an older dude, older.

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Speaker 1: White guy, and I think he actually was at CTO

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Speaker 1: at a company that was working out every work pretty

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Speaker 1: at that time, established company that had raised a lot

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Speaker 1: of recent money.

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Speaker 2: And he was like, you know, I really.

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Speaker 1: Love what you guys are doing. I want to help

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Speaker 1: you guys. I've got my full time day. But on

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Speaker 1: the side, I think I can build this app. It'll

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Speaker 1: be pretty easy and I'll work with you on it.

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Speaker 2: And he was like, and I.

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Speaker 1: Might even want to invest, So of course, you know,

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Speaker 1: that was our He is fast forward. This is probably

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Speaker 1: like weeks now. We're working with him. He keeps saying

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Speaker 1: he's building the app. We're talking about our ideas and

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Speaker 1: our vision and what product we want. But funny enough,

341
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Speaker 1: he would never actually show us if he was working

342
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Speaker 1: on He was just really good at kind of bullshit it.

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Speaker 7: Stuff wasn't added up, you know.

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Speaker 6: He would say he would invest, so say you'll get

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Speaker 6: an office space that we were. He also said he

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Speaker 6: would use the connections to build and he was working

347
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Speaker 6: on it, and then nothing was happening after the sixty

348
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Speaker 6: to ninety days of this stuff. We gave him twenty

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Speaker 6: five hundred of our money to work on this, and

350
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Speaker 6: then he didn't produce.

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Speaker 1: Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into you know, maybe

352
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Speaker 1: months of him just giving us the run around. Obviously,

353
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Speaker 1: at a certain point start getting more suspicious, like what's

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Speaker 1: going on.

355
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Speaker 2: By this time, we really started like.

356
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Speaker 1: Looking into everything, and it became clear that he was

357
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Speaker 1: this total fraud. We actually did some research and found

358
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Speaker 1: other articles that had been written about this dude. His

359
00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:43,520
Speaker 1: picture of a different name, he had present, pretended to

360
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Speaker 1: be a.

361
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Speaker 2: Doctor, he pretended to do all kind of shit, but

362
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Speaker 2: his job was real. The job at this tech company

363
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:51,880
Speaker 2: was real. They were getting defrauded too.

364
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Speaker 1: He was boosting him and actually had a CEO RO

365
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Speaker 1: at a real tech company and they didn't know it.

366
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Speaker 2: So at this point I'm pissed. Once I find out,

367
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Speaker 2: I actually wanted to see all that company was like, Yo,

368
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Speaker 2: you're dealing with a fraud.

369
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Speaker 6: We actually got him fired from his job and he

370
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Speaker 6: actually got busted for this.

371
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Speaker 1: I went down and found him at the office and

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Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I know what you're about. You

373
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Speaker 1: your full of shit, like and he's like, no, no, no, no,

374
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Speaker 1: I'm like that, I don't want to hear any of that.

375
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Speaker 1: We maybe gave him like two or two thousand dollars.

376
00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:22,399
Speaker 1: I was like, you're running that back right now, Like

377
00:18:22,880 --> 00:18:24,640
Speaker 1: right now. He's like, I don't have any cash. All right,

378
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:27,560
Speaker 1: let's go to ATM. So we walked. I walked him

379
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Speaker 1: to the ATM, took out the money and gave it

380
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Speaker 1: to me right there, and I took him from.

381
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Speaker 2: Him, took his mind. I was like, yeah, like I

382
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:39,239
Speaker 2: never want to see you again. I never saw him

383
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Speaker 2: again after that.

384
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Speaker 7: We got out twenty five hundred dollars back and he

385
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Speaker 7: went on away.

386
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Speaker 3: After their encounter with a grifter, Dave and Song looked

387
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Speaker 3: to their own network to find the next key hire

388
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Speaker 3: for Squire. They reached out to a ram Irridim, who

389
00:18:54,440 --> 00:18:57,120
Speaker 3: Dave knew from business school. Has a rom learned more

390
00:18:57,160 --> 00:18:59,760
Speaker 3: about Squire, it became a parent that he might be

391
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:02,880
Speaker 3: the peace that could help build Squire into the global

392
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Speaker 3: business that they all imagined.

393
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Speaker 8: Most immigrant families, you are either going to be a doctor,

394
00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:12,760
Speaker 8: an engineer, or a lawyer. At least that's what your

395
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 8: parents want for you. So I studied computer science.

396
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:16,399
Speaker 9: Believe it or not.

397
00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:19,359
Speaker 8: In undergrad I was good at it from an academic perspective,

398
00:19:19,359 --> 00:19:22,639
Speaker 8: but I just didn't see myself as being someone who's

399
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:25,680
Speaker 8: going to, you know, write code twenty four to seven.

400
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 8: I just figured I wouldn't be able to compete with

401
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:30,800
Speaker 8: those guys that were really really into coding and then

402
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:32,800
Speaker 8: writing games and creating games.

403
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:34,560
Speaker 9: I decided to go to law school.

404
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:37,240
Speaker 8: I graduated from law school, and I practiced law for

405
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:40,159
Speaker 8: about five or six years. During that time, I was

406
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:42,600
Speaker 8: living in New York and Harlem, and that's when I

407
00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:46,400
Speaker 8: met Dave and Song. Song is also an ex attorney.

408
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:49,960
Speaker 8: We were working at similar firms and had mutual friends

409
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:52,080
Speaker 8: and just coming of age, if you will, in New

410
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,080
Speaker 8: York City. Together they started the company. I didn't even

411
00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:57,920
Speaker 8: know that they did. About a year in is when

412
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,600
Speaker 8: I decided to leave law, and I was really just

413
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:02,919
Speaker 8: looking to stay busy.

414
00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:04,680
Speaker 9: I knew I wanted to do something else.

415
00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:08,040
Speaker 2: Aramas real lawyer, and we had a lot of common friends.

416
00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:09,600
Speaker 2: You know, a Raamas real character.

417
00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: He's from Russia originally, but grew up in Brooklyn. You know,

418
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,399
Speaker 1: all the friends are black. So we had like a

419
00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:18,879
Speaker 1: lot of similar a lot of similar friends come you know,

420
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 1: growing up this around the same time professionally being attorneys,

421
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:24,560
Speaker 1: and we just all hang out a lot in the

422
00:20:24,640 --> 00:20:26,120
Speaker 1: same same circles.

423
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,920
Speaker 2: And then he was leaving his firm and there was

424
00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:31,120
Speaker 2: an opportunity. You know, he was a super smart guy,

425
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:32,440
Speaker 2: the slight cap.

426
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Speaker 9: I didn't know what it was going to be.

427
00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 8: I spoke to Dave and he said, hey, listen, you

428
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:39,600
Speaker 8: know we're working on this project working out of Rework.

429
00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 8: Why don't you just start coming in. There was office space.

430
00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:43,760
Speaker 8: It will be easier for you to figure things out.

431
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:45,879
Speaker 8: This way, you'll get to hang out around other people

432
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:48,640
Speaker 8: doing cool stuff. And at that time we were at

433
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 8: the headquarters of we Work believe it was seventeenth Street

434
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:54,439
Speaker 8: in Manhattan. We Work at that time had had this

435
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:57,560
Speaker 8: program called we Work Labs. This was sort of the

436
00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 8: first class, if you will, and it was just a

437
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:02,600
Speaker 8: bunch of desks in a room I think ten or

438
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,879
Speaker 8: twenty starups working on whatever it is that we're working with.

439
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 8: So it literally just started by me coming to the

440
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,680
Speaker 8: office and my personality is I just can't see sit

441
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 8: still and whatever. I'm hearing a discussion about a problem

442
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:18,000
Speaker 8: or a debate about what, you know, what should happen.

443
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,000
Speaker 8: I can't help but get involved colon nosey, if you will,

444
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,119
Speaker 8: And so I think that's how I got involved with Squire.

445
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:28,679
Speaker 8: Little by little daves and songs. Problems and concerns became

446
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:33,399
Speaker 8: sort of my problems and concerns. Shortly thereafter, you know,

447
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:36,679
Speaker 8: we made the mutual decision that I should join Squire.

448
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,280
Speaker 3: Arom joined the team is the head of product, helping

449
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 3: craft Squires ux and optimize this consumer experience. As they

450
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:46,600
Speaker 3: were rounding out the team, the guys would have a

451
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 3: chance encounter at we work labs that would change the

452
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 3: trajectory of Squire forever.

453
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:55,640
Speaker 7: I was working late one day and I.

454
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 6: Saw some guys at the headquarters, you know, I was like, Hey,

455
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:00,920
Speaker 6: these guys looking for it. You know, I might as

456
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 6: well tell them what we're doing. And you know, come

457
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 6: to find out, one guy founded we were labs.

458
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:07,840
Speaker 7: Another guy was a.

459
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 6: Cheap accountant off for sure, and we were able to

460
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 6: parlay that meeting into an investment. So we actually end

461
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:20,720
Speaker 6: of June got about three hundred thousand dollars and investment.

462
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 3: Initially, Squire was built to be uber for barbers, and

463
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,439
Speaker 3: the product worked well, but getting the buying from the

464
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,879
Speaker 3: guys actually cutting hair was more difficult than they anticipated.

465
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:37,720
Speaker 3: Why would barbershops digitize a cash based business model that's

466
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,679
Speaker 3: worked just fine for the industry for literally hundreds of years.

467
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 3: So the Squire team took it back to the lab

468
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,000
Speaker 3: and focused on listening to the real needs of barbers

469
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 3: and implementing them into the app.

470
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 9: I like simple businesses.

471
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 8: Simple businesses make sense to me because I could literally

472
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 8: figure out exactly what everyone's intent is, and that makes

473
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 8: it easy to digest, right because one of us for

474
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,400
Speaker 8: barbershop owners, you know, none of us have barbers So

475
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 8: from one perspective, it's like, well, what do you guys

476
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 8: know about building.

477
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 9: Software for barbershops?

478
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 8: But it's a business that is natural to understand how

479
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 8: it works. We all set in barber chairs before we

480
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 8: all spoke to our barbers. We understand how they get paid,

481
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 8: We understand what lives they live, we understand the culture

482
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 8: behind barbering, and I think those aspects made the company

483
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 8: itself exciting to me. Being with David Song, we were

484
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 8: all pursuing our careers in banking and legal space at

485
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 8: the same time, and just to see how much they

486
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 8: believed in this project and what they were willing to

487
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 8: risk to execute on. It was truly inspiring and that's

488
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,359
Speaker 8: exactly what I needed to be around at that time.

489
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 2: First product we built was a mobile app.

490
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: The way it was referred to by some people as

491
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:53,880
Speaker 1: like Uber for barbers. You're a consumer and you're down

492
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: on the app and find a barber, book, pay to

493
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: everything seamlessly and now on the business and for the

494
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: individual barber to manage his or her schedule and payment

495
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So that was the first product we had

496
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: just through you know, sheer Hustle. We were able to

497
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 1: do some barbers to try it out in New York,

498
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,479
Speaker 1: but we we learned pretty early on that like that

499
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:15,679
Speaker 1: product was not a great product for the market. The

500
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:17,640
Speaker 1: feedback that we were getting was like, this is cool.

501
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: I'll use it if you guys send me customers, they

502
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: can book on Squire and I'll cut them cool. But

503
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 1: they weren't using it for all their current customers and

504
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: that was the missing piece, Like we couldn't get them

505
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: to say Squire is going to be my system of record,

506
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:32,880
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a Squire to manage my business.

507
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:34,160
Speaker 2: And then when we asked.

508
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: Why not, you know, they were like, well, you know

509
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: I have a point of seale system.

510
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 2: Can you integrate with that?

511
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: I have inventory I'm selling retail like can your app

512
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: do any of that?

513
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 2: And the answer is no. So we kind of had

514
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 2: to go back to the.

515
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: Drawing board and started working on a full and then

516
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: system for the entire business.

517
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 2: Instead of an app for individual barbers, they.

518
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 1: Needed something where they could see all the barber schedules

519
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: in one place, like like a central platform where they

520
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: could manipulate appointments and change things. And importantly, they needed

521
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: an integrated point of sale system. So often they were

522
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: using like one thing for point of sale and then

523
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,199
Speaker 1: something else for booking, and that was that it was

524
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 1: very disjointed and now that was causing a lot of frustrations.

525
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: So we identify early on we need to build a

526
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: point of sale and that took a while, but that

527
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: that was something that we knew it would be very

528
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: very important to provide a much better experience for that.

529
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 9: It's the chicken and egg problem.

530
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 8: Do you build sort of the supply first, or do

531
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 8: you build up the demand first, or do you build

532
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 8: two of them together. Since most men are very loyal

533
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 8: to the barbers, we don't actually need to build up

534
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 8: two sides of the marketplace. We can just build something

535
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 8: that barbershops and barbers would like, and just by virtue

536
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 8: of knowing how that relationship lays out between a barber

537
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 8: and a customer, because we were all customers of barbers right,

538
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 8: we sort of knew that of felt confidence that the

539
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 8: customers would use it. So if your barbershop starts using Squire,

540
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 8: then even if a customer will complain about having to

541
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 8: book an appointment now versus texting you or calling you,

542
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 8: ultimately the customer will do what their barber is telling

543
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 8: them to do.

544
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 9: And I think that that was one.

545
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 8: Of the biggest and most important pivots that we've made,

546
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 8: you know, I think it really led to our success

547
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 8: that we realized this early on and we made the

548
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 8: pivot and we started building software for the barbershop.

549
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 3: With a product in hand, Dave pounded the pavement looking

550
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 3: for customers. Barbershop after barbershop listened to Dave's pitch, but

551
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 3: they all politely declined. Eventually, through sheer Will, Dave was

552
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 3: able to get one barbershop to sign up for Squire.

553
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 8: So we build this first version of a booking management

554
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 8: system for the barbershop right, theyve you know, the greatest

555
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 8: salesman on earth basically sells it to this pretty nice barbershop,

556
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 8: Chelsea Market in New York City, right like, this is

557
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 8: not your ranking dinky shop somewhere Brooklyn or Queens Now,

558
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 8: this is Chelsea Market, beautiful shop. He sells the system

559
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 8: to them. When I say sell, he didn't sell it.

560
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 8: They weren't paying us anything. He basically sold them on

561
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 8: using it, which I think, you know, it's the first

562
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 8: battle we must win as a tech company. They start

563
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 8: using our system, and the owners, you know, they were

564
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,959
Speaker 8: all over the place. They weren't necessarily seasoned barbershop owners,

565
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 8: and we started to feel that they are actually maybe

566
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 8: considering closing the business, which would be a disaster for us.

567
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,239
Speaker 3: Squire was finally in a barber shop, but now that

568
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 3: shop was on the verge of closing. To save that

569
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 3: shop and their only potential revenue stream, Squire decided to

570
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 3: explore buying the business.

571
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 8: We sat down and we'd literally just crunched the numbers.

572
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 8: We figured out that if we ran the barbershop we

573
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 8: would break even, and so we just approached the owner

574
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 8: and said, look, it doesn't seem like this is something

575
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 8: you want to be doing anyway, let us take over

576
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 8: your lease. You tell us what you need. Thankfully, the

577
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 8: owner was really just trying to get out, and so

578
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 8: we negotiated the purchase and we ran that barbershop I

579
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 8: think for about three to four months. At that point,

580
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 8: a bigger brand took over the barbershop, but those three

581
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 8: four months weren't valuable as far as to knowledge the

582
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 8: experience that we were able to gather.

583
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 3: Squire had saved their company by buying the spot in

584
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 3: Chelsea Market, but more importantly, now they had an inside

585
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 3: look at everything that goes into operating a barbershop.

586
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: We actually took over and operated it because we couldn't

587
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: get anybody else to use our business management software like

588
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: we were our own first customers.

589
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 8: From a product perspective, it is pretty much what every

590
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 8: product manager would dream of, right that is, an ability

591
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 8: to just be your customer for three months as part

592
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 8: of your job. It really just made us understand exactly

593
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 8: how a barbershop functions, not on paper, not on theory,

594
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 8: but in real life. I think that just tatapulted our

595
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 8: software to another level.

596
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 3: As the team operator a legit barbershop doing everything besides

597
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 3: cutting hair. They learned the ins and outs of running

598
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 3: the business, and they were able to figure out firsthand

599
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 3: what Squire's customers needed from their product. Also, the shop

600
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 3: brought new people into their orbit, some of whom had

601
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 3: extremely advantageous connections.

602
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 6: We had a front desk person called out on this

603
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 6: Saturday morning, I'm not coming. We have an appointment. The barber

604
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 6: shops have to open, so I have to get up

605
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 6: out of my bed. So I go to a barbershop.

606
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 6: I opened a barbershop in the chair, just running operations.

607
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 6: One of the people that came I noticed had an

608
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 6: fbing email, so obviously they worked for Facebook, and I

609
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 6: just wanted to ask that person, you know, how you

610
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 6: like a service or a startup. You know, we took

611
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 6: out the barber shop and that person ended up being

612
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 6: Blake Chandily.

613
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 3: Blake Chanley is currently the President of Global Business Solutions

614
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 3: at TikTok. At the time, Chanley was VP of Global

615
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,959
Speaker 3: Partnerships at Facebook, where he'd worked for over twelve years

616
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 3: as a tech startup. There was no one more fortuitous

617
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 3: that the Squire crew could meet.

618
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 6: He says, if you want to talk, he'll be an

619
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 6: awesome south By Southwest the next week, and I said.

620
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 7: Yeah, we're going to go there anyway, but we weren't going.

621
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 6: To go there, but we went down to pitch him

622
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 6: and he ended up investing one hundred and fifty thousand

623
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 6: dollars and Squire.

624
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 3: With the additional funding from Shanley Squire was beginning to

625
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 3: turn some heads in the explosive world of tech startups.

626
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 3: At the same time, Troy Payne songs Old Locker Made

627
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 3: from La had moved to New York to launch his

628
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 3: career in software engineering.

629
00:30:56,080 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 5: I was building just basic car or check out experiences,

630
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 5: that sort of thing.

631
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 4: Nothing too crazy.

632
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 5: Facebook was hot at the time, so I was building

633
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 5: Facebook apps. My wife and I visited New York and

634
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 5: you know, fell in love. I had a condo at

635
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 5: the time, sold it dropped everything moved to New York.

636
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 5: When I moved to New York, Song was the first

637
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 5: person I saw that I knew randomly on the train

638
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 5: and I'm like, Yo, what's up where you get your

639
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 5: haircut around here? Because that's the first thing you asked.

640
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 5: When you move to a whole new city. You don't

641
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 5: want to just go to anybody. You want to go

642
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 5: to people that are like you and get advice from

643
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 5: people that are like you and recommendations. It's crazy, how

644
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 5: what we're doing together right now?

645
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 4: And it had nothing to do with that question.

646
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 3: Troy and Song reconnected and kept in touch, but wouldn't

647
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 3: join forces just yet. Troy still had a few apps

648
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 3: to develop and a few codes to break.

649
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 5: I changed jobs started working at Guilt but the travel

650
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 5: subsidiary Jetsenter.

651
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 4: I was hired based on a game called what Movies

652
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 4: Just from?

653
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 5: What we would do is we would send out a

654
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 5: movie quote and the first person in reply with the

655
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 5: correct answer would We would send a DVD too. And

656
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 5: then the iPhone came out and I said, this will

657
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 5: be a great game on the iPhone.

658
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 4: We made it this iPhone game called what movie Is

659
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 4: this from?

660
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 5: And it was the first asynchronous game that instead of

661
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 5: you playing it, it played you. So it'd be in

662
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 5: your pocket and get a notification or something that says

663
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 5: that you know, we're going to be announcing a movie

664
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 5: quote in about ten minutes or something. You open a game,

665
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 5: you see a time or countdown, it shows a quote

666
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 5: and then you can respond with the answer.

667
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 4: It shows a leaderboard, et cetera. And it had some success.

668
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 5: It was number three and all of the trivia games,

669
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 5: and we had some people paying attention. One of the

670
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 5: people that worked at Jetsetter, who went on to start

671
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 5: buying ultimately, was working at Blockbuster at the time, and

672
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 5: when I interviewed at jet Setter, they was pretty much saying, hey, man,

673
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 5: I don't know if you know this, but Blockbuster's been

674
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 5: copying everything you can do it. And I had no

675
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 5: idea that it's great to hear from a kid like me.

676
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 5: I've built this in my dad's living room for three months,

677
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 5: and I'm able to get the attention of these big brands.

678
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 5: I'm beating these these gaming studios at their own game,

679
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 5: and I'm doing it all by myself.

680
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 3: Another one of Troy's endeavors was an early social media

681
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 3: platform called Cosmos.

682
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 4: I decided to take a little break and start working

683
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 4: on something else.

684
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 2: I was working on something called Cosmo.

685
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 5: Cosmo was like Twitter, but instead of random tweets, everything

686
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 5: started with I want to And so you would put

687
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 5: these cosmos out into the universe of what you want

688
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 5: to do. And they're one directional, you know. It's not like, hey,

689
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 5: does anyone want to hang out today? It was I

690
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 5: want to hang out tonight, and that doesn't mean anything.

691
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 5: It could just go off from to the ether, or

692
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 5: somebody could say, yeah, I want to hang out tonight

693
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 5: as well, and a conversation could happen around these sort of.

694
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 2: Desires or once.

695
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 5: And that also sort of further my strength and design,

696
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 5: my strength and product development. And I got a taste

697
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 5: of fundraising, pitching to billionaires, pitching to whomever would listen,

698
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 5: trying to raise capital and ultimately failing, but realizing my

699
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 5: strengths and now knowing exactly.

700
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 4: What to look for as far as partners go.

701
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 3: As Troy learned everything about fundraising and pitching for his

702
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 3: own apps, the Squire team was headed out to Silicon

703
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 3: Valley in search of additional investors for themselves.

704
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: Man, it was amazing, one of the best experiences I've had.

705
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: If you ever watched that show Silicon Valley and HBO, like,

706
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: it really felt like.

707
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 2: That the characters, the amount of.

708
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 1: Obscene wealth that you have proximity too. It was totally

709
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 1: new to me and I really loved it. We didn't

710
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: just apply to I See A getame. We applied three times.

711
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: One time we got rejected, the second time we got in,

712
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: but not to the main program, like to this small

713
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: version of the program and the third time we got

714
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 1: in and moved there. But addition to y see, we

715
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: had previously applied to just about every accelerator that exists

716
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: that knew about, and we got rejections from all of them.

717
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:04,720
Speaker 2: I don't even think we got interviews from both of them.

718
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:07,280
Speaker 1: So this has been like over a couple of years

719
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: of really trying to insert ourselves into the tech ecosystem

720
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: in New York and then eventually in the Ballet and

721
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 1: just being projected from every angle.

722
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 2: So when we did get accepted, it was an incredible.

723
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: Validation for us, and we really wanted to make the

724
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: most of it to embrace the experience as much as possible.

725
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: I think we did a good job establishing ourselves, like

726
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: we were pretty well known in the bash. We brought

727
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: a barber to demo day and we were giving people

728
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: haircuts there and they have to book on the app.

729
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: We definitely created some buzz that I think helped us

730
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: kind of put our name on the mat where people

731
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: had heard of those Squire guys. That's what they used

732
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 1: to always call it. Hey, those Squire guys. Yeah I

733
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 1: heard of those guys. Yeah, I saw those guys.

734
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 6: We got into a Series A program with Y Commador,

735
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 6: So we did the Y Company cores and then we

736
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,399
Speaker 6: were able to you know, parlay that into Series A program,

737
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 6: which was January twenty nineteen.

738
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,760
Speaker 7: We went on thirty or show.

739
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:02,360
Speaker 2: Meetings doing that process.

740
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 6: We got thirty or so knows and the last meeting

741
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 6: we got a yes from Trinity Adventures.

742
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: Our first institution around proper Series K led by a

743
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: BC fund, Trinity Adventures, and that was for eight million dollars.

744
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 2: And that was the twenty.

745
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 3: Nineteen With Series A funding in hand and plenty of

746
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 3: publicity to go with it, Squire was now making headlines.

747
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 3: Troy caught winded the rise and decided to tap Song

748
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 3: to see if he could get involved. Too. Little did

749
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 3: he know he was reaching out at the perfect time.

750
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: He reached out.

751
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: When he heard about Squire, I said, Yo, I know

752
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 1: a song. You know, I'm an engineer, Like, you know,

753
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: what's up? I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. Cool,

754
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: and then we reconnected. At that point, he came at

755
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 1: a trivial moment where we honestly probably would have not

756
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: succeeded had he not joined the company when he did.

757
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 3: At the time, Squire had another partner who was serving

758
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:07,919
Speaker 3: as CTO. Unfortunately the relationship with sour and soon both

759
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 3: parties would want out.

760
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: After the count Artists incident, we still continued trying to

761
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: find the right person to join our company, and then

762
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: we actually ended up finding the Cocoon.

763
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 2: The CTO, and he built the first person of the product.

764
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: He kind of like had the keys of the kingdom

765
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: as far as the technology goes, like he controlled everything

766
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: new everything without him, like there's no company from from

767
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: a product standpoint.

768
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 5: So they had a CTO at the moment, I didn't

769
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 5: know it, but they weren't very happy with progress that.

770
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 7: Was being made.

771
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 5: And I came in as a contractor to work on

772
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 5: some iOS stuff. I think the CTO was saying that

773
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 5: we need to bring in someone to port over our

774
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 5: app to the new back end that they were working on,

775
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 5: and he had estimated it would take three months and.

776
00:37:58,160 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 2: I did it in three weeks.

777
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 4: They were impressed by that.

778
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 5: I had no idea at the time that they were

779
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:08,720
Speaker 5: unhappy with the CTO, but they pretty much said, Troy,

780
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 5: we're gonna let so and so go, we want you

781
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 5: to step in.

782
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: When Troy came in, he basically took over everything and

783
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: kept the lights on and even improved on what we

784
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: had had he not reached out, had we not had

785
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: to locker together, had all these like random occurrences not happened,

786
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 1: I don't know what we would have done at that

787
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: time when it didn't work out with the former co founder,

788
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: like we you know, probably would have failed.

789
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 2: And what's the odds, you know, like one of the

790
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 2: odds to the same high school.

791
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: Now, had we not had lockers in the same place,

792
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:39,919
Speaker 1: I would have not known like we would like there's

793
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 1: a big school, like you know, thousands of students.

794
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 2: We never had a class together, I would have known

795
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 2: who was.

796
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: But they would have it that we did share lockers

797
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: in the same place. So I knew him, so he

798
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:52,439
Speaker 1: knew me. And then all these years later it worked

799
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 1: out joint schore.

800
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 3: With all the pieces in place, Squire transformed from Uber

801
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 3: for barbers into a full service back end app for barbershops,

802
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 3: and in doing so, became one of the hottest startups

803
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 3: in tech. Incredibly, only a few months after raising their

804
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 3: Series A, Squire received a twenty seven million dollar Series

805
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 3: B investment, and just in time, because although they didn't

806
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 3: know it the COVID nineteen pandemic was just around the corner.

807
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 6: So we did a twenty seven million dollars series B.

808
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 6: The last five million came in a week before the pandemic.

809
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 6: Everything sat down, so fortuitous timing to say the least.

810
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 2: Revenue went to zero. We're flying high. We had this

811
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 2: growth chart, you know, up to the right. We did around.

812
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 6: Six or seven million in March, and then in April

813
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 6: it went down to like one hundred thousand dollars.

814
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,879
Speaker 2: That's how drastic the drop off was.

815
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 10: We were instructed to take PvP longs and we did not, said,

816
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 10: you know, we don't need it.

817
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 7: We had at that point thirty something million dollars in

818
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 7: the bank.

819
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 10: We didn't think it made sense for us to you know,

820
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 10: take money that was meant for our customers.

821
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 7: We didn't take the money.

822
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 2: We hunkered down and say, hey, we're going to get

823
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 2: to this. It's not gonna last whatever.

824
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 7: And it didn't.

825
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,719
Speaker 6: And you know, we saw this robust growth out of

826
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 6: the pandemic.

827
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:23,240
Speaker 11: We really focused on the product and we get focused

828
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 11: on the customers. During that time, we built four or

829
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 11: five products that just were dedicated to the customers. We

830
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 11: created a virtual waiting room.

831
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 10: We created a way for our customers that are applying the

832
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 10: PPP loans. We created a way for folks to make

833
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 10: wireless not point sell pay me so I didn't have

834
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 10: to touch the cast register. We made it way for

835
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 10: folks to donate to the barber shop that was down

836
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 10: and then actual barber So we created like a gift

837
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 10: card product, all within six to eight week span. So

838
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 10: we were like ray, focused on getting stuff out that

839
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 10: made sense for our customers. And because of that, we

840
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 10: saw this huge growth coming out of the square, like

841
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 10: this huge influctual customers.

842
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 2: It was a wild time.

843
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 1: It's going to be crazy to just think that we

844
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: all lived through this because they impacted every business. But

845
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: our customers are shut down. When the government calls, our

846
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: businesses shut down and they started reopening going into summer

847
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. And while they were shut down, as a company,

848
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: refocused on how we could help them, how we could

849
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 1: help keep them afloat, provide them with capital, launch futures

850
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: that will allow them to reopen safely, and I think

851
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: it was the right decision for us.

852
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 2: We also waived subscription fees for.

853
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: The whole year, even for the following year because we

854
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: didn't want for them to have an additional overhead during this.

855
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: Really challenging time.

856
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: It was the right thing to do just morally, but

857
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: I think it ended up being the right thing to

858
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,799
Speaker 1: do as a business as well. And when they reopened,

859
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: we started getting more customers than ever. And I think

860
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: part of.

861
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 2: It was the shift to digital.

862
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: A lot of businesses started really understanding why they need

863
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: to embrace technology and accept card payments and all that.

864
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 2: And then some of it was because of the good

865
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 2: will that we were building.

866
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: An industry and really leaning into how can we help

867
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: our customers.

868
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:18,800
Speaker 2: So we saw a lot of growth in the second

869
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: half of twenty twenty going into twenty.

870
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 3: One, a lot of growth. As Song puts it, is

871
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,399
Speaker 3: this a severe understatement. From twenty twenty to twenty twenty one,

872
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 3: Squire raised their Series C and Series D funding, putting

873
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 3: over one hundred million dollars in their coffers. Their Series D,

874
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 3: led by Tiger Global, came in at sixty million dollars

875
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 3: and earned a company a whopping seven hundred and fifty

876
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 3: million dollars valuation.

877
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 5: I think we're just scratching a surface, which is crazy

878
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 5: to think about considering our current valuation and considering the

879
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 5: number of shops that we have on our platform.

880
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 2: One thing we.

881
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 4: Do have is high our pool.

882
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 5: You know, our shops pay for great service, and they're

883
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,399
Speaker 5: happily paying for a great service, and so we don't

884
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 5: have just a bunch of shops that are barely paying.

885
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 5: We have a handful of really great shops that are

886
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 5: paying for the value of it. We're in three thousand

887
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 5: barbershops in the US.

888
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 4: And the UK and Canada.

889
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:19,879
Speaker 5: There are fifty thousand in the US alone, probably two

890
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 5: hundred thousand worldwide, maybe more. We're still sort of doing

891
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 5: our time right now. I know in Europe is becoming

892
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 5: even more popular. I think from that perspective there's a

893
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 5: lot of room, but there's an even bigger sort of

894
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 5: space that if we can capture every barbershop, we can

895
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 5: start marketing to the consumer where I think it gets

896
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 5: really really interesting.

897
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 4: Similar to with Uber has done.

898
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 5: Uber has created this household name part of world culture

899
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 5: where you don't think about how you got to someplace.

900
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 4: They sort of blurred the lines between getting from A

901
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 4: to B.

902
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 9: You just took an Uber, you booked an Uber.

903
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 5: But there's also a whole other set of consumers where

904
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 5: they don't know what barbershop to go to. There's a

905
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 5: lot of people on Earth, a lot of of them

906
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 5: have here, and that's the market that I look at.

907
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,879
Speaker 8: I think what's next for us is we are going

908
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,879
Speaker 8: to continue scaling. We're going to continue grabbing market share

909
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:22,359
Speaker 8: in the barbershop space where now in five different countries USA, Canada, UK,

910
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 8: Ireland and Australia sort of both English speaking countries that

911
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 8: we're concentrating on those for two reasons. Obviously the software

912
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 8: is in English, but also, you know, we want to

913
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 8: make sure that we always have processing payments for our

914
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 8: clients because I think it really makes for a very

915
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 8: unique offering.

916
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: Think about running a company, particularly a tech company that's

917
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: growing fast. Is scaling is a tension between the necessity

918
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 1: of short term thinking and planning and then also like

919
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: long term vision and thinking three to five years out.

920
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 1: And sometimes the two can seem like their attention because

921
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: what's better for the company than long may or may

922
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: not seem like the best thing to do, you know,

923
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: in the next six to twelve months. Since the economy

924
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: has changed slowed down, the fundraising capital marcuts environment is

925
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: totally different than it was I think it's actually put

926
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 1: us in a better position in terms of company building,

927
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: and I'm actually, you know, weirdly kind of like excited

928
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 1: about this opportunity in this time because it's going.

929
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 2: To allow us to really focus on building an amazing company.

930
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: And part of that, in my opinion, is like actually

931
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: thinking about profitability being a company actually generates cash while

932
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: also thinking about how that growth is important. It's not

933
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: the only thing, So I'm looking forward to that. For me,

934
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:45,320
Speaker 1: what I think about is continuing to build up Squire

935
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: and really define like as a category leading, category defining company.

936
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: We are, I think the only company that is a

937
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: barbershop management platform, and we empower our barbershop owners and

938
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: barbers to run their business better, to improve their operations

939
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: and added out laser focus.

940
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 2: We're at the only company probably in the world. I

941
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 2: can say that.

942
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 3: Squire's story is one of ambition, curiosity, and adaptability. Though

943
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 3: they both got their start on the corporate ladder, Song

944
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 3: and Dave were born entrepreneurs with a shared goal of

945
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 3: manufacturing their own success, and they also shared an ingenuity

946
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 3: and a willpower to engineer that success through innovation and

947
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 3: an excellence of product. Once they identified barbershops as a

948
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 3: white space open to disruption. They studied the landscape relentlessly,

949
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 3: and they did their diligence naturally. As the business progressed,

950
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 3: they hit no shortage of walls along the way, but

951
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 3: they were never deterred. They processed the challenges, added the

952
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 3: right team members in Arom and Troy, and pivoted with Finesse.

953
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 3: And as their team product and true marketplace opportunity came

954
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,879
Speaker 3: into focus, the financial dominoes just started to fall one

955
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 3: after another, and now as they approach unicorn status, the

956
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,720
Speaker 3: much sought after billion dollar valuation despite a rapidly changing

957
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,800
Speaker 3: economic landscape, the options for how they grow the business

958
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 3: appear limitless, and Squire remains a cut above from Idea Generation.

959
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 3: I'm Noah Callahan Bever. Thank you for listening to The

960
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 3: All Angles Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't

961
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 3: hesitate to like, comment DM or tell a friend to

962
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 3: tell a friend about Idea Generation and the All Angles Podcast.

963
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 3: We can't do any of this without your help, and honestly,

964
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 3: your support means everything. We do this for you, and

965
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 3: we can't do it without you. This episode was brought

966
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 3: to you by Will Packer. Executive produced by John Valachik

967
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 3: and Helena Ox, original music by Valentine Fritz, edit and

968
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 3: sound mixed by Nonsensible Production, and hosted by me Idea

969
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 3: Generation founder Noah Allahan bever Idea Generations. All Angles is

970
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 3: a will packer media podcast