Hello and welcome to another episode of Hillary Podcast, your one stop shop for filled ventures and failed founders and more importantly, the lessons you can learn from them. I'm your host, Brenda Anadarko, and today we're joined by sound after the current CEO and co founder at Lusa Software to help you turn your social networks and the lead engines and increase your overall rely from digital marketing. Zell was also previously the head of marketing at Venue Mir, a start up based in Bangalore. In this episode, Zara and I discussed the hospitality industry, the conversion that needs to happen from online to offline sales, the startup ecosystem in Bangla her, as well as how your mother in law could help you nail a job interview, Stay tuned and thank you again for listening. This podcast episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our friends over at a que geum, that platform that connects founders and startups with marketing students for three month internships. No matter what kind of business you're running,

there's a big chance that you need a hand with marketing and sales Katie and provide the cheap solution for that for only $299 you get a three month partnership for interns and virtual assistants. The best part of it all is that they're offering a $50 discount for all of fail early subscribers. Redeem this now at fail. Ary dot com slash get slash Arcadium. Once again, that's fail. Ary dot com slash get slash Arcadium I'm very excited to have vowed Aster on the podcast palooza. Hey, how's it going? It's good. It's good. Happy New Year T Happy New Year to you, too. Yeah. So Zell is the current CEO at Lusa, and previously he did.

He was the head of marketing. Or, if correct me if I'm wrong but head of marketing at Benny Mirror, he's early based, our shoes based out of Singapore and bangle er and he graduated of the University of Melbourne in 04 with a degree in policy is anything I missed in that I do like the pepper in, like any detail that I missed that you like my brains up. No,

no, that's probably quite accurate.

Okay, Perfect. So yeah, so I just like to just jump in. But so, post grad, from what we have you worked across like lots of industries, which is like it went from, like, you know, mortgage to, like sports, etcetera, etcetera. Before you started on the founding team of venue Merion Bangla, India. So I'd love to just talk about that.

What made you made the switch from, you know, working in industry to working in our, like, working out

your own start up? Well, you know, truth be told, that was quite a funny story. I don't think I really had any desire or particular goals at that point to start my own company. I was working in sports marketing agency in Singapore. Andi, what happened was literally I think I was out one night. Probably had a few too many drinks,

as one said, Well, you know, just

just can't finish. And one of my very one of my oldest friends called me up Andi. He was saying that he waas going to quit his job in London working for its censure, and he was gonna move to bang lore, and he was going to start this project there, and he wanted to know if I wanted to come with him, and he needed to know when an hour otherwise he was potentially going to give the job somebody else s. So, you know, I had to make a pretty quick decision that at some point to basically I think I was You know, I must have been, like, 23 or 24 probably I'm sure that I called up my parents and ask them if, if everything you know goes horribly wrong and completely collapses, then do I At least can I come and stay in the house and can I come and have it have food that, you know, Can I eat?

And I absolutely live. So when they said yes, I basically that Okay, So Okay. From what? Why don't I give this a try and go and then ended up living in India for for two years trying to run that business Very, very

interesting time? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing. And I guess I'm curious, Was the job. And, you know, you were doing the sports. Are you working at a sports company? And the job that you were working with your friend's ex center, like the start of that? You were working with your friend in India where they like similar roles air, like did. Why Did what he choose you?

Well, I mean, I have. No, I don't think it had anything to do with particular skill set. I think that, Like what? My job at that point was a lot of like account management, some sort of some little bit of sales. And I think basically, just my partner at that point. Users chi shoes, A very, you know, dear friend of mine needed somebody that he could probably trust and someone he like. They could handle the front and the sales side of the business. And so that's what what I was just gonna go do. But I don't think it was really related to my current trump.

Sure. Yeah. And this is has you Have you ever, like, lived in India before? Or like, what is your first time in India?

So I mean, you know, great question. I am Indian, but I Up until that point, I had never actually lived in India, have been there, you know, obviously for vacations and to visit family and things like that. But I had never actually, like, had a home or lived there, so that this was my first experience off of actually living. And that's on existing gins, Mom, which was quite

And this became or, I mean, I'm just curious. Like, what was the experience, like, you know, you're with, like, loose up now in Singapore. What was the I guess, if you could juxtapose like to experience is what was the, you know, being a quote unquote founder like being a started thunder in India.

Like so I mean the I think that the first thing in the like, the most noticeable thing, especially because, you know, even a loose up We still have an office in Bangor. So we changed your a lot of time over there. And I think you know, when when we started this company was like 9 4010 around there, and so, like, you know, about 10 years ago. And at that time, I think, you know, it might be hard to imagine now, because India is such a strong sort of software.

Andi startup center. But at the time that there really wasn't there was a lot of big tech companies. So your Accenture's your Microsoft's your HP Is they all had large offices in Bangor, but especially from like a start up sort of space that really wasn't done. But like the big the big Indian companies now one, which is flip card, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. You know these guys I remember Foot cart, like, had just started in our second year snap deal. Another large one hadn't even started. So the sort of level of trust and I think that's the most important thing the the amount of trust or the amount of comfort and doing business online. It was a really is the chasms change she and she exchanged in the last 10 years. So I mean, that's what I would see is being like. The biggest difference was both from a business and a consumer point of view.

Whether there was trust in whatever this thing called the Internet was. I mean, you know, the story that I I really I tell a lot whenever we talk about it is that I am more than one occasion when we were hiring for jobs, you would have the person's mother, or even potentially their mother in law, come in for a job interview on. Do you know you're trying to sort of understand the qualifications that the candidate has on there? You have some, you know, usually like an elder relative asking you questions about the company because they don't know when this startup thing is they've never heard of that. I've never heard of you. They don't know. You are like, you know, there are a lot of these sort of teething issues,

and that was just on the I was just on the internal sign. When you're doing with clients, you know, credit cards, the penetration rate was probably much, much less than it is now. Andi. Even now, it's probably much less than it is in most developed countries. And so even trying to get payments. And there were There were a lot of a lot of issues, so I think just the infrastructure that trust the the ability to understand by the Internet and technology and what that offers, I think that's probably the biggest.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm just curious when you talk about it with, like, such vivid detail, How much would you say? You know that you said there's elected other NATO nine. How much would you say that has changed to today. I know you guys have are loose. It has, like, you know, offices

in Bangla. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, I you know, we don't have people you know now asking you a question about what a start up is on. But I think there there's just a much larger acceptance that the way to do business is online. And then, yes, the product and the business that we have changed you with Rousseff is a totally different business. However ironically of without any without any, I would say like predetermination. They're both in this in the in the leads industry, which for us is I guess I get generating leads online and distributing them to businesses that are offline because there is something that is inherently missing. Andi still probably in a lot of industries, you know where the weather is,

a large ticket item or whether there is where there is ah, a long term commitment to a product people people like to to engage in the with the sales person. And I think you know our business at the time in India, it was very focused around weddings and conferences. So you needed to have the hotel involved because no one's booking like a wedding entirely online. It's just not happening. And so So I thought They think there's that. There's still some parallels that we could draw obviously, places where we feel there is still room for technology to optimize and improve the current situation, particularly for customers. And I think being able to t give customers the right seed back and to get them engaged with the right people in the organization, how much down benefits and announces the sales process?

Yeah, sure, absolutely, I hope. Is it still the norm that you know, candidates? Mothers in law will still come and, like, ask

you about way? Don't do that. In fact, that I mean there's the change, especially in terms of like except in Stop Aceh. Frustrated started acceptance and the fact that you know now, Now everybody wants to sort of start their start up and and then I'm always very amazed that when I go to to India and I and I watched the ads on the television there, I would say, like 60 to 70% of them seemed to all be for dot com. Businesses protections. Instance Now just swing in 10 years. Seems it is

very impressive. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I hope not to, like, just, like, go off attention of what you said. But, you know, Did you, I guess, like watching TV, you know, And you see all these people advertising dot com's Did you ever? I guess.

Did you ever see yourself becoming a founder out of college? Or did you You know, when did you know that you wanted to do, I guess, like, devote your time into start ups Places like

this working in industry. I mean, so that probably came at the at the end of of of this little journey, the journey that I was on in here because, I mean, basically, I think it's all first time startup founders. You know, we'll know that your cash is is really king. And I think the time, you know, one of the things that I'm very aware of is that we also, you know, we really didn't know much about. And there wasn't much industry or space or scope for learning. I guess as well. Like,

you know, we we ran out of money as as As you know, most startups will tell you cash flow is the most important thing. And we did. We did a small friends and family round. And then when we ran out of money, we then had to think about Okay. What? What is it that What is it that we we can do now? That if we don't have, if we don't have the money to run the business on then coming back to Singapore to then decide So what? What kind of job? Career. When I'm looking for. And I think that's the first time when I thought OK, well, actually,

I kind

of like that experience there. Yeah, I kind of liked it. I I went and I worked again. There was with a small boutique digital marketing agency here in Singapore where I was doing like business to the stands. They brought me on so partner there and I think I could see that Well, maybe if it wasn't, it didn't necessarily have to be a startup per se, but you know, definitely the idea of being involved in business and as a partner on being able to make decisions that I could invite the business. Definitely to me. Seeing my just a more

interesting Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, we've just been, like, you know, talking or like talking about this entity for a long time. But if I'm correct, this is venue mere that we're

talking about this like, yeah, yeah, it's very where that's what That's what I was doing in India other

time. Perfect. And this was like you and Kai's for a And yet, if you had to, I have a like, you know, very, very put together description here. But if you had to describe a you know, to like a 10 year old, what many a mere did, what

would you say? I mean, if I had to describe it to the 10 year old, I would just way help people find their vest locations for weddings and conferences, meetings. I mean, you know, India being India in the market, the way that it waas we ended up our biggest business driver turned out to be wedding. So although we originally thought we were going to be like a conference right, don't like meetings for meetings and things, and basically what we were doing is we were we were taking on sort of copying what was a very successful and understood model in my thing in light, for example, North America and Europe on the idea was that we wanted to apply not to India. And we thought that there would be a lot of them for this. And, you know, I guess there are some big dog comes, but I just I think we were We were very early in the market with venom era, but the idea was just that we ended up becoming this big resource for helping people plan weddings and decide where they location could accommodate. You know what number of guests and that turned out to become the sort of niche that we ended up working in the law?

Sure. Yeah. And like just going past, you know, the tendril that we have to define your start up to, but going on like, you know, the big boy description I fired up, You know, the way back machine and venue mirror. So, like what I have is that very means, like a software solution to act like quote unquote search engine for, like, guests or people who are looking for I guess like space in a hotel for banqueting and, like weddings and conferences, Is that that

sounds pretty good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's basically like somebody is looking for information, and in this case, you know, the times don't have the hotels have it, but it's each on their own individual website. You know, there's some space is there that we used tohave, which were unique spaces that maybe you couldn't get on websites. And again, you know, this is this is going back a little while, right?

So and in fact, a lot of this stuff is not is not even readily available now. It's very difficult because obviously, running running events is a very complex industry on a complex sort of job and and and as a result, there, lots of moving parts. And so we ended up becoming this sort of basically a directory service for wedding planners and wedding organizer's who would then come and use us to figure out, especially those that were not from India or trying to, you know, people like that. A lot of Indians that live, particularly in the UK or the US, Canada, Australia, but they all wanted to get married in India, but didn't didn't exactly have the information of the knowledge where to go,

what to do. They would use us. And then we would, you know, introduce them to the to the hotels, on

running like that, and then for the hotels parts you would. You know, you just convert these leads into, like you would tell the hotel sales team really people about these leads or people who are searching for, you know, spaces for hotels.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's really the That's the trickiest part, right? The part Waas. Once we had gotten these leads. Well, then how did we pass them on to the hotel? In a way that made sure that we also benefited from that. And I think you know, one of the difficulties. As I say, working with not only in India but a lot of emerging markets is the is the is the lack of trust. Sure, So you know, it seems like a very easy idea of that. You know,

you just put in your credit card, but people don't have credit cards. A lot of people are used to paying on commission. They would do all kinds of things. You know, they would write the check and not put it in the mail. Or they would They would tell you that they were not paying commissions on the rooms and only on the effort be or, you know, there there were lots of things that people can do if they don't want pay. And I think that was our That was our biggest difficulty. Actually, we we we were driving a lot of business or other hotels, and you know, they again. There is a low trust environment. So whenever you tell somebody,

look, we're not going. If you don't pay us, you're not going to send you anymore. They just be like, Okay, fine. You know, like that wasn't that wasn't really a feeling of this is gonna be a big channel for me, or this is gonna You know, benefit is so I mean, that thing, these air just difficulties at all sort businesses. Absolutely. Definitely not. Deal with

you. And I guess like difficulties inside you at your peak are like Advani mirrors. Like most successful find, you got the chance to, you know, work with high it. Novotel Myriad. I guess I would love. I'm just curious. I would love to talk love for you to talk about this a little bit more, you know? How did you get access to these, Like top level clients, Or like, what was the growth like? And like, I guess you talk about,

you know, people are like hotels. Not really seeing venue mirror is becoming like a big channel for them. How did you go from there? To, like, you know, finessing, or like, leveraging your way into these top class. I

mean, you know, the the easiest way for us to get these clients was that we would advertise their informations expression yet? Yeah, we put their properties on our platform on then as soon as they As soon as they go to lead, we call them up, and we would tell them, Hey, somebody is using. Our platform is is interested in this photo. And in order for you to access that, you've got to sign up. And no, I'm here to talk you through that whole process and will sign you up. Then we'll get you on your way. And you know, usually you were talking to some I I wouldn't even say Sales manager.

You're talking to some sales guy. But if they had the thought that there was a lead of the end and we could actually provide quality and and, you know our leads were a lot were genuine. There were, there, were revising there were there were quite high quality meats, people would sign up. So I mean and also the biggest problem that we face, though, is getting once recent means. It was like getting contracts negotiated for partner agreements and therefore, and getting the actual payments. Because, for example, on these hotels will tell you okay, what we have,

you know, three months payment terms. And you know, it's that that can maybe if if that takes any longer or whatever, it starts putting very serious implications on your on your business's cash flow in your ability to pay your bills on. And we weren't talking big bucks here, right? You know, So but and so should not get that money was even was even harder. So I think that's that was the biggest difference. But otherwise, yeah, way had more than 2000 hotels on the platform with driving sort of thousands of needs a monthly basis. I was. I mean, it was at the time. It's quite successfully.

Absolutely, absolutely. And like, just like I love to talk about that. You know, you're talking, you're generating, you know, hundreds of leads a month. And you say you use this like, very, very unique s CEO strategy. I hope not to like, you know, open up your playbook or open appear like magic secret sauce of like how you get this. But I would love to like no, but a little bit more about how you got, I guess people searching for hotels on your platform. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I'm happy to talk about it, because I don't think you can. I don't think you can do it on Google that you know the way that the algorithm

is changed. It was like 10,009 day. Very hacky Google.

Yeah, exactly. And basically, what we did is we just I think we owned at one point, like 90 different domains. Teeth. Yeah, on those domains were just like, you know, the best wedding hotel in Bombay. The best wedding hotel in Delhi, the but way ston overall, basically all of the crimes that we could Andi, all of those sites were basically landing pages that lead you back to our main database in our main site. But when you ran a Google search, using those particular terms dot com would come out. And so,

you know, we we had we had, uh, as I said, that strategy was very unique at the time. On it worked for quite a while in terms of placement and getting traffic. So it was, you know, I think in fact, I know that Google would see right through you. She did something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I hate to, you know, you know, make them adjusted. Reveal is

fixed, but yeah, that's like, you know, I'm sure everybody, everyone was being infected. Well, know also that everybody like ISO is constantly trying to stay one step ahead of of the SDO. Whatever the biggest

impact? Absolutely, Absolutely. And from there I hate to, you know, like parterre on the reins, our But from I guess from the peak, you know, when you were like negotiating these contracts with these hotels and like you were getting, you know, hundreds of searches a month are like lots of users of your platform, I guess. What other factors that look you haven't described lead to, you know, venue mirror like you kind of like seeing that Benny Mary wasn't gonna like glass in the long run. So

I mean, as I said, I think way started to realize that we it took us a very, very long time to settle on a pricing strategy on. And, you know, we tried Teoh many, many different types from commission to, you know, just selling the lead, and and that being it and, you know, we were trying to many different ice before we actually came up on one, which actually was sort of made sense and work quite well. But by that time, we really, I think,

had run out of payroll. We had run out funding funding on. I think, you know, we also I mean, we were a little naive, I think at the time we were, you know, you know, in our, like, 22 23. And you know, I think we calculated okay, too, to keep this going for another a year and 1/2 or two years or whatever we needed,

like another $100,000. And we went and spoke to a lot of the a lot of the firms that were in India. Now, at the time there were, I would say they were only maybe there was nowhere near the sort of funding seen there is now. There was, like, maybe 10 or 10 or 15 firms on, and many of them were very large. There were your sequoias and your cells and these friend of companies, which are very big in terms of, you know, they don't typically do seed investments. They don't typically, you know, you know,

all of these things that now seems so obvious. But at the time, we didn't really know. And I think way only spoke to Maybe if there were 15 people their way, got a chance to speak to 10 of them. And so when when 10 of them said, you know, no. And then for various reasons that they would have said it whether they they didn't believe in, You know, I also think, you know, right, wrong time is just a bad is wrong product in many cases. Yeah, So So So that was just what happened and we decided.

Okay, well, I think this this is probably not the best time for this. I think it was taken out of our hands, you know, had we had had we did we end up find the funding what we have done, who knows? But I think that at the time, we definitely thought that we want to something.

Absolutely. It sounds like a very, very, you know, like, sophisticated piece of software. And like you say that you're you're quote ahead of your time in many respects. And there's a company lots of companies today in the space that are doing that it much later than you. But

doing quite well today. I guess I

want to transition this a little bit into, like, hospitality. You know, like with all the activity today in, like, you know, Airbnb Sander. And, like, lots of legislative actions. You know, Mary, it had to make a play in, like, moxie, homes and villas to capture,

You know, the new millennial market, etcetera, etcetera, I guess. Where does you know? Lead generation? And where does like sales tools come into played like Do you think there's a space today? for like many merits exist there.

I mean, I'm sure that there if if I was to Google like wedding Venue Finder, I'm sure that there are. There are lots, and I think that the space, particularly for a hotel, is an interesting one. Because, you know, when you when you look at the rooms, I think that's something that's very clear cut. That's very what people understand in terms of how the purchase process occurs. But when you go for anything, that's not a hotel room, that the whole purchase process changes and the number of sort of variables that are included in that purchase also change in that adds complexity to the deal. And I think when you're doing things like that, it's the same is like if you're buying insurance or even in your car,

you you generally want to speak to somebody. I think you know the world is getting automated in a certain way, Yeah, but it's getting automated for for things that I feel can be and are easily. But there is still a lot of this space for people looking for, ah, higher value sales on. I think that when when you do focus on things like kind of value sales. You want to make sure that there is a human there. There is somebody that can answer the questions that can that can use their experience that can. You know, I think that probably changes for lots of people. I'm sure that there are lots of people that you know would love it if they go down to a bank and then try to open an account if that's done by a human. And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that you know are happy to go online filling Cem fill in a form email there, you know, identification or whatever,

and then and then have their bank can open that way. So I think, you know, depending on the product, depending on the person. But I think that the sales then their job is to is to ease that transition from the online to the offline telephone process. And I think you know, nobody is buying anything or doing anything you know in this day and age, without going online first without doing some research without googling it without, you know, asking their friends on Facebook and being able to connect with that, understand what somebody is looking for, and then give them the information that they're looking for in a meaningful way that helps them make a That helps them make an informed decision. I think that that that role for a sales person is probably gonna be there for for a very long time. Definitely, absolutely.

And the and the and then the tools that the sales person will require will just change. So I think you know, in that sense, like what? Whether how you connect that sales person t the to the online space. That may change. As technology is changing, things change. But I do think that there still needs to be a human interaction. That some sales?

Sure, Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much for an injury. And then from venue mirror, I guess like you guys ran out of funding. And then what happened to Kaiser? Like, what happened? Train after I know you move back to Singapore from India and then

Yeah. Yeah, So I mean, Kaist did the same thing. I think he got a job at Credit Suisse. He was doing I t project management for for for some of their real estate over there. And then I went to work for this digital agency. I think both of us lasted. Maybe just over a year or, yeah, I would say something like that before we started working at this Singaporean SME where we basically developed the idea that would eventually become loose up because we saw an inherent problem with that sales process. And there was similar to what I was talking about earlier, which is the disconnect between the seven process. Yeah, and the and the salesmen that are that are there to do that job. And we saw that as a problem the company that we worked for And we thought If this problem exists here, it probably exists alone more and a lot more businesses. We thought we take the risk and try to sell that out to the business is

perfect. Thank you so much for segueing into our next topic. Eso loose up. You found it with, like the same Find Eric ice at venue. Mayor, if you I had to do the city again, would like if you had to describe you know what loosen didn't like very, very simple terms, not maybe to like a 10 year old, but, like in very simple terms, what is lucid doing and like, How is it? I guess I'm curious. Like, how is it different from what video here is doing?

Like, Is it like a different? You know, different software? How is it like, yeah, if you could talk

a little bit so well, loose up is a It's a sales and marketing platform. So it's It is designed for any business to be able to plug in to their front end digital marketing channels. So, like a website or a Facebook campaign, and then we connect be instead of generated through these platforms directly with sales guys within the organization on we sort of. We we make them compete for those leads on. We make them respond very quickly to the customer. And so it's an app on the sales guys phone that they used kind of like uber where, you know, when a when a when a job comes out, they sort of compete for it so similar to that, and we help businesses basically understand and generate a better are y from their marketing and their sales and sugars through this. Yeah. So it's in the same. It's in the same industry. But, you know, with venue Mayor, we were very industry specific

versus this words like any website, Any campaign?

Yeah, exactly. Anybody that has field agents, any any type of organisation, way work with pine, a large

number and just some clear year making the sales guys from the same company compete. So, like, do you have, like, one of your clients here is you know, start what hotels are like Jaguar, Land Rover. You would make the sales guys from any of these companies, like, compete

for the same client? Yes. So there. So the idea is that they that the sales guys who are working so typically with car companies or insurance companies you're talking about like the people at the dealership for car companies like that, the dealership insurance company, that the agencies and what happens is that they're usually responsible for particular territory or something like that. When the lead is generated, we can we have ah, smartly distribution engine, which can gauge where should that lead go on? Which group of agents should we send it to? And then we will send it directly to that group and then make a specific group computer

that nice. Perfect. Yeah, Thank you so much for saying. And you have just, like, inventing Mary. You know, you have these, like, top clients, you have CBR e just like from a handful of have you have start what hotels you have. Jaguar, Land Rover. You have Mercedes Benz and more than 1000 others. I guess I'm curious, you know,

with, like, the advent of non 20,009 you know, very hacky s CEO. Or like the secret sauce that you had in general here. How are you? How did you gland

these type plant? I mean, these these types of clients usually come through a long, quite a long sales process. So, you know, we have a lot of SME clients that they got to find us organically. But you know, we particularly when you're trying to work with a big big organization, they usually have very specific bond boarding requirements. And so the process of of you then having to show them the value of your product of your tool and why they should be using it. And yes, so so ever. Quite. You know, we go to a lot of events. We we tried Teoh to meet as many people as we can on on a regular basis, but it's it's definitely it's very different than the sort of be to be the Seaworld. This is farm or like me to be

absolutely absolutely. And yeah, I you know, like I'm getting a lot of flashbacks because, like I worked in the past, it, like a B two B company, are like I intern this summer. And I guess it's the same process where you know you're collecting business cards and like, you have, like a very, very long list of CRM and like the on boarding process like Super super long. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. I guess what I'm curious about is, like in venue mirror, where you talk about,

you know, working with hotels and like, their three month payment cycles. And it was difficult for you. And I guess in blue seven, you guys are also in the same position where you're if I'm wrong, like correct me if I'm wrong. But like you're in between, you know, the consumer and the business is trying to get a sales. And like the salesman, um, how are you, I guess Are you fixing this problem that you face in Betty Mirror where you're very scared on cash flow And, like, I guess,

What are you doing to address the pain points that you faced in very merry using loose upper with loose it? Well, I mean, in that situation, you know, just hotel.

Well, we're a SAS company. And so, as a result of being like a SAS business, we charge our customers and annual fee for using the license of the product and that and that, and that's you know, that's pretty typical of most SAS businesses. And to do that, that annual fee is charged usually up front. So we we try to make sure that we get the cash flow up front, and that makes a really big difference because, you know, even as our business were were not a funded business, So we've been going we're abuse drug company that's been going for you know? I think Well, congratulations to you eso, You know,

for us, it's it's particularly a sensitive, sensitive nature because we don't have that VC money that can, you know, they can make such a difference. So, yeah, we charge a license model. It's very straightforward. And our most of our customers, they will pay up front for that. So, you know, we those. Yeah, you're right. And send some of the lessons that that we have learned on trying to bring them into action

every day. Yeah, I'm just curious. I hope this doesn't like trying too much, but are you guys planning to is there? Do you plan toe be bootstrap for, like, I guess, the rest of your period? I think I think

honestly, like, right now, we we we do think about raising every so often. And I think you know, it's going a lot more to do with finding the right partner finding. I think we you know, when When it comes down to it. If we were to look at somebody and say OK, you know, the this person is just gonna give you a check, and you're gonna see

that not working right? Well, you're

gonna see them four times a year and you're at your e g m. And that's kind of it. They're not really gonna help you. Well, then I think we'll say Okay, well, you know, we'd rather keep the equity and tryto try to figure it out. But if you you know what we're what would be what we're looking for in an ideal situation is like, OK, well, you know, we can totally see how this person is gonna put in money and by having them work with us, know the value of the company will will increase my significantly just by being able to, you know, for example, the doors that they will open or the the contacts that they

can introduce you to Ridge, you

know, and anything like that, even even if it's like the guidance they can give you for the next round. Sure, start. It really depends on the type of of people, but I think for now will probably be is probably bootstraps

measly. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. And congratulations on. Not for, like, last thing you know, five years still boots truck. I guess I hate to, like, bring it back. But is there any like, lessons or like, it's OK if, like, no worries of not,

but like, if there's any, you know, stories that you can tell or any lesson that you learned from video because I like I hate the dimension of the diminishing, like your progress with loose upper diminish in progress with many mayor. But it seems like both of you are you're still tackling the same, I guess the same problem where you saw it in the SME that you were working out with cash and then you're trying to still do it with loose up. Is there anything that you're learning or anything that you learn from venom ear that you're trying to apply to loosen? But, you know, I guess like I'm not going would but doesn't, like, push you guys to do the same faith. Well, I think you

know that. I think the difference is when you learn from, especially from your past experiences, it's a you know,

you learn a lot of

things okay about product or industry, but I think it more cases it it becomes a lot more about, like, how do you manage people you know, because I think, you know, in Venue Mirror, like I had never managed anybody in all of a sudden we have, like six people or seven people to manage and doing that and understanding. You know, I think sometimes the biggest difficulty is understanding, like you know, who is the right fit to come into your company, especially when it is so small. And so therefore, you know, if you have if you,

if you know one person out of five is not a is not a team player or is not working so well, that's a big percentage of your sales force. That's that's not that's not working. So I think I need the lessons that that we took away particular, or at least that I took away, in particular from India, and Venue Era probably had a lot more to do with managing

people. Been like hiring the right people,

hiring the right people understanding, like you know how things one of the processes of things, you know, like, for example, like getting the process of getting paid on the process of doing. You're even things like your corporate having to go through security and legal approvals and and then these kind of things, which are, you know, these things that not not really the sexy Yes, yeah, I did it on the side that anybody writes about, but these air sort of basic parts of doing business, that be money to understand about. I'm, like, you know, how s so. I think a lot of the a lot of the experience that I got immediate definitely came with managing people and trying to understand what you have to look for in person. Yeah, that's probably more useful than anything

else. Yeah, maybe on that topic. Maybe it is time to bring back people's mothers in laws, their mothers to get a good sense of, like, who they are as a person before you hire them. But, yeah, thank you so much for saying is there, like, you know, before I hope they're not crossed any boundaries, But is there any, you know, 2020 goals or anything in the future that you're excited about working with loose up, that you're very, very excited about that You can

share. I mean, you know, I think that the nature of being in a start up is that you're always kind of excited. I think 2000 and 2000 and 19 was quite it was quite a big year for us in terms of, you know, the product development and structuring the company as well. And so I think what we're just hoping to do with 2020 is to to continue the momentum that we have started in 2019. You know, we deal primarily with sort of global insurance companies and automotive companies, and those contracts can take, you know, you're talking to 12 months, 18 months to close. So hopefully seeing that some of the seeds that we were sewing last year will come to fruition this year, I think that's the That's the main goal to make sure that we keep keep working hard, Uh, to see

that happen. Sure, sure, Yeah. Thank you so much for saying is there? I guess it's like a question that I'm still trying out. But is there any, you know, if you have to talk to sow, You knows Alan Kai's from like 22 20 Ehrlich, who were 22 23 starting many mirror and like anyone who I guess is in your position in the future. Unlike, I guess, like, you know, failing fast or like starting their failed venture anything. Any advice you could give

them? Oh, I mean, that's a really good question. Actually, I don't know. I would say I would probably say, Like, you know, don't get Don't get so stressed out about it. I feel like you know, when you're when you're in it, it really feels like it's this'd life and death. Sure, sure on that. You know, it can really be You could really get caught up and,

you know, running a running, a business, running any business, you know, just to start up, you know, particularly start ups. Could be could be quite a like, stressful experience, I think, Andi, you know, But it isn't really It isn't life and death. And maybe maybe it's a good thing to have to remember that every soft

thank you so much for being so candid about your opportunity. Earlier experiences. Is there anything you'd like to, you know, shared to any of our listeners? Anything you're working on? Any newsletters that are like you Have you been listening to in the past? Regular

users? No, I mean, I've got I've got corn. It's, you know, Yeah, I got a few podcasts. I would say I do damn from a daily newsletter. The only thing that I would say that I read frequently is the hospital, which I quite like. Yeah, I the hospital type crunch. And then then here in Singapore, there's a war in Saudi stage of the cycle Tech in Asia. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah, eh, So I look at those, but I find that if you you know, if you some you know, their job is to be as as interesting as possible. So if they do their job, it becomes very hard for anybody else to theirs because they're sitting and reading all these articles, you know? So, yeah, as those are some of the ones that I but I like to read.

Is there any like, anyway, for, like, listening to follow? You are like, I think they

can. They can follow me on legions. Probably the easiest thing. And if they were the message miracle again in touch with me on linked in, I think if you just started solved a store, there probably aren't that many of them. So I'm pretty easy to find.

Okay? Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the podcast cell. We really, honestly, truly enjoy. The people are being very public of you know about their failures. And I know it's like very, very hard to talk about. So thank you so much for giving us the opportunity. No,

no, no problem. I'm happy to be part of it. Thank

you so much. Absolutely. And that was another ever since Have the failure podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Catch you next time. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Philly podcast. I've been Brandon Honda Co. And once more, I'd like to think our friends over at Arcadium for making this episode possible. If you think you could benefit from a hand in marketing and sales, make sure to check out their tool, which connects businesses with marketing students for three month internships.