August 29, 2024 • 28 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
Excited about today's talk, I'mall the way in San Diego and
Alicia Lee is coming to us allthe way from New York.
So we are on the opposite sidesright now, but we're going to
talk about her great companyFaithly, who has a great name.
But, alicia, thanks for joiningthe show today.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Thank you so much, Frank.
And yeah, I'm in downtownManhattan, although you wouldn't
know it from this soundproofstudio that I'm in, but I
promise somewhere in thebackground are cobblestones and
exposed brick and lots of, lotsof New York city buildings.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
All the good New York stuff.
I I've not spent a lot of like.
I visited New York a handful oftimes and my wife and I have
gone out there a couple of timesjust on weekend getaways.
But I love the city.
I love hanging out there.
I'm not sure what it would belike to live there with a family
, but it's always fun when we govisit.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, so I'm from New Jersey.
It's not that far from New York.
In fact, it's close enough thatyou kind of grow up pretending
like maybe you're from New York,up pretending like maybe you're
from New York.
But I moved here 20 years agoto work on Wall Street and never
in my wildest dreams that Ithink I'd still be here 20 years
later and raising three smallchildren, no less.
(01:14):
But the Lord has made it clearthis is where he's called us to,
it's our mission field.
And so I mean I dream aboutmoving to San Diego.
I dream about moving to SanDiego.
I dream about moving todifferent places, but New York
City is where I am.
It's where I am.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I mean, I, it's a cool spot.
What does it tell us?
Not the point of the show, butwhat?
What's it like to raise kids inNew York?
Do you live in the city?
Like, how do you?
How do you do it?
What's it like?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I think it can be really hard.
It can be really easy.
We have a good setup becausewe've been here a long time,
like we know the value ofproximity, so we don't try to
make life difficult forourselves.
Like, yeah, the best swimteacher might be uptown, but we
don't need the best swim teacher, we just need a no case swim
(02:02):
teacher, and the one next dooris like that's pretty good.
So we keep our life reallyproximate and so for us, like
home, church, school, it's allwithin like a five-block radius.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So from that standpoint, my life, is actually
.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
yeah, it's actually easier, I think, in some ways,
than being in the suburbs whereyou have to drive from place to
place.
But as wonderful as the energyof New York is and there's a
unique energy like there's noenergy, like New York City
energy it's also it can beexhausting.
Right Like at the end of everyday you need your little corner
of the city to retreat into yourapartment to kind of huddle up
(02:39):
with your family, and that'simportant.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, no, I can imagine that.
I mean, you're right about theenergy.
That's probably what everybodycan agree on, right?
Like New York City energy islike incredible.
Like I love walking around, but, see, I don't do it every day,
so it's like when we go visit,it's like this is amazing, this
is awesome, let's go on thesubway, let's do everything
because it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, go on the subway, let's do everything,
cause it's awesome, yeah, yeah,I mean if, if you love people
and you love being around people, it's especially wonderful.
Like I think, um, I countedlike a thousand people on my way
into work one day.
Like, just, you know, you justwalk a few blocks, like you go
into the coffee shop, like you,you just run into a thousand
people, you know, um, and you'rebarely an hour into your day.
But, like I said, you need yourcorner of New York to retreat
(03:25):
to at the end of the day,because it can be overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
No, that makes sense.
Well, you're here to talk aboutFaithly, but you've done some
cool stuff in your past, so youspent a bunch of time working in
the finance space.
But you know you're a Christianand serving your church.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I'd love to hear just a little bit about kind of
your story and how you got tothis point.
Yeah, yeah, Thanks, Um.
So I moved to New York about 20years ago to work at Goldman
Sachs.
Um, and I ended up workingthere for almost 20 years.
Um, I didn't think I would.
I didn't know what I would do,Um, but it just um.
It still amazes me today thatthat's where the Lord had me for
so long.
Um, I think one of the reasonswhy I was at Goldman for a long
(04:09):
time is because, um, you know, Iwas able to do different things
.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I didn't do just one job in the time that I was there
so did you work in mostly, orlike what, did you bounce around
in one particular part or didyou kind of go all over the
place and do a bunch ofdifferent things?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I kind of went all over the place, and I think
that's one of the things thatmade it really cool and
interesting for me.
So in my first handful of years, I was an analyst.
That's the entry level job forwhen you start at an investment
bank.
I was an analyst in theinvestment banking division, so
that's where you do things likeM&A and you help to underwrite
(04:46):
financing offerings like IPOs ordebt offerings.
For a few years I worked in ourcapital markets business where
we helped venture funds to raisemoney and invest, and then for
the last many years gosh likeeight, nine, 10, 11 years I
worked on the trading floor.
So I ran one of our sales deskson the equities trading floor
(05:06):
where, before COVID, like wewere the largest trading desk in
the Tri-State area.
We had 800 people on the floor.
And so talk about beingsurrounded by people like a
person, like an inch to yourright and an inch to your left,
like you can't you have to likekind of like, hold your ear to
talk, because you know thepeople like kind of talking and
shouting all around you.
It is, um, there's nothing likeit's.
(05:28):
It's really exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That's crazy.
So you did that for a long,long time and then one day you
woke up and you're like I thinkI'm going to start a faith tech
company.
And now you're doing that Likewhat, how did you make the
transition?
Or what, what?
What's the story behind Faithly?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah.
So, um, there are some dayswhere it feels that abrupt
because I did do something forso long and and you know, I've
been um doing the new thing for,you know, less than a couple of
years.
Um, but as I look back on it, Ican see how the Lord brought me
to this place.
Um, so, about 10 years ago, Istarted going to my local church
(06:07):
it's called Lower ManhattanCommunity Church and, gosh, the
Lord used my church topowerfully transform my life.
Like the people in my church,they just they took my face and
they turned it to the Lord, andmy life has never been the same.
And so I dove headfirst intoserving my church.
Whatever was asked of me, Ialways said yes.
I treated it like God wasasking me.
(06:28):
So, run a Bible study, yes, youknow.
Help us to oversee the finances, sure, yes.
Join the elder board, yes.
And you know, join the teachingteam, you know.
Be one of the preachers, one ofthe teachers of this church,
yes.
And I was kind of doing thisalong one track of my life and
then working at Goldman on theother track of my life, and a
(06:51):
couple of years ago I really Isensed the Lord closing down the
Goldman track of my life in theway that he does, you know,
sort of slowly and gently, withclosed doors and with sort of
unrest, dissatisfaction.
But he also gave me this strongsense that I was supposed to do
(07:12):
something else.
And as I was trying to figureout what that something else was
and frankly I thought it wasgoing to be in FinTech, just
because I've worked in financefor so long I was recruited to
be the CEO of a faith techcompany.
A friend of mine who had beenin my network for a long time
and knew how important my faithwas to me, she said hey, we're
(07:33):
incubating this faith techstartup within our venture
studio.
Would you come and run it?
That's the only thing we'remissing is a CEO.
I really thought about it.
I met with their advisors, Imet with their developers, I met
with their developers, I metwith their whole team.
But that wasn't the thing.
But the moment I started tothink along these lines, the
moment where I started toimagine the two tracks of my
(07:56):
life coming together, I justfelt the Lord press this vision
upon me.
For faithly, for something thatcan bring together upon me.
For faithly for something thatcan bring together those who
serve the church and once Istarted to think about it, once
I started to dream about it, Ijust I couldn't do anything else
.
There was just nothing that Icould do.
I wouldn't even, I couldn'teven consider anything else.
(08:18):
This is the only thing I wantedto spend any time or any energy
thinking about.
We're working on.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah, crazy.
What's Faithly Like, I mean, Iknow, but for the audience, what
is it and how long have youguys been at it and how's things
going?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So Faithly is, I think, best described as
LinkedIn only for ministry.
Now, there are a lot of ways inwhich we're different from
LinkedIn and we're going tocontinue to be different from
LinkedIn, but I think that's thebest starting place for
understanding faithfully,because it is a place for
connection.
It's a platform that issomewhere between a social and a
(08:55):
professional network.
It's like kind of thatin-between, and so I think
LinkedIn, because it sort ofhones in on professional
identity, I think it's theclosest analogy for us.
But you and I both know thatministry is not a profession
right, it is in a sense, butit's still, I think, the best
way to help people quicklyunderstand what it is we're
(09:16):
trying to do.
We're trying to be a platformwhere folks who are pastors or
church staff or lay leaders orvolunteers of their churches,
parachurches, christiannonprofits, any organization
(09:38):
really that's serving thekingdom where they can come and
create an authentic ministryidentity, right, there's nowhere
else in the digital space whereyou can do that.
Once you do that, the potentialto connect and create community
and collaborate, I think reallystarts to open up for ministry.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Right yeah, when you had the idea or what like.
How did the idea shape up inyour head when you first started
thinking about it?
Did you think LinkedIn forministry staff or LinkedIn for
pastors, or was it some otherthing?
And then eventually you're like, oh, this is kind of like
LinkedIn for ministry folks.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
But my definition of pastor, I think, is broader than
some people's definition ofpastor, maybe because I've
always been a volunteer at thechurch.
I consider myself to be inministry and I know that a lot
of folks out there are doing itin that way right, they're
bivocational or they're avolunteer, and so I've always
(10:43):
thought about it for pastors,but with a very wide and very
inclusive definition of pastor.
And what I realized quickly andthis isn't why I started it,
but it became an importantreference point for me, and this
is what I mean, by the way,when I say yeah, it feels really
sudden, but the Lord's beenlaying the groundwork.
Not too many years ago, I helpedto lead the distribution of an
IPO for a company calledDoximity, which is LinkedIn just
(11:04):
for doctors, and I really gotdeep in this company, like was
really focused on it.
It was a really important IPOfor my business at the time and
I remember being like just blownaway by the gross margins and
the growth and just the power ofcollecting this niche audience.
And you know I did that.
(11:25):
I mean we did so many IPOs atGoldman right, like especially
in the post-COVID period whenthere was this huge tech bubble
and this huge IPO bubble.
We did it and I quickly forgotabout it.
But here I arrived at thismoment where the Lord placed
this vision on my heart and veryquickly I realized wait, I know
this business, I've gotten myhands dirty with this business,
(11:48):
and so that was a huge referencepoint for me.
It kind of helped to validatefor me that this can be a really
thriving business model thatcan grow beyond just my two
hands.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
I've heard of that.
It's called Doximity.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Doximity, doximity, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that one before on
another podcast I listen to, andthen we're talking about like
niche communities and just thepower that that has.
So it totally makes sense to me.
So you're a few years in.
When did you guys launchofficially?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
We launched a couple of years ago and we launched
really small.
We said we don't really knowwhat LinkedIn for ministry looks
like yet, so let's experimentin a really low risk way with a
very specific niche within ourniche.
And we started out saying let'stalk to children's ministers,
let's try to create anenvironment where children's
(12:41):
ministers feel really welcomeand really connected.
And we went to the OrangeConference in Atlanta and we
talked to thousands of childrenministers.
We had lots of them join ourplatform and we had
conversations with lots of themand we said you know what this,
this is starting to make senseto us.
And as we started to grow from20 to 200 to in the thousands of
(13:05):
members, we said it's time toopen up our doors to a wider
audience and start to look likethe diverse community of those
ministry that we want to besomeday, like in in with scale.
So so we started to do that atthe beginning of this year.
We started to sort of redesignand rebrand to welcome a larger
(13:28):
audience.
We went to some more eventswhere we were meeting lead
pastors and you know otherlayers of the church and and so
you know we're out there doingthat.
You know we're out there doingthat in this phase.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So kind of like, this year isyour larger, larger scale launch
to like the whole church, ifyou will like anybody in some
sort of ministry role.
Now you're out there andgetting known and you are at.
You said you were mentioningthis at the beginning.
You were at Catalyst andsomehow by the Tithely booth or
something like that, and peoplewere tithely and faithfully, man
(14:04):
, we've got good names.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So we were at Exponential.
We'd love to go to Catalyst atsome point.
I've heard great things aboutthat conference, but we were at
Exponential and it was awesome.
I mean just awesome energy.
We met thousands of pastors whocame through this conference in
Orlando and actually we werenowhere near the Tidely booth.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Nowhere near.
We're in a different building,oh no, no.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But people came by our table and said hey, tidely
is so great, we love Tidely.
And we said so do we?
But we're not Tidely Tidely.
And we said so do we, but we'renot tidely.
But let us tell you aboutfaithly.
So you know, we, we are we arein those early days where people
haven't heard of us yet, and soit's actually really exciting
to tell people about who we areand what we're trying to do, and
I think we're going to be inthat phase for a while.
(14:49):
I think one of the things that,um, one of the things that we've
learned over the past couple ofyears, is that when you're
trying to build something in theministry space, it moves at the
pace of relationship Right,like ministry, where it's about
(15:12):
getting face to face with people, you know, shaking their hand
and telling them you know whoyou are, finding out who they
are and growing in that way.
And you sort of add on top ofthat that we're trying to start
a network, right, and anynetwork.
There's this huge, like sort ofchicken and egg, like you got
to get the flywheel moving, andwe just know for us that this is
(15:32):
going to have to be a reallypatient build, Like this is not
a hey, like we're going to.
We're going to market this fora couple of years and boom,
we're going to be what we'resupposed to be.
And no, this is going to belike in 10 years when I talked
to you, Frank, you're going tobe.
Hey, Alicia, remember when wetalked 10 years ago and now
you're a little bit bigger andyou look more like what you
thought you were going to be.
That kind of an effort, I think.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean it's an interesting.
I'm sure LinkedIn took a longtime to grow.
Social networks are, like it'sa different thing, you're right.
Like operating in the church,like you know it's highly
relational.
People want to know who you areand kind of what you're all
about and what the business isall about.
And then, yeah, you got to getyou know what's the incentive
(16:16):
for people to come and be partof the platform before there's a
network and you know how do youcreate that and all that.
So it's going to be fun towatch you guys go after it, for
you know, the next, who knows 10, 20 years?
So it's pretty cool though,like what have you seen in the
early days?
Like what you seen in the earlydays?
(16:37):
Like what you know, what kindof feedback are you getting and
what kind of?
You know churches or ministryprofessionals are kind of
finding value in it.
Uh, in the current, you know, acouple of years.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah.
So, um, well, we've learned acouple of things.
Um, we have learned thatactually we are building
something that is quite uniquein the faith tech, christian
tech space.
There's a lot that's been built, that's being built.
That is awesome, but that isway more sort of intra-church
focused, like how can I help thechurch, be the church and serve
(17:08):
its congregation and maybe growits congregation?
We have not really seen anythingthat's more of an inter-church
platform, right, which allowsfor connection between pastors
of different churches, betweenchurches, between denominations.
And we're really excited bythat, because if there's one
scripture that lit us up when wefirst started faithfully, it
(17:31):
was Acts, chapter 2, verse 1.
On the day of Pentecost, theywere all together in one place.
Like we know that there's justthis massive power in bringing
believers together.
What kind of power can beunlocked if we bring the leaders
together, right, those who areserving the church?
And so this opportunity reallyto bring churches and
(17:51):
denominations and church leaderstogether like we are on fire
for that bring churches anddenominations and church leaders
together, like we are on firefor that.
So we saw right away that oncewe got to know the space, so to
speak, like wow, no one's reallydoing this Right.
So that's number one.
Number two we thought we werebuilding a community for pastors
to join and we are.
But very quickly we heard thatthe ministry need they have yes,
(18:16):
they want to be a part of acommunity, but they're all
trying to build their owncommunity.
Everyone's community buildingneeds was their.
That was their number one need.
And so we quickly realized likeif we're going to attract
people to faithfully, we've gotto give them actual tools, like
practical tools, to build thecommunity they want to build.
I'll give you a couple ofexamples, like when we were
(18:36):
working very early on withchildren's ministers.
What we heard from almost everychildren's minister we talked
to was my most pressing need isI've got VBS coming up.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And the best way.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
The best and really the only way to put on like the
best VBS for my community is togive those who are running it
and leading it a sense thatthey're doing it together, to
create a community across thestaff and the volunteers who are
doing the VBS.
And they said, well, if only wehad a digital tool that helped
us to sort of collaborate andconnect around that.
(19:14):
So, like that was the firstlike need that we heard and from
as we started to talk to thoseacross other layers of the
church, we heard similar thingsabout this need to create
community.
Like I really feel pressed uponby the Lord to bring together
the lead pastors of like all thelead pastors within my zip code
.
But you know there's not agreat way to do that.
People will talk aboutdifferent technology that they
(19:35):
kind of cobble together, patchtogether to do ministry, but
there's not one thing thatreally serves all of their
digital needs.
So that's how Faithly Groups wasborn.
We created a tool that's kindof like Facebook groups, but
just for ministry.
Like you're not going to find aprayer board in Facebook groups
(19:56):
, you're not going to find likethose, or you're not going to
find like a drive, the way thatwe've set it up to be so
flexible.
So if you're running a missionstrip and you're uploading a map
, like that works.
If you're uploading, you know,a contact list, that works.
We've set it up uniquely basedon thousands of conversations
we've had with ministry leadersabout what do you need a
faith-led group forno-transcript, so that's a very
(20:25):
long way of telling you thatthat's.
another big learning for us overthe last couple of years is,
yes, we're creating a community,but we're giving our members
the tools they need to createtheir own community.
I would say another learningthat we've had, that we're
building for is and I think thisis how we're going to be very
uniquely different from aFacebook or a LinkedIn In the
(20:48):
ministry world, you can't createa platform with, I think, the
goal of keeping everyone on theplatform right.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn, it'sall about keeping people on the
platform.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Oh, you want to buy something.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Buy something on my platform.
You want to connect withsomeone?
Do it on the platform Forministry.
The ability to go from offlineto online, online to offline
seamlessly is really importantwhen you're talking about
connection and community andministry, and so the way that
we're expressing that is throughfaithly events.
It's kind of like Eventbriteyou can do registration and
(21:23):
ticketing for ministry eventsand it's something that we, you
know we're really excited about.
We've seen people start to useand be excited about?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, that's very cool.
Have you seen, just from thekind of core I guess, like
having a profile, connectingwith other people, like what's
that dynamic been like?
Are you seeing church leadersfrom kind of all over?
I'm not sure if you're globalyet or if it mostly US based so
far, or kind of how you're doingit, but are you seeing those
(21:53):
kind of connections in thatactivity, like early signs of
that activity being a real thing, versus people doing it on,
like you said, facebook or youknow anywhere else?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that question.
We've seen it.
It is incredibly exciting.
You know it's why we're doingwhat we're doing and every time
we hear a story about it or youknow, someone throws us a tidbit
like we're having a celebrationbecause it's working.
Like we've seen a lot of earlypoints of validation around the
greater potential to connectfrom a ministry identity.
(22:26):
So, first of all, we've seenpeople create more authentic
digital profiles on Faithly Like.
We will sometimes look, oh,like this is like so-and-so
pastor from Texas and we'll pullup their LinkedIn and we'll see
, oh, they're actually sharingtheir call to ministry in their
Faithly profile.
Like they're sharing like theirdad was a pastor and that's how
(22:47):
they got introduced to it.
Like they're not sharing thaton LinkedIn, right, we'll look
at someone else's LinkedInprofile who's on faithly and
gosh on their LinkedIn profile.
It'll say that they're maybe acreative director.
It won't even say that they'rea pastor and I don't think
anyone's in hiding.
But when you are on a platformlike LinkedIn, you start to
follow the cues there and youstart to blend a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
You're trying to use more generic language and
whatnot.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, cause you want it to make sense to people
Like what.
You don't want to use languageor titles or you know a role
that will only make sense topeople in the church Like you
want to.
You want to get out there, so.
But so we're seeing peoplecreate authentic profiles.
We're also seeing peopleconnect and we've heard stories
from people of oh, like I have aZoom scheduled with so-and-so
(23:32):
who reached out to me saying,like I have something to offer
you on.
You know this thing that Ithink could really help you in
this church that you're in.
So that is really cool.
We've seen people.
We saw someone at one of theconferences we went to who said,
hey, I met this person onFaithly and I never met them in
real life and now I'm meetingthem at the conference and so,
like I said, like when we hearthese tidbits and hear these
(23:53):
stories, we're like wow, it'sworking, like people are
connecting and that connectionis happening on the basis of
authentic ministry identity.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Right, yeah, I love that.
Well, it's super cool.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I mean, what do you guys?
What's next for you guys?
Like, where are you headed withthe platform?
How are you trying to get theword out?
You know, I mean people'sconnections in their community,
right, like we've seen that thethings that we've built can do
it.
And it's just like you said,frank, it's like if you want to
create a network that's valuableto people, the scale really
does matter.
Like the bigger we get, themore valuable it will be to our
(24:42):
members, the more they can reachinto our platform and find
things that will help them intheir ministry.
And so our biggest focus isgetting the word out there about
ourselves.
Like you said, going toconferences, trying to talk to
people on podcasts like yours,frank, where you know we know
that your community, that you'vebuilt here, and that your
audience, they're all ministryminded and we really believe
(25:03):
that we can add value to whatthey're doing.
And you know we've learned thatthis moves at the pace of
relationships.
So we are not in a hurry.
You know we're not going to.
You know we're not going to beout there sending thousands of
cold emails to people hopingthat they click on and we just
it's not going to, it's notgoing to look like what you know
, sort of typical tech softwaremarketing, but but yeah, we're,
(25:26):
we're experimenting with all ofthat and I'm very excited to do
it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, very cool .
What?
What's the team look like rightnow?
Like how many team members youhave and what roles.
Is it mostly engineers?
What's all that look like?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So right now it's basically me and my co-founder.
Like we are starting very lean.
We don't want to build until wereally know what we're building
.
And so my co-founder he is mytechnical co-founder, meaning
he's the full stack softwareengineer that has written every
line of code on Faithly.
(26:02):
He's actually a former pastor,so he went to seminary, was a
pastor for 10 years, got kind ofburnt out and said I think I'm
going to be doing something elsefor a while.
I think I'm going to come backto ministry, but for now I got
to pay my seminary loans and soI'm going to go to App Academy
retrain as a software engineer.
And he did that, worked atstartups for a couple of years
(26:24):
before he and I actually met onAngelList.
Have you, have you been onAngelList, frank?
I think it's called somethingelse now.
I think it's called WellFoundnow.
But I mean, that's anotherexample of a LinkedIn for a
niche community.
Right, it's LinkedIn just forstartups.
Well, when I started, faithly,I put out a call for a technical
(26:44):
co -founder and I met andtalked to a lot of people, but
he was the only one I met whowas a pastor and a software
engineer, oh, and lives in NewYork city and oh, like, like,
has always dreamed about puttingall those things together to
build something for the kingdom.
So, I mean, we were the fromthe first conversation, we were
off to the races and, um, youknow, we have, we have a board
(27:06):
of advisors, we have, um, wehave three guys who are like New
York city and we have a builtin New York mentality.
And we have three guys who are,you know, pastors, ministry
leaders, who've been doing itfor a long time, who are all New
York city guys who are doingthis along with us.
And so, yeah, we're, we'reexcited to grow.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We want to grow our team but, um, but I think for us
it's all about that patientbuild.
Yeah, yeah, no rush.
You want to figure out, as theysay, product market fit right.
You're in that stage of tryingto figure out how to make that
happen.
But it sounds like you'regetting good feedback and like
you're getting to some shows andtalking to pastors and church
leaders and ministry folks andit's a cool product, like it's
really cool that you guys areout doing what you're doing.
(27:49):
So we will help spread the wordfor sure over on the Tithely
side.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Cool.
Thank you, frank, reallyappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Where should folks go Like what's the website?
How do people go create aprofile?
What do you want folks to do?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, so go to our site.
It's faithly F-A-I-T-H-L-Yco,not com co.
It turns out that M stands formoney.
It was just way too expensivefor us, so we're faithlyco, at
least for now.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Totally, we understand.
We went with tithely for thesame reason.
Very cool.
So, faithlyco, go check it out.
Guys and Alicia, it was greatto have you on.
It's great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Thank you.
Thank you, frank, great to meetyou.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, love it.
Well, guys, definitely go checkout Faithly and we will see you
next week on another episode ofModern Church Leader, see ya.
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Modern Church
Leader.
Excited about today's talk, I'mall the way in San Diego and
Alicia Lee is coming to us allthe way from New York.
So we are on the opposite sidesright now, but we're going to
talk about her great companyFaithly, who has a great name.
But, alicia, thanks for joiningthe show today.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Thank you so much, Frank.
And yeah, I'm in downtownManhattan, although you wouldn't
know it from this soundproofstudio that I'm in, but I
promise somewhere in thebackground are cobblestones and
exposed brick and lots of, lotsof New York city buildings.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
All the good New York stuff.
I I've not spent a lot of like.
I visited New York a handful oftimes and my wife and I have
gone out there a couple of timesjust on weekend getaways.
But I love the city.
I love hanging out there.
I'm not sure what it would belike to live there with a family
, but it's always fun when we govisit.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, so I'm from New Jersey.
It's not that far from New York.
In fact, it's close enough thatyou kind of grow up pretending
like maybe you're from New York,up pretending like maybe you're
from New York.
But I moved here 20 years agoto work on Wall Street and never
in my wildest dreams that Ithink I'd still be here 20 years
later and raising three smallchildren, no less.
(01:14):
But the Lord has made it clearthis is where he's called us to,
it's our mission field.
And so I mean I dream aboutmoving to San Diego.
I dream about moving to SanDiego.
I dream about moving todifferent places, but New York
City is where I am.
It's where I am.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I mean, I, it's a cool spot.
What does it tell us?
Not the point of the show, butwhat?
What's it like to raise kids inNew York?
Do you live in the city?
Like, how do you?
How do you do it?
What's it like?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I think it can be really hard.
It can be really easy.
We have a good setup becausewe've been here a long time,
like we know the value ofproximity, so we don't try to
make life difficult forourselves.
Like, yeah, the best swimteacher might be uptown, but we
don't need the best swim teacher, we just need a no case swim
(02:02):
teacher, and the one next dooris like that's pretty good.
So we keep our life reallyproximate and so for us, like
home, church, school, it's allwithin like a five-block radius.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So from that standpoint, my life, is actually
.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
yeah, it's actually easier, I think, in some ways,
than being in the suburbs whereyou have to drive from place to
place.
But as wonderful as the energyof New York is and there's a
unique energy like there's noenergy, like New York City
energy it's also it can beexhausting.
Right Like at the end of everyday you need your little corner
of the city to retreat into yourapartment to kind of huddle up
(02:39):
with your family, and that'simportant.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, no, I can imagine that.
I mean, you're right about theenergy.
That's probably what everybodycan agree on, right?
Like New York City energy islike incredible.
Like I love walking around, but, see, I don't do it every day,
so it's like when we go visit,it's like this is amazing, this
is awesome, let's go on thesubway, let's do everything
because it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, go on the subway, let's do everything,
cause it's awesome, yeah, yeah,I mean if, if you love people
and you love being around people, it's especially wonderful.
Like I think, um, I countedlike a thousand people on my way
into work one day.
Like, just, you know, you justwalk a few blocks, like you go
into the coffee shop, like you,you just run into a thousand
people, you know, um, and you'rebarely an hour into your day.
But, like I said, you need yourcorner of New York to retreat
(03:25):
to at the end of the day,because it can be overwhelming.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
No, that makes sense.
Well, you're here to talk aboutFaithly, but you've done some
cool stuff in your past, so youspent a bunch of time working in
the finance space.
But you know you're a Christianand serving your church.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I'd love to hear just a little bit about kind of
your story and how you got tothis point.
Yeah, yeah, Thanks, Um.
So I moved to New York about 20years ago to work at Goldman
Sachs.
Um, and I ended up workingthere for almost 20 years.
Um, I didn't think I would.
I didn't know what I would do,Um, but it just um.
It still amazes me today thatthat's where the Lord had me for
so long.
Um, I think one of the reasonswhy I was at Goldman for a long
(04:09):
time is because, um, you know, Iwas able to do different things
.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I didn't do just one job in the time that I was there
so did you work in mostly, orlike what, did you bounce around
in one particular part or didyou kind of go all over the
place and do a bunch ofdifferent things?
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I kind of went all over the place, and I think
that's one of the things thatmade it really cool and
interesting for me.
So in my first handful of years, I was an analyst.
That's the entry level job forwhen you start at an investment
bank.
I was an analyst in theinvestment banking division, so
that's where you do things likeM&A and you help to underwrite
(04:46):
financing offerings like IPOs ordebt offerings.
For a few years I worked in ourcapital markets business where
we helped venture funds to raisemoney and invest, and then for
the last many years gosh likeeight, nine, 10, 11 years I
worked on the trading floor.
So I ran one of our sales deskson the equities trading floor
(05:06):
where, before COVID, like wewere the largest trading desk in
the Tri-State area.
We had 800 people on the floor.
And so talk about beingsurrounded by people like a
person, like an inch to yourright and an inch to your left,
like you can't you have to likekind of like, hold your ear to
talk, because you know thepeople like kind of talking and
shouting all around you.
It is, um, there's nothing likeit's.
(05:28):
It's really exciting.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That's crazy.
So you did that for a long,long time and then one day you
woke up and you're like I thinkI'm going to start a faith tech
company.
And now you're doing that Likewhat, how did you make the
transition?
Or what, what?
What's the story behind Faithly?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah.
So, um, there are some dayswhere it feels that abrupt
because I did do something forso long and and you know, I've
been um doing the new thing for,you know, less than a couple of
years.
Um, but as I look back on it, Ican see how the Lord brought me
to this place.
Um, so, about 10 years ago, Istarted going to my local church
(06:07):
it's called Lower ManhattanCommunity Church and, gosh, the
Lord used my church topowerfully transform my life.
Like the people in my church,they just they took my face and
they turned it to the Lord, andmy life has never been the same.
And so I dove headfirst intoserving my church.
Whatever was asked of me, Ialways said yes.
I treated it like God wasasking me.
(06:28):
So, run a Bible study, yes, youknow.
Help us to oversee the finances, sure, yes.
Join the elder board, yes.
And you know, join the teachingteam, you know.
Be one of the preachers, one ofthe teachers of this church,
yes.
And I was kind of doing thisalong one track of my life and
then working at Goldman on theother track of my life, and a
(06:51):
couple of years ago I really Isensed the Lord closing down the
Goldman track of my life in theway that he does, you know,
sort of slowly and gently, withclosed doors and with sort of
unrest, dissatisfaction.
But he also gave me this strongsense that I was supposed to do
(07:12):
something else.
And as I was trying to figureout what that something else was
and frankly I thought it wasgoing to be in FinTech, just
because I've worked in financefor so long I was recruited to
be the CEO of a faith techcompany.
A friend of mine who had beenin my network for a long time
and knew how important my faithwas to me, she said hey, we're
(07:33):
incubating this faith techstartup within our venture
studio.
Would you come and run it?
That's the only thing we'remissing is a CEO.
I really thought about it.
I met with their advisors, Imet with their developers, I met
with their developers, I metwith their whole team.
But that wasn't the thing.
But the moment I started tothink along these lines, the
moment where I started toimagine the two tracks of my
(07:56):
life coming together, I justfelt the Lord press this vision
upon me.
For faithly, for something thatcan bring together upon me.
For faithly for something thatcan bring together those who
serve the church and once Istarted to think about it, once
I started to dream about it, Ijust I couldn't do anything else
.
There was just nothing that Icould do.
I wouldn't even, I couldn'teven consider anything else.
(08:18):
This is the only thing I wantedto spend any time or any energy
thinking about.
We're working on.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah, crazy.
What's Faithly Like, I mean, Iknow, but for the audience, what
is it and how long have youguys been at it and how's things
going?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So Faithly is, I think, best described as
LinkedIn only for ministry.
Now, there are a lot of ways inwhich we're different from
LinkedIn and we're going tocontinue to be different from
LinkedIn, but I think that's thebest starting place for
understanding faithfully,because it is a place for
connection.
It's a platform that issomewhere between a social and a
(08:55):
professional network.
It's like kind of thatin-between, and so I think
LinkedIn, because it sort ofhones in on professional
identity, I think it's theclosest analogy for us.
But you and I both know thatministry is not a profession
right, it is in a sense, butit's still, I think, the best
way to help people quicklyunderstand what it is we're
(09:16):
trying to do.
We're trying to be a platformwhere folks who are pastors or
church staff or lay leaders orvolunteers of their churches,
parachurches, christiannonprofits, any organization
(09:38):
really that's serving thekingdom where they can come and
create an authentic ministryidentity, right, there's nowhere
else in the digital space whereyou can do that.
Once you do that, the potentialto connect and create community
and collaborate, I think reallystarts to open up for ministry.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Right yeah, when you had the idea or what like.
How did the idea shape up inyour head when you first started
thinking about it?
Did you think LinkedIn forministry staff or LinkedIn for
pastors, or was it some otherthing?
And then eventually you're like, oh, this is kind of like
LinkedIn for ministry folks.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
But my definition of pastor, I think, is broader than
some people's definition ofpastor, maybe because I've
always been a volunteer at thechurch.
I consider myself to be inministry and I know that a lot
of folks out there are doing itin that way right, they're
bivocational or they're avolunteer, and so I've always
(10:43):
thought about it for pastors,but with a very wide and very
inclusive definition of pastor.
And what I realized quickly andthis isn't why I started it,
but it became an importantreference point for me, and this
is what I mean, by the way,when I say yeah, it feels really
sudden, but the Lord's beenlaying the groundwork.
Not too many years ago, I helpedto lead the distribution of an
IPO for a company calledDoximity, which is LinkedIn just
(11:04):
for doctors, and I really gotdeep in this company, like was
really focused on it.
It was a really important IPOfor my business at the time and
I remember being like just blownaway by the gross margins and
the growth and just the power ofcollecting this niche audience.
And you know I did that.
(11:25):
I mean we did so many IPOs atGoldman right, like especially
in the post-COVID period whenthere was this huge tech bubble
and this huge IPO bubble.
We did it and I quickly forgotabout it.
But here I arrived at thismoment where the Lord placed
this vision on my heart and veryquickly I realized wait, I know
this business, I've gotten myhands dirty with this business,
(11:48):
and so that was a huge referencepoint for me.
It kind of helped to validatefor me that this can be a really
thriving business model thatcan grow beyond just my two
hands.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
I've heard of that.
It's called Doximity.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Doximity, doximity, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that one before on
another podcast I listen to, andthen we're talking about like
niche communities and just thepower that that has.
So it totally makes sense to me.
So you're a few years in.
When did you guys launchofficially?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
We launched a couple of years ago and we launched
really small.
We said we don't really knowwhat LinkedIn for ministry looks
like yet, so let's experimentin a really low risk way with a
very specific niche within ourniche.
And we started out saying let'stalk to children's ministers,
let's try to create anenvironment where children's
(12:41):
ministers feel really welcomeand really connected.
And we went to the OrangeConference in Atlanta and we
talked to thousands of childrenministers.
We had lots of them join ourplatform and we had
conversations with lots of themand we said you know what this,
this is starting to make senseto us.
And as we started to grow from20 to 200 to in the thousands of
(13:05):
members, we said it's time toopen up our doors to a wider
audience and start to look likethe diverse community of those
ministry that we want to besomeday, like in in with scale.
So so we started to do that atthe beginning of this year.
We started to sort of redesignand rebrand to welcome a larger
(13:28):
audience.
We went to some more eventswhere we were meeting lead
pastors and you know otherlayers of the church and and so
you know we're out there doingthat.
You know we're out there doingthat in this phase.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So kind of like, this year isyour larger, larger scale launch
to like the whole church, ifyou will like anybody in some
sort of ministry role.
Now you're out there andgetting known and you are at.
You said you were mentioningthis at the beginning.
You were at Catalyst andsomehow by the Tithely booth or
something like that, and peoplewere tithely and faithfully, man
(14:04):
, we've got good names.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
So we were at Exponential.
We'd love to go to Catalyst atsome point.
I've heard great things aboutthat conference, but we were at
Exponential and it was awesome.
I mean just awesome energy.
We met thousands of pastors whocame through this conference in
Orlando and actually we werenowhere near the Tidely booth.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Nowhere near.
We're in a different building,oh no, no.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
But people came by our table and said hey, tidely
is so great, we love Tidely.
And we said so do we?
But we're not Tidely Tidely.
And we said so do we, but we'renot tidely.
But let us tell you aboutfaithly.
So you know, we, we are we arein those early days where people
haven't heard of us yet, and soit's actually really exciting
to tell people about who we areand what we're trying to do, and
I think we're going to be inthat phase for a while.
(14:49):
I think one of the things that,um, one of the things that we've
learned over the past couple ofyears, is that when you're
trying to build something in theministry space, it moves at the
pace of relationship Right,like ministry, where it's about
(15:12):
getting face to face with people, you know, shaking their hand
and telling them you know whoyou are, finding out who they
are and growing in that way.
And you sort of add on top ofthat that we're trying to start
a network, right, and anynetwork.
There's this huge, like sort ofchicken and egg, like you got
to get the flywheel moving, andwe just know for us that this is
(15:32):
going to have to be a reallypatient build, Like this is not
a hey, like we're going to.
We're going to market this fora couple of years and boom,
we're going to be what we'resupposed to be.
And no, this is going to belike in 10 years when I talked
to you, Frank, you're going tobe.
Hey, Alicia, remember when wetalked 10 years ago and now
you're a little bit bigger andyou look more like what you
thought you were going to be.
That kind of an effort, I think.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right, yeah, yeah, I mean it's an interesting.
I'm sure LinkedIn took a longtime to grow.
Social networks are, like it'sa different thing, you're right.
Like operating in the church,like you know it's highly
relational.
People want to know who you areand kind of what you're all
about and what the business isall about.
And then, yeah, you got to getyou know what's the incentive
(16:16):
for people to come and be partof the platform before there's a
network and you know how do youcreate that and all that.
So it's going to be fun towatch you guys go after it, for
you know, the next, who knows 10, 20 years?
So it's pretty cool though,like what have you seen in the
early days?
Like what you seen in the earlydays?
(16:37):
Like what you know, what kindof feedback are you getting and
what kind of?
You know churches or ministryprofessionals are kind of
finding value in it.
Uh, in the current, you know, acouple of years.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah.
So, um, well, we've learned acouple of things.
Um, we have learned thatactually we are building
something that is quite uniquein the faith tech, christian
tech space.
There's a lot that's been built, that's being built.
That is awesome, but that isway more sort of intra-church
focused, like how can I help thechurch, be the church and serve
(17:08):
its congregation and maybe growits congregation?
We have not really seen anythingthat's more of an inter-church
platform, right, which allowsfor connection between pastors
of different churches, betweenchurches, between denominations.
And we're really excited bythat, because if there's one
scripture that lit us up when wefirst started faithfully, it
(17:31):
was Acts, chapter 2, verse 1.
On the day of Pentecost, theywere all together in one place.
Like we know that there's justthis massive power in bringing
believers together.
What kind of power can beunlocked if we bring the leaders
together, right, those who areserving the church?
And so this opportunity reallyto bring churches and
(17:51):
denominations and church leaderstogether like we are on fire
for that bring churches anddenominations and church leaders
together, like we are on firefor that.
So we saw right away that oncewe got to know the space, so to
speak, like wow, no one's reallydoing this Right.
So that's number one.
Number two we thought we werebuilding a community for pastors
to join and we are.
But very quickly we heard thatthe ministry need they have yes,
(18:16):
they want to be a part of acommunity, but they're all
trying to build their owncommunity.
Everyone's community buildingneeds was their.
That was their number one need.
And so we quickly realized likeif we're going to attract
people to faithfully, we've gotto give them actual tools, like
practical tools, to build thecommunity they want to build.
I'll give you a couple ofexamples, like when we were
(18:36):
working very early on withchildren's ministers.
What we heard from almost everychildren's minister we talked
to was my most pressing need isI've got VBS coming up.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
And the best way.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
The best and really the only way to put on like the
best VBS for my community is togive those who are running it
and leading it a sense thatthey're doing it together, to
create a community across thestaff and the volunteers who are
doing the VBS.
And they said, well, if only wehad a digital tool that helped
us to sort of collaborate andconnect around that.
(19:14):
So, like that was the firstlike need that we heard and from
as we started to talk to thoseacross other layers of the
church, we heard similar thingsabout this need to create
community.
Like I really feel pressed uponby the Lord to bring together
the lead pastors of like all thelead pastors within my zip code
.
But you know there's not agreat way to do that.
People will talk aboutdifferent technology that they
(19:35):
kind of cobble together, patchtogether to do ministry, but
there's not one thing thatreally serves all of their
digital needs.
So that's how Faithly Groups wasborn.
We created a tool that's kindof like Facebook groups, but
just for ministry.
Like you're not going to find aprayer board in Facebook groups
(19:56):
, you're not going to find likethose, or you're not going to
find like a drive, the way thatwe've set it up to be so
flexible.
So if you're running a missionstrip and you're uploading a map
, like that works.
If you're uploading, you know,a contact list, that works.
We've set it up uniquely basedon thousands of conversations
we've had with ministry leadersabout what do you need a
faith-led group forno-transcript, so that's a very
(20:25):
long way of telling you thatthat's.
another big learning for us overthe last couple of years is,
yes, we're creating a community,but we're giving our members
the tools they need to createtheir own community.
I would say another learningthat we've had, that we're
building for is and I think thisis how we're going to be very
uniquely different from aFacebook or a LinkedIn In the
(20:48):
ministry world, you can't createa platform with, I think, the
goal of keeping everyone on theplatform right.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn, it'sall about keeping people on the
platform.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Oh, you want to buy something.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Buy something on my platform.
You want to connect withsomeone?
Do it on the platform Forministry.
The ability to go from offlineto online, online to offline
seamlessly is really importantwhen you're talking about
connection and community andministry, and so the way that
we're expressing that is throughfaithly events.
It's kind of like Eventbriteyou can do registration and
(21:23):
ticketing for ministry eventsand it's something that we, you
know we're really excited about.
We've seen people start to useand be excited about?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, that's very cool.
Have you seen, just from thekind of core I guess, like
having a profile, connectingwith other people, like what's
that dynamic been like?
Are you seeing church leadersfrom kind of all over?
I'm not sure if you're globalyet or if it mostly US based so
far, or kind of how you're doingit, but are you seeing those
(21:53):
kind of connections in thatactivity, like early signs of
that activity being a real thing, versus people doing it on,
like you said, facebook or youknow anywhere else?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that question.
We've seen it.
It is incredibly exciting.
You know it's why we're doingwhat we're doing and every time
we hear a story about it or youknow, someone throws us a tidbit
like we're having a celebrationbecause it's working.
Like we've seen a lot of earlypoints of validation around the
greater potential to connectfrom a ministry identity.
(22:26):
So, first of all, we've seenpeople create more authentic
digital profiles on Faithly Like.
We will sometimes look, oh,like this is like so-and-so
pastor from Texas and we'll pullup their LinkedIn and we'll see
, oh, they're actually sharingtheir call to ministry in their
Faithly profile.
Like they're sharing like theirdad was a pastor and that's how
(22:47):
they got introduced to it.
Like they're not sharing thaton LinkedIn, right, we'll look
at someone else's LinkedInprofile who's on faithly and
gosh on their LinkedIn profile.
It'll say that they're maybe acreative director.
It won't even say that they'rea pastor and I don't think
anyone's in hiding.
But when you are on a platformlike LinkedIn, you start to
follow the cues there and youstart to blend a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
You're trying to use more generic language and
whatnot.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, cause you want it to make sense to people
Like what.
You don't want to use languageor titles or you know a role
that will only make sense topeople in the church Like you
want to.
You want to get out there, so.
But so we're seeing peoplecreate authentic profiles.
We're also seeing peopleconnect and we've heard stories
from people of oh, like I have aZoom scheduled with so-and-so
(23:32):
who reached out to me saying,like I have something to offer
you on.
You know this thing that Ithink could really help you in
this church that you're in.
So that is really cool.
We've seen people.
We saw someone at one of theconferences we went to who said,
hey, I met this person onFaithly and I never met them in
real life and now I'm meetingthem at the conference and so,
like I said, like when we hearthese tidbits and hear these
(23:53):
stories, we're like wow, it'sworking, like people are
connecting and that connectionis happening on the basis of
authentic ministry identity.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Right, yeah, I love that.
Well, it's super cool.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I mean, what do you guys?
What's next for you guys?
Like, where are you headed withthe platform?
How are you trying to get theword out?
You know, I mean people'sconnections in their community,
right, like we've seen that thethings that we've built can do
it.
And it's just like you said,frank, it's like if you want to
create a network that's valuableto people, the scale really
does matter.
Like the bigger we get, themore valuable it will be to our
(24:42):
members, the more they can reachinto our platform and find
things that will help them intheir ministry.
And so our biggest focus isgetting the word out there about
ourselves.
Like you said, going toconferences, trying to talk to
people on podcasts like yours,frank, where you know we know
that your community, that you'vebuilt here, and that your
audience, they're all ministryminded and we really believe
(25:03):
that we can add value to whatthey're doing.
And you know we've learned thatthis moves at the pace of
relationships.
So we are not in a hurry.
You know we're not going to.
You know we're not going to beout there sending thousands of
cold emails to people hopingthat they click on and we just
it's not going to, it's notgoing to look like what you know
, sort of typical tech softwaremarketing, but but yeah, we're,
(25:26):
we're experimenting with all ofthat and I'm very excited to do
it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, very cool .
What?
What's the team look like rightnow?
Like how many team members youhave and what roles.
Is it mostly engineers?
What's all that look like?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So right now it's basically me and my co-founder.
Like we are starting very lean.
We don't want to build until wereally know what we're building
.
And so my co-founder he is mytechnical co-founder, meaning
he's the full stack softwareengineer that has written every
line of code on Faithly.
(26:02):
He's actually a former pastor,so he went to seminary, was a
pastor for 10 years, got kind ofburnt out and said I think I'm
going to be doing something elsefor a while.
I think I'm going to come backto ministry, but for now I got
to pay my seminary loans and soI'm going to go to App Academy
retrain as a software engineer.
And he did that, worked atstartups for a couple of years
(26:24):
before he and I actually met onAngelList.
Have you, have you been onAngelList, frank?
I think it's called somethingelse now.
I think it's called WellFoundnow.
But I mean, that's anotherexample of a LinkedIn for a
niche community.
Right, it's LinkedIn just forstartups.
Well, when I started, faithly,I put out a call for a technical
(26:44):
co -founder and I met andtalked to a lot of people, but
he was the only one I met whowas a pastor and a software
engineer, oh, and lives in NewYork city and oh, like, like,
has always dreamed about puttingall those things together to
build something for the kingdom.
So, I mean, we were the fromthe first conversation, we were
off to the races and, um, youknow, we have, we have a board
(27:06):
of advisors, we have, um, wehave three guys who are like New
York city and we have a builtin New York mentality.
And we have three guys who are,you know, pastors, ministry
leaders, who've been doing itfor a long time, who are all New
York city guys who are doingthis along with us.
And so, yeah, we're, we'reexcited to grow.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
We want to grow our team but, um, but I think for us
it's all about that patientbuild.
Yeah, yeah, no rush.
You want to figure out, as theysay, product market fit right.
You're in that stage of tryingto figure out how to make that
happen.
But it sounds like you'regetting good feedback and like
you're getting to some shows andtalking to pastors and church
leaders and ministry folks andit's a cool product, like it's
really cool that you guys areout doing what you're doing.
(27:49):
So we will help spread the wordfor sure over on the Tithely
side.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Cool.
Thank you, frank, reallyappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Where should folks go Like what's the website?
How do people go create aprofile?
What do you want folks to do?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, so go to our site.
It's faithly F-A-I-T-H-L-Yco,not com co.
It turns out that M stands formoney.
It was just way too expensivefor us, so we're faithlyco, at
least for now.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Totally, we understand.
We went with tithely for thesame reason.
Very cool.
So, faithlyco, go check it out.
Guys and Alicia, it was greatto have you on.
It's great to meet you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Thank you.
Thank you, frank, great to meetyou.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, love it.
Well, guys, definitely go checkout Faithly and we will see you
next week on another episode ofModern Church Leader, see ya.
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