Shark Tank Secrets: Turning Big Ideas Into Tech Realities With Dmitri Love

Venture capital is a relentless game of adaptation where overnight disruption can wipe out years of systematic progress. Relying on single points of failure in a highly regulated ecosystem will eventually expose vulnerabilities, no matter how much transaction volume your platform supports. In this conversation, we sit down with veteran technology founder Dmitri Love to unpack the unvarnished realities of building, scaling, and exiting software startups.

We sit down to discuss his journey from engineering software on the F-35 program to pitching his crypto micro-investing app Bundil on Shark Tank. We dig deep into tactical pivots, navigating catastrophic liquidity events like the FTX collapse, and the mechanics of turning a marketplace app like Hydrant into a successful corporate acquisition. Dmitri pulls back the curtain on his latest ventures, detailing how he is using automated text interfaces to bypass traditional app stores and building automated data rooms to streamline investor relations.

Even a multi-million dollar exit can be completely drained while funding your next venture. Founders often underestimate the sheer amount of capital required to scale consumer products, the emotional toll of carrying teams through six-month cash droughts, and the discipline it takes to manage investor updates when your business is actively fighting for survival. You will walk away with a grounded framework for structuring equity, a clear understanding of why high agency beats raw talent when hiring, and a systemized view of leveraging tools like Claude to accelerate technical validation.

Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_04 (00:00):
I was very, very young.
I was also on the TV show SharkTank, as you probably saw.
Yeah.
With that.

SPEAKER_03 (00:06):
So Mr.
Wonderful made you an offer.
He did.
He tried to take my shirt and myshoes and my socks.
So you don't think he's reallyMr.
Wonderful?
Is that it?
He's a pretty hard-nosed guy.
Hey everybody, we're back.

(00:26):
We've got another great episodeof Big Talk About Small
Business.
And I'm sitting here with myguest today, Dimitri Love.
It's the first time we've evermet.
It's going to be an interestingshow.
This guy's got quite abackground, done a lot of
different different stuff, hassome very interesting
businesses.
So how are you doing today,Dimitri?

SPEAKER_04 (00:48):
I'm doing fantastic.
Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 (00:50):
Yeah, we're glad that you're here.
So tell everybody a little bitabout your background.
Where'd you grow up?
Uh grew up here.
Okay.
So Roger specifically, or justNWA?

SPEAKER_04 (01:02):
Yeah, Favil.
Okay.
Yeah.
So uh basically uh fifth grade,I think, through college.
I was here.
Um and then ended up moving awaya little bit.
Uh was in Texas for about sixyears, met my wife, came back in
2021.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19):
I always say did time in Texas.
I did three years at DFW myself.
Where were you?

SPEAKER_04 (01:25):
I did.
So started off in Dallas, then Iwent to uh Fort Worth, and then
I went back to Dallas, and thenat the end ended up in one of
the suburbs.
So Flower Mound, if you know.

SPEAKER_03 (01:36):
Oh, yeah, I know it.
I lived in Arlington.
My then wife worked inDuncanville and I worked in
downtown Fort Worth.
Nice.
So Arlington kind of sucked, butanyway, it's hot down there.
It's soulless down there.
I mean, it's just so big andthere's so much concrete.
Nobody's from there.
Nope.
It's not like here where westill have some natives around

(01:58):
here.
Yeah, you go there to work orplay or both.
Or shop.
Or shop, yeah.
The shopping is great.
North Park Mall, yeah.
Yeah, restaurants are prettygood too.
Food's great.
Yeah.
But anyway, so I noticed thatyou're a left-hander, and uh, so
that's I read somewhere thatyou're seven points uh higher

(02:20):
IQ-wise than us right-handers.

SPEAKER_04 (02:22):
Man, I'm happy to take advantage of it.
I uh I I've noticed that thereare not a lot of people
left-handed.
I don't even think about itanymore, but the more I kind of
you know do things like this, orI don't really write anymore
because we have technology to dothat for us.
But when I sign something,people are like, oh man, you're
left-handed.

SPEAKER_03 (02:42):
Lefties have a weird way of writing, at least.

SPEAKER_04 (02:45):
I've seen mine's a little more normal.

SPEAKER_03 (02:47):
I don't do the like backwards.
You know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 (02:50):
Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 (02:51):
Yeah, mine's like a little more normal.
Um well, I've got a big brotherwho's a lefty, and he was the
dean of University of MissouriMedical School, so just that
bodes well for lefties.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself and your businesses and
how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_04 (03:09):
Yeah.
Um, so we haven't met before, sothere's a lot of things you
don't know about me.

SPEAKER_03 (03:15):
Yeah.
Um there is.
I get my background sheet fromthe people here in advance of
these these uh shows, and and sothere was some good stuff in
there.
But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (03:26):
So one thing I'll tell you, I actually grew up
when I was in college.
Um the first time I knew aboutyou, I saw one of your garages
over on South School.
Yeah.
Um and I was like, who's who'sgot cars like this?

SPEAKER_03 (03:38):
So anyway, I'm a big, big lover of cars.
But that was my first uh when Igot divorced from my second
wife.
I I moved in over there.
Really an apartment in thatplace.
Really?
Yeah, and so I could just likeget up in the middle of the
night and go hammer on my carsand stuff, but anyway.

SPEAKER_04 (03:56):
So um my background, so I'll kind of break it up into
two spots.
Um I'll break it up into like aprofessional background and then
um my entrepreneurialbackground.
So uh as a kind of formeremployee, I kind of worked in
all parts of the product lifecycle.
So started out as a softwareengineer after college, worked

(04:17):
for companies like LockheedMartin.

SPEAKER_03 (04:19):
I saw that.
I mean, they're the uh with allthe UFO talk today, they're
always involved in it.

SPEAKER_04 (04:25):
Of you know, back they always figure out how to
backdoor a government contract.

SPEAKER_03 (04:30):
Exactly.
Yeah, Lockheed, and they'resupposedly have these great
skunk works where they're youknow developing stuff that we
have no idea what it is.

SPEAKER_04 (04:38):
Uh what I can tell you is they are pretty cool.
Um so I worked on back in theday, I was on the F-35 program,
so my team supported the theF-35 and they were uh building
some very cool things.

SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
Um you you you s you got your degree in computer
science, or what was it?
No, so I was biochemistry.
Oh, so and so but you werewriting code.
How did you make thattransition?
Uh so I have a whole long story.

SPEAKER_04 (05:05):
The short version is I used to love to play soccer,
and I was trying to play soccera little too much and had a
really bad knee injury, so Itore my ACL, MCL, and most of my
meniscus.
And it was terrible.
Um I was on crutches for likebasically a year and a half, two

(05:25):
years, physical therapy, allthat stuff.
Um had a couple surgeries, andthen uh during that time, I just
like life kind of hit me and Ihad to figure out what to do.
So instead, and I might get, youknow, uh roasted a little bit,
but instead of graduating, I hadabout 14 hours left.
I quit to go be a softwareengineer.

SPEAKER_03 (05:48):
So many smart guys who are entrepreneurs have done
that.
You're not the first one I'vehad in here or that I know.
You should have heard, youshould have heard my family.

SPEAKER_04 (05:57):
My family called me for weeks, they just thought it
was terrible, right?
Yeah, and I kind of had todescribe it.
Like, look, like here's myoffer, like, here's the salary.
It's a good salary for you know,someone who's 20 years old, like
this can't be that bad, right?
Um, but ended up working out.

(06:18):
So was a software engineer, uh,and then I moved into the other
parts of like the technologylifecycle.
So I did UIUX design, which isyou know making things look
really good.
And then finally I led product,which is describing and
directing the strategy of howthings should be built in
technology.
So uh I did that for all sortsof companies.

(06:40):
I built the UI for the fullswing golf simulator by Tiger
Woods, if you know that.
I don't.
Um sounds impressive.
It was fun.
If if there are any golf loversout there, it was very fun, very
fun project.
Um, works for MetLife for alittle bit.
Um I also most recently ledproduct at Walmart in between
kind of one of my companies.

(07:00):
So I was building um Sparky,which is the AI assistant that
serves about a hundred millionpeople across the United States.
Um and yeah, it's kind of whereI got my roots in technology and
how I learned to build reallycool things.
Um on the entrepreneurial side,you broke out, yes.

(07:23):
I did break out.
Uh so I have had three reallybig companies and a bunch of
small ones, a lot of failures,uh, which I love talking about.
Uh the first one was a companycalled Bundle.
If I didn't have this jacket on,you'd see it tattooed on my arm.
It was B-U-N-D-L.
Yeah.
B B-U-N-D-I-L.
Oh, D-I-L.
Okay, sorry.

(07:43):
Yeah, it was a funny story abouthow I got that name.
Uh we were trying to figure outa domain name because you know
the word bundle is actuallyrelatively uh popular.
Yeah so we had to figure out howto you know make the branding
work and trademarks and all thatstuff.
So uh got lucky with D I L, butthat was the only option.
Um but the app was a uh financeinvesting app where you could

(08:09):
invest your spare change fromdebit and credit card purchases
like this water bottle intocryptocurrency and stocks.
So brilliant idea.
Thanks, man.
Yeah, it was kind of a playoffof Acorns, if you've heard of
Acorns, but the key differencewas Acorns does um ETFs that
they create.
And then you say ETFs, I don'toh, electronic fund transfers?

(08:32):
No, so they do um a culminationof stocks into a vehicle that
you can invest in.
So think like an index fund.

SPEAKER_03 (08:41):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (08:42):
Um, so what Acorns did is they would say here are
the best performing stocks basedon what our financial analysis
people say, uh-huh, and we'llhelp you microinvest into those
kind of indexes.

SPEAKER_03 (08:54):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (08:54):
And the opportunity I saw is like most people, first
of all, don't know what an ETFis.
Second of all, uh most peoplewant control over their
investments, especially ifthey're doing it themselves.
Um, so we built basically thesame platform but for direct
asset investing.

SPEAKER_03 (09:10):
I see.

SPEAKER_04 (09:11):
Um, it was really cool.
I was very, very young.
I was also on the TV show SharkTank, as you probably saw with
that.

SPEAKER_03 (09:20):
So Mr.
Wonderful made you an offer.
He did.
He tried to take my shirt and myshoes and myself.
So you don't think he's reallyMr.
Wonderful?
Is that it?
He's a pretty hard-nosed guy.
He um I think he's a smart guy,but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (09:36):
Very smart.
I don't, you know, I'm a littlecareful on like what I say
publicly, but he's actually verynice.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Um, he's not surprised as meanas he might seem.

SPEAKER_03 (09:46):
Yeah.
Uh I think he's a big musicianand wine aficionado and all this
stuff, but yeah.
Loves wine.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (09:54):
He's got his boat, which got him into a little bit
of trouble.
And uh he at the time lovedcrypto.
He got into a few crypto plays.
Um, but yeah, it was a reallycool business.
Uh ran it for almost six years.
We were uh serving about ahundred thousand monthly active
users.

(10:14):
We were doing about ten milliondollars a month transaction
volume.
Well no.

SPEAKER_03 (10:18):
Um how did you market that thing?
I mean, aside from being onShark Tank, that probably didn't
hurt, right?

SPEAKER_04 (10:24):
Shark Tank, uh, so what they'll say when you get on
Shark Tank, it's uh about amillion dollars worth of
marketing value, uh, which Ididn't believe at the time, but
there were so many um differentavenues that would pick up the
show, and the show would runacross like you know, a large
period of time.

SPEAKER_03 (10:41):
And it's still yeah, it's still out there.
Yeah, I see it all the time.
Clips, galore, and whatever.
Yeah, Instagram.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (10:49):
They will, oh my goodness, like so many people
will flock to a product justbecause Shark Tank has that sure
trust factor, right?
Um, so we did that.
We also did, I don't know ifyou're familiar with like, you
know, pay-per-click advertising.
Sure.
Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, um,TikTok didn't exist yet.
So did you keep ownership of thewhole thing?

(11:11):
Uh I had a majority on a shipfor a long time, yeah.
So we did raise some venturecapital.

SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
What did you use that money for if you already
had this thing working?
I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_04 (11:20):
Sounds so good when I talk about it, right?
But basically the first threeand a half years making nothing.
Oh, it's terrible.
Was trying to figure out.
So at the time, Bundle wasbuilding in a landscape that
hadn't been regulated orconstructed yet.
So everybody hated crypto.
It got to where crypto wasreally cool for a second, and

(11:42):
then everything crashed,everybody hated it, and then it
was cool again, and then itcrashed, everybody hated it.
So there were a lot oftumultuous times.
Um, we also didn't have um thisis kind of going into my
financial services background,but we didn't have like the
regulated infrastructure tosupport uh transfers and
liquidity.

(12:03):
So we had to rely on thirdparties, and the third parties
were dying pretty often.
So uh it caused us to need somecapital.
So um over that life cycleraised uh I think it was almost
two million bucks for um buthey, you're doing 10 million in

(12:23):
transactions a month.

SPEAKER_03 (12:24):
I mean, that's a pretty good number.

SPEAKER_04 (12:26):
It's a good number.
Uh our percentages were notsuper high, sure, but it was
good volume for sure.
Yeah.
A lot of people were um using itand you know, microtransactions
add up.
So um it was a really cool thingto to see.
So like usually people swipetheir card, debit or credit, you

(12:48):
know, five to seven times a day.
So people would invest anywherebetween 80 and 120 bucks a
month.
Um but uh it was a really coolthing to see.
Um and at the same time, justkind of like moving through this
life cycle that I had.
Uh, I was building a companycalled Hydrant with a friend of

(13:10):
mine.
So while I was at an acceleratorbuilding bundle, I met a guy
named Dave.
And he was like, hey, I needsome help building a product.
You know, I don't know how tobuild software, technology, I
have this opportunity.
Yeah.
And I was like, I'll help.
Tell me what it is.
Yeah.
Um, so he had this idea tocreate a marketplace of
firefighters.

(13:32):
Uh, because you know, they havea 24 hours on, 48 hours off
schedule.

SPEAKER_03 (13:36):
Sure.

SPEAKER_04 (13:36):
And wanted to create a way for residents and
businesses to hire them forhandyman type work.
Okay, I like that.

SPEAKER_03 (13:42):
Really cool.
I always have other jobs everyfive minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Usually they have a trade.
They're wallpaper hangers,they're brick masons, they're
something.
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (13:52):
And it was so interesting because I asked him,
I was like, how the heck did younotice that?
Like, that's such a weird thingto notice.
And his brother was afirefighter, actually, and kept
asking him, like, hey, can Icome help around the house or
you got some work for me?

SPEAKER_03 (14:05):
And finally he was like, All right, let me just
there's other ones out there.
You see one and you go, theremust be others out there like
that, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
I give them what a great idea.
So, how'd that work out?

SPEAKER_04 (14:17):
Uh, really cool business.
Um, we it was running for awhile, uh a little longer than
Bundle, almost seven years, Ibelieve.
And then that one actuallyexited to the Belfort group, so
the big restoration company.

SPEAKER_00 (14:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (14:32):
Um, which was very cool.
It's my first exit.
Um showed me, you know, what allthe years of work can do and
turn into a waterfall, which wasvery exciting.
So, what about bundle back onthat?
How'd you what died a terribledeath?
Okay.
So uh we in one of those lifecycles of people hating crypto.

(14:55):
Um, had did you ever hear aboutFTX?
Do you know what that was?
I don't, I'm sorry.
So quick story is there was ahuge um crypto liquidity company
called FTX.
They were an exchange likeCoinbase or other ones that you
would buy crypto from.
Yep.
Um, and their founder uhbasically scammed a lot of

(15:19):
people out of like seven oreight billion dollars.

SPEAKER_03 (15:21):
What was this guy's name?
Sam Bankman Free.
Yeah, Sam Bankmanfree, sure.
I know what this this is allabout.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (15:27):
What people don't know about his scam is there
were so many companies thatrelied on FTX for liquidity.
That's why you started seeing itreach like Tom Brady, like reach
all these celebrities, surecompanies that you know you
would think wouldn't matter.
Yeah.
Um, actually, Anthropic, one ofthe biggest AI companies in the
world, got an investment fromSam Bankman-Fried.

(15:49):
Um, and what people don't knowis like a lot of the smaller
companies who relied on FTX, uh,they died because of the
liquidity tied up in the scam.

SPEAKER_03 (16:01):
So interesting success.
So you were a victim of SamBankman-Fried.
Wow.

SPEAKER_04 (16:06):
I was a victim.

SPEAKER_03 (16:06):
That's wild.

SPEAKER_04 (16:07):
Yep.
Our liquidity provider had um, Ithink it was like 60%
allocation.

SPEAKER_03 (16:12):
Holy cow.
Okay, sorry, it's crazy stufflike that happens to people.

SPEAKER_04 (16:17):
It does, yeah.
It's um it was good learning,though.
It taught me not to have all myeggs in one basket.
Uh, it also taught me about uhredundancy in systems.
So, you know, as I'm buildingkind of these new products, I
want to make sure I don't relyon one thing that could, you

(16:37):
know, yeah, that could take youdown.

SPEAKER_03 (16:40):
Sure.
I get it.
So you got out of bundle that ina not so great way.
Yeah.
Um, you had hydrant, that was asuccessful exit.
Yep.
Then what?

SPEAKER_04 (16:53):
Uh so the third company was called Pease.
Um, so Pease was a um agenticjoint bank account.
So this was kind of more of apassion project, didn't go too
far, but I did raise someventure capital, so I like
talking about it.
Um this one I was trying tofigure out how to allow couples

(17:16):
to join their finances in aslower way.
So uh people who are not astraditional as me, you know, I'm
very faith-based, I'm Christian.

SPEAKER_03 (17:24):
Um Yeah, you get married, it's everything that's
yours is mine, and everythingthat's mine is yours.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (17:29):
Yep.
And most of the world does notthink like that.
Yeah.
Uh, and it actually causes a tonof friction.
So, you know, uh moneydisagreements is one of the
leading causes of divorce.
Sure.
Um, there's just so manyfriction points um with how
couples like manage their moneytogether.
So we built a way where, youknow, let's say you had Chase,

(17:51):
your partner had Bank ofAmerica, you could uh split
expenses like grant budgettogether, you had an AI to ask
about both your transactions.
Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Uh but you kept your bankaccount separate.
So you would slowly merge themover time.

SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (18:05):
Um, wonderful idea still.

SPEAKER_00 (18:08):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 (18:08):
Um, one of the reasons why I kind of put it on
pause.
I didn't shut it down oranything.
Um, I just put it on pausebecause financial services is so
expensive.
If you're gonna attack, umbasically build a new type of
bank, which is what I was doing,um, you need a very, very large
sum of dollars to commit to fora very long time.

SPEAKER_03 (18:29):
So um it's amazing, you know, there's all these
ideas out there and businessesthat were started to solve that
problem.
It always fascinates me in termsof like how do the customers
find these things unless theyget some really great PR.

(18:49):
There's so many of them outthere that just don't get off
the ground.
I mean, it's really hard drivingpeople to your own website.
You know?
I just think peopleunderestimate how difficult that
is.
Having had a lot of businesseswhere I was trying to do that
and still do.
It is.

SPEAKER_04 (19:04):
I one of the things that if you're gonna build
consumer products, um, if I wasgonna, you know, give some
random advice to a potentialfounder out there.
It's like have tons and tons ofmoney.
That would be my advice.

SPEAKER_03 (19:16):
Tons of money spend it on advertising, on ads, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (19:20):
Or a very unique ability to create virality.

SPEAKER_03 (19:25):
So exactly.
And that's that's a difficultthing to do.
It is.
It can happen though, clearly.

SPEAKER_04 (19:32):
It's uh it's something I've studied.
Um, I have it's a it's it'ssomething I've studied.
It's something that can belearned.
Um, it doesn't happen everysingle time, right?
But if you structure how youpost, how do you create content,
how you do PR, like all of thosethings create a train that can
create virality.

SPEAKER_03 (19:53):
People are too security conscious.
They're too cautious with theirmarketing.
They're afraid to do somethingthat people will say is too
radical.
It's they don't want to alienateanybody, they don't like to use
humor, they don't um that'sunprofessional.
Um want to be on brand.

(20:15):
Yeah, they're they're and andthe result is that it's it's
boring and it's stale and itgoes nowhere.
I mean, and it so yeah, but itit's it's hard to do that.
I think the attitudes are peopleplay it too safe.
I agree.

SPEAKER_04 (20:30):
I think one of the biggest shifts I've been seeing
um in this kind of newconsolidation of um uh you know
company building is people areare much more willing to take
risks.

SPEAKER_03 (20:46):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (20:47):
Um there's now that you can be a solo entrepreneur,
sit at home with Claude on alaptop and literally build an
entire company by yourself,people are like I yeah, I used
to hate that term solopreneur.

SPEAKER_03 (21:01):
I'm like, that's yes, because if it's all tied to
you, the thing doesn't reallyhave any value.
And entrepreneurship's all aboutbuilding value in the enterprise
that you can extract on exit,not what you suck out along the
way.
But as you say, with Claude,changing it's a different game.
It's just blows my mind, the theuses and the and the outputs.

(21:22):
I uh it every day.
I I see I see applications forit that yeah kill me.
It just take weeks to do whatthis thing just did in 30
seconds.
It's it's my bag to see.

SPEAKER_04 (21:35):
Yeah.
Um a little scary as well.

SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 (21:39):
Yeah.
I think we're gonna get floodedwith not so great products, um,
not so great, you know, actorsin the space.
Um, but I also think we're gonnaget flooded with a ton of value
for, you know, the people.

SPEAKER_03 (21:53):
So my sort of conclusion on all that AI is
it's it's it's it's a greatDoing tool.
It's you still can't replace thehuman mind for creativity.
That's the distinction.
It's the creativity aspect.
And of course, the relationshipaspect that you're never going
to be able to use AI to do.

(22:13):
Agreed.
Yeah, boy, it can do a lot ofwork and it can be good.
I mean, oh yeah.
Knowledge work.
Yeah.
This weekend I had to do a livewebinar on Tuesday, and I had to
turn out the presentation.
I was so busy.
I was at one of my businesses upin Indiana, and I just had no
time to write this thing at all.

(22:34):
So I wrote it all out onSaturday morning or Saturday or
Sunday morning.
I send it to the company and themarketing director sends it back
to me later that day.
And I sent it to him and I said,Look, you know, here's my
presentation.
I go, but I'm no graphicdesigner.
The graph, the the design here,make any changes you want.
He sends it back to me and it'sperfect.

(22:54):
He goes, I just sent it over toClaude.

unknown (22:56):
Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 (22:57):
And it's like, you know, good graphic design,
that's takes some skill.
I mean, yeah, there's tons oftools that would do stuff for
you, but it sucked.
And now it's actually good.
It's good.
Yep.
And it's done that fast.
It is that's just one use of azillion of them.
I just looked at some marketresearch done and oh my God.

(23:19):
30 minutes before you and I met.
I'm like, I can't believe thisjust came out of Claude.
Yeah.
What are you uh what are youmost excited about with that new
capability?
Oh gosh, I don't know.
I mean, it's great for businessplanning.
It's great for valuingbusinesses, structuring deals to
buy businesses.
I mean, yeah.

(23:40):
Yeah.
I've I I've just it's every dayI'm impressed.
I mean, I see these things everysingle day.
Which one do you use GPT orClaude the most?
I I use GPT, but I see a lot ofoutput from other people with
Claude.
Yeah.
I just haven't found it as easyto use.
Yeah.
Myself.
They do you know differentthings.

(24:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (24:02):
Um, their models are tailored for different things.

SPEAKER_03 (24:05):
So but yeah, I mean these tools, so you can be by
yourself.
You can have a real businessnow.
It's the bottom line.
You can be that has value thatyou've created.

SPEAKER_04 (24:16):
Yep.
Anyone who has an idea.
So, you know, back in the day,everyone would come up to me and
be like, Dimitri, I have anidea.
Like, can you help me build thisapp?
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (24:25):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (24:25):
And I'm like, okay, what's the idea?
Um there's a lot of ideas.
A lot of ideas, right?
Poor execution.
Yes.
Now, Claude can take your idea,validate it, structure a plan
for you.
Yeah.
Build against that plan.
I know.
And you're sitting at work or athome watching football or out of

(24:48):
the bar drinking a beer, you'redoing all this while Claude is
building a business for you.
And it's it's something.
It's something to see.

SPEAKER_03 (24:56):
Um anyway, I uh Where were we at on my own?
Well, we're saying no, we'resaying that there's a lot of
there's a lot of um how do youget people to your to your
business?
Um, how do you draw people in?
Distribution's a really bigthing.
But anyway, um so you have umyou had these various ventures,

(25:20):
then what?
Um you told told us about threeof them.
How did you get to the whatyou've got right now?
Uh that's a really goodquestion.

SPEAKER_04 (25:28):
So while I was at Walmart, um I saw a huge problem
in how we consume food, howretail intelligence worked,
retail media worked, um, sawsome great opportunity.
Actually, one of my pastinvestors in peas, um, he was an
executive at Walmart, justrecently retired to work on this

(25:49):
thing with me.
Yeah.
And he reached out and was like,hey, like, I have an idea.
Do you want to build a company?
I was like, sure.
You know, why why wouldn't I?
Right.
Um, and the question he kind ofpostulated was I want to make
sure that everybody in Americacan answer the question, what's

(26:09):
for dinner?
without having to think aboutit.

SPEAKER_03 (26:11):
Yeah.
Oh god.
So familiar, right?

SPEAKER_04 (26:15):
So familiar.
Everybody asks at 4 p.m.

SPEAKER_03 (26:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (26:18):
Hey babe, what do we have for dinner?
Exactly.
Um so I was like, that'sfascinating.
Let me noodle on it a littlebit.
Um, we went through a coupleiterations and we finally came
up with a extremely compellingexperience.
So the AIs that you use, likeGPT or Claude, we built our own

(26:41):
and we put it inside ofiMessage.
So if you have an iPhone, justlike you would text me or and
I'll show it to you live realquick.
Um, just like you would text meor um text a family member, you
can text this AI and it'll planmeals for you.
It'll find recipes for you.

(27:02):
Our agents will literally goshop at Walmart or Instacart,
DoorDash, or wherever you shop,Aldi, it doesn't matter.
So much better than thesesubscription boxes.
Correct.
Yeah, it's like that's actuallya a really good train of
thinking because we saw some ofthe success with um, do you
remember like HelloFresh?

(27:23):
We've tried all of them.

SPEAKER_03 (27:24):
Yeah.
Is you always end up with stuffthat you didn't consume and it
doesn't work or it's toocomplex, you don't feel like
doing it.
You don't want it.
Yeah, you don't want it exactly.

SPEAKER_04 (27:33):
Yep, not limited to options.
Yeah.
So we kind of took that conceptand created one that's bespoke
to the household.
So if you're keto friendly oryou're protein maxing, or you
like these types of pastanoodles from Trader Joe's,
doesn't matter.
The AI can build a meal plan foryou.
So does it start out by askingyou a lot of questions?
Uh if you want, you can tell ituh what you have and say, give

(27:57):
me a plan, or it can learn aboutyour household.
It's completely um flexible.

SPEAKER_03 (28:02):
So what's this app called?

SPEAKER_04 (28:05):
Uh so it's literally just a phone number.
So you don't have to download anapp.
So I'll send it to you.
Awesome, man.
Yep.
Um yeah, it's a we we have athesis.
We don't think apps are gonnaexist as much anymore.
Um so we wanted to build out uman experience that anybody could
use for free, you know, insideof their phone.
So love it.

(28:26):
We hooked it up to a phonenumber so you can just set it
together.

SPEAKER_03 (28:29):
Creative idea in itself.
Yeah.
It's been makes total sense.
It's been great.
Um so that's like that's noteven iPhone dependent then, if I
just got a phone number.

SPEAKER_04 (28:39):
Yeah, so we're gonna launch SMS soon.
So right now we're doingiMessage because iMessage comes
with some really cool thingslike read receipts and I see you
can like see interaction withit.

SPEAKER_03 (28:48):
Sure.

SPEAKER_04 (28:49):
Um, SMS takes a little bit more massaging, but
we're gonna launch that as well.
So anybody literally with aphone number can answer the
question.
What's for dinner?
I love it.
So, how do you make money onthat?
Wonderful question.
So uh we it's gonna becompletely free to the consumer
or anybody who uses it.
Uh we charge in two ways.

(29:12):
So suppliers think um Coca-Colaor Kraft Heinz or Nestle can pay
for either retail intelligence,so understanding which
households have their product,uh, how they're being consumed,
which products they would liketo see from them, yeah, which
then informs retail media.
So sure.
The problem I saw while I was inWalmart is retail media, these

(29:36):
suppliers, they're spendingbillions and billions of
dollars, like$60 billion a yearon really terrible ads.
So if you go into Walmart, youmight search for toilet paper
and see an ad for like Campbellsoup or something, right?
Highly non-contextual, useless,like who's who's buying
Campbell's soup when I'msearching for a toilet paper?

(29:57):
So what we do is we service adsduring the discovery process.
So when you're trying to planwhat's for dinner, try to figure
out what recipes you want, wewill run ads within the
ingredients of that recipe.

SPEAKER_03 (30:10):
Wow, that's gotta be a lot better result you get as a
as a product company, right?
100%.
Because you know this person'sactually shopping for that
thing.
Yep.
Not just like maybe I'll catchthem and they want my soup.
Yep, the intents there.
Yeah.
That's a that's a brilliantidea.
Love that.

SPEAKER_04 (30:28):
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's we're super excitedabout it.
Um, and I wish my co-founderCreighton was here.
He can explain a lot more of thethe retail media side, um,
because he was an executive atWalmart for like 17 years.
So um, but it's we've justgotten wonderful reception.
I haven't seen a product likekind of, you know, have the

(30:51):
light bulb go off or the lightgo in somebody's eyes as much as
this one before.

SPEAKER_03 (30:56):
Well, it always seems to me though, with things
like that, I mean, so you go outthere to potential advertisers
and they want to know how manyusers you have.
And you're just starting out.
You say you're not gonna have awhole lot of users, right?
How did how do you sell thatthen?
Especially to like a bigcompany.
Where is it all about thenumbers?

(31:16):
That is a good question.

SPEAKER_04 (31:18):
A little bit of a trade secret there.

SPEAKER_03 (31:19):
Um, there's two things you don't have to tell
your trade secrets.
Um No, it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 (31:23):
It's okay.
I've I anybody who watches thepodcasts, like I love making
sure people can learn.
So I don't I'm a bad person towithhold information.
I'm with you on that.

SPEAKER_03 (31:33):
I just share everything because I figured
they're not all gonna do itanyway.
Exactly.
And everybody's circumstance isdifferent.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 (31:41):
Um, the things that's really important, so
we're highly confident to beable to get enough of a user
base, five to ten thousandusers.
That's not that hard.
That just costs money, as youmentioned.

SPEAKER_03 (31:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (31:53):
Um, and we have raised venture capital, so we've
got dollars to do that.

SPEAKER_00 (31:57):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (31:57):
Um, the thing that's really important is how you
package and bucket theinformation.
So when you look at um, we'lluse Walmart's products.
So they have a product calledCentilla and they have a product
called Walmart Connect.
Okay.
Those two products kind of servethe intelligence and media arms
for Wanna.
When you look at a product likethat, you can look at the

(32:19):
aggregate of spending to get,you know, really low converting
results.
They're kind of spending onimpressions and then they take a
percentage of revenue on thingsthat convert.
So it's like, hey, take thisgiant bucket of water and throw
it on people.

SPEAKER_03 (32:33):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (32:33):
And whoever drinks a drop, we get 2% of that drop.

SPEAKER_03 (32:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (32:37):
That's typically, I mean, that's the traditional
model, right?
Traditional model.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Instead, what we do is say, hey,we've got a shot glass of water
that we can guarantee getsdrank.
So you can pay for very explicitinformation and very explicit
conversion.
And as we grow, that shot glassis gonna turn into a cup and

(32:57):
then eventually a bucket, andthen eventually a pool, and then
hopefully eventually a lake.
Um, so when we're going to pitchthese suppliers, and we've got a
ton of LOIs already with somereally big suppliers, um, we're
saying, hey, we're gonna sellyou an aggregate of a hundred
users or households, we'll callthem a hundred households or a

(33:20):
thousand households to be ableto inform some campaigns so that
you can test out the product.
And then next year, wheneveryou're doing your uh budgets for
2027, we want this percent.
So we're using this year as likepilots to show the efficacy and
the performance.
And then 2027, we're gonna say,hey, that$100 million budget you

(33:42):
got, we'd like a chunk.

SPEAKER_03 (33:44):
Makes total sense.
You've demonstrated then.
It's it's completely um proven.

SPEAKER_04 (33:51):
The model's proved out.
Most industries I've learnedpainfully um are all about
trust.
Yeah.
So the more trust you can build,the more that you can show that
you can execute or providevalue, like you mentioned, um,
the faster you'll move.

SPEAKER_03 (34:07):
Yeah.
Well, it's it's just like SharkTank.
I mean, every the first questionthey ask everybody is how much
of this have you sold?
Yeah.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
How much money have you made?
And if it's a lot, they're like,oh, yeah, then they all get
interested.
If it's like, well, I sold$5,000worth, they're like, uh, so
yeah, that's interesting.
So so that's what you're workingon now.

(34:28):
Now, how do you like putsomething like that together
financially?
I mean, you said you've got someVC funding for that.
Yep.
You got this partner in thisthing.
How do you engineer all that?

SPEAKER_04 (34:43):
Um, yeah, so products like this, uh, they are
expensive.
So, you know, there's theproduct I was kind of mentioning
that someone could build um, youknow, at home with their laptop,
relatively lower complexity.
Whenever you're buildingsomething that's gonna scale
this fast and this big, you haveto do more things, which cost
more money.
So um we raised a really smallkind of like family friends

(35:07):
angel round.
Um, so past investors um that Iknow, friends and family of
myself and and Creighton.
Sure.
Um, about$500,000.
Okay.
Use that uh for about a year tobuild the base, build the
product, um, build out some ofthe software that we need.
And then now we're raising threemillion.

(35:28):
So three million is gonna get ustwo years worth of runway, um,
allow us to build the trade deskto support our suppliers.
Um, bring we've got about sevenpeople that are part-time,
they're full-time, but they'renot W-2 yet.
Right.
Bring them full-time.
Um and then keep it pushing.
So do you do you set up a CCorp?

(35:49):
Is that how you start this?
We are a C Corp.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, so most ventureinvestors That's all they want.
They want C Corps, yeah.
They're not gonna invest in anLLC.
Yeah, they sometimes, if theS-corp is structured properly,
they'll do an S-corp.

SPEAKER_03 (36:03):
Yeah, but they're not interested in extracting
profits along the way.
They want the big payoff at theend.

SPEAKER_04 (36:08):
They want the payout.
They sure do.
They want you to IPO.

SPEAKER_03 (36:12):
Yeah, and I I hate LLCs for a million reasons, but
I just tricky.
There's always problems.

SPEAKER_04 (36:20):
If you're an L LLC for an individual, I think
that's fine.
It's okay.
Second another person'sinvolved.

SPEAKER_03 (36:27):
Exactly.
That's I mean, that's it.
Or if you and I want to do anapartment building in
Bentonville and it's gonna be aneight-unit building, and we buy
the land together in an LLC, webuild the building, we lease it
up, and we sell it, and it allhappens in two years.
That's a temporary vehicle.
Yeah, yeah.
We we're not but otherwise, it'sjust drives me crazy though,
these attorneys and people whowant to start ventures, and they

(36:48):
always put them in LLCs to startwith.
It's just a pet peeve of mine.

SPEAKER_04 (36:53):
I you're you're right along uh with the
industry.
I um so back when I was doingbundle, I actually got in a
little bit not trouble, but justuh I was trying to raise venture
funds and I didn't know what Ijust told you.
Yeah, and I had an LLC.
There you go.
And they're like, oh, you needto spend this money, convert it,

(37:14):
you need to structure your captable this way, you need to have
an option pool, you need to haveall these things.
So much more flexibility.

SPEAKER_03 (37:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So anyway, well, that'sexciting.
Um you're also working on yetsomething else.
Yeah, so this is one of thosesit-at-home with a laptop
businesses.

SPEAKER_04 (37:32):
Okay.
Um tell us about that one.
So I had a friend, uh, his nameis Chris.
Um, he moved to uh I think he'sin Connecticut now, but he, you
know, was here, uh, grew up herea little bit, and he hit me up
and was like, hey, I just quitmy job.
Like, you know, I kind of wantto build something.
Like, what you got?
And I was like, I don't know,let me think about it.

(37:52):
Right.
One of the things that if myinvestors see this, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 (37:58):
Uh that I'm really saying anything you don't want
to say.

SPEAKER_04 (38:01):
No, no, no, no.
It's it's a it's a funny thing.
Okay.
I am really bad, like famouslybad at sending investor updates.
Yeah.
So yeah, I get it.
When you raise venture capital,they actually sometimes often
have something calledinformation rights.
Yeah.
So you like are obligatedcontractually to send updates.

(38:21):
Uh I get it.
Usually the standard cadence isabout once a month.
Uh and they would hear from memaybe once a quarter because I
would just I'd be busy.
I'd be building and trying tofigure things out.
Absolutely.
Been there, got it.
Um so I was like, hey, I suck atthis.
I know a lot of other founderssuck at it and have to spend
time doing it.
Yep.
Why not build a software thatcan do it for you?

(38:42):
Right.
So we took the concept of um, soI don't know if you're familiar
with the concept of an MCP.
So Claude, one of the big AIcompanies, they created this
gateway where they can take allsorts of tools, you know, think
Google Docs, your software,whatever, doesn't matter the
tool, aggregate it to whereeverybody can connect to it,

(39:05):
right?
So we built something kind ofsimilar where you can connect
all of your tools for yourbusiness.
So your QuickBooks, your email,your whatever, right?
Sure.
Um spreadsheets, how you'rewherever you're tracking your
revenue, like all that stuff.
Yep.
Um, all of those tools we useNAI to generate insights and
they create an email for you andsend it off on a cadence that

(39:27):
you choose.
And you can edit it before itgoes out.
How do you charge for this?
So this one, we're actuallystill in the middle of
discovering.
So we've got about 20 customers.
Okay.
We're in the middle of trying tofigure out a good pricing model.
So um there's a lot of otherthings that it can do.
We have something called a dataroom.
So, like when you need to showinvestors documents, um, you put

(39:48):
it all with us as well.

SPEAKER_03 (39:50):
Sure.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (39:50):
Um, we've got fundraising pipelines and all
sorts of cool things.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot of the comparableproducts, if you were to
aggregate all the separate toolsthat do everything that
SendUpdates does, um, you'd bepaying four to five hundred
bucks a month.
We're trying to get the pricesomewhere between one and two
hundred bucks a month.
Cool.
Um, we don't want to charge toomuch, but we want to make sure

(40:13):
that it's enough to coverobviously tokens for the AI
because AI is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 (40:19):
Sure.

SPEAKER_04 (40:20):
Um, and then all of the connections that we have to
support for integrations, whichis also expensive.
And then um make sure we canmake a little bit of profit.

SPEAKER_03 (40:30):
So that'd be fascinating.
I I would love to learn moreabout that for one of my
businesses.
Sure.
Yeah, I'm happy.

SPEAKER_04 (40:36):
I'll send you a lot of things.
The manufacturing business.

SPEAKER_03 (40:38):
Yeah, I'll send it to you for free.
Yeah, we've got uh hopefully I'msmart enough to figure out how
to hook up this connect thing.

SPEAKER_00 (40:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (40:44):
Because I mean, you you know, just like I'm sitting
there thinking about I got cashflow, forecast, and
spreadsheets, QuickBooks, ofcourse.
In our case, Backbone, which isour MRP system.
I don't know if you're familiarwith that, but it's
manufacturing resource planning.
Okay.
So basically everything goes inthere.
A sale goes in there, there's aschedule for production, there's

(41:07):
a bill of materials, all theinventories go are tied into
that.
Yeah.
Um, I'm just thinking of varioussources of this information.

SPEAKER_04 (41:15):
We've got insights, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (41:17):
Yeah, we've got um, you know, our our CRM.

SPEAKER_04 (41:21):
Yep.
Um and so we've got about 600integrations.
So we've got most of the CRMs.
I'm not sure about backbone, soI'm gonna look into that.

SPEAKER_03 (41:33):
Uh yeah, you probably don't.
Well, you might.
I mean, it's used bymanufacturing companies.
You said it's an M MRP.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm gonna look into that.

SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (41:43):
Um what a cool tool though, because it is a hassle.
Yeah.
And then you feel guilty aboutnot giving people the
information.
I don't want to be one of thosepeople who only gives people
good news either.
Yeah.
Okay.
Nobody likes that.
Lenders don't like that,investors don't like that.
That's the other give them thegood news and the bad news.

SPEAKER_04 (42:04):
Yep.
That's the other reason why Iwanted to build this tool,
because you know, I it would itwould be one quarter, great
news.
Yeah.
Next quarter, we're dying.
Yeah.
Next quarter, we survive.
Right.
Next quarter, we're dying again.
Um, so being able to show likethe progression of like, you
know, how I'm thinking, whatsteps I'm taking.

SPEAKER_03 (42:27):
Um that's all that good stuff.
Seems to me like you need tohook up with the WeFunder
people.
Yeah, the crowdfunders.
Yeah, because all theircompanies that are on WeFunder
that are raising capital, thiswould be such a great tool for
them, you know, post um raise.
Post fun, yeah.
To I mean, and they just got,you know, God knows how many

(42:50):
companies are on there.
Yeah, happy um, because it's a achallenge for us.
Again, we got these WeFunderinvestors, the the list all
resides inside WeFunder.
On the cap table, it's only oneentry.
Okay, it's a special purposevehicle that by that all these
WeFunder investors are tiedinto, but they all got to be
informed.

SPEAKER_04 (43:09):
I didn't know you did a WeFunder campaign.

SPEAKER_03 (43:11):
Yeah, we did for Janice Motorcycles.

SPEAKER_04 (43:14):
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 (43:18):
So yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 (43:20):
I'll have to I I never I literally forgot about
crowdfunding until you saidthat.
So that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 (43:25):
Well, it just seems like such a great tool for these
people if they can get all thesethings.
For sure.
Yeah, I might place.
I might use you as uh, if youdon't mind, use you as a beta
tester.
Hey yeah.
Well, if I like I said, as longas I'm smart enough to figure
out how to use this, yeah, Ithink I don't have an army of
implementers that I can passthis over to farm it off to that

(43:47):
something that is alwaysdifficult.

SPEAKER_04 (43:50):
So figuring out how to get people um onboarded,
understanding like theusefulness of the tool, like
there's yeah, really an art.
So Like with served, we get thebenefit of being able to um
text, right?
So we can say, hey, here's whatyou can do, here's how you do
it.
We can run them down flows in asystem like send updates.

(44:13):
You're just in a dashboard.

SPEAKER_03 (44:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (44:15):
And you gotta kind of figure it out.
So we're gonna we have a fewways to do onboarding, but we're
that's what we're testing outright now because like there's
so many things you can do.
We kind of want to um guide ourusers down a pathway so they
know what to do, how to do it.

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SPEAKER_03 (44:46):
Well, it seems super valuable.
I mean, maybe that's gotta be aconsulting job at the front end
that you charge people somethingto set it up.
I don't know.
I'm not you know, maybe that's abig barrier then.

SPEAKER_04 (44:58):
See that implementation.
I'm gonna use you like live fora second just to think about
something.
We thought about the consultingmodel.
So um a lot of enterprises arestruggling with like AI tool
implementation.
And actually, OpenAI, they'recreating an arm to help
enterprises do this.
So we've considered like gettingkind of like a biz dev team.

(45:19):
Um, and like in the industry,they call them uh
forward-deployed engineers.
So it'd be like salesperson andthen a sales engineer who can
help integrate, set up, buildany like custom, you know,
connections that are needed.
So the platform's working.

SPEAKER_03 (45:36):
Yeah, I mean, you know you're gonna have that.
There's gotta be people outthere using stuff that you're
not set up to integrate yet.
That's a good idea too.
But anyway, well it can be greatideas.
Hey, well, listen, I'm thrilled.
I it's I mean, it seems like youhave so many ideas of things
that are that are so useful.
What I hear from you though, andI and I want this to be a lesson

(45:57):
to all our listeners, it's thisis a recurring lesson, folks.
And that is if you have aproblem with something that
needs to be solved, odds areother people out there have the
same problem.
Okay.
It's just I see this all thetime.
I always think about like, youknow, I used to be even in the

(46:18):
development business and I did alot of houses.
I did more houses in downtownFayetteville renovations than
anybody else, yeah, and soldthem at high prices.
And I always thought to myself,almost every time, if I was
gonna buy this house, what wouldI want in it?
Okay, and then lo and behold,other people kind of like me,
yeah, who are older and wantsomewhere where they can walk to

(46:42):
things, and maybe they went toschool there, and they want a
neighborhood where people go onthe front porch and don't all
sit in the back decks andthey're isolated with a fence
around, you know, and lo andbehold, they all materialize,
you know, boom, they're there.
That's awesome.
But it's just like you.
I mean, you think about allthese different things that
you've come up with.

(47:02):
Now, you the marriage one Ican't you can't necessarily
identify with that.
Yeah, you know, because youcombined everything right away.
But I mean, talk to somebodywho's been married three times
or whatever, they're probablythinking differently than
somebody who just got hooked up.
Yeah.
Um, you know, for the firsttime.

SPEAKER_04 (47:21):
I have a funny just random story about that.
I'm a little crazy in how I dokind of like user interviews.
So you'll notice, like, even aswe're talking, I'll ask you
certain questions to understand,you know, how you think and how
you know I might be able to helpyou best.
But when I was building peas, Iwould literally like go to
restaurants and buy people'sdinner just so I could ask them,
like, hey, how are you guysdoing finance?

(47:43):
Like, yeah, you get separate,like, you know, so on and so
forth.
I'm building an app, you know,yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (47:48):
I'm sure you're really good at that because
you're you ask a lot ofquestions and you're real
approachable.
You know, it's not gonna be hardfor people to open up to you.

SPEAKER_04 (47:58):
It took me a long time to get there.

SPEAKER_03 (48:00):
Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 (48:01):
I can I I've I've been told I can be a little
abrasive, so I'm I'm good.
So now, what's your day like?
You're asking all the funquestions.
So believe it or not, I'm superallergic to the morning time.
Okay.
Uh, so I don't get up early.
Okay.
Um, my kind of power time isafternoon, evening, and late

(48:21):
night.
So I'll stay up.

SPEAKER_03 (48:23):
Um I had a business partner like that.
Yeah.
He only came into the office at10 o'clock and then he would
work till 10 o'clock everynight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't know what it is.
You didn't even want to talk tohim until it was at least noon.

SPEAKER_04 (48:37):
Yeah.
I I don't know what it is.
I don't know if my circadianrhythm is just backwards, but I
thrive like when it's reallylate.

SPEAKER_03 (48:46):
Um whether it's late or it's early, it's the same
thing.
It's like all this other stuffdies down.
All the activities andinterruptions of the day fade
away.
Yeah.
And then you can actually focus.
I mean, that's a problem forpeople today.

SPEAKER_04 (49:01):
Yeah, we've been boxed into this kind of like um
the nine to five, the typicalenterprise life cycle.

SPEAKER_03 (49:08):
Uh and you can't ever focus on anything to get
any long-term project done.
Takes concentrated effort time.

SPEAKER_04 (49:17):
A long time ago, that I was gonna need to
structure my life around um whenI'm most productive.
So, like similar to you know,the person you just mentioned,
like I'm useless in the morning.
Luckily, you guys like said thispodcast at 11.
If it was at nine, I'd be herejust like, you know, what did I
do again?

SPEAKER_03 (49:37):
Um so you like to work later.
So what else?
I mean, do you work seven days aweek?
What do you do?

SPEAKER_04 (49:44):
Yeah, so yeah, I'm working on stopping that.
That is not good.
Yeah.
Seven days you need a break.
I've learned um because I had alittle some some health issues
from just grinding too much.
Um, but yeah, I will I work inbursts.
So one of the things I do totake breaks now, um, I love to
play golf.

(50:04):
Okay.
My son and I play golf now.
Uh, so I'll go play golf.

SPEAKER_03 (50:09):
Get you outside.
Yeah.
Yep.
Get outside.
Walking around, doing somethingdifferent.
Yep.
Beautiful surroundings.
Yep.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (50:17):
Calm, you know, focused on one task.
That's something else that I'mI'm bad at.
I like to focus on multiplethings.
Um, so I'll usually, you know,wake up, work a little bit,
answer emails, have meetings,things like this.
Um, maybe go golf, eat lunchwith someone, like have some
type of dedicated time to dosomething else.

(50:38):
And then I love cigars.
So I'll usually by the afternoonI'm sitting somewhere, whether
it's a shop or on my uh backpatio, uh smoking a cigar and
then working a little bit.
Uh I'll go get my son frompreschool and then my daughter
from school.
And then um, by the time kind ofdinner's set up, things have
calmed down.

(50:58):
I'm usually back in my officepoking around on something until
1 a.m.
God love you.

SPEAKER_03 (51:04):
Yeah that's a different schedule from a lot of
people.

SPEAKER_04 (51:08):
It is.
I um and one thing I'll I'llpass on is like don't be afraid
to figure out a schedule thatworks for you.
That's one thing I've seen likesome of my mentors and some of
the people I've seen be justridiculously successful.
They're doing their thing.
So like when uh Mark Wahlbergtalks about like, oh, I get up

(51:28):
at 2 30 in the morning, yeah.
He just That's what it works forhim.
Yeah, that was his time.

SPEAKER_03 (51:34):
I get up every day, five, sometimes even earlier.
It's the same.
That's pretty early.
That's the way it works for me.
I I go to bed early too.
Yeah.
Okay, that's the thing.
But so how does your wife reactto like your work day?
Uh no, you're asking just likethe most fun question.

(51:54):
So um well, these are thingsthat all of us who own these
businesses kind of figure out.
Yeah, we all struggle with,yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (52:02):
So my wife, absolutely wonderful, um,
extremely supportive, um, likeferociously supportive,
actually.
So for a while, um, she just gotback into the workforce because
she was tired of staying at homewith the kids, but she was a
stay-at-home mom for like sixyears straight.
Um and one of the things thatworked out and then became a

(52:24):
little bit of a superpower is wewere able to split time with the
kids.
So, especially when we had like,you know, babies, um, she would
do mornings.
Um, and then by the time I gotup, we were kind of tag teaming.
And then she would go to bed.
And if I had to do anything lateat night, I could handle it.
So it was really good for that.
Um, the stressors came.

(52:47):
So this year has been good.
Last year and the year before, Idid a ton of travel because
there's not a really goodventure landscape here.
Um, so I was in San Francisco alot, I was in New York a lot,
um, which was stressful.

SPEAKER_03 (53:02):
So yeah, then you leave her with the kids, she
gets absolutely no break.
Yep.
Yeah, it's a lot.
I've done that myself.

SPEAKER_04 (53:10):
It's hard.
So I would um start in arelationship.
It is.
So we I balanced, so I learnedquickly to balance.
Um, so I would bring them withme if I could.
Okay.
Uh, which is a little bit of a auh a hack.
Bring them, hey, we're gonna goon a trip, you know, eat some
good food, do whatever.

SPEAKER_00 (53:29):
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (53:30):
Um go swimming in the hotel pool.
Yeah.
Uh or I would try to like limitthe time that I was gone and
then come back and give her abreak.
Like, hey, go, you know, uh dosomething, hang out.
So if you want to go on a date,we can do that.
We'll get a babysitter, whateveryou want.
So um we made it work, but she'sextremely supportive.

(53:52):
I mean, I like I think I I'mtalking about like all the
things that I did, it's reallyjust her being very gracious and
and lovely and and supportive.

SPEAKER_03 (54:01):
So well, you've demonstrated you know what
you're doing and and had somesuccesses.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's I think that's a bigproblem for a lot of
entrepreneurs, is they're theymay have this crazy, you know,
work uh set up where they'reworking all the time and they're
not making any money at variouspoints of time.

(54:23):
And you know, it's it's kind ofhard to sell that so for very
long, you know.
Once you demonstrate, hey,there's a big pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow.
Maybe, maybe this will work out.
Yeah, then you have a littlemore credibility, then the the
sacrifices along the way mayseem more worth it.

SPEAKER_04 (54:42):
I love that you brought that up because one of
the things I love talking aboutis like failures, right?
So um, you know, my wife wasable to see successes, right?
Sure.
But she also saw a lot offailures.
There were a lot of times whereI'm like, hey, like we're not
gonna have income for sixmonths, or hey, like, you know,
this is real ugly.

(55:02):
All this money I made on anexit, right?
I spent it all building anotherthing.
So um, yeah, there's definitelybeen some tumultuous times.
Um yeah, and like I said, justto her credit, like I didn't do
anything.
She was just extremelysupportive.
She was like, hey, whatever youwant to go for, I'm right there
with you.

(55:23):
So I live her to death for it.
Yeah, she's a great partner.
I think that's indicative oflike how I think about
structuring teams.
Like you gotta have a good team,good support system around you.

SPEAKER_03 (55:34):
So what kind of people do you look for when you
are trying to bring somebody onyour team?
Do you have like a type?

SPEAKER_04 (55:41):
I have some pillars that I look for.
So high agency, so someone whowants to get the job done, um,
iterate, continue, move forward.
Don't need a lot of attention.
Nope.

SPEAKER_03 (55:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (55:53):
Uh like if they're bugging me more than I bug them,
that's usually a good sign.
Right.
Um, and then high integrity.
So again, someone that I cansay, hey, here's the direction,
here's all your tools, go builda highway or carve out a lane
for yourself.

SPEAKER_03 (56:10):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (56:11):
Um and then one of the things that's kind of coming
up recently, um I kind of like amix.
So like um for individualcontributors, so think of like
an engineer or um a designer orsomeone who's specialized in a
particular thing.
I've found like some of theyounger kids that are coming up

(56:36):
in this ecosystem, they'resharp, they're hungry, and
they're they're they'll they'reready to do anything, which is
fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 (56:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (56:44):
For leaders, when I look for in leaders, um, I've
found, and this is kind of likean age-old thing.
I probably would have arguedagainst myself, you know, five
years ago, but older, maybethey've got a family, like
they've had some more experiencesuch that they can pass on the
wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 (57:02):
Yeah, it's funny you're saying that because I've
had the come to the sameconclusion recently.
I either want young people thatare highly motivated and
extremely intelligent.
Maybe they don't know a lot yet,but they are learn fast.
Or I like older people who'vealready done it, they're very
responsible, they're not gonnabe flaky, they know how to get

(57:25):
along with other people.
Okay, they're proven.
The worst thing to me is likethe middle-aged failure.
I mean, I'm trying to say, youknow, it's like I don't want
it's like they're going througha divorce right now, they just
had their car repoed, they got ahard luck story.
Those are the people I don'twant on my team.

(57:45):
They got a million problems.
They're they got problems withother kids or whatever.
They can't focus.
Yeah.
Okay.
They may be a good person, theymay be intelligent, they may be
capable, but they just have somany personal things that are
just like sucking them down.
Mind has to be clear, yeah, forsure.

SPEAKER_04 (58:02):
It's it really is true.
That's something I look for aswell.
The the pattern that I see mostoften will be founders who um
try to go work.
Uh like myself, like, you know,I've been in situations where
I'll go work.
Um, and there's a person, if youdon't have that high agency and
high integrity and you're onlythinking about yourself, if

(58:25):
you're kind of a foundermentality and you try to go work
for someone, you're just gonnause that as like a means to an
end, which is bad.
So um trying to find thosepeople who have that founder
mentality, but again, that highagency, high integrity, such
that, you know, hey, if I'm herefor whatever time I'm here, I'm
gonna give you my all or giveyou a lot.

SPEAKER_03 (58:46):
Exactly.
Yeah.
We've run out of time,unfortunately, but it's really
fun talking with you.
There's so much great to talkabout.
Yeah, it's been great.
I'll have to come back with myco-founder one of these days.
No, that'd be awesome.
And we could talk more about thebusiness.
What um, so tell everybody ifthey do want to reach out to
you, yeah.
What's the best email to use orhow best to reach you?

(59:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (59:09):
Um, so you can do uh LinkedIn.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
My name is Dimitri Love.
Yep.
Yeah.
Uh my handles are all DimitriLove and then bra.
So B-R-A-H at the end.
And then my email, uh, it's justhello at my first name.my last
name.
So Dimitri.love.

SPEAKER_03 (59:29):
Wow, awesome.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, it's been great having youhere.
I look forward to the next time.
And uh until then, much success.
I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
And this has been anotherepisode of Big Talk About Small
Business.

SPEAKER_02 (59:54):
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk
About Small Business.
If you have any questions orideas, Rubik's goals, we should
head over to our website.
W W Wig Talk About SmallBusiness.com.

(01:00:16):
We should head over to ourwebsite, we'll come questions.