Revolutionizing Rent with Andrew Borovsky: Tech, Real Estate, and the Future

What if you could transform the way we handle rent payments and real estate transactions forever? Join us on Nerds on Tech as we sit down with Andrew Borovsky, the mastermind behind Rent App and a veteran product designer with experience at Cash App, Apple, and Adobe. Andrew takes us on a fascinating journey through his distinguished career, sharing the motivations and challenges that have fueled his drive to create products that make a real difference. As we sip on some brews, Andrew opens up about his entrepreneurial journey and the tech insights he's gathered along the way.

In the heart of our discussion, we dissect Rent App, Andrew's latest venture poised to revolutionize the rental payment landscape. Combining his expertise in payment systems and real estate, Andrew unveils how Rent App differentiates itself with features like high transaction limits, autopay, and free credit building. We tackle the hurdles of promoting digital payment methods in a cash-heavy market and explore the strategic approach of offering core services for free while monetizing advanced features. Andrew's transparent and candid reflections provide a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in digitizing rent payments.

Looking beyond Rent App, we delve into the future of real estate technology, including the potential of blockchain to simplify and modernize transactions. Andrew shares his thoughts on building strong teams, the vital role of mentorship, and the transformative power of AI and automation in empowering new entrepreneurs. Wrapping up with a reflection on his business growth and leadership experiences, Andrew emphasizes the importance of transparency, communication, and a united team culture. Don't miss this episode packed with entrepreneurial wisdom, cutting-edge tech insights, and a shared passion for both innovation and great beer. Cheers to staying nerdy!

This Episode's Beer:
Samuel Adams White Ale

Sponsor of this episode:  Digital Boardwalk
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Episode Transcript

Tim Shoop (00:03):
Welcome to Nerds on Tech, where we get nerdy for an
hour with business,entrepreneurial stories and tech
, where tech is a central focusof all our conversations.
Today, we invite Andrew Boroskiinto our studio.
Andrew is a veteran productdesigner and serial entrepreneur
with a track record of buildingimpactful products.

(00:25):
He has held executiveleadership roles at Cash App,
cadre and Square and co-founded8020, which was acquired by
Square.
Before that, andrew was aprincipal designer at Apple and
Adobe.
He has launched Rent App and heis CEO and founder of Visible,
found at visible.

(00:45):
xyz, where he and his team arehelping to build a financial
network for real estate.
Andrew, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Awesome.
So today we're going to coverAndrew's entrepreneurial journey
and get nerdy about what he'sdeveloped.
We'll talk about the future oftech and then go into our rapid

(01:06):
fire round.
As always, nerds on Tap isbrought to you by Digital
Boardwalk that I founded in 2009, providing enterprise grade
managed IT and cybersecurityservices to businesses up to 500
seats across the United States.
And if you are a prior listener, you know we always sample a

(01:27):
flight of beer during the show,but since this one is remote,
I'll be drinking a mug.
Andrew, what do you?
What do you have today?
What are you drinking?

Andrew Borovski (01:36):
I got the best beer.
This, uh, this will tell how tooffer, so I actually never had
a mistress.
All right, estrella Cerveza.
All right, Not the SpanishEstrella, it's the Mexican
Estrella.

Tim Shoop (01:48):
Okay, cool and Edge.
What did you pour in my mug?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcometo Nerds on Tap.
I'm your host, Tim Shue, and Icouldn't be more excited to
embark on this nerdy adventurewith all of you.
So grab your favorite brew,because things are about to get

(02:10):
exciting 3, 2, 1, GO.

Edge (02:17):
Alright.
So today we have Samuel AdamsWhite Ale.
It's a Belgian-inspired wheatbeer brewed with a unique blend
of 10 exotic spices, includingorange peel, coriander and
vanilla, giving it a complex yetsmooth flavor.
The beer features a crisp maltyfinish from a mix of pale

(02:39):
barley wheat and Munich malt,and is coarse-filtered for for a
white hazy appearance.

Tim Shoop (02:46):
Awesome.
Yeah, I've already downed halfof it while I was sitting in the
waiting room as well, andrew,so are you ready?
To kick this dirty adventureoff, let's go All right.
So let's start by talking.
Before we get into currentdevelopments and what you've
been working on, let's talkabout your early career.
Tell me what inspired you tobecome an entrepreneur.

Andrew Borovski (03:13):
I think I have, you know, maybe not super
satisfying but kind of, I think,very common answer, which is
just at some point, you knowyou're building things for other
people and then eventually yourealize that a you could do it
better and be that there's somethings out there you want to see
out there in the world that, um, you know if, if they were to

(03:34):
appear, you have to kind of makethem.
So, yeah, I want, I wanted tobuild stuff I wanted to see in
the world.

Tim Shoop (03:40):
Yeah, that's kind of that's kind of looking back into
the 90s, when I first started.
I remember getting frustratedby all the mandates and being
kind of tied into a box and Iremember someone telling me one
day just go, start your ownthing, Get out there, Be your
own destiny right.
So that's part of it.

(04:01):
Talking about building thingsVisible and Rent app.
Tell me about that.
What inspired you to start that?
Then let's talk about what setsit apart in the market.
What makes it different?

Andrew Borovski (04:22):
Yeah, happy to talk about this all day long.
So my background, you know,last sort of, I'd say, 12 years
or so, right is at theintersection of payments and
real estate.
So I spent, you know, a bunchof time at Square and then a
bunch of time at Cadre, which isa Square, I think, is a
payments company Most peopleknow, for the Square credit card
reader.
We gave the opportunity to, youknow, a lot of small businesses

(04:43):
that were previously only ableto accept cash.
We were able to give them theability to take credit cards,
and so I got to learn all aboutpayments, all about card
networks, all about the bankingsystem in the United States.
I went deeper down this kind ofrabbit hole by joining Cadre,
which is basically atech-enabled real estate private
equity firm, and a lot ofpeople don't know that real

(05:04):
estate is the biggest assetclass in the world, bigger than
the stock market and the bondmarket combined.
And so real estate, you know,from an economic standpoint just
fascinating, huge, massiveasset class that's kind of
mostly opaque, like superprivately owned, you don't
really get.
You know everyone, everyoneloves trading stocks but, like
you, actually can't trade mostof real estate.

(05:25):
So it's really fundamental tothe world economy, and that's
actually why I wanted to kind ofgo deeper down that rabbit hole
, understand what private equitymeans, what real estate private
equity means.
I think I did it in the bestway possible, which is to do it
in New York with guys that workfor these giants like Blackstone

(05:45):
and BlackRock and all the otherB companies, and so basically,
12 years of that, and when youcome out of I mean, I'm a
technologist kind of by heart, Iguess by trade, and so real
estate's really interesting.
It really hasn't changed inlike 50 years.
We have a lot of stuff.
People look at Zillow and theygo, oh wow, like real estate's
very digital and like Zillow isreally just a database right of

(06:05):
available properties.
Fundamentally, though, like, ifyou think about real estate
transactions think about buying,selling, borrowing against your
home, investing in real estateyou know these are really
tedious transactions and no onelikes doing these things right.
That's usually, you know, slow,it's very expensive, it's very

(06:25):
complicated, and so when Istarted the company two years
ago again looking at paymentsand real estate that I love, the
mandate of the company is likehow do we make real estate
transactions faster, cheaper andless complex?
And within sort of thistwo-year period.
You know we've built a bunch oftechnology but we have to pick
when do we start.
Which one of these transactiontypes can we make better?

(06:48):
First we looked at rent.
That's another again rabbithole I went down.
I didn't know much about rentbefore I started.
You look at real estate in theUnited States one of the best
pieces of real estate in theworld, effectively like a global
safe haven, and a third of allreal estate in the United States

(07:09):
is for rent.
It's massive right 43 millionunits and for a lot of Americans
, actually a source of income.
But when you look at thisindividual ownership of real
estate and you look at how rentis collected and paid, it's
staggering that cash is king.
Most rent is still beingcollected in cash.

(07:29):
Checks and money orders areactually close.
Second, and so digital paymentsthat we've all become accustomed
to.
Everyone uses Cash, app andVenmo.
They haven't really caught upto real estate and haven't
really caught up to rent.
Most people don't pay rentusing digital payment methods.
So we built RentApp to addressthis.
We think that RentApp is thebest way to pay and collect rent

(07:52):
and you can think of it as likea hyper vertically integrated
Zelle right, which is that youknow it's very easy to send
money and receive money.
Just an email and phone numberare required.
It's completely free.
But where it starts to setitself apart is it's very high
limits, right, zell.
A lot of times you can't payrent in in one payment.

(08:13):
You have those limits right.
You have to pay like a littlebit of your rent every uh, every
month and so we have very highlimits, um so, up to twenty
thousand dollars pertransactions.
Support for it seems basic, butit's not there in these apps.
Autopay you can pay rent, setit and forget it right.
Every first of the month wemove money from you to your
landlord directly.
And then the one feature thatwe really love is free credit

(08:38):
building.
So if you pay rent usingRentApp, it's like you're paying
a mortgage.
So we will, with yourpermission, report this to the
credit bureaus all three andthen you'll get credit for it.
And you started to kind ofbuild that you know sort of
financial well-being you knowearly in your 20s, whereas you
know most people don't haveaccess to that until like in

(08:58):
their early 30s, right when youstart taking out loans.
So, yeah, that in a nutshell.
I know those a lot, but sowe're zooming in here.

Tim Shoop (09:08):
So how do you?
How are you getting it outthere?
Who is your target?
Is it the renter or is it thelandlord?
Are you going through thelandlords?
Are you getting it out that way?
What are you doing?

Andrew Borovski (09:19):
You know it's a , it's a little bit of both.
We're talking to both and soyou know, most of the time if
you want to switch to digitalpayments in the real estate
space, you have.
You know what's called propertymanagement software and it
tends to be this suite of toolsthat's like akin to Salesforce.
You know, not a pleasantexperience generally for most

(09:42):
homeowners, and you know again,when you go back to most homes
in the United States are ownedby individuals and most of the
landlords in the United Statesown just two or three properties
.
It's like, are you really goingto deal with onboarding onto
Salesforce, right, just to takepayments for three properties?
So people just kind of avoid italtogether.
And so in our case, what we'vedone is actually made it easy

(10:05):
for the renter to loop in theirlandlord.
So, because we support any bankin the US and any address in
the US and no prior integrationis required, a renter can
actually by themselves go to theapp store, download rent app,
send the payment securelythrough the app to their
landlord.
Their landlord basically gets anotification via text or email

(10:26):
and says, hey, andrew's tryingto pay you rent for this address
.
Obviously they're expectingthis, because that's your tenant
and all they have to do is justtype in the routing account
number to accept that payment.
They don't have to downloadanything, they don't have to set
anything up.
So really like unparalleledlevel of low friction, right.
Like landlord doesn't have todo anything, just accept, link a

(10:47):
bank account once all futurepayments go to the same place.
Any other tenants sends youmoney to the same email address
or phone number just goes toyour bank account.
So very, very easy.
And so we have this kind ofmarketing campaign that's really
out there going off to rentersfor the first time.
No property management softwareout there pitches renters so
they're like hey, start buildingcredit with RentApp and then

(11:10):
they onboard the landlords.
And what we find is 95% of alllandlords that receive a RentApp
payment are happy to do it.
They accept it and onboard alltheir other tenants.
It's a little bit of a kind ofan upside down approach to
distribution, but it works.

Tim Shoop (11:26):
So how did the?
So that's interesting.
I have rental properties.
I have several rentalproperties, vacation properties
and things like that and I use aproperty management company in
cause.
They're in other, they're inother.

Andrew Borovski (11:40):
well, they're local to the, to the area, so I
see gotcha, I'm curious aboutwhat the services that they well
, they're local to the area.
Oh, I see Gotcha, I'm curiousabout what the service is Well
they take 30%.

Tim Shoop (11:51):
And that's what I want to address here because
you've got all these differentapps that get you you know where
you can self-manage or co-hostthese properties.
And I'm not a you know, I'm nota rental guru or a you know a
landlord guru.
I just own homes that I like tovisit, that I rent out, and
you're our customer.

(12:11):
Well, that's why I'm gladyou're on the show.
So I guess the reason I saythis is because they do a lot
for me.
They'll run up to the property,check on things for me, they'll
let me know if something's notworking.
They manage the housekeeping,they manage the landscaping,
they manage all these things.
But I get billed for all ofthem, of course, on my monthly

(12:38):
sheet.
I manage all my numbers justinside of a QuickBooks file you
mentioned.
So this brings up a couplequestions how do the fees work
with your product?
And well, let's start there.
Let's start with that question.
I'm going to let you talk, andthen I'll chime in.

Andrew Borovski (12:59):
Yeah, I mean I'll qualify first of all that
we don't go out there like fieldmaintenance requests.
We're very much a paymentslayer, so trying to be purposely
super, super kind of fade intothe background.
We'll take care of the moneymovements.
You can service the propertywhichever way you want, and so
just a disclaimer there.

(13:20):
But the product is completelyfree, and the reason for it is
because when we started buildingthis, we knew that we're
competing with is completelyfree.
And the reason for it isbecause when we started building
this, we knew that we'recompeting with checks and cash,
and a lot of times people don'tswitch to digital and again, I
told you, 80% of the paymentsthat individuals take in this
space are not digital.
It's because of fees on bothsides, right, it's, one of you
is paying the fees.

(13:40):
So we knew we had to architectthe product in such a way where
we could give it away for free,and we do, and so the logical
question is how do you makemoney?
We think that the rightapproach here is to charge for
additional features.
So RentApp is virtually nolimits across the board, totally
free.
You can manage as manyproperties as you want for both

(14:02):
parties.
We introduced, actually, ourfirst paid product today and
it's a value-add product.
It's actually funny.
We're talking today.
We just launched it, awesomeand it's actually.
Oh, did you guys hear that?
Florida Just randomthunderstorms, wow.

Tim Shoop (14:20):
Fun.

Andrew Borovski (14:23):
But yeah.
So the product's called splitpay and basically allows a
tenant, uh, with no involvementfrom the landlord, to split
their uh rent payment into two.
So rather than you know, youget paid twice a month but rent
is doing the first and peoplehate that balloon payment.
It's super stressful.
You got to kind of budgetaround it A lot of the times.
Maybe you don't pick up a shiftand then you can't pay on time

(14:44):
and then you incur a late fee.
So what we do is, for smallfees 20 bucks you can pay rent
in two payments half your renton the first, half your rent on
the 15th.
Your landlord gets paid on timethe full sum right off the bat.
They don't know any better, andthat's a paid feature.
And so just by running a splitpay as an option with a

(15:05):
percentage of our customers youknow, tenants in this case using
it, it keeps the entire servicefree and that's how we
architected it from the groundup.

Tim Shoop (15:15):
Wow, that's, that's amazing.
So you guys are going to launcha win-win?
Yeah, absolutely so.
You'll have new productsrolling out and you'll you'll
have, you know, upgrades andthings that people can buy
within the platform, right,beautiful?

Andrew Borovski (15:29):
Yep, so my previous product, just to really
quickly.
You know it's, it's it's acommon thing, like the thing I
worked on rent app.
Before rent app, I worked oncash app, which is, you know,
well-known product.
Yeah, almost 60 millioncustomers in the U S use it and
you know cash up is free.
You know it provides fantasticvalue for free.
And then what they do is, ifyou're trading Bitcoin, if

(15:50):
you're trading stocks, that'swhere you start to see some
transaction fees come in.
And you know, I think that'sthe right model.
Like provide, you know, massiveutility, baseline utility for
free, get people to use theproduct and then, if they want
more advanced features, youcharge for them and there's no
gotchas, there's no weird stuff.
You're not selling anyone'sdata.
Um, you know there's no,there's no weird stuff.

(16:12):
Like, you're the product, youknow.

Tim Shoop (16:15):
Awesome, yeah, very similar to you.
Know any, any sort of likewe're.
We're built on the backbone ofmanaged it at digital boardwalk
and we roll out new products.
Shoot.
This year alone, we've rolledout three or four new products
and and everything's built on arecurring basis.

(16:35):
So it's predictable for thecustomer, predictable for us.
But when we're rolling outthese new products, a there has
to be a need for it.
So I guess my question is whenyou you know you told me before
renters are your initial clientbase and you're reaching out to

(16:57):
renters, are you expanding onthat?

Andrew Borovski (17:02):
Yeah, yeah.
What we see is you know areally nice trend, which is
essentially you know, we run anInstagram ad about building
credit or being able to splityour rent in two, and the renter
hears about us.
This way, they download the app.
It's relatively cheap to run.
You know, instagram adscompared to like trying to.
You know, when you're sellingSaaS software, it's very

(17:23):
expensive to run ads that aretargeting SaaS customers,
whereas 80% of 25-year-olds inthe US rent.
So basically, if somebody isengaging with Instagram, they
probably are renting.
So very easy to kind of targetfolks and we're basically saying
look, there's some greatfeatures are completely free.
So the renter downloads the app, they send the payment to the

(17:46):
landlord.
The landlord is you know.
Again, I stand by the product.
It's a very elegant userexperience.
It's completely free, with nogotchas, so the landlord likes
it.
I mean, landlords want to go todigital payments.
A renter makes one payment amonth.
Most landlords have to collectfive of them, right?
So they're only too happy todiscover us, and so what happens

(18:07):
is the renter introduces us tothe landlord and then the
landlord introduces us to therest of the renters.
So there's some really nicekind of network effects there.
But we're definitely notstopping there.
We're doing targeted outreachto owners and to that end we,
you know, we basically have oursupport team, support slash
sales team.

(18:27):
We call and email people thatwe know are kind of small owners
.
You know, folks such asyourself, you know that just
have a couple of properties andit's a bit of a hassle for you
or maybe you're paying a lot offees and we do like we just call
them and I actually I get on acall with people myself, you
know, and I do demos because wedemo super well.
I'll probably.
You know it takes like 30seconds to send a rent payment,

(18:47):
so I just do a demo to all theselandlords and one person at a
time.
You know we're we're bringingpeople on on board.
I love this space.
I love when you get to deal notwith you know managers at large
companies, right, that don'treally care one way or another.
You're like they get harassedwith sales calls all day long
and like there's all it's afinancial transaction, and yeah,

(19:12):
everyone's, everyone's, justnot very invested, right.

Tim Shoop (19:31):
Whereas I get to, I get to call and talk to people
that own this real estate.
For them it's like their life'swork.
It's a very rewarding space tobe in.
I love this small businessspace.
Yeah, because you just meet.
I guess you know, taking allthat tech and putting it
together, that's the spaceyou've lived in for quite a
while, right yeah, yeah,especially the long tail.

Andrew Borovski (19:49):
You know, the long tail of individual owners
or individual small businessowners.
It's just a very, you know, um,it's where technology shines
right like owners.
It's just a very, you know,it's where technology shines
right Like it's easy to build.
I mean, everything's hard, butI think it's relatively easy to
build a piece of software and gotry and sell it to somebody
that has whatever, let's say,10,000 employees that are going

(20:11):
to be forced to use it.
Right, like enterprise SaaSsales is kind of just, you go,
you identify the elephants andyou go after them and, as a
result, what you have is it'svery crowded space.
Everyone's out there, you know,basically it's a race to the
bottom on fees, whereas, youknow, I mean, the amazing thing

(20:31):
about America, right, is thatthere's so much small business
ownership and so much realestate ownership, asset
ownership by these individuals,right, this is like kind of like
the backbone of the country andyet no one's really playing in
the space, because people don'tlike it when you have to acquire
customers one at a time, and Ilove it, and I think this is
where technology really shines,because you can put something

(20:53):
out there, you know, again,through Instagram, through
YouTube, and you actually access, like millions of these
customers that are so happy youbuilt something for them, you
know.

Tim Shoop (21:02):
Yeah.
So before I get into my otherquestioning, I want to ask you a
question.
I was on the site, I wasreading a little bit about it
and the way it's.
So you're using blockchainingor you're using technology to
stack on top of the titling, forwhich I'm switching gears here.

(21:22):
I'm going from rent app tovisible.
Tell me, tell me, tell me aboutit, tell me about that product,
before we actually kind of gearback into the early stages of
development for both of thesecompanies.

Andrew Borovski (21:36):
Sure, yeah, I mean, um, let's put a little
Chinese wall between RentApp andVisible, because they're really
, you know, they're twodifferent missions, I would say.
And so you know, rentapp isvery much built on the
traditional fintech rails, whichis effectively the ACH network.

(21:57):
Right, this is how banks talkto each other and so we move
money in a very kind of boring,old but highly reliable way,
right, ach.
But, as I mentioned, when westarted the company two years
ago, we also had our sights seton, okay, like, what's the big
problem we're trying to solve?
Like, think of rent app asbeing almost like a three-year
vision, right, but then it fitsinto being kind of a beachhead

(22:21):
for like more of a 10-yearvision.
And the 10-year vision is justto make real estate ownership
again fast, low cost and veryeasy, right, which it isn't
today.
Right, to buy a house?
Yeah, to buy a house stilltakes you 30 days.
It's not clear why, to buy ahouse, you're still paying.
I not clear why, to buy a house, you're still paying.
I mean, you're gonna end uppaying like two to three percent
in transaction fees to buy ahome, which, by the way, is

(22:43):
massive, right on, like, let'ssay, five hundred thousand
dollars, right like that's.
That's incredible and you know,you know what I'm talking about
.
You go to buy a house.
You're like, okay, I bought ahouse, it's 500k.
And then you, you know, you,you show up on that last day it
closing and you're signing allthese forms.
There's like eight people inthe room that you've never met,
doc fees.

Tim Shoop (23:01):
I remember the first house I bought Fees, fees, fees.
The first house I bought a longtime ago.
I remember I was a young guyand I was going what is this?
And I was so frustrated when Ileft that room.

Andrew Borovski (23:14):
Yeah, totally.
And it's try and ask peoplelike two days before closing,
what are my fees going to be?
And they're like, oh, we'llfigure it out.
That day it's like a big, supersurprise.
You know, like, how much moneydid you set aside for the, for
the completely random numberwe're going to throw at you?
And uh, and it is.
I mean, it's again, it goesback.
It's a, it's a consequence waywe record transactions, which is

(23:42):
, you know, just to get geeky.
For a second right, if you do itthrough your county there's
3,600 counties in the US right,your records are not kept at
municipal level or even statelevel or federal level.
They're kept at county level.
You know Miami-Dade includesMiami and Dade counties, right?
So we'd actually like thecounties bigger than the city of
Miami.

(24:02):
In New York there are multiplecounties because New York is so
big.
Like you know, the divisionlines are super weird, right?
Some counties are fully digital, others are fully analog.
They have different methods forhow you actually submit the
data to them.
They have different timelines.
By the way, you think digitalis fast.

(24:22):
New York is mostly digital.
The delay in recordingtransactions in New York last I
checked was somewhere around 40days.
And then you have ruralcounties rural counties that are
completely analog, wherethey'll record a transaction
same day.
So it's complete chaos, right.
And the heart of being able totransact in real estate is to be

(24:45):
able to verify that the personyou're buying a house from
really owns it and, when you buyit, that now that ownership
record has been updated and nowyou own it, and because the
system is so crazy and I youknow, it's really the best
comparison is like a mainframecomputer from like the 50s,
maybe the 40s, right, we'retalking about like we're reading

(25:05):
paper cards here.
Um, right, that's effectivelywhat you're interfacing with.
Uh, all problems kind of stemfrom it, because when you're
talking about the number of daysit takes to close, it's largely
due to the number of days ittakes to update those records.
And, by the way, the biggestfee you're going to pay is going
to be title insurance.
Why is there title insurance?

(25:26):
Title insurance exists becausethere's a gap between the last
reading we took of the recordsand our ability to update them,
and in those couple of days itcould be minutes, and in those
couple of days it could beminutes, right, could be 40 days
, like in New York.
Things can happen, where newinformation comes up and all of
a sudden, the title is potential.

(25:47):
Now, they rarely happen, whichis why it's such a good business
, but when you're being soldtitle insurance, it's to prevent
bad things from happening.
In the time it takes for thismainframe computer to make a
change to a database, right?
I think now that I've explainedit this way, you can kind of
understand.
Right, like it is insane, right?

(26:08):
This is the number one realestate market on planet earth
and this is how it works, right?
So the reason I'm saying allthis is that there is a
technology change.
Right?
We need to update thetechnology that we use to record
ownership.
Right?
It's like a data.
I mean, I think most of yourlisteners, like, are familiar

(26:29):
with databases right.

Tim Shoop (26:30):
It needs to cross county and state lines.

Andrew Borovski (26:33):
It just needs to be a central database that
you can read and write from inreal time.
Yeah, and when we startedbuilding Visible, one of the
things that we were curiousabout is can the blockchain
actually be that database of thefuture?
And look, I'm a technical guy,I'm not here to hit you crypto

(26:55):
coins.
I'm talking about blockchainpurely as a database technology.
There's some really niceadvantages of it it's
interoperable and it isprogrammable, right?
So, hypothetically speaking,right, you could if and this you
know the federal, this is we'retalking 10 years out If the
federal government created acentralized database or a

(27:19):
decentralized database of realestate records of all ownership
in the United States, it wouldmake everything so much faster,
so much cheaper and so much lesscomplex.
Because if you update records inreal time, you don't need title
insurance, you don't need titlesearches.
I mean, that's at least $100,maybe $1,000 in some cases and
here's what's really interestingyou can actually open up the U

(27:42):
S real estate markets to globalcapital flows.
So, right now, if you're a uh,you know somebody from Europe
and you're trying to buy realestate, we're just invest in
real estate in the United States.
There's like a again a Chinesewall, no pun intended, uh, where
you really can't access thisdata and you need lawyers to do
it, et cetera.
And, theoretically speaking, ifthere was and I'm not here to

(28:06):
pitch you on decentralized orcentralized if there was any
kind of database that wasacceptable, that you can write
APIs on top of that you could dointeresting things with, we
could really unlock a lot ofliquidity in this amazing space
that we're in.
And again, at the end of theday, what it means is you're
empowering the little guy.
The people that have the mostleverage, the people that are
making all the money in realestate, are the people with the

(28:28):
most capital, because what theydo is they abstract away the
counties and they use large sumsof capital to buy buildings
instantly at a really good priceand they sort out the title
issues later.
And I'm talking about all theprivate, the Brookfields, the
Blackstones and the Blackrocksof the world.
The reason they're sosuccessful in real estate is

(28:51):
they abstract away thecomplexity of the US real estate
market, whereas guys like youand me, we can't do it.
We don't have that luxury.
We have to buy title insurancebecause you know something goes
wrong with that one transaction.
You know this is our lifesavings.
So, anyways, Visible is sort oflike we're building some tech
there.
That's quite interesting.
It's sort of like a technicalproof of concept at this stage,

(29:14):
but it's meant to address someof these issues.
That's amazing, wow, sorry it'sa bit of a rant, but this is
such a rattle.

Tim Shoop (29:22):
I love it and I love the thunder in the background.
We're both in Florida, ladiesand gentlemen.

Andrew Borovski (29:28):
Hopefully it adds a little bit of drama to
what I'm saying.

Tim Shoop (29:30):
It did right when you said your punchline, it was
like rah.

Edge (29:34):
The whole screen turns pink.
There you go, yeah it doesactually your background, you
got a little bit of uh, wow.

Tim Shoop (29:41):
So you know everything's moving in that
direction.
I don't know, I used to be inthe military and everything's
backwards.
I mean all the systems thereare just so old school coming
out back into the civilian worldbeing able to develop things
and watching things grow.
And I've watched the evolutionshoot.
I watched the evolution of thePC.
I'm that old, you know.

(30:01):
I remember getting my first PCin the early eighties when no
one had one.

Andrew Borovski (30:06):
And which which branch uh, did you serve it?

Tim Shoop (30:09):
I was in the Navy.

Andrew Borovski (30:11):
Oh, amazing, yeah, I, I'm asking, just my, my
daughter is a 17 and she'slooking to, uh, uh, she's
applying to all the militaryschools she's going to.
We're actually going to go toAnnapolis to go check it out.
Do a tour, probably later later, later next month.

Tim Shoop (30:25):
So I was in the Navy.
I spent time serving on an AirForce base in the Navy and I
thought I thought I was going togo to Denver too.
I thought I was at a resort, soshe might want to look Air.
Force, but I go Navy.

Andrew Borovski (30:40):
We're doing all three.

Tim Shoop (30:41):
Yeah, I was a.
I was a tech in the Navy.
So let's now let's kind oflet's kind of pull back a little
bit.
Let's talk about your.
I love stories about the earlydays.
I've got tons of them, but thisis about you today.
I know when I created my firstbusinesses, over the years I
learned from all the mistakes Imade right, and then I would

(31:04):
make sure I never replicatedthose mistakes.
Tell me about lessons you'velearned from previous ventures,
both successes and failures, andhow they shaped your approach
to building these newapplications.
That's a good question.

Andrew Borovski (31:24):
Fantastic question, no, of course.
Yeah, I mean, I, you know,probably a day doesn't go by
that I don't think about this.
Uh, look, I mean, I think, Ithink you know all of us.
We enter the business world,right?
There's no, unfortunately, youcan't learn business in school,
right, it's just something thatyou have to try.
Whoa, it's something you haveto try.

(31:45):
I was sitting on a patio.
I thought I'd be safe, but Ishould have been probably inside
.
That wouldn't be out there, butyeah, so look, I think our
first business venture is alwaysmaybe skewed by our biases,
right From wherever it is wecome from, right.
So my background is in.
I went to school for productdesign.
I was a designer by trade.

(32:06):
I knew how to create, you know,beautiful experiences,
delightful experiences.
I spent, you know, the first 10years of my career.
I was first at Adobe and then Iwas at Apple, and, you know, in
a very narrow role, like my goalwas just to build the user
experience, and what happens inthose situations is you believe

(32:26):
that that's all that matters.
The thing you're working on isthe most important thing.
Right, and very quickly.
I learned, right, that thereare some great companies out
there, for example, just in thedesign world.
There's companies out therewith amazing user experiences
that failed as businesses and,by the way, we see this all the
time and we have companies thathave terrible user experiences

(32:48):
that then succeed.
And so it's just one piece ofthe puzzle right off the bat.
If you go into business, youhave to understand all of the
verticals that come together tocreate a beautiful product.
A beautiful product is userexperience, yes, but it's also

(33:10):
the technology, it's also thesales team, it's the support
team, it's the whole shebang.
By the way, tony Fidel, the guythat famously invented the iPod
, apple, acquired his company,worked on the original iPhone,
built the Nest thermostatproduct, sold it to Google.

(33:31):
He has a book called Build.
I'm not sure if you guys havecome across it.
It came out three years ago anda lot of what I'm saying
honestly I'm just kind ofquoting him because he just
articulates it so, so well.
Having built products where thewhole widget is just all these
different verticals, I thinkthat was something that is just
definitely a lesson.
If you're a designer, you'vegot to get into engineering and

(33:54):
sales and support.
If you are an engineer, you'vegot to get in the heads of
design, sales and support.
You have to understand all thatand, yeah, you can't win just
by being siloed in one of thoseverticals.

Tim Shoop (34:11):
A lot of people, I think, when they go into
business, they go in becausethey have a passion for building
something right, but they don'tknow.
Either they don't know how torun a business or they don't see
the importance of sales ormarketing.
Keeping your pipeline stackedfull is one of the most
important things you can do in abusiness, because if you have

(34:35):
attrition and you don't have apipeline, you don't have any
money coming in.
And then marketing.
So this question isn't on mylist, but I want to ask you
because marketing is one of myfavorite hats to wear.
Of all the hats I've worn overthe years running businesses,
marketing is the most fun for me.
What is your favorite hat?

(34:59):
Marketing hat, no.
What's your favorite hat inbusiness?

Andrew Borovski (35:03):
Oh, sorry, across the entire spectrum Hat
Sorry, hat.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So, first of all, you know,yeah, sales and marketing is
unbelievably important.
It's my least favorite hat as,like a technologist, and so I
have to force myself everymorning to get into that.
And really I have to forcemyself to love marketing,

(35:26):
because it doesn't matter whatyou build if you can't market it
.
So I just want to say that.
But I think, outside of design,I really love support.
I mentioned customer supportbecause it's just and if you're
on the front lines with yourcustomer, at the end of the day,
right, your marketing, yourengineering, your design,

(35:48):
everything you do is actuallyinformed by the customer, and
the person closest to thecustomer is your support team.
And I actually I mean, I'm notgoing to name names, but there
are some unbelievable leaders intechnology today, like top 10
technology companies, top 10startups.
Right now in Silicon Valley, um, are led by people who got

(36:09):
their start in the support teamand I'm talking like found an ad
on Craigslist for a low levelsupport job for some you know
for, like an Uber, and they, byworking in support, right
answering phones for one year ata company, they had all the

(36:30):
insights that they needed tothen shoot up within the ladder
of that company.
Because they were so informedby what the customer needs, what
the pain points are, theybecame the best engineers, the
best product managers andeventually a lot of these folks.
I'm talking about entering kindof a C-suite right out of
support.
I actually think that's kind ofa life hack for a lot of these
folks.
I'm talking about entering kindof a C-suite right out of
support.
I actually think that's kind ofa life hack for a lot of folks
Like don't think that customersupport is like oh it's a shitty

(36:53):
job that you know.
If nothing else is out there,I'll join support the backdoor
to the C-suite at the bestcompanies in the world is
support.

Tim Shoop (37:02):
There is an art to customer support, an art to it.
I mean, that's hands down anart to it.
So one of my least favoritehats growing businesses over the
years was always HR now, butthat was only because I wasn't
good at it.
Now you know, we, we, uh, wesend people to leadership

(37:26):
classes, we grow leaders insideof our company and I noticed I
went on your website you have ateam around you.
First I want to know well, Iknow when we started it was
tough to maintain a strongcompany culture in our company,
especially in those early years.

(37:47):
Tell me how.
So first of all, tell me howyou met the folks.
Briefly, tell me how you metthe folks, were they friends,
colleagues, and how you balancegrowth with maintaining a strong
culture within the company.

Andrew Borovski (38:06):
Yeah, I'll be honest, this is one of the best
podcasts I've ever been onbecause you answer like super.
You ask super fun questionsthat I love to talk about.

Tim Shoop (38:13):
Good, we're not even into the fun questions yet those
are coming.

Andrew Borovski (38:16):
Okay, cool, cool, I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah, so you know, I like tothink I love people, I invest a
lot in I love people, I invest alot in my relationships with
people.
I'm very direct and vulnerableand honest with people, and the

(38:42):
reason for that is because, Imean, I've always had this
strategy and that strategy hasalways paid off, which is that
you, you know, you invest inrelationships and you have no
idea the dividends that this isgoing to, you know, pay you, you
know, decades later and I foundthis to be incredibly true,
which is to say, when I work atsomebody out of, with somebody
at a company, you know, myfavorite thing to say is like
we're going to work together, asthough we're going to work

(39:03):
together at the next threecompanies.
Right, I think that's reallyimportant.
A lot of people are kind oflike, oh, this is my work group
at this company and I'm going toburn all those bridges.
I'm going to move on to a newcompany and I'm going to.

(39:41):
I knew it 28 when I said, hey,let's build a company together.
We built a company, grew it,sold it, then went our separate
ways, did some other stuff for abit and then, when I wanted to
build a new company, I'm like,guys, let's do this again.
And then my other co-foundersare again folks that I work with
at Cadre, and when I wanted tobuild this company, I'm like,
hey, you two are like the bestpeople I've ever worked with in

(40:03):
in your verticals, like you know, come on board.
So you know, you're alwaysquote unquote building a team
Right, um and and yeah, in fact,from an age perspective, it's
interesting.
I'm in my forties.
I love being in my fortiesbecause I have such a bench
right Like I can, if I'mstarting anything, I just now
have, you know, 25 years worthof incredible people that I

(40:28):
could just stack in every youknow which way, and they're
happy to work with me becauseI've maintained those
relationships and, uh, andthat's at the center of it.
So I always encourage everyoneto just like, invest in your
relationships.
You know the good and the bad,you know, don't, don't burn
bridges and think of, uh, thinkof the people that you meet and
the people that you work with aspeople that you might
potentially work 20, 30, 40years from now, right?

(40:49):
So that's the team right now.
Yeah, it's great because I endup, basically the team I have
right now is the best team I'veever worked with, as it should
be.
No surprises.
It helps on the culture sidebecause you know culture is I
mean first of all, it's a loadedword these days, you know
there's always people talkingabout.

Tim Shoop (41:08):
You're not supposed to have culture.

Andrew Borovski (41:10):
Yeah, it was like at the height of the
corporate, you know, wokemadness that we went through.
You know, during COVID thatbecame like a toxic word.
You know, I'm less radical, Iguess, in that sense, but, um,
you know, I think what it.
What people mean by culture isjust like when you're working

(41:33):
with random folks, right, andyou don't know who you're going
to hire.
You hire new people, youngpeople.
Culture is just a commonlanguage that you can have.
That makes it easier to onboardpeople and have people feel
comfortable in your team veryquickly.
So it's actually, it's entirelya good thing.
It's just, it's like a, it'sjust a fabric of a company,

(41:54):
right.
That makes it easy to onboardnew people.
When you're working with people,you know, for a long time, one
of the benefits you have is youdon't have to invest a lot in
the culture because it's kind ofa given.
So I am very fortunate where,you know, we finish each other's
sentences.
We have a very strong executiveteam, and so culture for us
right now is really, you know,so we're all in our 40s and our

(42:20):
engineering team, which is bothof the company, is all in their
20s, and so now we're like kindof looking back at what it was
like to be in our twenties,things that we thought were
great and like made us workbetter together, and we're
trying to infuse that into thiskind of new generation.
And you know it's, it'slightweight, it's like, you know
it's about being to us, it'slike being direct.

(42:43):
Again, I before honest, direct,vulnerable, not going right to
be, you know going from menteeto mentor, making that
transition over the years?
it's not complicated, you know,it doesn't have to be contrived.
It's like most people just wantto talk to somebody who will
listen, you know, and who willgive them honest feedback, like
like you know, and who will givethem honest feedback, like,

(43:05):
like you know, who has a senseof humor, you know.
Uh, that that's all people kindof want.
You don't need to like invent,I think, beer pong tournaments.
I mean, by the way, I love beerpong tournaments.

Tim Shoop (43:18):
I'm just saying you don't have to you know, that's
that's anti-productive in my, inmy experience Um yeah, it's
funny, you know, one word Ididn't hear you say now this is
a word I kind of live by in myleadership stance is
transparency.
I think a lot of my colleaguesthey like the fact that I'm 100%

(43:40):
transparent.
I want everybody in the companyto have a voice, and I'm sure
you do too.
I think that's importantbecause there's power in numbers
.
We don't know it all, so hirepeople that are smarter than you
and in your case, you're hiringthese younger folks that are on
the edge of the latest trends.
You guys are mentoring them andinstilling leadership qualities

(44:04):
in them, you know, to help you,help them, help you build this
empire.
And and that's you know,transparency.
Someone taught me that oncethey said be transparent, make
sure everybody has a voice, butmake sure they know what you're
thinking.
And that's worked for me.
I've got folks that have beenwith me going on 20 years now

(44:26):
and uh, you know, been beenworking alongside me.

Andrew Borovski (44:30):
So you know I I knew that more, and that's what
I meant by.
That's what I meant by honesty.
You know there should be noreason for you to dress your,
your words up Right, I meanpeople.
You know, if there's, ifthere's things you're struggling
with and that goes back tiesinto vulnerability, there's
things you're struggling withand that goes back into
vulnerability.
There's things you'restruggling with on a personal
level as a CEO, like no reasonnot to share that.
You know, people appreciatethat, people can relate to that.

(44:52):
Everyone struggles withsomething A more technical.
It's interesting Well, it'skind of me throwing it back to
you a little bit.
I do find as you get bigger,right, so transparency and
directness sort of is easier tomanage, let's put it this way
when you're sort of less than 50people, when you get to that

(45:14):
sort of thousand person mark,when you're a couple of hundred
people, frankly, you need toprobably.
There's probably a few caveatsthere.
Square, you know I worked forJack Dorsey and Jack Dorsey
built square on this culture oftransparency or radical
transparency, and you did see,you know it was awesome when we
were 200 people.
When square became like 4000people, there was such thing as

(45:38):
too much transparency.

Tim Shoop (45:41):
So yeah, yeah, I guess you know.
I guess it depends on where youat and where you're at in the
scale of the business too.

Andrew Borovski (45:48):
Totally yeah, so I just want to throw that in
there.

Tim Shoop (45:50):
It's sort of you know , yeah, it sounds like we might
need to do a future Part 2 showand focus on scaling the
importance of private equityrecapitalizations and all those
things and kind of get into that?

Edge (46:03):
I'd love to.
Yeah, lots of thoughts there,man, that gets me excited.
I love talking about that stuff.

Tim Shoop (46:08):
So we're, we're, uh, we're working on a uh, a big
scale project right now.
Um, I'm in the middle of it.
So when we do our next show,I'll be coming out of that, so
we can we can talk more about it.
Um, so we're gonna we got about15 more minutes, we're going to
get into the second segment andthen we're going to go into our

(46:29):
rapid fire round, which goespretty quick.
So let's let's talk about thepredictions for the future of
tech and its impact onentrepreneurship, specifically
through the use of you know,things like we were talking
about blockchain technology.
You cut out the middleman, youspeed up efficiencies, processes

(46:49):
, you lower costs.
Ai the big buzzword on thestreet right now.
We use a lot of AI around herewhere we're automating things
that we couldn't automate before.
So we'll be shifting roles formany workers.
I don't think it will eliminateWell, it is going to eliminate
some roles, but a lot of roleswill shift.

(47:09):
But what types of newbusinesses will we be seeing on
the on the horizon, andrew?

Andrew Borovski (47:17):
what types of businesses do you think such a
such a fun question?
Yeah, these techs are going tospawn.

Tim Shoop (47:22):
I mean, I'm already seeing it, especially in the
cybersecurity world, becausewe're leveraging a lot of
automation with, you know,surface attacks and things like
that scripting and being able toautomate using scripting
technology and things like that.

(47:44):
Tell me what you see,especially from your experience.
What do you think you're goingto see coming up on the horizon?
I mean what I see with you istying your apps into things like
, you know, zillow and all theseother things that are out there
, so we can create a cohesiveway of buying and managing real
estate and renting, like wetalked about before.

Andrew Borovski (48:05):
Yeah'll, maybe, I'll maybe talk more like like
zoom out, uh, quite a bit,because I think it's worth
clarifying, like I think I thinkhopefully this will be helpful
to your listeners in terms ofhow to think about ai
specifically.
Okay, so, um, I think,fundamentally it's just about
acceleration, it's about beingable to do more faster, right,

(48:28):
and it's not that new in someways, because I'll give you an
example, like just from my lifewhen we built our first product.
So I started a company in 2008,and we were building a mobile
phone and we wanted to build ourown mobile operating system in
2008.
What did it mean?
We wanted to build our ownmobile operating system in 2008.

(48:48):
What did it mean it meant in2008,?
Remember all the things that didnot exist.
Aws was not like really a thing.
We had, you know, four Dellservers in our office and we had
to host our own applications,right Like, in the office space.
There was no app store.

(49:09):
So you have to, we have to begand plead with Verizon to
distribute our app, you know,through some Verizon channel,
right?
Or you have to I have to havebusiness development
conversations with operators.
You know God, when's the lasttime you thought of going to,
you know, verizon to ask themfor permission to launch a

(49:32):
service.
Right, it's crazy, but that'snot even that long ago.
I mean, we're talking about,you know, 15 years ago,
effectively, that this was thecase, right?
And so what I'm kind ofalluding to is the fact that if
you had an idea, you know, 15years ago, there were much fewer
off-the-shelf parts that youcould use in order to make it a

(49:56):
reality, right, and so you hadto kind of invest, right,
dollars and people into buildingthis foundation for whatever
product and service you wantedto launch.
Fast forward to where we aretoday an army of one, like one
person, can build, host anddistribute an application on the

(50:17):
app store.
That is unfathomable, amazing15 years ago, right, it was, you
know.
So there's no differencebetween that and when we talk
about AI accelerating things.
It's the same basic thing,right, it's going to be much
easier for you to useoff-the-shelf parts.
I mean, go back to what'sChatGPT great at you can ask it

(50:41):
to create an investorpresentation, then you can ask
it to create all of youroutreach and marketing, and then
you can actually ask it tocreate pieces of code that you
can copy and paste and basicallybuild the app entirely using
ChatGPT and various otherservices that are available to

(51:01):
you.
So my point is we're just againnow before you.
Okay, you could host the app inAWS, but you still have to code
it.
Now you don't have to code itright.
So being able to go from zeroto one has never been easier,
and I think that is thebeautiful thing right about
what's happening here Cuethunder to thunder.

(51:30):
Yeah, um, it has never beenpossible before for somebody
with very little background orno background in marketing, in
you know, fundraising andengineering and design to be,
but with you know, ahead oftheir shoulders, to actually
make their product and realityand that's going to accelerate
and I think that's the reallyinsane thing.
You know, I have this anecdotewhich just summarizes perfectly.
Do you guys remember thatAI-generated photo of the Pope

(51:56):
walking around in a Montclairjacket?
It's like a puffy white jacket.

Edge (52:00):
Do you remember that, Ed?

Andrew Borovski (52:01):
No.

Edge (52:01):
I don't remember that.

Andrew Borovski (52:02):
Pope Francis walking down a.
So it was just when the AIimage generation tools came,
like a year ago, which seemslike forever ago.
And so the guy became it wentthis viral photo because it just
looked really cool.
It was like the poke, but it'slike this puffy down jacket and,
and it looked like somethingyou know you'd see Kanye West

(52:24):
produce, and it looked likesomething you know you'd see
Kanye West produce.
And the guy that created thatimage and created the prompt for
that image was and you know,somebody can fact check me on
this but I believe was a plumberfrom Australia.
Right, and that, to me, is justsuch an iconic moment because

(52:44):
it tells you this guy, who wasplumbing in Australia, right,
like, was in the wrong place atthe wrong job you know to be
producing, you know, puppyjackets and pokes created this
iconic fashion statement,created this jacket that looked
incredibly cool, right, that waslike out there, people
literally thought it was anactual thing you could buy right
From, like, one of the bigfashion houses.

(53:05):
That, to me, summarizes theopportunity just perfectly right
, you're no longer, andincreasingly, you're no longer
going to have to stay in yourlane because, oh, I don't have
this or that ability Right Allof a sudden.
The democratization of likecreation tools, right.
But it also means you have noexcuse, right, like you get.

(53:29):
Oh, you know, I have this greatidea and the only reason it's
not out there is I can't find aguy who code the app.
It's like no, no, you'll beable to do the app You'll be
able to put in the app store.
There'll be no excuse, if youhave a good idea by yourself,
not to make it a reality.

Tim Shoop (53:44):
Well, it's funny because I remember the evolution
, you know, when high speedinternet, you know, started to
become a thing and more and morepeople were adopting it.
It changed everything, you know.
It defeated that divide betweenus and them and everybody, you
know.
So we could, we could crossover, we could get more access
to information more quickly.

(54:05):
You know, in my world itallowed us to go remote, you
know, and that was huge for usas far as efficiency, yesterday
I gave a company wide meetingthrough teams, which we'll talk
about that another day.
You're anti teams.
We promote teams and we wereusing, you know, I use Copilot,

(54:25):
which, again, you were talkingabout an open AI.
You know, chat GPT, which keepshistorical artifacts there.
So what happens if that's awhole other show?
What happens if that getshacked, where Copilot is
eradicating the information?
As soon as you're done, theinformation as soon as you're

(54:48):
done, I was able to tap into allmy data within my ecosystem and
build a slideshow around what Iwas trying to present.
Just by telling it, itliterally pulled within the.
So let's keep moving.
Because we're very short on time, I'm going to go ahead and get
into the last question before weget into our rapid fire round.
And just so you know, rapidfire is just simple, simple
one-liner questions and answers.
So what is your advice?

(55:11):
So for aspiring entrepreneurslooking to break into the tech
industry?
Now, we just talked about it alittle bit.
The tools are out there.
You just got to find the righttools for the right project.
My philosophy find a solutionusing tech, figure out your

(55:33):
audience, who is the audience,and build a strong team to make
it happen.
Once you begin, don't give up,never give up.
I think an entrepreneur has tohave a thick skin.
Give up.
I think an entrepreneur has tohave a thick skin.
I think some people you know, Ithink everyone, has it in them,
but I think, depending on theirsituations you know, wherever

(55:54):
they are at in life or whatever,they may not be able to reach
the finish line where they wantto be.
Tell me about your, your adviceto aspiring entrepreneurs that
might be listening to this show,looking to break into the tech
industry Go.

Andrew Borovski (56:12):
I mean, honestly, I'll just build on
what you said and just add thatfor the precursor to all of
those things you need.
Don't be afraid.
You know, I think people tendto I mean this is kind of
broadly a life thing, right?
People tend to I mean this iskind of broadly a life thing,
right?
Like we tend to think of theseoh, you know, I'm going to cross
roads, I have to make thisbinary decision do this or do

(56:32):
that?
The truth of the matter is andI'm sure this is, I'm sure, like
I'm just guessing, I'm sureyou're if you look back at your
life, this will ring true, likeit sort of doesn't, doesn't
matter what decision you makemake, as long as you make a
decision and you move forward.

Tim Shoop (56:46):
Good answer.

Andrew Borovski (56:49):
You know, all change is kind of good change,
so you know it's not going to beone of those things.
Oh, I decided to start thiscompany and it didn't work out
and I died Like that's not goingto happen.
Things kind of evolve, thingswill pivot, you'll find yourself
in maybe different situations,but they'll all be better.

Tim Shoop (57:11):
But don't build something that you don't want to
consider running for a while,right.

Edge (57:20):
I mean yeah.

Andrew Borovski (57:22):
No, of course, Without a doubt, right, um, I
think it's.
I think it's I'm making anassumption here that people are
passionate but they're afraidand I think, look, if you been a
very inspiring fantastic.

Edge (57:47):
I've enjoyed our conversation so far and so let's
get into.

Tim Shoop (57:52):
I've got five simple rapid fire questions before we
wrap up.
Are you ready?
I am?
Here we go Favorite tech gadget, favorite tech gadget.
Or it doesn't have to be agadget, it could be a tool.

Andrew Borovski (58:12):
Okay, I'm going to sound really like Silicon
Valley here, but I love myeight-sleep mattress.

Tim Shoop (58:17):
All right.
Yeah, all right Most valuablebusiness book.

Andrew Borovski (58:26):
Valuable business book.
You know I don't read businessbooks because I tend to find
them.
I have this kind of a obnoxioustake on it, but I tend to find
them.
It's sort of like readingbiographies, like just because
you read, like you knowChurchill's biography, it
doesn't make you becomeChurchill Right, it's at best
like an artifact.
So I find that they're a poorpredictor of like future

(58:48):
performance.
But I will say, you know, ofthe books in business that I've
read, I've really enjoyedPatrick Lencioni's.
You know the Advantage.
So, on my shelf I love.

Edge (59:00):
I saw him speak in down, where you are Well in.

Tim Shoop (59:01):
Orlando, close, closer to where you are.
Well, in orlando, close closerto where you are, but saw him
speak down there, great, greatpublic yeah, I mean he's funny.

Andrew Borovski (59:10):
No, he's funny, I have.
No, I have no, like I think 100of what he preaches is totally
right and I've lived it and I, I, yeah for me my life-changing
book e-myth by michael ger.

Tim Shoop (59:25):
Have you ever heard of that book?

Andrew Borovski (59:27):
No, I'm writing it down right now.

Tim Shoop (59:28):
It teaches you how to treat any business like a
franchise, even though you'renot planning on franchising it.
So you can systemize everysingle process, Because it's all
about processes and SOPs so youcan scale right.

Andrew Borovski (59:44):
Oh, that's a very interesting approach,
that's cool, I'm telling you.

Tim Shoop (59:48):
I'll bet you you read that book and you're going to
email me going.
Thank you, tim.

Andrew Borovski (59:52):
This that book is on my Kindle right now.

Tim Shoop (59:54):
All right, good, listen to it.
Yeah, um.
Next question Uh oh, this is agood one.
I love this question because Iasked myself this question from
time to time.
What's one piece of adviceyou'd give to your younger self?
Buy real estate.
That's a good one.

(01:00:16):
Mine would have been startbeing smart and get off your ass
.

Andrew Borovski (01:00:23):
I mean, yeah, I guess that's the precursor.
Hard to buy real estate if youdon't get off your ass.

Tim Shoop (01:00:29):
If you could have lunch with any entrepreneur, who
would it be and why?

Andrew Borovski (01:00:36):
Presumably living.

Tim Shoop (01:00:37):
Could be living or dead.
Mine would be probably SteveJobs.
I'm a big Apple fan as well.

Andrew Borovski (01:00:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, what would I talk to
him about?
Um, uh, yeah, you gotta, yougotta good.
Good, I'm trying to think rightnow.
No, you know, I'll reach backinto history, I think, I think I

(01:01:05):
, I think I'll just namesomething like, let's just say,
henry Ford.
I'll be ambitious here and Iwill just tie it to what I
mentioned before.
I mean, talk about buildingstuff without off-the-shelf
parts.
Right, you can build a carcompany like there's well, well,
well kind of documentedknowledge on how to do that.

(01:01:28):
I mean, this guy, you know,invented the modern factory,
like where?
the assembly line would be Imean, how did you how?

Tim Shoop (01:01:37):
did you know, I know.
I know Think about that for aminute and that again, that goes
down to process and consistentdeliverables consistent yeah,
it's very very operational.
Yeah, how do we produce thesame exact product every single
time?

Andrew Borovski (01:01:54):
yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be fascinating
automation because right now,all of us you and I when we do
something today, most of thetime we're copying someone else.
Who the hell did he copy?
Yeah?

Tim Shoop (01:02:04):
exactly so and uh, what's the next big thing in
tech?

Andrew Borovski (01:02:08):
last question next big thing in tech, uh
that's a that's a hard one.
So hey, I don't want to put youon the spot well, no, no, I
think I think the one thing wedon't know and I mean, look,
it's a yeah, I'll give yousomewhat, maybe it's a cliche
answer, because look, I, I thinkwe are the vast majority of
people are underestimatinggrossly, even with all the hype,

(01:02:31):
are underestimating what AItruly means, because the piece
that's going to be reallyinteresting is we're still not
at the point where AI is makingAI, and that's inevitable.
So I think what's going to bereally interesting is this new
crop of products and servicesthat are not conceived by humans
.
That's that.

(01:02:54):
That that's going to be.
I mean, cause I just can'tfathom what that will be.

Tim Shoop (01:02:58):
It's a little scary at the same time.
Right At the same time.

Andrew Borovski (01:03:02):
it's it's going to happen.
What's crazy about it is we allknow it's going to happen.
It's not a, it's going tohappen.
What's crazy about it is we allknow it's going to happen.
It's not science fiction, it'sgoing to happen.

Tim Shoop (01:03:10):
So AI is going to create robotics and AI oh, we've
seen that movie.

Andrew Borovski (01:03:16):
Yeah, I love that movie.
By the way, super pressing youcan watch the first Terminator
movie right now.
You're like they got everythingright.

Tim Shoop (01:03:27):
Most tech movies and this is a whole other show and
actually we did another show onthis but if you look back at
tech movies, all the way back60s, 70s, 80s.
They get a lot of it, right?
I mean, all you got to do iswatch the Jetsons.

Andrew Borovski (01:03:44):
Well, but I'm actually it's funny because
we're at this golden age ofdefense tech right now, or at
least the resurgence of defensetech in the United States, a
space that I absolutely love.
So you look at a company likeAnduril, right, that's that's
you know building thesecompletely insane kind of future
autonomous weapons, and I meanthey literally look like

(01:04:09):
something out of terminator and,yeah, it's crazy.
I mean it's crazy that that allthis stuff is actually
happening.
I I wonder where we're gonnaend up.

Tim Shoop (01:04:13):
We have we have the privilege of having.
I don't know if you've everheard of uh, ihmc um, their
robotics company.
They're actually located herein pensacola, florida, and if
you ever, if you ever come upthis way, Andrew, I'll get I'll
get you a tour of the facility,and my son actually just went
through the robotics.
Oh, they're building somefrigging amazing, amazing

(01:04:36):
robotics.
So I want to thank you forbeing on the show.
Um, it's, it's been my pleasureto have you on today and I'm
I'm glad we got got the glitchesworked out ahead of time.
Let's take the last minute uh,tell our audience uh about, uh,
just to remind them about yourcurrent projects and any, any

(01:04:58):
promos you have going on withinthose products or anything you
want to want to promote rightnow.
Go.

Edge (01:05:04):
And also where to find you at, too.
Oh, and where to find you too.
Oh, and where to find you, yeahuh, find me physically?

Andrew Borovski (01:05:10):
um, no, no, so, so, yeah, so, so, uh, the
product name is rent app veryeasy.
Um, the url is very easy.
It's rentapp.
Um, and, uh, very easy to getstarted there and kind of learn
more about it.
Um, look, if you're renting,check it out.
We help you build creditcompletely free.
It's super convenient to use.

(01:05:31):
You can use the website or youcan use Android app or iOS app,
and we think your landlord isgoing to love it as well.
And if you're a landlord, ifyou're collecting rent I mean
Airbnbs, you're renting out aunit downstairs.
We have a little smallportfolio down the street.
Like, check us out.
It's a free, super easy, veryconvenient way to collect rent.

(01:05:53):
I think again, I thinkeveryone's going to love it,
whoever tries it.
And yeah, look, I'm based inMiami with my co-founder and
then the rest of the team isbased in New York.
So hit me up.
I'm Andrew@ rentapp.
Very easy, I'd love to.
I always love to talk to people, kind of learn what problems we

(01:06:16):
can potentially solve for them,and I love to meet people in
person for a coffee.
So if you're in Miami and youwant to talk tech, andrew at
rentapp, try our product.
Thanks for listening.
You want to talk Andrew@rentapp, try our product.
Thanks for listening.

Tim Shoop (01:06:27):
Awesome.
So again, thanks, Andrew.
I want to thank you for comingon the show.
Stay tuned, folks.
Our next guest was a risingstar in Hollywood the same time
I was out there before shebecame an acting coach for new
rising stars.
It's going to be a good one.
Thanks again for joining us andremember, stay nerdy cheers, my

(01:06:51):
fellow nerds and beer lovers.
Stay tuned for more nerds ontap.
Oh, and one more thing help usspread the nerdy love and the
love for grape brews by sharingthis podcast with your friends,
colleagues and fellow beerenthusiasts.
Let's build a community thatembraces curiosity, innovation

(01:07:15):
and the enjoyment of a cold one.