October 8, 2024 • 53 mins
In this episode of The Intern Whisperer Podcast, we chat with Adam Ben-Evi, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Spot Fitness, an innovative app designed to bring all fitness activities into one place. Adam’s entrepreneurial journey began at the young age of 21, launching his first company, and has since evolved into launching and selling over 20 businesses across various industries. From producing weddings to helping build his family’s brand, Adam has always been determined to create meaningful impact.
We dive into how Spot Fitness is revolutionizing the fitness app world, creating a platform where users can find over 30 fitness activities and connect with others to make fitness a social experience. Adam shares his vision for the future, including the potential for AI and robots to help shape the way we work and live. He also opens up about his personal mission: to help people live healthier, happier lives through accessible fitness solutions. Tune in for a conversation about entrepreneurship, community building, and the future of work in 2030!
We hope you enjoy this week's episode of The Intern Whisperer. The Intern Whisperer Podcast is brought to you by Employers 4 Change - Increasing diversity through #Skills based #DiversityEquityInclusion #recruitment and #management for #interns and #employees alike. Apply today to be an #Employer4Change that invests in #intern #talent and #employees. Want a break? Play Intern Pursuit Game on Steam. Thank you to our sponsor Cat 5 Studios.
Podbean: https://internwhisperer.podbean.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8c_T19-pyfghVuAEbOMmHg
Follow us on our social channels
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/employers4change
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/employers4change
Twitter: https://twitter.com/employer4change
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/employers4change
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome to The Intern Whisperer.
This show is all about the future of workand innovation.
So my name's Isabella, and I am the hostof The Intern Whisperer podcast,
which is brought to you by Employers4 Change, helping hiring teams reduce
employer hiring bias and increasecompetency skill recruitment and learning.
Today's guestis someone I've known for a bit.
His name is Adam Ben-Evi.
(00:31):
He is the CEO of Spot,a social fitness app
that promotes helping people leadhealthier and active lifestyles.
He is passionateabout giving back to the community
and has been mentoring entrepreneursfor the past ten years.
I've known him for a while and you'regoing to get to learn more about him.
So Adam, I always kicked off my showwith asking guests what are five words
(00:53):
that describe you and why those five words,my listeners know that I also prompt.
So it's okay. No worries.
You said the first one is Positive.
Why Positive?
Yeah, you gotta,you got to be positive every day.
First of all, I would say thank youfor having me Izabella,
You’re great. Yes.
You got to be positiveevery day, you know?
You know,some people like to focus on the problem,
and I just try to focus on the solutionand just being positive,
(01:15):
waking up every day
and don't let the outside problemscome in and affect that.
And I just try to be positive to my wifeand kids.
Positive to the company, right?
Positive to people around me.
And that's kind of the way I live.
You know,it takes a lot for me to get down.
And I don't know,I just, it's a trait that I have, I guess.
I think that's a great one to have.
(01:37):
And a lot of times people get frustratedand they get distracted by the problem.
So if you take a deep breath, I'm sureyou do and go, okay, well, what can we do?
And then stay in that place.
Yeah, absolutely. Attitudes change.
Sometimes I see people like on my teamget so frustrated on something
and I laugh inside because it's really,if you just, if you're outside looking in
(01:59):
and, and you realizethat you can tackle anything, you know?
Yeah.
Totally. Determined.
Why did you say determined?
Yeah, I'm determined to -
to do something and make some change, right?And make something of my life.
I've been driven since I was young.
I mean, I'mnot a made man, and I've just been
(02:19):
just been hustling, I guess, my whole lifeand determined
to make something for myself,my family and kids.
People around me right in the community.
So I'm not going to stop.
I've had failures.
I've had successes,but it's really, I’m just determined to
to get to my goals of where I want to be.
Failure is about learning, right?
So yeah, that's one of the best thingsthat we can take away from that.
(02:42):
Is that ‘What did I learn from this?’, right?
It's not a bad thing. Yeah.
But it’s so sad that we always thinkfailure is a bad word.
It should beone of the most liberating words we have.
I think.Yeah, failures are great.
Yeah, definitely.
So, Caring. That I think is
the word that I would have pickedto describe who you are the most.
Yeah,I care a lot of the people around me
(03:05):
care about the community.
I mean, as a young age,
I remember my - my dad used to take me to gofeed the homeless.
We'd go feed the homeless, we'd go out,
take them to like,McDonald's, Burger King even sometimes.
And I used to do thatwith him on the weekends.
And it's important to give back,give back to the community.
And because they'rethe ones are going to take over.
(03:26):
Right?
They're the ones I'mgoing to take forward,
especially the - the - the younger generationthat's coming up.
Right?
So that's why I have mentored, mentoringfor many years as community coach.
And, and it's really about -Startup Weekend.
I know,I know you and I run in the same circles.
So I'm going, ‘You're not just UCF.
You're way more than that.’
Yeah I love,I love giving back so, 1 Million Cups.
(03:49):
I've seen you there.
I've seen you at all of the eventsthat we go to that are focused on
entrepreneurship, start-
Innovator Orlando events.
Just, you've been to our,I think even in some of the
Game Jam events that Orlando does.Yep.
Yeah, you're everywhere so,
You learn more
honestly from, from these grown studentsthat are come - up and coming.
I feel like I learn moresometimes from people in mentoring. Mhm.
(04:11):
So it's a two way street there.
It is.
That's called peer and reverse mentoring.
And yeah.
Because we learnnot just from older and younger,
but across your industries,across generations.
As we just said a minute ago,
ethnicities, races, we always can learn,We can learn from little animals
too right? Your pets.Absolutely.
(04:31):
So wow, like, how to love people.
I think that's whatI take the best from an animal. Yep.
It's like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm happy to see you.’,when they walk in the door right.
Except for cats. I can't.
I don't like cats either.
Cats?
Cats rarely will run to a human unless
Dog person for sure.Oh, me too. Me too. Yeah.
Caring.
(04:52):
Well, we just talked about that one.
I wanted to ask you something elseabout feeding the homeless.
That's something that, you know,my family has done too.
I think that the thingthat's important to remember
is that we may not be able to change
what they're experiencing currently,
but we can do something to help them haveone day
(05:13):
that is like, where it might be a hot meal,which they may not have.
It may not be bananas all the time.
So it's something different. Right.
And I think that's the biggest takeawaybecause that one thing
can create big impact,which was one of your other words.
Impact. Yeah.
And I think that comes a lot from my dad.
Like I said, from the age of ten toI would say 13,
(05:37):
we would go on the weekendsDowntown Orlando,
you know, talk to the homeless,go take them to whether,
I remember one time we asked, ‘Hey,are you hungry?’ of this homeless veteran.
And he's like, ‘No,I just want a pack of cigarettes.’
and then I went take him to buya pack of cigarettes.
It's just about,you know, having that conversation
going through and sitting downand eating dinner with the homeless community.
(06:00):
And I learned a lot from thatas a young kid.
And, and, and I take it to them.
I mean, give, you know, try to give backwhat I can give back
to the students that are mentoringwith start ups or whatnot.
I'd say a lot of that is for my dad.
Yeah, that's really, really nice.
(06:20):
I'm going to circle backto Community Builder because let's - let's
go through some of the organizationsthat you've been a part of.
Yeah, I mentored as a community coachwith UCF, helped out
Startup Week in Orlando,Orlando Techzine,
I mentored,you know, a lot of students over the years
with their start ups or projectsor products, physical products.
(06:43):
Did you go to UCLA?No, I actually went to Valencia.
Oh, nice. This campus, East? Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, very nice. Little shout out for Valencia.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
I came to this campus and, um.
Yeah, and just really other things.
I mean,
just working with a bunch of college
(07:04):
students or entrepreneursacross the board, you know, help them out.
Also with
1 Million Cups, so to speak.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's a lot of impact right there too.
Just, just so people know,
those are all organizationsthat focus on entrepreneurship.
So let's talk about your personal story.
Since you said you went to school here.Yeah.
(07:26):
What did you focus on when you were hereand then how did it help
to launch your career?
Because when I met you,it was several years back.
I want to say maybe, I don't know.
I was somewhere between seven and nine,probably nine.
And you were wanting to,you wanted to have help.
And the hope was I was going to be hiredto help you write a business plan.
(07:46):
And it was all about something for,I believe, veterans out at UCF.
Yeah, it was for veterans.
We were trying to work.
We had a piece of land out byUCF to build a community out there.
So we're going to build like a tiny homecommunity.
Yeah, I remember.
And we actually talked to the city
and it wasn't really going to workfor that plot of land that we had.
So that's whywe never really went forward with it.
(08:09):
But,my, my back story is
I used to do theater a lot as a kid, Really?
Yeah.
And acted and did short filmsand film projects with my friends.
That's where I met one of my co-founders.
We actually did theater together at theJCC in Maitland from the age of like 11.
That's why I knew that - my co-founder
(08:29):
and we actually started a film festival for high school.
Really?
Yeah, We had the JCC Teen Film Festival.
It ran for three years.
Me and that co-founder startedthat together.
Who was that?
Yoni Osteen.
I do not know this person. Yeah.
So me and Yoni started the JCCTeen Film Festival
and it ran for three years,and we would get a lot of submissions
from the different high schoolersand then we would,
(08:52):
you know, give awardsbased on the different categories. And
when I
when I got out of high school,I started going to Valencia at night
and I was working then in the dayand trying to help my mom out quite a bit.
And so it was tough.
And I was workingactually for a phone room and doing sales
in a phone room, and I said, ‘Hey,I feel like I can do this myself.’
(09:17):
And so I took a small loan outand I went and started
my own phone roomin the financial services space.
And, and then I saw the industrywhen it needed to be in change.
So I actually
went to my business partner at the timeand we launched a website
to help publicly traded companiesand stockbrokers and investors connect
(09:41):
through this platform.
It's kind of like a social media platform
for publicly traded companies,so to speak.
So I launched that at the age of 21
and, and then three years, four yearsafter that, we sold it.
And that was right when the market crashed.
So if we would have
sold it before that, probably madea lot more money on the sale.
(10:01):
But we kind of saw the way that thingswere changing
with legislationand everything going on during 2008-2009.
And so that's why I got out
and I took some time offto try to figure out what I wanted to do.
I had a production companythat we did a lot of weddings
and videos and stuff like that,but it was kind of running itself.
(10:22):
And then I got involved with my familyin the as seen on TV space.
They owned two retail stores.
So we expanded those stores.
We opened a franchise with our own brand,and then we started
manufacturing our own products.
So it was great to be able to createour own products, manufacture those
and then start selling themin retail stores across the country,
(10:46):
physical products from kitchenware,
housewares, gardening products,
you know, blenders,
all different types of physical productsthat we created and sold.
You created them.
So you were in manufacturing, distributionand then. Yep.
Yeah,and then obviously the sales side of it.
Yeah, we,we worked with the manufacturers overseas.
(11:08):
We would create
them, we'd come up with the design,we'd come up with the commercials,
we shot all the commercials for them,all different types of houseware products,
to even health and beauty products.
And so that was, that was greatbecause that lasted,
we were running the As Seen On TVproducts in the space from 2010 to 2020.
(11:31):
And we just started
seeing what was happening in the industrywith Amazon coming in.
On Amazon they were selling a lot of knockoffsand fakes.
People were making fake products of ours,
and we slowly startedgetting out of the retail side of it.
And thank God, because when COVID hitall the retail stores closed.
You know, in the summer of COVID,a lot of the malls were closed,
(11:53):
a lot of the stores were closed,and distribution was very hard
because it's hardto get goods in to the U.S.
And so our last Christmas,
because it's the biggest shoppingtime of the year, was 2020
it was that Christmas where we got outof all the retail stores.
We sold all of them off, sold all the products offand completely got out of that business.
(12:14):
Then at the time iswhen I got approached by my co-founder,
the one I started the film festivalwith regarding this app called Spot.
And you know,
he was always looking for people to goplay tennis with because he had a newborn
and him and his wife,he would play tennis all the time.
And now that they have a newborn,they can’t go play tennis together.
(12:38):
Same situation
with me I was always looking for thingsto do in my area with my wife and kids, and
we would look for like a local park.
But if you ever go on
like the government websites,if you ever go on your city websites,
they're horrible.
They don't tell you what there is actuallyto do in your community around you.
And so this is a real problem that eachone of my co-founders were faced with
(13:01):
some of - our other co-founder.
They were using WhatsAppto coordinate their football league,
and another co-founder was looking fora place to go kayaking on a Google Maps.
It took him to a retentionpond behind a Walmart.
Oh, no, oh my God.Yes.
So we saw this as the first.We're like, ‘This,
this is really a problem
(13:22):
that everyone's faced with isfinding things to do in the community.’
But not only that, finding those eventsand activities to go meet other people
and meeting those peopleto do them on your skill level,
it's reallywhere Spot came out of.
So who did you seeas your competitors for this?
Yeah,so, there's a lot of different competitors,
but they're not doing it right.
(13:42):
I mean, there's,there's a lot of apps on the marketplace.
Yeah.
That focus only on one or two sportsand most average
people will do at least6 to 8 different sports activities, right?
So there is a enthusiast app for,
let's say,running or pickleball or basketball,
but most people will try pickleballand they'll also play basketball
(14:06):
and they'll also go running,and also be into fishing and yoga.
So there's not onestop shop for everything.
There's not an app that helps you do alldifferent types of sports and activities
and helps you find those locations,find those events
and to meet new people,and so people talk about
Classpass, for example, a lot of Classpassis more about indoor sports.
(14:30):
Yep. And, and focusing on paying -
it focuses on the user side.
It’s not really focusing on meet - the meet up part of it,
Meetup’s another one but Meetupdoesn't focus on fitness activities.
It focuses on everything, right? And
they're just launching - Meetup
is just launching that componentwhere people can meet other people.
They just started that,
(14:52):
you know, people use Google Maps to findthings near them, but it's kind of broken.
People use Facebook events.
Again, if you want to plan a
Well and you may not be on Facebookright? Yeah.
But if you want to plan a pick up gamebasketball and create a Facebook event,
you know, from our focus group,somebody told us
they tried using Facebook eventsand then 40 people showed up
and they don't need 40 people for thethe basketball game.
(15:14):
Right. You only need ten. Right.
So those things are not built,but people are trying to hack it
and trying to use these thingslike WhatsApp and Facebook and Meetup and,
and so we are the onestop shop when it comes
to physical activitiesand getting people active.
If that make sense. Yeah.
So I remember that you won
an opportunityto pitch at The Startup World Cup.
(15:37):
Yeah.That's a big deal because I think that I had heard, I know I applied,
but I did not know how far advancedeverybody was that went up on that stage.
And it's a big deal. Yeah.
To have won that spot. I don't -
how did that feel?
And let's talkabout what Startup World Cup is because
I think this is the first yearI ever heard of it.
(15:59):
Yeah, this is the first yearit's actually in Orlando.
It's usually Miami
from what I understand, they select 50 to 75different cities around the world
and then they select the topten companies in that region
or that areathat will go for the World Cup.
Then they select the top,the number one of that city,
(16:20):
and then those companiesgo compete on the world stage.
For a million dollars.
Yeah, Yeah. So it was great.
It was an honor to be selectedas a top ten in this region
from Bay to Tampa to Daytona.
Think a lot to do with our advisorsand the people that are our team really
have been pushing us forward.
Early on.
We, we knew this app
(16:42):
is going to take a lot of money downthe road, you know, to go nationwide. Yeah.
And so we started off by making sure
we had the right founders in place
to cover our burn rate and to make surewe had ninjas in every domain.
Right, the key domain experts.
So a lot of people were giving us advice
to not start off a startupwith five founders.
(17:04):
But me coming from other companiesthat I started with by myself
or with one founder,I knew I wanted to have a lot of help,
and I knew that I wanted to be ableright out the gate to have someone that’s an expert
in marketing,an expert in product, an expert in sales.
Right?
So our five foundersare those different experts,
(17:25):
and that was the waywe were able to keep our burn rate
so low in the early daysbefore we raised any money.
Mm hmm.
And, and because we had such a strong team,
it was easier for us to goget amazing advisors to join us.
Like Professor Christakis
from Yale or Jeff Hoffman from Pricelineand things like that.
(17:45):
So though,because when you are able to bring in a strong
team, it's easier to goget advisors to join you and investors
only because really the number one thingthat drives startups is the team.
Oh God, yeah. In the early days. Yeah.
And having somebody
that's a technical co-founder, I'mgoing to guess you were the finance one.
Yeah,I was more of the sales and my expertise
(18:06):
in building up companiesfrom 0 to $10 million.
That's really what my expertiseis, really starting companies up. And
then my co-founders bought a technical one
and then my other founderis more of the marketing.
So we have five founders total.
We've been togethersince the beginning and
How long is that?
(18:27):
We started in I want to say April 2021.
MM hmm.
Yeah,we did a lot of research into the problem.
Starting in 2020.
We spent about six months just reallyunderstanding the problem. Understand.
Originally we wanted to go as a dating app
and through our focus groupsand through the surveys and talking,
(18:48):
a lot of people told us,
‘Hey, the moment you make it a dating app,it's going to cut off a bunch of people.’
And a lot of womentold us this in the surveys.
‘You know, Facebook,Instagram is not a dating app,
but people use those platformsto try to date people message you
right on Facebook and Instagram saying,“Hey, would you like to go get coffee?”’
And so they said, ‘Ifthere is a messaging element in the app,
(19:10):
people will use it to date.
But then if you call it a dating app,
you're going to turn offa lot of people from using it.’
So that's why we moved awayfrom the dating aspect of it early on.
That's good feedback too.
Wow, really interesting because I've seenpeople be asked out on LinkedIn,
like I've had people say, ‘Oh,you have such beautiful smile,’ I go, ‘Oh please.’,
(19:31):
Reject, leave.
You know, that's not what LinkedIn is for.
Yeah, but people use it for that.
Yeah they do. Yeah.
So what is the next step
for your company and Spot fitness
since you know, you didn't get in therebut you guys seem to be.
It's a beautiful website.It's a beautiful app.
(19:52):
It looks great.
I haven't downloaded it yet.
Full disclosure. I'm going to.
You definitely should. Yeah.
And tell us how people can find it.
And then also, if there's a cost,
what is it? Yes.
So the app is 100% free for users.
You can find iton the Apple or the Google Play store.
You can go to the websitespotfitness.app and those two links
(20:15):
are there for you to download it,and it's 100% free for the users.
We make money off of the businesses.
Businesses want to promote their locationsor their exclusive deals,
or if they want to promote through some ofour services that we have, they can.
And then it's a great wayfor you to find things to do near
you based on the activity you select.
There's over 30 different sports andactivities for people to find near them,
(20:39):
with over 3000 locations in the area
in our launch areas from Daytona Beachto Volusia to Hillsborough, Tampa area.
So we're across the whole I-4 corridor.
Wow. And that's really interestingbecause,
you know, you're stillwhat we would still call infancy, right.
You know, as a startup.
But you're making money and you've got,you know, users
(21:03):
I don't know how many users you have,but it's I'm sure,
you know, to have that type of a reach,you got to have some type of
numbers or.
Yes. Or active userbase is a little bit over five 6000.
No, that's good.
And really we focused the first, the
(21:23):
- the initial VCs and investorswe spoke to said the hard
part of the two sided networkis the B to C side, the user side.
And so we really focused on tryingto figure out the metrics
on the user side,and that's what we did in 2023,
which is really figuring out how to lower our cost
(21:44):
per acquisition per userand build on the retention metrics.
And we did that in 2023 and once we hit
the two KPIs we're looking for, then in2024 we shifted focus now on the B2B side,
which is really now focusing on revenuemonetization, which is what
is really going to fuel our growth.
So really we hit those metrics early onand then we shifted to now
(22:07):
focus on the B2B side.
I like that.
And just while you were talking,just so our listeners know, my listeners,
I actually just went to Spot FitnessApp, pulled it right up
right away and downloaded itand you know, and I have it now.
So yeah, I did it while we were talking.Awesome, thank you.
So you have another number on there,right? That’s great.
Yeah. Okay.
So I have a couple of other deeperdive questions, one’s
(22:30):
a deeper dive.
When you are looking back on your lifenow, just where you are now,
because there's this only this placewhere you are at this point,
you know, ten years from nowyou'll have a different answer.
What do you thinkis something that you've done that
you're proud ofand hope makes an impact on the world?
As I'm sitting here thinking, it'sgoing to definitely be focused on
(22:52):
helping people get healthier for -.
Absolutely.
I would love Spot to be that platformto help people get active
and to be healthier,
and justthe adoption of it woul- will really change.
People are addicted to their phones.
I think the number is
one in four adults are consideredphysically inactive.
(23:12):
Oh yeah.
And it's like 76% or 80%doesn't even do the minimum guidelines
of the CDC, which is an hourand a half of activity a week. Mhm.
And so really we're going to see that
over time get worse with the technology.
Yeah.
It makes us so,
People will have robots in their house. sedentary.
(23:33):
Yeah, exactly.
With robots in your house, you'renot going to have to get off the couch.
Everything gets delivered to younow, right?
With DoorDash.
And UberEats,you don't even have to leave the house.
And so we want to be able to disruptthat and change
and build good habits for people.
But not only that, I feel likeif I left tomorrow, I feel like
(23:54):
people, especially
my inner circle, my kids, my nieces,my nephews, my god-daughter, right.
I feel like that's who I really wishwould feel that impact.
And they remember me for all the helpI do for them.
I try to do for them, right?
Yeah.
Well, hopefully they have the app,they use the app Yeah.
and they become part of your evangelismto others.
(24:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Early - the early adopters, right?
Yeah, early adopters.
We always need lots of those.
All right.
What is your favorite cartoon, movieor game about the future?
Because this lends us to go into whatthe second half of the show is all about.
So what is yours and why?
(24:36):
Yeah, I,
thought about this.
There's a couple different ones, right?
I love thiskid - the action movie Demolition Man
Back to The Future is a great one.
There's,there's a couple that touch on the future.
I always love seeing as a kid what peoplethought the technology would be.
Yeah. In the future. Right. And then,
(24:59):
and then when you're there nowand you're like, ‘That never happened.’
Like Back to The Future time travel or not.
But it's cool to see what people thinkthe future will be
and the technology that will be there
in movies
in the eighties, in the seventies
(25:19):
and the nineties even,
It's cool to look back at that.
So I had a couple different favorite,
You know, I didn't really watchhonestly much cartoons as a kid.
Okay.
So you know what came out on Hulu?
It's on Hulu is The Jetsons. Yeah.
And so I started watching thatand I binged on it
(25:40):
and it was actually created well,it launched in 1964.
And I went ‘They had flying cars.’
They were seeing flying carsin The Jetsons.
And that was not a cartoon.
What also dawned on me,this is not a cartoon for kids.
This was really supposed to be something
for more of adults,is what I came to realize,
(26:00):
because kids could watch itand they would love it.
But the conversationsthere was a teenage daughter.
There was a, you know, a little boy,and he was doing his homework
and he would do his homework withall types of technology that we have now.
They talked about virtual reality.
They talk about augmented reality.
They were talking about,of course, cars that can fly and robots.
(26:21):
And they had all of this stuff.
And I went, ‘This is amazing that somebodywas thinking of this back at that time.’
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And there's a lot of cartoons
that you think they're for kidsand then you watch it as an adult.
You're like, ‘This is not for kids at all.’
So what is Demolition Man? I've not seen it.
That sounds like an adult.It's a, it’s an adult movie.
I remember seeing it as a kidand I probably shouldn’t be watching it as a kid
(26:42):
it was Wesley Snipes. Oh, yeah.
And it's like an action movie.
But I remember seeing, like,they like froze,
he was like a convict.
And they, like, come back into the future.
I rememberthat was good because it was like
showing the technology in the futurewith the cars and the self-driving cars
and those cars in the moviekind of look like Teslas, it was cool. Really?
(27:05):
Yeah.
When do you think it came out?
I think came in like, late 1991.
Let me look while we're talking here.Yeah.
Demolition Man.
Yeah, yeah.1993.
And then like that, there's, like,a food problem.
There's a food shortage in the movie.
And the like,
the high class establishedrestaurant was Taco Bell
(27:26):
because,Taco Bell could be like this. Oh my God.
Taco Bell could, like,stay ahead with the food costs, I think.
Well, It's cool.
it's - it'svery low cost ingredients, right?
Beans? Yeah.
Yeah.
And another movie I loved as a kid forthe future was Fifth Element.
Oh, that was a good movie.
That was a great one.
You know, Chris Rock or Chris Tucker?
(27:47):
I think it is Chris Tucker and,
Didn't it have a - Bruce Willis.Bruce Willis.
Yeah, I know. Fifth Element.
And that was the girl with the wigthat had the orange hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was she a robot?
I don't remember this movieNo no, just uh, a future
sentient thing. So, yeah,
the Fifth Element was a great movieto in the technology.
(28:07):
Like they put,like the little food into the microwave
and then they turn it on and then itexpands the food and it creates a pizza.
Oh, Yeah those are great movies.
So much fun.
And then you mentioned Back to The Future.
So what did you like about that one?
Yeah, I had a friend in middle school
and high school that loved the Backto The Future projects in the movies,
and he memorized themline by line, and um,
(28:31):
They're great.
How they all work together.
All three movies. How they all intertwine with each other.Yeah, the series.
I don't think they can make a fourth one.
I think if they make four of them it'sgoing to mess it up.
But I think they have - are all interconnected
within those moviesand how they go together.
Mhm. Awesome.
Yeah.
They obviously can't because,
Marty McFly. No, no, sorry.Yeah.
(28:53):
Main character. Michael J. Fox and -
Michael J. Fox is not able to do that.Yeah, yeah.
But he was Marty McFly right?
Yeah, he was. He was. That was his character.
Yeah.
So many good ones. Mine.
I will put The Matrix on there.
Oh, Matrix is amazing.I can't believe I didn’t think about that.
Yeah.
The Matrix itself, it's like,you know the code when it opens
up and all of that codeshhhh, running down the page.
(29:15):
Yeah, see, I was thinking more of stuffwhen I was a kid.
Matrix came later on in my life.Yeah.
And so The Matrix is an amazing movie.
My brother showed me that
for the first time I was like18 or something, dating myself here.
Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, it's okay.
They seem very fresh in our minds,but they truly were very visionary.
And they did. Yeah.
(29:37):
I think that people in science fictionI don't know about you,
but I think people in sciencefiction are - must be very well read.
They have extremely
active imaginations.
Where anything is possible.
And if they're well read
and they think anything's possible,that's where so much comes from.
I don't think it's just people in a lab.
(29:58):
No,
if you think about all the crazy stuffthat George Lucas came up with, Star Wars.
Yeah,
there's a whole worlds and multiple worldsand multiple characters and languages.
And it's wild.
Yeah, I think a lot of that
because I remember my churchwas doing this series about The Matrix
and they were identifying the Christ imagethroughout that particular movie.
(30:19):
So I think that some of this comes fromthings that are from spiritual materials,
you know, different faiths,but you know, I'm
Christian,so I'll throw that one out there.
But every faith has somethingwhere they're talking about
what the past is, and then somebodythat isn't like Nostradamus,
and that's putting out the future,you know?
So, it’s possible.Yeah. Yeah. In The Matrix they call him Nebuchadnezzar
(30:43):
Yes.So yeah, Yeah.
Anyway, okay.
So we're going to take a momentand acknowledge
our sponsor, Cat 5 Studios,and we will be right back.
(31:06):
Now we're back.
It's hard to believe30 minutes have flown by.
Yes.But we're back to the second half of our show
where we talk about the future of jobsand industries.
And today's guest,just so everybody knows, is Adam Ben-Edi.
Evi. I got it right? Yes?Adam Ben-Evi.
Well, you're very gracious.
Yeah, names are important.
We should get it right, Evi? Yes.
(31:27):
What do you think2030 is going to look like in the world
for your industryas it's related to fitness?
Right.
And what do you thinkthe jobs would be like?
What do you think?
Yeah, I think
if you're diving into Central Florida,I think Central Florida is going to change
I feel like we're like New Yorkin the eighties, where a lot of growth
is spoken to
(31:47):
some developers,
they believeFlorida is going to be grown out
and just the buildings and the communityacross the board is going to be filled
in like New York City, which is crazy,you think, but not by 2030, I feel.
And I think
people are
open now to meeting other peoplethrough technology
like what has happenedwith Tinder and Bumble.
(32:10):
So I think it's going to be a lot easierfor people to meet up
to do some kind of physical activity,
to - let's sayyou want to go find a tennis partner
if you want to go fishing with someoneor any kind of physical activity,
like a pickleball match.
I feel like people are more open to thatbecause there's security in place
where you can meet people and be safeabout it to go do those activities.
(32:33):
I feel like our app is goingbe able to expand on
that and change the waypeople go out and meet other people.
Because with - research shows,I mean, if you find a buddy
or if you find a group of people,to go do an activity with your four times
more likely to continue doing thatactivity.
Wow. So it's, it's really important to build those habits with other people
to go out and get active. As far as
(32:56):
employees, employees -
employers in this area,I see a lot of growth,
especially Central Floridawith Space Coast, right?
Space travel is happening
with all the theme parksthat Disney and Universal is building.
Feel like CentralFlorida is really going to be
a place that people want to come toin the next few years.
I see it exploding over the next 20 years.
(33:19):
I hope so,because we are built on an aquifer.
Yeah.
And we'repretty much a floating island too.
I don't know how far up it goes, but
Miami has experienced some eye attrition
just because the water levelhas been rising.
It's up like five feet more than it was,I believe, since 20 years ago.
(33:41):
And I think that's significant.
Sometimes I talk to my dad and I go, ‘Hmm,I think it's time to be considering
living in a silosomewhere back in Kansas where I'm from.’
But, y’know,
I think
we're gonnna have beachfront property herein Orlando soon, next 20 years Yeah.
with water rising.
We're going to have beachfront propertyin Orlando.
We could, we could.
(34:01):
It is possible,you know, with Daytona and Tampa,
they're both having encroaching areasthat could be, this is the place.
I definitely see from Miamito Daytona across I-4 to Tampa.
I feel like all that's going to be filledin.
Feel like the 95 to Daytonaacross to Tampa.
I think that's all going to be so good.
You know what,when I was going to the Cape.
(34:22):
Cape Kennedy,the Kennedy Space Center this weekend,
I could not believe how highthe water level was there.
And I'm going‘The roads are going to get covered.’
We must have built thisjust on a giant swamp area.
Yeah, well, Florida is a swamp, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it really is. So. Yeah.
Okay, well, we have, we have some of thatas new problems that we get to traverse,
(34:46):
because also in a lot of the moviesand the cartoons that people
were living in housing,that was way up above the land, right.
So it could be something very similarto what The Jetsons had.
But if you look at other placesthat are out there,
like Dubai, they have something similar
where people live in structuresthat are way above the ground.
(35:09):
Yeah so,Or it will turn into Waterworld.
Waterworld. Yeah. Another good movie too.
Um, so what positive impactdo you think AI can have on the future?
And if you want to throw in some robotsthere, we already interested,
you introduced that.
I know that's not your area's specialty,but feel free.
So positive impacts.
(35:29):
You know, we
what we’re building withSpot is like a recommendation system
an AI recommendation systemto not only help people find things
to do near them, but also the right timesand the right people.
And you can coordinate using
AI
and if it
if it feels like it's coming from me,I feel like people are more open to it.
Like a suggestion.
(35:50):
If I told you, hey,you should go check out this coffee shop.
It's different than you seeing an ad on, on Facebook to go
check out the coffee shop. You're goinglisten to me. Yeah.
You're a micro influencer for me. Yeah.
And so I think AI can become that.
And to make those recommendations scary is,
is obviously
advertisers and companiestaking advantage of that and
(36:13):
and giving suggestions like whatthey've done on social media where you see
ads or you see with the election,you know all the different,
the different things that they're doingto influence election, right?
Yeah.
With like augmented reality likenessyou know
twin's that you will and saying,‘Oh, this is not me.’
I know Kunal did that last year.
(36:33):
Yeah.
Said so, ‘Merry Christmas’and he's not a Merry Christmas guy
but he said Happy New Yearand he said, ‘You may think just because
this looks like me and it sounds like me,it's me, but it is not.’ Yes.
So that's, that's wild.
What's happening with that technology
which they need to really figure out waysto kind of curb that.
(36:57):
Yeah. To, well,
I think it's going to become somethingthat should have a disclaimer on it.
Have you watched any of Black Mirror?
No, I don't.
Oh, my God.
That's the thing to watch for sure.
It paints the dark picture, of what it is.
It's on Netflix.
And they do five shows,which creates a season.
They're very powerful.
(37:19):
They um, are
I believe that whoever created themand I should know this,
but I will by the next - next show.
The team that
created it, made itso people would stop and think.
Because if we do not put guardrailsaround things,
stuff happens.
There's this other show that's on
(37:40):
Netflix that doesa 180 and it's called The Future Of . . .
and The Future Of isa more positive way of looking at how A.I.
is being used, robots, all of this.
So there's the dark and the light,if you will.
Yeah.
So I, you know - you mentioned disclaimer.
I feel like it’s people are going toadapt and learn to ignore that disclaimer.
(38:02):
Mm hmm.
Like if you look at like,you ever see an ad for, like, medicine,
Politics, yeah. Yes.Or but medicine, it's like
‘This can - this medicine can kill you.’
Yes. ‘This medicine
where you can lose limbs.’, right?
Yeah.And,
and people ignore the, the
ad.‘Oh, it's not going to happen to me.’
Because I'm going to take it for causeI have, like, I don't know,
diabetes or whatever. Right.
(38:23):
And so the same thingwith that disclaimer, it's going to say, ‘Hey,
this is not Adam on Facebook.’
And people are still goingto think it's coming from Adam.
And I feel like adisclaimer is not going to work.
I feel like they really have to learnto identify what's real and what's fake.
We see that happeningright now with all this.
(38:43):
You know, people
posting fake stuff on the Internetall the time. Yes.
And people believe in it.
And, and where do you go to fact check it?
Because now there's factcheckers that are fake, too.
Yeah.Right.
So you see that all the timewith all the wars
that are going on around the world.
And there's like this sideand then there's this side
and then you see, ‘Well,is that really what the truth is?’
(39:05):
Or is that really what the truth is?
And then you don't really knowwhat to believe? Yeah.
Somebody, someone I know had said, ‘Oh,there's a food shortage, it's happening.’
And so she wentand she piled up three months of
of water, of drypackaged goods and canned goods.
And I went, ‘Really?’
‘How did I miss this?’
But I don't always listen to the news.
(39:26):
So, you know, I'm going, okay,I haven't seen a run on the grocery stores
like when we havehurricanes here in Florida.
So I kind of was going, is this?
And so then I looked it up.
I did a search, you know, Google search.
And it's telling methat FEMA is saying that, too.
And I go, ‘Well, that could still be,
an AI bot also that's putting it out.’
So to your point,people do need to be dialed in.
(39:49):
They do need to be responsiblefor any information
they're consumingfrom wherever to make sure, ‘Is this real?’.
And I,I think that it's more than just doing
a simple Google search or an AI search.Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
I have ideason how people can be more dialed in.
I mean, obviouslythey need to be listening to both right
(40:13):
and maybe, and left sided opinionsand actually
being very engagedwith what they are watching.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And do you remember a little while backthere was the
there was a rally between a college kidand an Indian - Native American.
(40:33):
Yes. Yeah.On the Capitol steps.
And there's two views.
And there was like everyone was trying to
I remember seeing thatbecause their showing one side of the view
and then the other side of the view came out
and then there was a big lawsuitthat happened
so that happens all the time where, where something gets uploaded, Yeah.
where it's, it's one sidedand then you actually find out
(40:54):
what is the real story,what's the other side of it.
And so it's hardto actually get the truth on things
because people, everyone has a camera,everyone has a phone, right?
And then how do you really figure outwhat is the - the actual story,
to, to be able to judgeboth sides of the story, right?
Similar
to this scenario, which has been a casestudy.
(41:15):
Yeah.
There's an accidentin the middle of an intersection.
There are four points of view.
You know, each one of the corners,somebody saw something,
but there's also an overhead view, right?
And then there's also the viewof the person that's inside of the car,
what they're seeing.So there's so many sides to it.
It's not just one point of view,it's to your point.
You have to consider many, many piecesof information to make a good decision.
(41:41):
Yeah.
So there's the creator of, A.I..
His name is Geoffrey Hinton,and he was one of those
thought leaders that was way back.
And, you know, whether it was
a Harvard or, you know, any of the,the Ivy League schools
where they were putting together computers
(42:01):
and they were creatingall of the things that we have now.
And they werethe ones that were creating A.I.
and so people don't realizethat it's been around for a long time.
It's not something that just
fell out of the sky, so to speak.
This was, he was interviewed on 60 Minutes
back on October 8, 2023.
(42:24):
And his concern was one of the waysin which these systems AI might escape
control is by writing their own codeto modify themselves.
And that's somethingwe need to seriously worry about.
So again,going back to like what you were saying,
people need to bewill use the word ‘woke’ to this.
They need to be engaged.
(42:45):
They need to be not trusting everything
that they read or watch or listen tois fact.
Yeah. Factcheck it yourself.
Yeah.
It’s sad the other day there was athere's, a teenager died.
I saw that.
Of suicide based on a relationship with AI.
Yeah, and it was emotional and sexualthey said. Yeah.
So the chat bot.That’s wild.
(43:07):
I would say, I would say
that very well could happen.
Right. AI writing its own code. Yeah.
I'm, I'm more concernedabout like advertisers
and people being able to change the waythe AI speak to you.
Right. So you saw the Tesla robots. Yes.
So I feel like what's going to end uphappening
(43:28):
is, yeah, they're going to pay $100,000for this robot in your house
or you can get it for 20,000and then you pay a subscription.
But that subscription is going to comewith the robot suggestion.
‘Oh, you should try this water bottle.’or ‘You should try this toilet paper.’ or,
or like the robotis going to be in your house
and it's going to learn everythingabout you.
It's going to learn everything you buy.
It's going to learn everything you do.
(43:49):
And then they're going to start changingyour habits and behaviors based on.
Because they'll influence you. Absolutely.
And now you're goingto believe it's true.
And you’re gonna believe it's true.
Do you ever even you know, when Windows 95came out?
Yeah.
You know why they gave youthose two games?
Minesweeper and Solitaire?No why?
So they put those two gameson Windows 95
(44:12):
because they were trying to teach peoplehow to use the mouse
and so they play Solitaire.Oh.
What do you do, you drag and drop.
And when you use Minesweeper,you use the right button.
So they've changed our habitsby giving us these two games
that people love playing.
And they taught us how to use
the mouse because that'swhen the mouse came out, it was Windows 95.
And so you see that all the time.
(44:33):
And people don't realize how easy it is.Interesting.
I learned this a lot from
The psychology that went into it to go,‘How do we modify people's behavior?’
Yeah. And I see this a lot.
My co-founder has a background in habitforming apps
and changing people's habitswhen it comes to television broadcasters.
That's what he's done most of his life.
(44:54):
Well, it's not even just the habits.
I mean, a habit is still a choice.
We make a choice to do something,but it's also the choices that we make.
Yeah,And that's important, too.
but if you can change the habit and choiceby, by adding something, right,
by the way that they make the phone,the design of the phone,
the way they do that
is they know like the bottom right
(45:14):
hand corneris the most important part of the phone.
And so there's certain things that they'vebuilt into technology to change
the way people use their technologyor the way
that social media set up was like,‘Why did TikTok go so viral?
Because
the way that it's so short form in the way
that people shared in those clips online.
(45:35):
So it's very easy to change people'shabits when it comes to technology.
It's aboutwhat are we going to build a company
that builds good habitsor gets people still
time on their phone?
You know whatI think is going to be happening too?
I believe that we need to have more,
just like what you're saying.
(45:58):
I hesitate to call it this, but more
I'll call it stewardshiprather than governance or regulations,
because that sounds you know, most peoplehave a negative mindset towards that.
But stewardship, we need to havemore stewardship around the
the technology that
we have available to usand how we're using it
(46:20):
so that we are using it in a positive way,a way that is built around trust
and transparency and all of the qualitiesand traits that we want.
Because if I have a robot in my home
and it is thereand it is now been programed Yep.
to, to make - help me makebad choices, that's concerning.
(46:42):
And that worked in the election years,you know, four years ago
when the Russians and Chinese,I believe it was Russians and Chinese
that had come in and hackedthrough the candidates.
Influenced, yeah.
And they influenced the election. Yeah.
So if that can be done that easily
(47:03):
in this world, then, you know,it can impact millions of people.
And we really needto be very much paying attention.
I think that there's this place of
guidelines are good for us,
systems are good for us,but they can also be bad for us.
(47:23):
And so like your app, you designed an appthat was there to help people
not be complacent, not be sedentary,
and to, to do thingsand to build relationship with people.
I think we need to have things like that
in addition to certificationsthat people have to earn to show Yep.
(47:45):
that they're going to be usingAI responsibly and ethically,
they need to have some other type
of stewardship,some place where people are taught
how to be using their mindto check things themselves.
Yeah, so technology for good and,
Technology for good. Yeah. Yeah.
(48:05):
Okay. Well, here we are.
We're going to move to the nextto last question then.
What is the best mentoring advicethat you would like to share with our
listeners about the future?
Yeah, that would be,
you know, really a lot of
I would say especially peoplethat are under the age of 40.
(48:27):
They grow or grew up with this.
The phone is they came out of the wombwith the phone in their hand. Exactly.
Yeah, everyone has the same hoursin the week and
you got to look.
Do you want to spend your time,
you know, watching shows, Netflix
being on your phone or you want to spendyour time actually building something?
(48:48):
And it takes a lot for somebody to go out,
go entrepreneur and go out and startsomething, takes a lot of time.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Don't you agree for yourself?Oh, my God. Absolutely.
And I've done it many times and it's hard,but it's rewarding.
And you can go spend,
you know 40
hours a week working a 9 to 5 job,
(49:09):
and then after 40 or 50 yearsyou retire and you're good.
Or you can go kill yourself,which is the way I look at it.
I love this.
I’ll go spend 80 hours a week right now
so I can retire at the age of 45because I built something, right?
I’ll spend 80.
I’ll spend -
I don't think that you're killing yourself.
I think you're investing in things.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(49:31):
I think you make a choice.I say kill yourself.
But I'm meaning, like, reallyjust going out and being determined
and just don't stopand just go out and do it, right?
There's peoplethat spend their time on TikTok,
or they would spend their time on Netflixand they won't spend their time
doing things that don't further themselvesand you can go spend that extra time
building and creating stuff.
Go set up like an Etsy store,go sell, sell stuff online
(49:54):
or, or go create a product,or go spend and invest.
Watch YouTube videosto learn other things.
Right?
Go learn about a tradeor craft or something.
Go to like networking events,go meet new people.
But instead they would ratherjust sit and watch TikTok videos, right?
And go and be on social mediaor watch that new show on Netflix.
(50:16):
And so
really just go,
you're young and you got to gospend that time, especially if
if you are right out of college,you have so much time on your hands,
go outand spend that time to further yourself.
I like that.
I think that's one of the a really,really good quote.
(50:37):
I think you also brought up somethingthat I find very interesting, too, is
the Tesla robots, because honestly,when I saw them, I went ‘This is straight
out of one of the movies that I've seenthat was not a happy ending.’
That was a little bit scary.
Wasn't Terminator,
but it kind of felt a little bitlike it could have been, could have been.
And I think that some of that influenceis, is
(51:00):
due based on historically
how we've seen what robotsare supposed to look like versus
what - what they, they can look very realand they will look very real. They will look real,
Yeah. Yeah.
We will have a hard time finding out,
you know whatit's really supposed to look like.
Now, how can my listeners find you?
What is the website?Where can they get the app?
(51:21):
Let's do another little promotionfor that.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you can go to www.spot - s p o t
fitness f i t n e s s dot app a p p.
so spotfitness.app is the website
you can download the app for freecheck it out, love feedback on that
(51:42):
and you can follow me on LinkedIn LinkedIn
I think it's forward slash BenEvi
and you know, really appreciateyou having me.
Oh this has been great. I am -
I know we tried this before and I know you,you had some personal challenges
too that happened.
And I hope everybody is fine.
(52:02):
Yeah, everyone's great. Yeah.
But I'm glad you were able to make it. So -
so this was,
this is a really good episode, by the way.I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, so for our listeners,keep, keep tuned.
Be sure to connect with Adamon his LinkedIn page and download the app.
Yeah, thank you.
Welcome to The Intern Whisperer.
This show is all about the future of workand innovation.
So my name's Isabella, and I am the hostof The Intern Whisperer podcast,
which is brought to you by Employers4 Change, helping hiring teams reduce
employer hiring bias and increasecompetency skill recruitment and learning.
Today's guestis someone I've known for a bit.
His name is Adam Ben-Evi.
(00:31):
He is the CEO of Spot,a social fitness app
that promotes helping people leadhealthier and active lifestyles.
He is passionateabout giving back to the community
and has been mentoring entrepreneursfor the past ten years.
I've known him for a while and you'regoing to get to learn more about him.
So Adam, I always kicked off my showwith asking guests what are five words
(00:53):
that describe you and why those five words,my listeners know that I also prompt.
So it's okay. No worries.
You said the first one is Positive.
Why Positive?
Yeah, you gotta,you got to be positive every day.
First of all, I would say thank youfor having me Izabella,
You’re great. Yes.
You got to be positiveevery day, you know?
You know,some people like to focus on the problem,
and I just try to focus on the solutionand just being positive,
(01:15):
waking up every day
and don't let the outside problemscome in and affect that.
And I just try to be positive to my wifeand kids.
Positive to the company, right?
Positive to people around me.
And that's kind of the way I live.
You know,it takes a lot for me to get down.
And I don't know,I just, it's a trait that I have, I guess.
I think that's a great one to have.
(01:37):
And a lot of times people get frustratedand they get distracted by the problem.
So if you take a deep breath, I'm sureyou do and go, okay, well, what can we do?
And then stay in that place.
Yeah, absolutely. Attitudes change.
Sometimes I see people like on my teamget so frustrated on something
and I laugh inside because it's really,if you just, if you're outside looking in
(01:59):
and, and you realizethat you can tackle anything, you know?
Yeah.
Totally. Determined.
Why did you say determined?
Yeah, I'm determined to -
to do something and make some change, right?And make something of my life.
I've been driven since I was young.
I mean, I'mnot a made man, and I've just been
(02:19):
just been hustling, I guess, my whole lifeand determined
to make something for myself,my family and kids.
People around me right in the community.
So I'm not going to stop.
I've had failures.
I've had successes,but it's really, I’m just determined to
to get to my goals of where I want to be.
Failure is about learning, right?
So yeah, that's one of the best thingsthat we can take away from that.
(02:42):
Is that ‘What did I learn from this?’, right?
It's not a bad thing. Yeah.
But it’s so sad that we always thinkfailure is a bad word.
It should beone of the most liberating words we have.
I think.Yeah, failures are great.
Yeah, definitely.
So, Caring. That I think is
the word that I would have pickedto describe who you are the most.
Yeah,I care a lot of the people around me
(03:05):
care about the community.
I mean, as a young age,
I remember my - my dad used to take me to gofeed the homeless.
We'd go feed the homeless, we'd go out,
take them to like,McDonald's, Burger King even sometimes.
And I used to do thatwith him on the weekends.
And it's important to give back,give back to the community.
And because they'rethe ones are going to take over.
(03:26):
Right?
They're the ones I'mgoing to take forward,
especially the - the - the younger generationthat's coming up.
Right?
So that's why I have mentored, mentoringfor many years as community coach.
And, and it's really about -Startup Weekend.
I know,I know you and I run in the same circles.
So I'm going, ‘You're not just UCF.
You're way more than that.’
Yeah I love,I love giving back so, 1 Million Cups.
(03:49):
I've seen you there.
I've seen you at all of the eventsthat we go to that are focused on
entrepreneurship, start-
Innovator Orlando events.
Just, you've been to our,I think even in some of the
Game Jam events that Orlando does.Yep.
Yeah, you're everywhere so,
You learn more
honestly from, from these grown studentsthat are come - up and coming.
I feel like I learn moresometimes from people in mentoring. Mhm.
(04:11):
So it's a two way street there.
It is.
That's called peer and reverse mentoring.
And yeah.
Because we learnnot just from older and younger,
but across your industries,across generations.
As we just said a minute ago,
ethnicities, races, we always can learn,We can learn from little animals
too right? Your pets.Absolutely.
(04:31):
So wow, like, how to love people.
I think that's whatI take the best from an animal. Yep.
It's like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm happy to see you.’,when they walk in the door right.
Except for cats. I can't.
I don't like cats either.
Cats?
Cats rarely will run to a human unless
Dog person for sure.Oh, me too. Me too. Yeah.
Caring.
(04:52):
Well, we just talked about that one.
I wanted to ask you something elseabout feeding the homeless.
That's something that, you know,my family has done too.
I think that the thingthat's important to remember
is that we may not be able to change
what they're experiencing currently,
but we can do something to help them haveone day
(05:13):
that is like, where it might be a hot meal,which they may not have.
It may not be bananas all the time.
So it's something different. Right.
And I think that's the biggest takeawaybecause that one thing
can create big impact,which was one of your other words.
Impact. Yeah.
And I think that comes a lot from my dad.
Like I said, from the age of ten toI would say 13,
(05:37):
we would go on the weekendsDowntown Orlando,
you know, talk to the homeless,go take them to whether,
I remember one time we asked, ‘Hey,are you hungry?’ of this homeless veteran.
And he's like, ‘No,I just want a pack of cigarettes.’
and then I went take him to buya pack of cigarettes.
It's just about,you know, having that conversation
going through and sitting downand eating dinner with the homeless community.
(06:00):
And I learned a lot from thatas a young kid.
And, and, and I take it to them.
I mean, give, you know, try to give backwhat I can give back
to the students that are mentoringwith start ups or whatnot.
I'd say a lot of that is for my dad.
Yeah, that's really, really nice.
(06:20):
I'm going to circle backto Community Builder because let's - let's
go through some of the organizationsthat you've been a part of.
Yeah, I mentored as a community coachwith UCF, helped out
Startup Week in Orlando,Orlando Techzine,
I mentored,you know, a lot of students over the years
with their start ups or projectsor products, physical products.
(06:43):
Did you go to UCLA?No, I actually went to Valencia.
Oh, nice. This campus, East? Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, very nice. Little shout out for Valencia.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
I came to this campus and, um.
Yeah, and just really other things.
I mean,
just working with a bunch of college
(07:04):
students or entrepreneursacross the board, you know, help them out.
Also with
1 Million Cups, so to speak.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's a lot of impact right there too.
Just, just so people know,
those are all organizationsthat focus on entrepreneurship.
So let's talk about your personal story.
Since you said you went to school here.Yeah.
(07:26):
What did you focus on when you were hereand then how did it help
to launch your career?
Because when I met you,it was several years back.
I want to say maybe, I don't know.
I was somewhere between seven and nine,probably nine.
And you were wanting to,you wanted to have help.
And the hope was I was going to be hiredto help you write a business plan.
(07:46):
And it was all about something for,I believe, veterans out at UCF.
Yeah, it was for veterans.
We were trying to work.
We had a piece of land out byUCF to build a community out there.
So we're going to build like a tiny homecommunity.
Yeah, I remember.
And we actually talked to the city
and it wasn't really going to workfor that plot of land that we had.
So that's whywe never really went forward with it.
(08:09):
But,my, my back story is
I used to do theater a lot as a kid, Really?
Yeah.
And acted and did short filmsand film projects with my friends.
That's where I met one of my co-founders.
We actually did theater together at theJCC in Maitland from the age of like 11.
That's why I knew that - my co-founder
(08:29):
and we actually started a film festival for high school.
Really?
Yeah, We had the JCC Teen Film Festival.
It ran for three years.
Me and that co-founder startedthat together.
Who was that?
Yoni Osteen.
I do not know this person. Yeah.
So me and Yoni started the JCCTeen Film Festival
and it ran for three years,and we would get a lot of submissions
from the different high schoolersand then we would,
(08:52):
you know, give awardsbased on the different categories. And
when I
when I got out of high school,I started going to Valencia at night
and I was working then in the dayand trying to help my mom out quite a bit.
And so it was tough.
And I was workingactually for a phone room and doing sales
in a phone room, and I said, ‘Hey,I feel like I can do this myself.’
(09:17):
And so I took a small loan outand I went and started
my own phone roomin the financial services space.
And, and then I saw the industrywhen it needed to be in change.
So I actually
went to my business partner at the timeand we launched a website
to help publicly traded companiesand stockbrokers and investors connect
(09:41):
through this platform.
It's kind of like a social media platform
for publicly traded companies,so to speak.
So I launched that at the age of 21
and, and then three years, four yearsafter that, we sold it.
And that was right when the market crashed.
So if we would have
sold it before that, probably madea lot more money on the sale.
(10:01):
But we kind of saw the way that thingswere changing
with legislationand everything going on during 2008-2009.
And so that's why I got out
and I took some time offto try to figure out what I wanted to do.
I had a production companythat we did a lot of weddings
and videos and stuff like that,but it was kind of running itself.
(10:22):
And then I got involved with my familyin the as seen on TV space.
They owned two retail stores.
So we expanded those stores.
We opened a franchise with our own brand,and then we started
manufacturing our own products.
So it was great to be able to createour own products, manufacture those
and then start selling themin retail stores across the country,
(10:46):
physical products from kitchenware,
housewares, gardening products,
you know, blenders,
all different types of physical productsthat we created and sold.
You created them.
So you were in manufacturing, distributionand then. Yep.
Yeah,and then obviously the sales side of it.
Yeah, we,we worked with the manufacturers overseas.
(11:08):
We would create
them, we'd come up with the design,we'd come up with the commercials,
we shot all the commercials for them,all different types of houseware products,
to even health and beauty products.
And so that was, that was greatbecause that lasted,
we were running the As Seen On TVproducts in the space from 2010 to 2020.
(11:31):
And we just started
seeing what was happening in the industrywith Amazon coming in.
On Amazon they were selling a lot of knockoffsand fakes.
People were making fake products of ours,
and we slowly startedgetting out of the retail side of it.
And thank God, because when COVID hitall the retail stores closed.
You know, in the summer of COVID,a lot of the malls were closed,
(11:53):
a lot of the stores were closed,and distribution was very hard
because it's hardto get goods in to the U.S.
And so our last Christmas,
because it's the biggest shoppingtime of the year, was 2020
it was that Christmas where we got outof all the retail stores.
We sold all of them off, sold all the products offand completely got out of that business.
(12:14):
Then at the time iswhen I got approached by my co-founder,
the one I started the film festivalwith regarding this app called Spot.
And you know,
he was always looking for people to goplay tennis with because he had a newborn
and him and his wife,he would play tennis all the time.
And now that they have a newborn,they can’t go play tennis together.
(12:38):
Same situation
with me I was always looking for thingsto do in my area with my wife and kids, and
we would look for like a local park.
But if you ever go on
like the government websites,if you ever go on your city websites,
they're horrible.
They don't tell you what there is actuallyto do in your community around you.
And so this is a real problem that eachone of my co-founders were faced with
(13:01):
some of - our other co-founder.
They were using WhatsAppto coordinate their football league,
and another co-founder was looking fora place to go kayaking on a Google Maps.
It took him to a retentionpond behind a Walmart.
Oh, no, oh my God.Yes.
So we saw this as the first.We're like, ‘This,
this is really a problem
(13:22):
that everyone's faced with isfinding things to do in the community.’
But not only that, finding those eventsand activities to go meet other people
and meeting those peopleto do them on your skill level,
it's reallywhere Spot came out of.
So who did you seeas your competitors for this?
Yeah,so, there's a lot of different competitors,
but they're not doing it right.
(13:42):
I mean, there's,there's a lot of apps on the marketplace.
Yeah.
That focus only on one or two sportsand most average
people will do at least6 to 8 different sports activities, right?
So there is a enthusiast app for,
let's say,running or pickleball or basketball,
but most people will try pickleballand they'll also play basketball
(14:06):
and they'll also go running,and also be into fishing and yoga.
So there's not onestop shop for everything.
There's not an app that helps you do alldifferent types of sports and activities
and helps you find those locations,find those events
and to meet new people,and so people talk about
Classpass, for example, a lot of Classpassis more about indoor sports.
(14:30):
Yep. And, and focusing on paying -
it focuses on the user side.
It’s not really focusing on meet - the meet up part of it,
Meetup’s another one but Meetupdoesn't focus on fitness activities.
It focuses on everything, right? And
they're just launching - Meetup
is just launching that componentwhere people can meet other people.
They just started that,
(14:52):
you know, people use Google Maps to findthings near them, but it's kind of broken.
People use Facebook events.
Again, if you want to plan a
Well and you may not be on Facebookright? Yeah.
But if you want to plan a pick up gamebasketball and create a Facebook event,
you know, from our focus group,somebody told us
they tried using Facebook eventsand then 40 people showed up
and they don't need 40 people for thethe basketball game.
(15:14):
Right. You only need ten. Right.
So those things are not built,but people are trying to hack it
and trying to use these thingslike WhatsApp and Facebook and Meetup and,
and so we are the onestop shop when it comes
to physical activitiesand getting people active.
If that make sense. Yeah.
So I remember that you won
an opportunityto pitch at The Startup World Cup.
(15:37):
Yeah.That's a big deal because I think that I had heard, I know I applied,
but I did not know how far advancedeverybody was that went up on that stage.
And it's a big deal. Yeah.
To have won that spot. I don't -
how did that feel?
And let's talkabout what Startup World Cup is because
I think this is the first yearI ever heard of it.
(15:59):
Yeah, this is the first yearit's actually in Orlando.
It's usually Miami
from what I understand, they select 50 to 75different cities around the world
and then they select the topten companies in that region
or that areathat will go for the World Cup.
Then they select the top,the number one of that city,
(16:20):
and then those companiesgo compete on the world stage.
For a million dollars.
Yeah, Yeah. So it was great.
It was an honor to be selectedas a top ten in this region
from Bay to Tampa to Daytona.
Think a lot to do with our advisorsand the people that are our team really
have been pushing us forward.
Early on.
We, we knew this app
(16:42):
is going to take a lot of money downthe road, you know, to go nationwide. Yeah.
And so we started off by making sure
we had the right founders in place
to cover our burn rate and to make surewe had ninjas in every domain.
Right, the key domain experts.
So a lot of people were giving us advice
to not start off a startupwith five founders.
(17:04):
But me coming from other companiesthat I started with by myself
or with one founder,I knew I wanted to have a lot of help,
and I knew that I wanted to be ableright out the gate to have someone that’s an expert
in marketing,an expert in product, an expert in sales.
Right?
So our five foundersare those different experts,
(17:25):
and that was the waywe were able to keep our burn rate
so low in the early daysbefore we raised any money.
Mm hmm.
And, and because we had such a strong team,
it was easier for us to goget amazing advisors to join us.
Like Professor Christakis
from Yale or Jeff Hoffman from Pricelineand things like that.
(17:45):
So though,because when you are able to bring in a strong
team, it's easier to goget advisors to join you and investors
only because really the number one thingthat drives startups is the team.
Oh God, yeah. In the early days. Yeah.
And having somebody
that's a technical co-founder, I'mgoing to guess you were the finance one.
Yeah,I was more of the sales and my expertise
(18:06):
in building up companiesfrom 0 to $10 million.
That's really what my expertiseis, really starting companies up. And
then my co-founders bought a technical one
and then my other founderis more of the marketing.
So we have five founders total.
We've been togethersince the beginning and
How long is that?
(18:27):
We started in I want to say April 2021.
MM hmm.
Yeah,we did a lot of research into the problem.
Starting in 2020.
We spent about six months just reallyunderstanding the problem. Understand.
Originally we wanted to go as a dating app
and through our focus groupsand through the surveys and talking,
(18:48):
a lot of people told us,
‘Hey, the moment you make it a dating app,it's going to cut off a bunch of people.’
And a lot of womentold us this in the surveys.
‘You know, Facebook,Instagram is not a dating app,
but people use those platformsto try to date people message you
right on Facebook and Instagram saying,“Hey, would you like to go get coffee?”’
And so they said, ‘Ifthere is a messaging element in the app,
(19:10):
people will use it to date.
But then if you call it a dating app,
you're going to turn offa lot of people from using it.’
So that's why we moved awayfrom the dating aspect of it early on.
That's good feedback too.
Wow, really interesting because I've seenpeople be asked out on LinkedIn,
like I've had people say, ‘Oh,you have such beautiful smile,’ I go, ‘Oh please.’,
(19:31):
Reject, leave.
You know, that's not what LinkedIn is for.
Yeah, but people use it for that.
Yeah they do. Yeah.
So what is the next step
for your company and Spot fitness
since you know, you didn't get in therebut you guys seem to be.
It's a beautiful website.It's a beautiful app.
(19:52):
It looks great.
I haven't downloaded it yet.
Full disclosure. I'm going to.
You definitely should. Yeah.
And tell us how people can find it.
And then also, if there's a cost,
what is it? Yes.
So the app is 100% free for users.
You can find iton the Apple or the Google Play store.
You can go to the websitespotfitness.app and those two links
(20:15):
are there for you to download it,and it's 100% free for the users.
We make money off of the businesses.
Businesses want to promote their locationsor their exclusive deals,
or if they want to promote through some ofour services that we have, they can.
And then it's a great wayfor you to find things to do near
you based on the activity you select.
There's over 30 different sports andactivities for people to find near them,
(20:39):
with over 3000 locations in the area
in our launch areas from Daytona Beachto Volusia to Hillsborough, Tampa area.
So we're across the whole I-4 corridor.
Wow. And that's really interestingbecause,
you know, you're stillwhat we would still call infancy, right.
You know, as a startup.
But you're making money and you've got,you know, users
(21:03):
I don't know how many users you have,but it's I'm sure,
you know, to have that type of a reach,you got to have some type of
numbers or.
Yes. Or active userbase is a little bit over five 6000.
No, that's good.
And really we focused the first, the
(21:23):
- the initial VCs and investorswe spoke to said the hard
part of the two sided networkis the B to C side, the user side.
And so we really focused on tryingto figure out the metrics
on the user side,and that's what we did in 2023,
which is really figuring out how to lower our cost
(21:44):
per acquisition per userand build on the retention metrics.
And we did that in 2023 and once we hit
the two KPIs we're looking for, then in2024 we shifted focus now on the B2B side,
which is really now focusing on revenuemonetization, which is what
is really going to fuel our growth.
So really we hit those metrics early onand then we shifted to now
(22:07):
focus on the B2B side.
I like that.
And just while you were talking,just so our listeners know, my listeners,
I actually just went to Spot FitnessApp, pulled it right up
right away and downloaded itand you know, and I have it now.
So yeah, I did it while we were talking.Awesome, thank you.
So you have another number on there,right? That’s great.
Yeah. Okay.
So I have a couple of other deeperdive questions, one’s
(22:30):
a deeper dive.
When you are looking back on your lifenow, just where you are now,
because there's this only this placewhere you are at this point,
you know, ten years from nowyou'll have a different answer.
What do you thinkis something that you've done that
you're proud ofand hope makes an impact on the world?
As I'm sitting here thinking, it'sgoing to definitely be focused on
(22:52):
helping people get healthier for -.
Absolutely.
I would love Spot to be that platformto help people get active
and to be healthier,
and justthe adoption of it woul- will really change.
People are addicted to their phones.
I think the number is
one in four adults are consideredphysically inactive.
(23:12):
Oh yeah.
And it's like 76% or 80%doesn't even do the minimum guidelines
of the CDC, which is an hourand a half of activity a week. Mhm.
And so really we're going to see that
over time get worse with the technology.
Yeah.
It makes us so,
People will have robots in their house. sedentary.
(23:33):
Yeah, exactly.
With robots in your house, you'renot going to have to get off the couch.
Everything gets delivered to younow, right?
With DoorDash.
And UberEats,you don't even have to leave the house.
And so we want to be able to disruptthat and change
and build good habits for people.
But not only that, I feel likeif I left tomorrow, I feel like
(23:54):
people, especially
my inner circle, my kids, my nieces,my nephews, my god-daughter, right.
I feel like that's who I really wishwould feel that impact.
And they remember me for all the helpI do for them.
I try to do for them, right?
Yeah.
Well, hopefully they have the app,they use the app Yeah.
and they become part of your evangelismto others.
(24:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Early - the early adopters, right?
Yeah, early adopters.
We always need lots of those.
All right.
What is your favorite cartoon, movieor game about the future?
Because this lends us to go into whatthe second half of the show is all about.
So what is yours and why?
(24:36):
Yeah, I,
thought about this.
There's a couple different ones, right?
I love thiskid - the action movie Demolition Man
Back to The Future is a great one.
There's,there's a couple that touch on the future.
I always love seeing as a kid what peoplethought the technology would be.
Yeah. In the future. Right. And then,
(24:59):
and then when you're there nowand you're like, ‘That never happened.’
Like Back to The Future time travel or not.
But it's cool to see what people thinkthe future will be
and the technology that will be there
in movies
in the eighties, in the seventies
(25:19):
and the nineties even,
It's cool to look back at that.
So I had a couple different favorite,
You know, I didn't really watchhonestly much cartoons as a kid.
Okay.
So you know what came out on Hulu?
It's on Hulu is The Jetsons. Yeah.
And so I started watching thatand I binged on it
(25:40):
and it was actually created well,it launched in 1964.
And I went ‘They had flying cars.’
They were seeing flying carsin The Jetsons.
And that was not a cartoon.
What also dawned on me,this is not a cartoon for kids.
This was really supposed to be something
for more of adults,is what I came to realize,
(26:00):
because kids could watch itand they would love it.
But the conversationsthere was a teenage daughter.
There was a, you know, a little boy,and he was doing his homework
and he would do his homework withall types of technology that we have now.
They talked about virtual reality.
They talk about augmented reality.
They were talking about,of course, cars that can fly and robots.
(26:21):
And they had all of this stuff.
And I went, ‘This is amazing that somebodywas thinking of this back at that time.’
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And there's a lot of cartoons
that you think they're for kidsand then you watch it as an adult.
You're like, ‘This is not for kids at all.’
So what is Demolition Man? I've not seen it.
That sounds like an adult.It's a, it’s an adult movie.
I remember seeing it as a kidand I probably shouldn’t be watching it as a kid
(26:42):
it was Wesley Snipes. Oh, yeah.
And it's like an action movie.
But I remember seeing, like,they like froze,
he was like a convict.
And they, like, come back into the future.
I rememberthat was good because it was like
showing the technology in the futurewith the cars and the self-driving cars
and those cars in the moviekind of look like Teslas, it was cool. Really?
(27:05):
Yeah.
When do you think it came out?
I think came in like, late 1991.
Let me look while we're talking here.Yeah.
Demolition Man.
Yeah, yeah.1993.
And then like that, there's, like,a food problem.
There's a food shortage in the movie.
And the like,
the high class establishedrestaurant was Taco Bell
(27:26):
because,Taco Bell could be like this. Oh my God.
Taco Bell could, like,stay ahead with the food costs, I think.
Well, It's cool.
it's - it'svery low cost ingredients, right?
Beans? Yeah.
Yeah.
And another movie I loved as a kid forthe future was Fifth Element.
Oh, that was a good movie.
That was a great one.
You know, Chris Rock or Chris Tucker?
(27:47):
I think it is Chris Tucker and,
Didn't it have a - Bruce Willis.Bruce Willis.
Yeah, I know. Fifth Element.
And that was the girl with the wigthat had the orange hair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was she a robot?
I don't remember this movieNo no, just uh, a future
sentient thing. So, yeah,
the Fifth Element was a great movieto in the technology.
(28:07):
Like they put,like the little food into the microwave
and then they turn it on and then itexpands the food and it creates a pizza.
Oh, Yeah those are great movies.
So much fun.
And then you mentioned Back to The Future.
So what did you like about that one?
Yeah, I had a friend in middle school
and high school that loved the Backto The Future projects in the movies,
and he memorized themline by line, and um,
(28:31):
They're great.
How they all work together.
All three movies. How they all intertwine with each other.Yeah, the series.
I don't think they can make a fourth one.
I think if they make four of them it'sgoing to mess it up.
But I think they have - are all interconnected
within those moviesand how they go together.
Mhm. Awesome.
Yeah.
They obviously can't because,
Marty McFly. No, no, sorry.Yeah.
(28:53):
Main character. Michael J. Fox and -
Michael J. Fox is not able to do that.Yeah, yeah.
But he was Marty McFly right?
Yeah, he was. He was. That was his character.
Yeah.
So many good ones. Mine.
I will put The Matrix on there.
Oh, Matrix is amazing.I can't believe I didn’t think about that.
Yeah.
The Matrix itself, it's like,you know the code when it opens
up and all of that codeshhhh, running down the page.
(29:15):
Yeah, see, I was thinking more of stuffwhen I was a kid.
Matrix came later on in my life.Yeah.
And so The Matrix is an amazing movie.
My brother showed me that
for the first time I was like18 or something, dating myself here.
Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, it's okay.
They seem very fresh in our minds,but they truly were very visionary.
And they did. Yeah.
(29:37):
I think that people in science fictionI don't know about you,
but I think people in sciencefiction are - must be very well read.
They have extremely
active imaginations.
Where anything is possible.
And if they're well read
and they think anything's possible,that's where so much comes from.
I don't think it's just people in a lab.
(29:58):
No,
if you think about all the crazy stuffthat George Lucas came up with, Star Wars.
Yeah,
there's a whole worlds and multiple worldsand multiple characters and languages.
And it's wild.
Yeah, I think a lot of that
because I remember my churchwas doing this series about The Matrix
and they were identifying the Christ imagethroughout that particular movie.
(30:19):
So I think that some of this comes fromthings that are from spiritual materials,
you know, different faiths,but you know, I'm
Christian,so I'll throw that one out there.
But every faith has somethingwhere they're talking about
what the past is, and then somebodythat isn't like Nostradamus,
and that's putting out the future,you know?
So, it’s possible.Yeah. Yeah. In The Matrix they call him Nebuchadnezzar
(30:43):
Yes.So yeah, Yeah.
Anyway, okay.
So we're going to take a momentand acknowledge
our sponsor, Cat 5 Studios,and we will be right back.
(31:06):
Now we're back.
It's hard to believe30 minutes have flown by.
Yes.But we're back to the second half of our show
where we talk about the future of jobsand industries.
And today's guest,just so everybody knows, is Adam Ben-Edi.
Evi. I got it right? Yes?Adam Ben-Evi.
Well, you're very gracious.
Yeah, names are important.
We should get it right, Evi? Yes.
(31:27):
What do you think2030 is going to look like in the world
for your industryas it's related to fitness?
Right.
And what do you thinkthe jobs would be like?
What do you think?
Yeah, I think
if you're diving into Central Florida,I think Central Florida is going to change
I feel like we're like New Yorkin the eighties, where a lot of growth
is spoken to
(31:47):
some developers,
they believeFlorida is going to be grown out
and just the buildings and the communityacross the board is going to be filled
in like New York City, which is crazy,you think, but not by 2030, I feel.
And I think
people are
open now to meeting other peoplethrough technology
like what has happenedwith Tinder and Bumble.
(32:10):
So I think it's going to be a lot easierfor people to meet up
to do some kind of physical activity,
to - let's sayyou want to go find a tennis partner
if you want to go fishing with someoneor any kind of physical activity,
like a pickleball match.
I feel like people are more open to thatbecause there's security in place
where you can meet people and be safeabout it to go do those activities.
(32:33):
I feel like our app is goingbe able to expand on
that and change the waypeople go out and meet other people.
Because with - research shows,I mean, if you find a buddy
or if you find a group of people,to go do an activity with your four times
more likely to continue doing thatactivity.
Wow. So it's, it's really important to build those habits with other people
to go out and get active. As far as
(32:56):
employees, employees -
employers in this area,I see a lot of growth,
especially Central Floridawith Space Coast, right?
Space travel is happening
with all the theme parksthat Disney and Universal is building.
Feel like CentralFlorida is really going to be
a place that people want to come toin the next few years.
I see it exploding over the next 20 years.
(33:19):
I hope so,because we are built on an aquifer.
Yeah.
And we'repretty much a floating island too.
I don't know how far up it goes, but
Miami has experienced some eye attrition
just because the water levelhas been rising.
It's up like five feet more than it was,I believe, since 20 years ago.
(33:41):
And I think that's significant.
Sometimes I talk to my dad and I go, ‘Hmm,I think it's time to be considering
living in a silosomewhere back in Kansas where I'm from.’
But, y’know,
I think
we're gonnna have beachfront property herein Orlando soon, next 20 years Yeah.
with water rising.
We're going to have beachfront propertyin Orlando.
We could, we could.
(34:01):
It is possible,you know, with Daytona and Tampa,
they're both having encroaching areasthat could be, this is the place.
I definitely see from Miamito Daytona across I-4 to Tampa.
I feel like all that's going to be filledin.
Feel like the 95 to Daytonaacross to Tampa.
I think that's all going to be so good.
You know what,when I was going to the Cape.
(34:22):
Cape Kennedy,the Kennedy Space Center this weekend,
I could not believe how highthe water level was there.
And I'm going‘The roads are going to get covered.’
We must have built thisjust on a giant swamp area.
Yeah, well, Florida is a swamp, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it really is. So. Yeah.
Okay, well, we have, we have some of thatas new problems that we get to traverse,
(34:46):
because also in a lot of the moviesand the cartoons that people
were living in housing,that was way up above the land, right.
So it could be something very similarto what The Jetsons had.
But if you look at other placesthat are out there,
like Dubai, they have something similar
where people live in structuresthat are way above the ground.
(35:09):
Yeah so,Or it will turn into Waterworld.
Waterworld. Yeah. Another good movie too.
Um, so what positive impactdo you think AI can have on the future?
And if you want to throw in some robotsthere, we already interested,
you introduced that.
I know that's not your area's specialty,but feel free.
So positive impacts.
(35:29):
You know, we
what we’re building withSpot is like a recommendation system
an AI recommendation systemto not only help people find things
to do near them, but also the right timesand the right people.
And you can coordinate using
AI
and if it
if it feels like it's coming from me,I feel like people are more open to it.
Like a suggestion.
(35:50):
If I told you, hey,you should go check out this coffee shop.
It's different than you seeing an ad on, on Facebook to go
check out the coffee shop. You're goinglisten to me. Yeah.
You're a micro influencer for me. Yeah.
And so I think AI can become that.
And to make those recommendations scary is,
is obviously
advertisers and companiestaking advantage of that and
(36:13):
and giving suggestions like whatthey've done on social media where you see
ads or you see with the election,you know all the different,
the different things that they're doingto influence election, right?
Yeah.
With like augmented reality likenessyou know
twin's that you will and saying,‘Oh, this is not me.’
I know Kunal did that last year.
(36:33):
Yeah.
Said so, ‘Merry Christmas’and he's not a Merry Christmas guy
but he said Happy New Yearand he said, ‘You may think just because
this looks like me and it sounds like me,it's me, but it is not.’ Yes.
So that's, that's wild.
What's happening with that technology
which they need to really figure out waysto kind of curb that.
(36:57):
Yeah. To, well,
I think it's going to become somethingthat should have a disclaimer on it.
Have you watched any of Black Mirror?
No, I don't.
Oh, my God.
That's the thing to watch for sure.
It paints the dark picture, of what it is.
It's on Netflix.
And they do five shows,which creates a season.
They're very powerful.
(37:19):
They um, are
I believe that whoever created themand I should know this,
but I will by the next - next show.
The team that
created it, made itso people would stop and think.
Because if we do not put guardrailsaround things,
stuff happens.
There's this other show that's on
(37:40):
Netflix that doesa 180 and it's called The Future Of . . .
and The Future Of isa more positive way of looking at how A.I.
is being used, robots, all of this.
So there's the dark and the light,if you will.
Yeah.
So I, you know - you mentioned disclaimer.
I feel like it’s people are going toadapt and learn to ignore that disclaimer.
(38:02):
Mm hmm.
Like if you look at like,you ever see an ad for, like, medicine,
Politics, yeah. Yes.Or but medicine, it's like
‘This can - this medicine can kill you.’
Yes. ‘This medicine
where you can lose limbs.’, right?
Yeah.And,
and people ignore the, the
ad.‘Oh, it's not going to happen to me.’
Because I'm going to take it for causeI have, like, I don't know,
diabetes or whatever. Right.
(38:23):
And so the same thingwith that disclaimer, it's going to say, ‘Hey,
this is not Adam on Facebook.’
And people are still goingto think it's coming from Adam.
And I feel like adisclaimer is not going to work.
I feel like they really have to learnto identify what's real and what's fake.
We see that happeningright now with all this.
(38:43):
You know, people
posting fake stuff on the Internetall the time. Yes.
And people believe in it.
And, and where do you go to fact check it?
Because now there's factcheckers that are fake, too.
Yeah.Right.
So you see that all the timewith all the wars
that are going on around the world.
And there's like this sideand then there's this side
and then you see, ‘Well,is that really what the truth is?’
(39:05):
Or is that really what the truth is?
And then you don't really knowwhat to believe? Yeah.
Somebody, someone I know had said, ‘Oh,there's a food shortage, it's happening.’
And so she wentand she piled up three months of
of water, of drypackaged goods and canned goods.
And I went, ‘Really?’
‘How did I miss this?’
But I don't always listen to the news.
(39:26):
So, you know, I'm going, okay,I haven't seen a run on the grocery stores
like when we havehurricanes here in Florida.
So I kind of was going, is this?
And so then I looked it up.
I did a search, you know, Google search.
And it's telling methat FEMA is saying that, too.
And I go, ‘Well, that could still be,
an AI bot also that's putting it out.’
So to your point,people do need to be dialed in.
(39:49):
They do need to be responsiblefor any information
they're consumingfrom wherever to make sure, ‘Is this real?’.
And I,I think that it's more than just doing
a simple Google search or an AI search.Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
I have ideason how people can be more dialed in.
I mean, obviouslythey need to be listening to both right
(40:13):
and maybe, and left sided opinionsand actually
being very engagedwith what they are watching.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And do you remember a little while backthere was the
there was a rally between a college kidand an Indian - Native American.
(40:33):
Yes. Yeah.On the Capitol steps.
And there's two views.
And there was like everyone was trying to
I remember seeing thatbecause their showing one side of the view
and then the other side of the view came out
and then there was a big lawsuitthat happened
so that happens all the time where, where something gets uploaded, Yeah.
where it's, it's one sidedand then you actually find out
(40:54):
what is the real story,what's the other side of it.
And so it's hardto actually get the truth on things
because people, everyone has a camera,everyone has a phone, right?
And then how do you really figure outwhat is the - the actual story,
to, to be able to judgeboth sides of the story, right?
Similar
to this scenario, which has been a casestudy.
(41:15):
Yeah.
There's an accidentin the middle of an intersection.
There are four points of view.
You know, each one of the corners,somebody saw something,
but there's also an overhead view, right?
And then there's also the viewof the person that's inside of the car,
what they're seeing.So there's so many sides to it.
It's not just one point of view,it's to your point.
You have to consider many, many piecesof information to make a good decision.
(41:41):
Yeah.
So there's the creator of, A.I..
His name is Geoffrey Hinton,and he was one of those
thought leaders that was way back.
And, you know, whether it was
a Harvard or, you know, any of the,the Ivy League schools
where they were putting together computers
(42:01):
and they were creatingall of the things that we have now.
And they werethe ones that were creating A.I.
and so people don't realizethat it's been around for a long time.
It's not something that just
fell out of the sky, so to speak.
This was, he was interviewed on 60 Minutes
back on October 8, 2023.
(42:24):
And his concern was one of the waysin which these systems AI might escape
control is by writing their own codeto modify themselves.
And that's somethingwe need to seriously worry about.
So again,going back to like what you were saying,
people need to bewill use the word ‘woke’ to this.
They need to be engaged.
(42:45):
They need to be not trusting everything
that they read or watch or listen tois fact.
Yeah. Factcheck it yourself.
Yeah.
It’s sad the other day there was athere's, a teenager died.
I saw that.
Of suicide based on a relationship with AI.
Yeah, and it was emotional and sexualthey said. Yeah.
So the chat bot.That’s wild.
(43:07):
I would say, I would say
that very well could happen.
Right. AI writing its own code. Yeah.
I'm, I'm more concernedabout like advertisers
and people being able to change the waythe AI speak to you.
Right. So you saw the Tesla robots. Yes.
So I feel like what's going to end uphappening
(43:28):
is, yeah, they're going to pay $100,000for this robot in your house
or you can get it for 20,000and then you pay a subscription.
But that subscription is going to comewith the robot suggestion.
‘Oh, you should try this water bottle.’or ‘You should try this toilet paper.’ or,
or like the robotis going to be in your house
and it's going to learn everythingabout you.
It's going to learn everything you buy.
It's going to learn everything you do.
(43:49):
And then they're going to start changingyour habits and behaviors based on.
Because they'll influence you. Absolutely.
And now you're goingto believe it's true.
And you’re gonna believe it's true.
Do you ever even you know, when Windows 95came out?
Yeah.
You know why they gave youthose two games?
Minesweeper and Solitaire?No why?
So they put those two gameson Windows 95
(44:12):
because they were trying to teach peoplehow to use the mouse
and so they play Solitaire.Oh.
What do you do, you drag and drop.
And when you use Minesweeper,you use the right button.
So they've changed our habitsby giving us these two games
that people love playing.
And they taught us how to use
the mouse because that'swhen the mouse came out, it was Windows 95.
And so you see that all the time.
(44:33):
And people don't realize how easy it is.Interesting.
I learned this a lot from
The psychology that went into it to go,‘How do we modify people's behavior?’
Yeah. And I see this a lot.
My co-founder has a background in habitforming apps
and changing people's habitswhen it comes to television broadcasters.
That's what he's done most of his life.
(44:54):
Well, it's not even just the habits.
I mean, a habit is still a choice.
We make a choice to do something,but it's also the choices that we make.
Yeah,And that's important, too.
but if you can change the habit and choiceby, by adding something, right,
by the way that they make the phone,the design of the phone,
the way they do that
is they know like the bottom right
(45:14):
hand corneris the most important part of the phone.
And so there's certain things that they'vebuilt into technology to change
the way people use their technologyor the way
that social media set up was like,‘Why did TikTok go so viral?
Because
the way that it's so short form in the way
that people shared in those clips online.
(45:35):
So it's very easy to change people'shabits when it comes to technology.
It's aboutwhat are we going to build a company
that builds good habitsor gets people still
time on their phone?
You know whatI think is going to be happening too?
I believe that we need to have more,
just like what you're saying.
(45:58):
I hesitate to call it this, but more
I'll call it stewardshiprather than governance or regulations,
because that sounds you know, most peoplehave a negative mindset towards that.
But stewardship, we need to havemore stewardship around the
the technology that
we have available to usand how we're using it
(46:20):
so that we are using it in a positive way,a way that is built around trust
and transparency and all of the qualitiesand traits that we want.
Because if I have a robot in my home
and it is thereand it is now been programed Yep.
to, to make - help me makebad choices, that's concerning.
(46:42):
And that worked in the election years,you know, four years ago
when the Russians and Chinese,I believe it was Russians and Chinese
that had come in and hackedthrough the candidates.
Influenced, yeah.
And they influenced the election. Yeah.
So if that can be done that easily
(47:03):
in this world, then, you know,it can impact millions of people.
And we really needto be very much paying attention.
I think that there's this place of
guidelines are good for us,
systems are good for us,but they can also be bad for us.
(47:23):
And so like your app, you designed an appthat was there to help people
not be complacent, not be sedentary,
and to, to do thingsand to build relationship with people.
I think we need to have things like that
in addition to certificationsthat people have to earn to show Yep.
(47:45):
that they're going to be usingAI responsibly and ethically,
they need to have some other type
of stewardship,some place where people are taught
how to be using their mindto check things themselves.
Yeah, so technology for good and,
Technology for good. Yeah. Yeah.
(48:05):
Okay. Well, here we are.
We're going to move to the nextto last question then.
What is the best mentoring advicethat you would like to share with our
listeners about the future?
Yeah, that would be,
you know, really a lot of
I would say especially peoplethat are under the age of 40.
(48:27):
They grow or grew up with this.
The phone is they came out of the wombwith the phone in their hand. Exactly.
Yeah, everyone has the same hoursin the week and
you got to look.
Do you want to spend your time,
you know, watching shows, Netflix
being on your phone or you want to spendyour time actually building something?
(48:48):
And it takes a lot for somebody to go out,
go entrepreneur and go out and startsomething, takes a lot of time.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Don't you agree for yourself?Oh, my God. Absolutely.
And I've done it many times and it's hard,but it's rewarding.
And you can go spend,
you know 40
hours a week working a 9 to 5 job,
(49:09):
and then after 40 or 50 yearsyou retire and you're good.
Or you can go kill yourself,which is the way I look at it.
I love this.
I’ll go spend 80 hours a week right now
so I can retire at the age of 45because I built something, right?
I’ll spend 80.
I’ll spend -
I don't think that you're killing yourself.
I think you're investing in things.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(49:31):
I think you make a choice.I say kill yourself.
But I'm meaning, like, reallyjust going out and being determined
and just don't stopand just go out and do it, right?
There's peoplethat spend their time on TikTok,
or they would spend their time on Netflixand they won't spend their time
doing things that don't further themselvesand you can go spend that extra time
building and creating stuff.
Go set up like an Etsy store,go sell, sell stuff online
(49:54):
or, or go create a product,or go spend and invest.
Watch YouTube videosto learn other things.
Right?
Go learn about a tradeor craft or something.
Go to like networking events,go meet new people.
But instead they would ratherjust sit and watch TikTok videos, right?
And go and be on social mediaor watch that new show on Netflix.
(50:16):
And so
really just go,
you're young and you got to gospend that time, especially if
if you are right out of college,you have so much time on your hands,
go outand spend that time to further yourself.
I like that.
I think that's one of the a really,really good quote.
(50:37):
I think you also brought up somethingthat I find very interesting, too, is
the Tesla robots, because honestly,when I saw them, I went ‘This is straight
out of one of the movies that I've seenthat was not a happy ending.’
That was a little bit scary.
Wasn't Terminator,
but it kind of felt a little bitlike it could have been, could have been.
And I think that some of that influenceis, is
(51:00):
due based on historically
how we've seen what robotsare supposed to look like versus
what - what they, they can look very realand they will look very real. They will look real,
Yeah. Yeah.
We will have a hard time finding out,
you know whatit's really supposed to look like.
Now, how can my listeners find you?
What is the website?Where can they get the app?
(51:21):
Let's do another little promotionfor that.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you can go to www.spot - s p o t
fitness f i t n e s s dot app a p p.
so spotfitness.app is the website
you can download the app for freecheck it out, love feedback on that
(51:42):
and you can follow me on LinkedIn LinkedIn
I think it's forward slash BenEvi
and you know, really appreciateyou having me.
Oh this has been great. I am -
I know we tried this before and I know you,you had some personal challenges
too that happened.
And I hope everybody is fine.
(52:02):
Yeah, everyone's great. Yeah.
But I'm glad you were able to make it. So -
so this was,
this is a really good episode, by the way.I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, so for our listeners,keep, keep tuned.
Be sure to connect with Adamon his LinkedIn page and download the app.
Yeah, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!