July 14, 2025 • 59 mins
The rent-to-own industry stands at a technological crossroads, and Atlog is blazing the trail with AI solutions custom-built for RTO businesses. In this revealing conversation, Shaun Karakkattu, Chief Operating Officer of Atlog, shares how their team is revolutionizing how rental dealers connect with customers through remarkably human-like AI voice agents.
Shaun explains how Atlog was born from recognizing a critical gap in the rent-to-own space – the challenge of consistently making timely collection calls when staff are busy with in-store customers or otherwise unavailable. Their solution? AI voice agents that sound so authentic that during demonstrations, people have mistaken them for actual employees. "We had it on speakerphone," Shaun recalls, "and there was a person walking distance and they're like, 'Is that Reggie from XYZ store?'"
What distinguishes Atlog from previous attempts to bring technology to the RTO space is their vertical approach – designing software specifically for rental dealers rather than adapting generic solutions. Their team combines deep technical expertise (all three co-founders have computer science backgrounds from Vanderbilt) with mentorship from tech industry leaders through the prestigious "Y Combinator" program, which has launched companies like Airbnb and DoorDash.
The conversation explores how Atlog's technology maintains the personal touch that's vital to rent-to-own while addressing practical challenges. Their system provides real-time dashboards showing call performance metrics, integrates with existing POS systems, and offers various voice options including different accents and languages. Future plans include expanding from collections to inbound customer service, delivery feedback calls, and eventually sales outreach.
For rental dealers interested in bringing this technology to their operations, Atlog offers "white glove" onboarding, where they visit stores personally to customize implementation. Their pricing is store-based, making the solution accessible to both single-location operators and multi-store enterprises.
Connect with Atlog at sean@atlog.ai or visit atlog.ai to schedule a demo and experience firsthand how AI can transform your rental business while preserving the relationships that make RTO special.
*Operating software currently being developed and not ready as of the recording of this podcast.
Sponsored by: APRO, Wow Brands, JLR America, and FlyWheel RTO
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your host, pete Schaul.
Today we're talking about somecrazy stuff.
Now you might remember thesix-part series that we did on
AI Completely different setup.
Now I've got Atlog here withSean Karakatu.
Now, sean, tell me what's youractual title.
I'm the COO Chief Operator.
So we got the COO here of Atlogand now let me tell you what's
(00:29):
happening.
I came across them at FRDA, butwe didn't get a chance to meet
up Right.
So, mrda, here we are inbeautiful land of the Ozarks.
Mrda is a great place, if youguys don't know about it yet.
The Missouri Rental DealerAssociation.
Thank you, cleek, and all thepeople who are associated with
the Missouri Rental DealerAssociation.
We appreciate you.
But I did get a chance to comeout here.
(00:49):
I will be speaking very soon,but besides that, I got a chance
to catch up with Ellog and findout all about them, and the
truth is we want to dig a littledeep and see what's going on,
what's under the hood.
So, sean, talk to me a littlebit about yourself.
Listen, there's nothing morethat I can tell you that we need
new, right, we need new in therent-to-own space.
But tell me a little bit aboutyourself.
(01:11):
How did you get here?
How did this happen?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, so just to give a little background on the
company.
So we are a company that'scalled Outlog.
We have three co-foundersmyself, vraj and John and we had
a close contact to the companythat was in the RTO space, so we
had the chance to learn fromhim, um, and really like go into
his stores see, see whatproblems that we could identify.
Um, and we thought what betterthan to bring AI to an industry?
(01:37):
Um, that has, you know, reallyum been looked over in the past.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Now, so let's, let's talk about that.
Yeah, you guys, like from afresh new idea.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The idea of AI is not new right the idea of AI has
been around for a few years.
It grows and grows and grows asthings happen.
Listen, it's on our phones.
It's on our everyday chat.
Btgpt is getting closer toreplacing Google search every
single day.
So, as this happened, okay,there is no at log.
You're there and then you seethese ideas.
What made you think, okay, thisis where I need to be this,
(02:13):
this is the place where I needto incorporate myself.
And first, how did at log getthe name?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, so we so, my co we're both we're history majors
in school, so we really likedthe idea of atlases, like these
books with big maps in them.
And then log kind of camethrough.
We did a search on ChatGPT.
We were like what are coolsuffixes that we can add on?
And then we were like atlog,atlog and it could be call logs.
(02:39):
It could be like a log is anypiece of information.
So we were thinking like atlas,like these beautiful history
books and like books of maps,and then log, like just any sort
of piece of information.
So it's like at log, we combinethose together.
Okay, All right.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So you guys see this right and you see that there is
a space that we need to come upwith.
What made you say this is goingto be the industry that I'm
going to do it?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Right, I think the biggest thing for us is we
really enjoy the communityaspect.
My dad's a small business owner, so we were really trying to
look at a wide array ofindustries to identify a problem
and fix.
But I think when we wereworking with this operator, we
got to see what are the bigissues that RTO is facing and
we're starting with these callsbecause we think it's something
(03:25):
that the AI technology thatwasn't good five years ago but
is really really good now and wecan really implement.
And then, on top of that,getting to meet the community
being at MRDA, frda it's been areally, I think, interesting
experience to really see howtight-knit everyone is and kind
of get involved in that space aswell.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, I mean, let's be honest, guys, he started
golfing, he's been on thefishing trip, he's been included
, the cliques have included him.
But so you get through thisright.
Missouri Roundup Associationsays, hey, come on, you guys are
here and you're showing out,but let's back up a little bit
and go.
(04:05):
Sean?
Where did you get the AIexperience from?
What puts you in that realm tosay this is something that I can
do, this is something that Rajcan do.
Let's tackle this, because Iknow what.
Where did you get theexperience from?
Where did you get the knowledgefrom?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so we're kind of fresh out of Vanderbilt.
So we we recently graduated,we're all kind of computer
science people Like John was oneof the best CS majors at
Vanderbilt like perfect GPA,things like that so we're really
ingrained in the space andwe're in a program right now
called Y Combinator, which islike an investment program in
San Francisco, so we learnedfrom like the best AI people in
(04:38):
the world.
Essentially, we heard from SamAltman, who created ChachiBT.
He was the president of theprogram that we did a couple of
years ago.
We heard from Sam Altman, whocreated ChachiBT.
He was the president of theprogram that we did a couple
years ago.
We heard from the CEO of Airbnb.
He did the same program as us,and big, big companies that
you've heard of have done whatwe're doing right now.
So imagine DoorDash, instacart,dropbox just household names
(04:58):
and our hope is that we'llbecome a household name in the
RTO space as well.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, you're definitely coming into a space
that needs it, and I'm going tosay this I've said this for a
while on this channel I dobelieve in the rent-owned
industry.
I also believe that we're alittle bit behind.
I feel like that we can getdialed up a little bit,
especially at the pace that AIis going and seeing it
transition for the last fewyears.
Now I'm looking and going whereare we at that and how do we do
(05:23):
that?
Now, in the last six-partseries that we had, we talked
about using already existing AIto integrate into how we do it,
but we didn't have an integratedAI already into what we're
doing.
So it was the idea of AdLog tosay we want to create software
that has AI intently in it to doan everyday rent-to-own task,
exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So imagine there's like two types of AI, right?
So there's AI systems that youcan use, like you can go into
ChatGPT and make it talk aboutRTO, right?
Or what we're doing is calledAI native or it's called
vertical software.
So we're focusing in on aspecific industry, finding the
specific problems that they have, and then thinking about, like,
not just how to ai the wholething, but to ai specific
(06:05):
aspects of it that the ai isreally good at doing and then
training it right, because ai isjust like a person when a
person does something, they getbetter and better at it, and the
ai is the same way.
So that's imagine like if wecan verticalize that like find
specific niche problems, um, andthat we're building towards
that.
So imagine like the industry ispretty specific in itself and
(06:26):
then, just like working withdifferent operators, we've had
the chance to see, like what arethese like crazy scenarios that
they can get into and buildtowards that?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, so help me out.
You mentioned some names.
You mentioned John.
We've mentioned Raj who's.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Raj.
Yeah, so Raj is the CEO of ofOutlog.
He's the one with the kind ofconnect family connect to the
RTO space.
Yeah, and he's he's our CEO.
So he has a CS background and ahistory background, so really
like kind of like has the salesside and the marketing side and
then also the tech side as wellokay who's John?
(07:03):
John is our CTO, so he's supertechnical.
He was like a CS and math kidin school and like kind of the
smartest smartest guy you know,like knows it, can tell you
anything about a computer, cancode in any language and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So when you say CS, what is CS?
Cs is computer science.
Computer scientists Okay, soJohn Sean and computer
scientists okay so john sean andvaraj are together we're trying
to put this situation where wecreate this software to work
with seamlessly and rent to ownright to create what?
What is the goal of that?
Like when you, when we say thecreation of ai and then
(07:38):
utilizing it inside theworkspace, what can I expect?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
yeah, we want to start.
So we're thinking about thehighest roi problems, right, and
one of the big things we'rethinking about the highest ROI
problems, right, and one of thebig things we've seen is the
number of calls that people inthe store have to make.
So our first kind of thoughtwas our wedge could be like our
entry into the space.
Are these voice agents thatallow kind of stores to
alleviate some of the burden offtheir employees?
You know, who aren't maybemaking the most calls per day?
(08:04):
Or you know, have hundreds ofcalls to get through and they
just like literally, can't do it.
Like you know, someone comesinto the store, oh I can't make
the five calls I was supposed tomake while they were in.
Or like I have to go to mylunch break, I have to pick up
my kid from school.
So you know, any any one ofthese scenarios can happen and
sometimes you fall behind onthose calls and it's really
important to call a customerright on time because there's
(08:26):
much more likely to pay whenthey're one day late than when
they're 14 days late.
So even small things like thatis what we saw as we were trying
to.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Sean, you sound like you've been talking to somebody
in the rent-to-own space.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, we have.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, so from not having a background to being in
the store and then realizingthat there is, there is some
things that we can get workingon Right and you say that we're
going to start this.
Man, I don't want a robocaller.
I feel like that.
That's out there.
You know there's thatrobocaller where it's.
You know it's the same line overand over again and it dials
multiple numbers and it justtries to get a transaction out
of you.
Yeah, what's different betweenthe at log AI and a robocaller
(09:02):
that I've had for 10 years?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, I think the two big things right.
The first is we come into yourstore so we really try to
identify what exactly you needright, so we can set up specific
parameters.
We can have a negotiate likeimagine anything a human can do
the AI can do pretty well.
And then also it sounds.
We've showed people demos inperson and over the phone and
they're always shocked by howgood the voice is, cause it's,
(09:26):
it sounds like just like someoneyou know.
When we were in the first store,we did it in um, we like had it
on speakerphone and there was aperson walking distance and
they're like is that Reggie fromlike XYZ store?
And it's.
So I think it's very nice forus to hear, cause we're we're
listening to these voices allday trying to test them out, so
when people think they, theyreally do sound like real voices
(09:47):
.
So an auto dialer, you're justgoing to get the same robotic,
monotone voice where with us.
Like you'll get someone withwith you know emotions and
expressions, and like we'llalways have that same level of
energy, whether that's at 9 amor 8 pm in the evening.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So you guys got to understand this.
Now, I was going to the booththat they have at the Missouri
Red and Yellow Association we'retalking about the 2025 booth
and I go by and I'm talking tothe guys and we can do an
example of a call right at thebooth, right?
So if somebody comes up to youguys, you can show them hey,
this is what it sounds like.
Now, I'm not going to lie, itsounded like one of the guys at
(10:23):
the booth.
I said that earlier.
I thought it was one of theguys at the booth, but obviously
he wasn't on the phone and Iwas able to see that.
So you guys have this abilityto kind of show what it can do
with somebody who comes up toyou.
So if I was looking at just arun of the business, kind of
what does it sound like, you cando that right then and there.
Right yeah, but right then andthere, right yeah, but now
you're saying there's differentvoices.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, so the voice that we showed you was one
example of like a voice that wereally like.
So that's the one that we show,but we've been testing out like
hundreds of different voices soyou can have any accent from
anywhere in the world.
Um, we're currently testing outdifferent languages.
We have Spanish currently, um,and we've had a request from
certain store owners fordifferent languages also, so
(11:06):
that's something that we're kindof bringing out.
But, uh, we recently had like aFrench accent that we've been
testing.
Um, so it really gets reallylike, and I was listening to the
French accent.
I'm like this sounds like myFrench teacher from high school.
So it's like we've we've hadsome pretty interesting
interactions with the, with theAI, but you know, it can be a
man or a woman, it can be.
You know, they could be fromthe North, it could be from,
have a Southern accent, reallyanything.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, so I mean, are we looking at a server farm
somewhere that's going to be setup and you know we've got to
have it ultra cool for the AIindustry?
Is that something that you'reworking?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
towards.
So I think right now, like wedo the AI application, so the
companies that are doing thechips and the actual large
language models, what it'scalled, it's often referred to
as LLM.
So ChatGPT, for example, is runby OpenAI's LLM, and there's
Anthropic, which is Claude, sothat's its own LLM, and then
(12:00):
Facebook has one like metacalled Llama.
So all of our systems were kindof agnostic to the data center
and the LLM, so we just pickedthe best one that's going to
sound the best for you and toyour specific application when
choosing what voice to pick andwhat that voice is trained on
and says so is it possible tohave somebody on the background
(12:22):
using a chat?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
GPT versus a cloud.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So yeah, like the voice itself is powered by that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Okay, all right, so help me out.
We got to there by kind oflistening in and going okay, I'm
in this rent-to-own space.
I see that there's somethinggoing on.
I think I want to fix it, buthow do you stay in touch with
that?
So you've done it.
We're going to go down thisroad of making calls and you
think that it's a good segue inlet's get the collections calls,
(12:50):
let's find a personable voicethat's going to call you and set
this up with your accounts.
But how do you stay in touchwith the rent to own?
How do you know that we'restill traveling down the right
road?
What kind of?
How do you get that feedbackand how do you know?
I want to make anotheriteration to the analog AI.
Okay, for right now we're doingcollection calls, but maybe we
want to go into sales calls,maybe we want to do a callbacks,
(13:10):
maybe we want to find out howthe delivery was or whatever the
case is.
Yeah, how do you stay in touchwith the business?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, our, I think our biggest thing is talking to
store owners, like wherever weare.
We had really great interest atFRDA.
We talked to a lot of thestores down in Florida and,
being in Missouri this week,like we've had the chance to
like see kind of what people'sinterest is, how their specific
stores because you know, if youhave two stores which we have,
70 stores you have completelydifferent problems that you're
facing.
(13:36):
I guess some of them the same,some of them are different.
So our biggest thing is likekeeping in contact with our kind
of like familial connection,always relying on him to like
give us some advice and feedbackand things like that as like
our first line of defense, andthen going to our first
customers and saying, hey, likewe saw that you guys wanted this
first.
Like can we incorporate moreinto your store?
(13:57):
Like what is your feedback forus?
So that's kind of the processthat we're taking.
I think when you build somethingspecifically for someone,
that's like what our programteaches us.
It's called make somethingpeople want, right, like we
don't want to sell some.
Like.
Like we don't want to sell yousomething that you don't want
right, like you don't want tosell someone a couch that's too
big for their living room, right?
(14:18):
So like we're kind of trying tolike get the perfect couch for
you or get the perfect AI thatwill work for you, and I think,
with that philosophy in mind,it's a lot of like taking
people's feedback in andincorporating that into the
product.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well, I'm going to, I'm going to always say listen,
I'm not saying that the ownersare not right, or the owners and
I.
That's one aspect of thebusiness.
But I would definitelyincorporate, you know, some of
the RMs or some of the dms,because they're going to see it
from a different light, and thenyou're going to have the
general usage of it through thestore managers and the sales
people and the collection peopleand getting their feedback on
it might also be right something.
(14:51):
But you know, going from that isis there anybody else involved
in this?
This is all at log solo, or isthere some kind of collaboration
that you're you, you're you'rekind of feeding back into to
kind of help you get throughthis?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, so right now it's all outlog solo Um and we
are actually currently raisingmoney right now.
So one of the parts of theprogram is we are a venture run
fund um venture run company, sowe go out and we talk to
investors to help raise money umto essentially build more for
the RTO industry.
So we're really excited to, youknow, show people in investors
(15:29):
that might not know whatrent-to-own is.
It's always funny when we havethese conversations because
these are people who went to thebest schools.
All they do all day is deploycapital as venture capitalists,
so they're not really in thesame kind of space.
So we've not only had to teachthem what the AI does, what the
voice agent does, and then alsoteach them about the rent-to-own
(15:51):
space and about both furnitureand tires.
So I think that process hasbeen really interesting for us,
being this bridge between boththe technology side, like
bringing technology to therent-to-own industry, but then
also bringing the rent-to-ownindustry to the technologists
and to the investors, to showthem that you know there is room
for growth in this space andthat we are the right company to
(16:12):
bring it forward.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So if I was sitting on a bunch of money, I can
invest in that law right now.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, yeah, we're taking investors.
So if you're how does that?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
work?
How does that work If I want toinvest?
And let's say I'm just sayingif I had some money I wanted to
invest?
How does that?
How does?
Is it a share that they'rebuying?
Is it?
How does?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
that work.
Yeah company it's called.
It's like the safe model Um.
So right now we are this weekwe were raising $2 million at
about a $20 million valuation.
That's our goal.
Um, we're going to see how, howwell it goes, but um, currently
like that's why Raj and Johnaren't here with me right now
they're in SF um presenting toinvestors.
(16:47):
So that's kind of yeah, likethat capital will help us
continue to build into the spaceum and give us that leeway to
really like come into the storesand work with the different
owners as well, so that I meanthat's that's super important.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I'm glad that they're taking care of that and
we'll come back to investinglater.
Now you have a couple ofdifferent ways to look at this.
Right.
We have some businesses thatare bigger than others.
Is this like a business tobusiness model for large
companies?
Can you scale this down for theguy or the gal or the couple
that have just one store?
Can it be affordable for them?
(17:20):
Or is there a break even markwhere it's like it's better that
if you have 20 stores, so thatthat way the cost is more
effective?
Can I have just one store on it?
Can I have 50 stores on it?
How would you break that downand say this is the way it
should be?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, so we price by store.
So our hope is that everyone inthe rent-to-own industry is
going to be eventually on thatlog.
So whether you're a one-storeowner that wants to just test it
out in a store or make yourstore more efficient, that's
something that we're reallyexcited to do, because a
one-store owner has a lot ofinformation that you know a big
chain might not, because youknow you're probably there on
(17:54):
the ground, you know youremployees really well.
There's like an added, likeextra level of kind of knowledge
surrounding that.
And then if you're 50 or 70 ora hundred store owner, you know
you have district managers, youhave leaders, you have all these
employees.
So there's a lot of knowledgethere as well.
So kind of our plans are verysimilar across the board or per
store and then, based on thesize of the company, we like
(18:16):
work with them to see you knowhow you know.
Are we going to do a pilot testin a small number of stores and
expand into the rest of them,or do we do kind of like a
volume based program as well?
So we can we figure the kind ofthe pricing and the details out
with each store, but our goalis to work with every single
rent to own store.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
So one thing that I'm very curious about is that rent
to own is very personal.
Yeah, you know, it's one ofthose relationship driven
businesses.
That's what we do.
A lot of the owners that you'regoing to talk to are going to
say how do you get more sales?
How do you do this?
Well, first off, you got to,you got to create the
relationships with people, right.
So, moving forward, it seemslike relationships are starting
(18:56):
to disappear, right?
Everything is fast, everythingis on the phone.
I don't talk to somebody who'sselling me something on Amazon,
I just buy it, it shows up.
I don't talk to the driver.
I don't talk to anybody, itjust shows up.
There is no personalrelationship.
I don't like it, it goes back.
They give me my money back andI'm good when rent to own is.
(19:19):
You know, we want to build thatrelationship.
We want to make sure that theyunderstand and they're happy
with the product that they have.
So how?
How do you feel about theautomation versus going into a
business that is heavily reliedon these relationships?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, and I think that's what we're trying to
build on the best with thatfeedback aspect I was talking
about before.
We had a recent example of likedelivery drivers right, like an
owner doesn't know how well adelivery driver is doing in the
home of the person that they'regoing to and that's a really
high risk job.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
It's probably one of the most important parts of the
job.
I mean, I don't care who youare.
If they go into the store andthey build that relationship
with a manager or a salesperson,that's great, but the guy who's
most important is going to bedelivering it into your house so
that he's not knocking overyour favorite picture or
scraping your wall or pullingthe little string on the rug and
it just kind of all the waycomes out like the cartoons, but
it's a group thing.
(20:11):
I don't want to say anything isone more important.
But the lasting impression isusually the last person who's
been in where you stay right.
So did I put it where you wantit?
Did I set it up for you?
Did I show you how to use it?
Did you understand how theservice and the function of the
features work?
Do you know about our loanerprogram?
And you know that could reallymake or break it?
So how does AdLog affect that?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, so one of the things that we've been thinking
about recently we had someonerequest was having an agent call
the customer once the productis delivered.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Now, when you say agent, we're talking about AI,
yes, the AI agent.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So we would have a call go out to the customer as
soon as they have their stuffdelivered.
So right then, and there youget their real raw emotion and
we can see who was delivering it, how well they did, did the
person like it, what did they?
You know, were there any issuesthat we may be able to fix?
Um, and what were the goodthings that they did?
So we can provide thatconstructive criticism and you
(21:06):
can say like, say, you know youdo a hundred deliveries in the
week.
We can summarize all of thatand get and give you like the
high points right.
Okay, like these 85 deliveriesdid really great.
Oh, I hit the wall in onedelivery and the other 10, you
know they didn't provide anymeaningful feedback, so it's
kind of based on Providingtraining opportunities.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, exactly Okay.
So I'm going to be honest withyou.
I love the sound of it, yeah,but you're not the first person
to come to the show or therent-to-own industry and say,
hey, I have this great idea.
So not that long ago I wouldsay, let's just go back a year.
Okay, we're talking to what theycall the R2O, and it was like a
(21:45):
rent-to-own collections piecewhere there was this idea that
collections could be automatedand they were going to do
certain things not far off ofwhat you were talking about.
And there was an idea this isgoing to get implemented, this
is going to be the new wave.
And there was a fizzle.
I mean, there was like onefirework and then after that
everybody was left like, okay,what's next?
(22:07):
And it was like there's cricketsin the room, initiates at log
from people who have tried tocome into the space and do calls
and kind of get to a pointwhere this is it's going to call
you at the right time,hopefully it's going to say the
right things and it's going tochange everything, and then it
not.
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
yeah, I think our big difference is we have been kind
of built on the philosophy Iknow raj really says this a lot
of showing up, um, like that'swhy we're here, like we really
do want to build thoserelationships out.
Um, and like we both havepersonal family connections to
get the rent to own space.
Like when my parents firstmoved to America they went to a
(22:46):
rent to own furniture store toget, you know, those first
couple of pieces of furniturethat they had.
So it's meaningful to me tohelp contribute to an industry
that contributed to me when Iwas young.
So I think that's a big aspectof it.
And then I think, just likeeveryone is so, so genuinely
sweet and nice, like I think,like obviously we have to prove
(23:06):
out the product and we that's,that's, that's the onus there is
on us.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
It is it, is it totally is.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
But I think, like I think we are some of the
smartest people, um, like we aregoing to bring some of the
smartest engineers on board andI think the fact that we're also
have that venture backing isreally important, like a lot of
these companies might not havethe resources or the the capital
to really put in the time andeffort, um into creating the
software specifically for rentto own.
So both showing up, showing outand then having that resources
(23:37):
necessary to really create aproduct for this industry.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So let's say we're talking about this, right, let's
say I have Bob's rent to own,yeah, we'll say Pete's rent to
own, okay, pete's got the bestrent to own, pete's rent to own.
And you come in and we'retalking about making calls.
And we're talking about, let'ssay, a possibility to have the
callbacks and possibly somethingmore that comes down the road.
How do I know how well I'mdoing?
Do I have to wait to the end ofthe month to collect that data
(24:02):
and put it together, or do I seeit real time?
Is it on a dashboard?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
How does that work?
Yeah, two things.
With us is everything isunlimited and everything is live
.
So if you say we did a round ofcalls on Monday, you could see
it the same day as the calls aregoing.
You can see the transcripts,you can see how the AI performed
.
We also do compliance calls.
Let's say you can have it readover transcripts from real
people.
(24:26):
So there's a wide plethora ofthings, but the easiest thing is
you have a dashboard so that isactive between at log and the
rto store at at any time so youcan hop in and see how much
money was collected today, howmany calls were made, how well
is the ai doing, what is thesuccess rate?
Um, what is the average liketime on the call?
(24:49):
And you can see like is theaverage person happy with the ai
voice or are they not right?
Like we can do sentimentanalysis, just basically see
like is the average person happywith the ai voice or are they
not right?
Like we can do sentimentanalysis, just basically see
like are the calls going well?
Are they not as well?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
so okay, so we got real time live.
We're trying to make calls.
We're going to start there,we're going to get the
information coming, but nowlet's get a little deeper.
Yeah, because to integrate.
So are we talking aboutintegrating with the operating
softwares that are currently outthere, or are we talking about
Adlog is going to be able togive you an operating software
(25:21):
that you can collect money onand it calls and does these
things for you?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah.
So I think what we've beentrying to do is every owner is a
little different, right.
Every owner has a differentpreference of you know how they
want to collect the payment,whether that's through their POS
or that's not.
We also work Stripe is a bigpayment collections company that
also has the same investor asus so we have pretty good deals
through Stripe to implement thatfor the stores as well.
(25:47):
So what we do is we really workwith the store and with their
POS and their systems to try tohelp incorporate as much as
possible, and then from thatpoint, our hope is that we'll
continue to build software forthe rent-owned industry.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So what kind of information does the computer
need to be successful?
Because you have a lot ofdifferent operating softwares
out there okay.
You've got some like VersaRentthat are going to be a little
bit more on the edge, maybe notas cutting as what you guys are
bringing to the table, but alittle bit more on the edge.
You can use a mouseno-transcript, that are like I
(26:41):
don't want to upgrade becauseit's not broken, I don't mind
having the AI call, I don't mindhaving the AI collect, but why
do I need to change all mysoftware and do anything for
this, like I would love for itto integrate?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, I think that's why we're thinking through kind
of the first iteration of thecompany being the voice agents
and having that be that initialstep, so that we can also learn
about how you know the RTOsoftware that currently exists
is being used, identify, youknow, maybe there are issues
with the software, maybe thereyou know it is, you know, 20, 30
(27:16):
years old and there areimprovements to be made.
And then kind of working withthose with that software to say
like hey, like these are how wecan, we can help make things
better, and then eventually likecontinuing to make different
versions of software that canreally revolutionize how the RTO
business is done.
That can really revolutionizehow the RTO business is done.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, when we're talking about developing this,
are we talking about afull-fledged sourced out,
because right now, like, let'ssay, versarat and I'm just going
to use an example, because alot of people who are moving
forward have them Now you haveRAC that's using its own, you
have Aarons that's using its own.
So we're talking about thelarger dealers that are smaller
in the sense they're not athousand stores, right, I mean
(27:55):
large enough to have a hundredor so.
Now they are using VersaRent,right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
VersaRent also offers .
You know, you're talking aboutback end, you're talking about
inventory, you're talking aboutthe ability to, in some cases,
schedule, and then you know theidea for them to I can schedule
it here.
I can have them take the rentalorder here.
I can have them take thepayment here.
I have all these accounts andprocessing here.
What scares me too is and I'lltry not to get too far off of
(28:20):
that, but I mean you're talkingabout a system that has quite a
bit and then, with the access ofAI, how does that work with
personal information?
Because you're going to havethis AI source integrated and
embedded in the software.
Now, you know, I don't wantsomebody to go hey, man, give me
all them socials over there.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You know what I mean.
Give me all the birthdates andthose IDs.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
How do you keep it secure?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, so what we do is we have agreements with these
big LLM providers, as I wasmentioning before.
So imagine, like, if you justuse chat to BT or whatever link
large language model, right howthey train their data is based
on what the information youprovide is.
So we've gone out and we haveagreements with these companies
that basically say that any datathat we touch cannot be trained
(29:06):
on by them.
So that's how we keep both yourinformation secure and also
ours.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
That makes a good idea.
It worries me, you know.
I'm just gonna be honest.
I mean, it worries me and youknow some of the reasons I say.
You know, yeah, some of themmight be old but, I doubt that
anybody's trying to hack theseold systems.
You know they're gonna go likeI can't even dial it like what
the heck am I doing?
No, leaving that one alone, andit just.
You know it gives people asafer idea.
(29:33):
So have you?
I mean just curious.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Do you have anybody on the hook who's willing to try
?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, so we have two customers right now.
Okay, I won't say their names,for.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's okay, it's okay.
Yeah, but you have two you havetwo different companies in the
rental space that are alreadylooking to say, hey, let's try
this out.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yes, we just signed a couple of weeks ago, so we were
in Florida and then we've beenreaching out by by APRO and by a
couple of different avenues.
So I actually was drivingaround Missouri and Kansas last
week going from store to store.
So we've had some pretty goodinterest and we're excited to
kind of pilot with this firstcustomer and our big hope is
that, you know, this customerwill serve as a model for all
(30:14):
the other customers we have aswell, of like incorporating with
that system, learning more fromthem, getting that feedback and
really like building thoserelationships out in the right
tone.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So what is it that you're pitching now?
Because we're talking about wejust finished talking about what
could be available in thefuture and what you want to go
to.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
If somebody comes to Outlook right now, what's
available right now?
Yeah, so our biggest, our coreoffering right now is voice
agents.
So anything that you would callfor in an RTO store we can do.
So.
Imagine you're a store owner.
Someone calls at 6.05, fiveminutes after the store closes.
They have no way to get aquestion answered.
They have no way to figure outhow to do a payment online, um,
like, just like basic inboundcalling.
That's.
That's step one, right?
(30:58):
The second step from there isoutbound calls, whether that's
you know collections calls, youknow charge offs, things like
that, or just like basic latepayment calls.
Getting people, um, who are,you know, one to seven days,
seven to 14 days, 14 to 28 days,and like, just giving them
those reminders because you knowthese are really good customers
, they've just forgotten to pay,right.
So getting those guys on boardwith the outbound calls.
(31:22):
And then eventually we're alsotrying to do sales and marketing
calls and learn more about thecustomer, build customer
profiles, so eventually we cansay like, oh, like, johnny
bought a TV last week, right,and he he, you know, paid cash
in full in two and a half months.
Like, let's try to sell Johnnyanother, like, maybe it's a,
maybe it's a living room set,maybe it's a TV stand to go
(31:45):
along with his TV, things likethat.
So so you got a lot going onright now.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, we do.
We got a lot going on, okay,all right, so the roadmap.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
You're doing collections right now.
Yeah, we do.
We got a lot going on okay, allright.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So the roadmap you're doing collections right now.
We can possibly start goinginto sales.
What is?
What is the next two years foroutlaw?
Look at like, like you,starting with collections calls,
you can possibly go into salescalls.
We could then start going intothe callbacks for the deliveries
.
Where are you after that?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
yeah, I think our biggest.
I think, once we've masteredvoice, the voice across the
stores and the calls, what we'llbe able to do is, like I
understand these fundamentalproblems right and whether
that's like, for some stores itmight be the pos, for other
stores it might be inventorymanagement.
Um, it might just be like we.
We had one operator say thatthe front of the he wishes the
(32:32):
front of the store was smallerand the inventory in the back,
like the area in the back, wasbigger.
So even stuff like that,thinking about what sort of
solutions can software provideto alleviate these big headaches
that RTO owners are having?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Is there an idea to integrate websites with the AI
in order to do real-timeinventory checks and see
availability?
Hey, I entered in the zip code.
Well, you're like 20,000 milesaway and I can't really do it,
or you're in our delivery area.
We have the possibility ofscheduling you between four and
six.
How far away is that?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, we've been talking to some partners who are
in the website space in the RTOindustry already and have made
really great connections.
Is that Wild Brands?
Yeah, wild Brands.
Oh, we've been talking about it, listen.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I love Wild Brands.
Ryan Kress is a friend of theshow.
You know I love what they do.
They are really good at whatthey do.
The integration that they have,the possible integrations that
they can do and the forwardthinking.
He's definitely on the edge ofthat and I love his thinking on
that.
So I'm glad that you have theopportunity to to work with him,
because he's he's somebody to.
(33:37):
He's somebody right now.
Okay, that you know.
Wow Brands is definitely movingforward and I like that.
You know if there's going to bevendors working with each other
, at least as the vendors thatare already here and we use.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, he's given us a lot of great advice, so we
always love um potentiallyintegrating with the system, um,
and like getting to understandthat web, like website, and how
stores are using that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Right, so I know that there's no going to be final
date, right?
You can't say well, it's goingto be fully done by this day
because you're going to beadding and upgrading and
updating.
But what date looks like in thefuture where you can say this
is at least going to be a fullversion, or at least the full
1.0 version, that it's going tobe at that time before we do an
upgrade or something like that?
I mean, are we talking about ayear or two years?
(34:20):
How, what is it looking like?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, the voice agents were fully, fully live
with.
We can pilot it out in the nextcouple of weeks and then I
think our full vision for thecompany is really, with that
feedback and kind of what we'reexpecting is in the next year
and a half to two years, thatwe'll really understand like
continue to understand thesefundamental problems through
(34:43):
feedback and then be able tobuild from there.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So let's say I have a store.
Okay, Again, we're a pizzarental home, the best rental
home that you're ever gonna gointo and I want to use AdLog
right, I say okay, adlog, youguys have a great idea.
I'm just a one-man band.
I need some help.
I think this is going to workfor me.
What has to happen?
Like do I need a certainbandwidth in order for AdLog to
(35:08):
work correctly?
Do I add a computer tower inthe background that has full
access?
Or like like help me out, howdoes it work that you can start
getting somebody on therewithout going like super
technical?
But I mean, do I need a serverin the back?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No, so essentially what we do is we like to call it
white glove onboarding.
So we would come to Pete's rentto own.
We would the best rent to own wewould sit with you right, we
would kind of take in all theproblems that you're having.
We would understand whatsoftware you're using, how
you're using it, why you'reusing it, and take that
perspective and then also talkto the people working in the
(35:43):
store, talk to what they need.
And that's kind of how we'vethought about this process,
because for us we're trying tolearn as much as possible.
So if we can learn from thebest rent to own store in the
industry, that's that's superbeneficial for us, right?
So that's kind of how we'rethinking about it.
So, say, you want to incorporatein a store today we would fly
out to you, um, we would kind oftalk to you about you know
(36:04):
which one of those voice agentsyou want to use.
Do you want inbound?
Do you want outbound?
Do you want sales?
Um, do you want collections?
Do you want late payments?
Like what sorts of things isthat specific store looking for?
And then understand thedemographics of the store.
Like we can have them call inSpanish.
We can have, say it's a storein like an older area.
Like you know, the third of themonth is a super important date
for them.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Very important.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Very important so we can understand, like, what are
the specifics behind that storeand really tailor it to you.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
So it sounds great Okay behind that store and
really tailor it to you.
So it sounds great Okay.
But let's say Pete's RTO, thebest rent to own ever.
That's a one guy, that's a oneman band.
Okay, I have one store and I'mlooking in this one town.
Now let's say you get a callfrom somebody who's got 20
stores.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, are we white gloving, every single location.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So what we start and the reason.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I say that is you know.
Let's say you got a guy inGeorgia, you get a guy in Texas,
you get a guy in Missouri andthey all have 20 stores and
they're like hey, you know, sean, I'm ready to go.
And you're like Woo, okay, howdo I, you know, how do I make
this happen?
Yeah, how?
Where are we going from here?
Is there a scale up?
Is there going to be more thanyou guys, or is there going to
be in field?
Like how, what are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, I think, as you know, I think when the demand
is there, we'll start hiring andI think one of us will always
be on site.
I think that's kind of the goalat the moment.
But I think that's one of thebig things that the investment
is for.
And also, as we grow the numberof stores, I think we'll learn
so much more right.
The product will be so muchbetter that maybe we don't have
(37:35):
to white glove every singlestore.
We can white glove the entirechain at once, right?
Like if we can incorporate intoone store.
That first store is the hardeststore, right?
It's like the first time you dosomething is the hardest time
that you do it.
So I think the next 19 timesfrom there should be much, much
simpler.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Okay, yeah, I mean talk to me a little bit about
AdLog itself.
So we're talking about what itcan do, what we expect it to do
all the calls, the collections,possible sales and all this
stuff.
What is AdLog itself?
How are you guys?
What's the company's culture?
We have three guys with threehigh-listed titles, but I don't
think there's anybody else there.
So these have got to be longworking days.
(38:11):
I mean, talk to me, what is atypical day for Sean and Viraj?
What do you guys do?
Do you wake up, drink coffeeand go straight to?
I've got to figure this out, Imean.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
That's exactly what we've been doing.
So the program that we're in,really that's the emphasis.
So we wake up at 9 am andimmediately get started.
The coffee pot is brewing, it'sready to go.
I'm on my computer as soon asmy alarm clock goes off.
So I think for us it's reallyputting in the work, because
(38:43):
we're not only learning, we wantto build a very niche
technology for this industry.
So I think that's really likewe want to bring our work ethic
to it.
So we work 9am to 12am, we talkto our mentors, we talk to the
store owners and, um, it'salways funny, cause I was
driving around um, kansas andMissouri before MRD and that's
(39:04):
like one of the ways that, likeI'm trying to show out because,
you know, the other two couldn'tbe here right now.
So I was trying to kind of beas present as possible and it
was really cool, cause I wasgoing from store to store
passing out our smart AI guideand had a couple of store owners
come up and say like hey, likeI saw your guide, like thank you
so much for coming and droppingthat off, and I was able to do
(39:24):
that in person.
So, yeah, that was reallysomething that we like really
take into to our culture is thatshow up, be present, and we
spent a lot, a lot of hours onthis.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
So how do, how did we get here?
How did we?
I mean, and not just the analog, as we've kind of described,
but like how do you, where doyou come from that you get up
that early, stay working all day, every day on the go, like who
put you on the?
Who put you on that road?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, I think, like I think that work ethic for all
all of us comes from our parents.
Like we, like I, went to areally like really academically
challenging high school.
I'm originally from Phoenix, soI can speak the same for Raj
and John.
They went to very similar highschools to me.
We all met at Vanderbilt.
(40:15):
Vanderbilt was a superacademically challenging
curriculum in school and I thinkwe really excelled there.
Because, you know, I alwayslike to say Vanderbilt's work
hard, play hard, and that's kindof the energy that we bring as
well.
Like I went out um fishing andwoke up for golf at 6 AM today,
um, and I'm still, you know,working throughout the whole day
(40:36):
.
So I think for us, like it'sit's, it's a, it's a bit of a
balance, right, like we want tobring a full sales to the
industry, um, and that isbringing our like Vanderbilt,
work hard, play hard as well.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Okay, I mean the reason I ask is listen, I'm not
trying to take away fromanything or anybody.
I have seen people in yourshoes that they have the
knowledge.
No drive.
Yeah, you know, I want to getup, I want to work the nine to
five and I want to go to bed orI want to play, like you said.
I want to be able to do that.
That's what I went to schoolfor.
I want so that the time that Iam working I'm good and when the
(41:09):
time I'm off, I'm good.
So you know the reason I saythat is is, guys, if you, if you
see the guys that I'm talkingabout from Outlaw, there is not
one white hair on his head,Unfortunately.
I'm kind of, but I see adifferent type of work when I
talk to you guys and I wastalking to the guys earlier.
You know the number one thing Ido see a lot of listening that
(41:32):
I love because, let me tell you,there's nothing worse than
somebody telling you about yourown business.
You know what I mean.
The second thing that I see isthat everybody's interested in
an answer, or at least how toget to an answer.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
If I don't know it.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
It's okay, help me get there.
That's not something that yousee all the time.
And, guys, just so that youguys are aware, because that
means a lot to me, it means alot to the show, but, number one
, it means a lot to the rentalindustry because, listen, these
relationships are important tous.
Our customers are family.
If you don't believe that youdon't belong in this business,
okay, we would be nothing and wewould go nowhere without them.
And so the idea of finding away into this new timeframe of
(42:06):
the world where AI is going tobe more prevalent, a way where
you know, listen, self-serve isalmost like on every situation.
You know, I can go to Walmartand I can order it and they'll
bring it out to me.
I can go to Walmart online, Ican go to Amazon but you know
we're even buying groceries nowwhere I can just go on my phone,
do, do, do, and a day laterthey're going to bring me
everything that I can even use acredit card to get miles off of
(42:28):
it.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It's just crazy how it works.
So you know the idea thatself-service here.
It's here and we've got tofigure out how to make the
industry work with us, for usand with the way the customer
appreciates it.
I'm going to shop at yourlocation because you know I have
the opportunity to do it thisway or that way.
So, as we move along and we'rethinking about everything that
(42:53):
we're thinking about, is thissomething that can make it?
Speaker 2 (42:56):
please tell me, is this something that can make it
to an app To like a mobile appLike a phone app yeah, I think,
eventually we want to giveowners access, right, we want
access at any point in time.
So I think, less than Iwouldn't say an app per se, but
I would say you would alwayshave access to it on your
(43:16):
dashboard at any time on awebsite so you could pull it up
on your phone.
More so on a customer level, oh, on a customer level, yeah.
Yeah, I think the idea ispeople are buying things online.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
We're app-driven, we're app-driven.
Look, dude, if I don't havethat app, I'm not doing nothing
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
exactly People are buying things online left and
right.
So I think one of the biggestparts, an app is just a mobile
version of a website, right, soI think that's less of what we
do and more of what a websiteprovider would do, but I think
the idea of, like, eventuallybeing able to take purchases
online and make purchases, oreven like, request that purchase
online, is something that we'vereally been thinking about,
(43:53):
because you know, that's hugefor our business, right?
Like we want the, if you'remaking a sales and marketing
call, we want them to be able tolock in to the PS5 or the TV
right then, and there, yes, Imean you know, speaking candidly
.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Listen, I love the rental home industry.
I wouldn't be if I didn't.
I've been here for 20 plusyears.
I've worked for a number ofcompanies, I've done a number of
positions.
I think that, as much as I lovethis business, we are a little
bit behind.
I see the need to move up andit's crazy that I see somebody
who also sees that from ageneration's standpoint away.
(44:26):
But we can agree on that.
I love the business.
I love being able to see thepeople that I know.
Time and time and time and timeand time Again it's funny Short
story I worked at Buddy's HomeFurnishings.
I left and went somewhere elseand I came back.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
We're talking about like five-year gap.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Came back and I took over a region when Buddy's Home
Furnishings.
I go back to the store that Iused to manage and within two
hours two people came in that Iused to deal with.
Wow.
Now we're talking almost like10 years before Came in.
Oh hey, pete, how you doing Now, mind you, I haven't seen him
in 10 years.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
They're called straight first names.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Right, right, right.
And he was like where have youbeen?
And it was like, well, you know, I did this and this.
Oh, so you're back, that'sgreat.
And I was like I can't believeyou're still here, right, you
know what I mean.
So the relationships are soimportant to what we do and I
never want to understate that.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Or overstate the need for AI.
But I and we've got to marriagethat together and I think that
there's an opportunity to dothat.
But we're going to be watchingyou, Right, Because I'm going to
tell you I think and I have torephrase it, I got to look back
on it because my memory isterrible it could be R202.
But I remember that.
This collections thing, youknow, we did a thing on it and
it just seemed so great and,like you said, you know what.
(45:50):
We've got to figure out a way tomake these guys stick.
10-year, 100,000 mile, itdoesn't matter, and you're like,
you got my attention now.
And I'm not saying they're agood car, bad car or not.
But, that definitely said waita minute, at least said wait a
minute.
If we're willing to standbehind it that much, let me go
check out this car at least.
And then here we are.
They're like the third orfourth largest car manufacturer
in the world right now Again,good, bad or indifferent, that
(46:12):
is the truth.
So, looking at that, and I waslike you know, I love the idea,
I love the passion for it.
Let me tell you, if there'sanything that I love in this
business, it's the passion toget something done and to do it
right and to get there until youget it right.
But you know, seeing somebodyelse who was in the space and
you know, kind of like bailingout on it for whatever reason
(46:33):
and I'm not saying good, betterand different they're not here
anymore.
So you know what's todifferentiate the staying power
of Outlaw versus somebody who'stried it and then decided.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, I can.
I can give you some insight.
We talked about Outlook'sculture before and I think one
of the big things that we reallystick by is Brian Chesky.
He's a CEO of Airbnb.
He came and spoke to us and hewould say that the first couple
of years of Airbnb, everybodythought he was nuts right,
because he was pitching the ideathat people stay in other
people's houses that you don'tknow and was pitching the idea
(47:06):
that people stay in otherpeople's houses that you don't
know.
And who would want to stay in astranger's?
house right so he would say thathe would be the first, he was
the first guest of Airbnb.
He would go book a house and gostay in the person's house and
then he would do all of thesedifferent things where he would
take photos of their house tomake your house look like a
hotel and really get nittygritty on the ground.
And I think that's the samelevel of perseverance and grit
(47:31):
that we want to bring to ourcompany as well.
And I think, as I mentionedbefore, like that's why we're
showing up in these places andthat's why, like we're not,
we're here to stay, we're not,we're not trying to leave, Right
, Um, and I think you know I'veI've been mapping out all these
different trade shows that arehappening.
We're really excited to attendthem.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
We're trying to figure it all out.
We're trying to get there.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
And even just like talking to the store owners,
like I think that's why we wantto do the white glove onboarding
, because it really integratesthat relationship with them,
that like we care about them, tofly out to their store, to
really be on the ground, learntheir problems and create those
you know lifelong relationships.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well, you know, it's funny when you were talking
about the fact of the Airbnb.
Yeah, so somebody that we hadon the show was Joseph Kopser.
Okay, he was a keynote speakerin San Antonio, I believe, for
the RTO World.
I got to know him a little bitman sharp, amazing guy.
Now, what happened wasinadvertently.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I the.
Rto world, I got to know him alittle bit.
Man sharp, amazing guy.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Now what happened was inadvertently.
I didn't know this.
He didn't tell me this at first.
He's somebody who tries to seethe future coming.
What's coming our way?
Don't be on the tail end of thebell curve okay.
We need to be on the forefrontof it, and he saw that, just as
I do.
I think Renton needs it right.
So we're talking about it andin the conversation and you
(48:51):
mentioned Airbnb and it remindedme of something that we had
talked about.
And so Joseph, before Uber wasUber had helped create the
rideshare program that he soldthat eventually became Uber.
I was like you know that forwardthinking is like you never know
how far it'll go right, I meanI think and and I'm gonna have
(49:11):
to go back and make sure that Idouble check this but I think
that the guy who had ring, whichwasn't called ring at the time,
he pitched a shark tank.
Yeah, he did, he did and theysaid no, so he renames it puts
it out there like everybody hasa doorbell with a camera.
Now, does it necessarily mean aring?
No, but when we're talkingabout it's almost like Windex
Everybody calls glass cleanerWindex.
(49:32):
Does it mean that it's Windex?
But I mean, like everybody's,like you got a ring Doesn't mean
you have a ring, but it was theprominent number one thing that
came out and now everybodyassociates that name with hey,
do you have the outside light?
Do you have the doorbell light?
Do you know?
I know the ring has thiscommunity and it builds.
(49:53):
So looking at it now and goingman, there's an opportunity out
there.
I see an opportunity.
I'm with you guys.
I want to go back to what wesaid earlier investing.
Now, let's say I have a milliondollars in my back pocket.
Right, I don't know, pete's thebest rental owner owner ever.
I don't know if he's got amillion dollars, but so if
somebody said because I mean ourlisteners are gonna ask yeah if
there's a way to buy into this,because they feel like there's
(50:14):
something that you know.
Not only are they helping theindustry, right, but you want to
put some money in the pocket,right.
Well, how do you do that?
How does somebody go aboutreaching at log ai and saying,
hey, you know, I think I want tobe a start of the process, or
or I want you guys to come outand do the white glove, or I
have questions.
How do they reach you?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
H-A-U-N.
Sean at Outlookai and I can.
We'll send you over theinformation.
If you want the white gloveonboarding, if you want Outlook
in your stores, if you want toinvest in us any sorts of
(50:54):
questions, you can send them myway.
If it's just like how to useChatGPT for your store, how to
use a different AI model foryour store, we can do that too.
Whatever AI questions you mighthave, those are all things that
we like.
We just want to be here as aresource for the industry
because you know we've comefresh out of this, we're in San
Francisco, we've been in SanFrancisco for the last couple of
months, just like being in theheart of AI, and our hope is
(51:17):
that we can grow with thisindustry as well.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
So getting back to it , s-h-a-u-n at at log A-T-L-O-G
dot AI.
Now, if we want to reach out toRaj, it's V-R-A-J atlogai and
if they want to check out thewebsite, atlogai you can make it
easy.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
All right, so it's original name.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
You can find it, guys , anywhere.
Now is there a social mediapresence, Because I did see a
video.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
I liked the video.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Yes, yes I saw the video and I was like you know
what these guys are reallytrying.
I actually thoroughly enjoyedthe video, good, good.
So I was like you know, I gotsome competition out there.
But I really liked the video.
I thought it was amazing and Ithought they're trying.
Maybe they get it.
If somebody wanted to visit thewebsite, they go to Outlookai.
What are they going to see onthere?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, so right now we have our waitlist.
So it's it's.
We have a waitlist and our keyfeatures on there at the moment.
So if you want to book a demowith us, you can book a quick 15
to 30 minute demo.
We'll hop on call with you.
Show us, show you the platform,give you a call, let you listen
to it.
We'll talk about, like, whatyour specific needs are.
That's kind of our biggestthings.
Like our website isn't just sothat you come find information,
so that you come find us Right,and it's like who better to hear
(52:32):
from than the source itself?
So we'll hop on call with yousame day.
Like that's.
That's the type of service thatwe want to provide.
Um, and we're on all socialmedia platforms.
So you saw the video.
Um, we were kind of wanting torecreate like a furniture store
type of vibe, so that was postedon the Y Combinator LinkedIn
page.
It did pretty well.
We got like 17, almost likealmost 2000 likes, which is
(52:55):
pretty cool to see.
And then we have an Instagrampage, we have a Facebook page,
we have a Twitter page.
So we're kind of on all the bigsocial media channels as well.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Okay, good.
Well, listen, guys.
The reason I wanted to talk toyou about it is because what
else are we talking about?
Every time we have aconversation about the future of
Rentone, what two letters comeup, a and I, and you're not
going to get away from it.
Rto is going in that direction,sean.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I appreciate you coming down andsit with me telling and sit
with me telling us a little bitabout Atlog AI, because I'm very
(53:25):
curious in the direction thatit goes and I really, I really
want to know more.
So you know, just to be honest,I'm going to be spying on you a
little bit of social media.
I'm going to check out thewebsite.
No-transcript, you do reach outto the show.
(53:56):
It's Pete at theRTOshowpodcastcom.
That's Pete at theRTOshowpodcastcom.
You're welcome to go to ourwebsite and send us a direct
message.
You're welcome to see us onsocial media, which is Facebook,
instagram, linkedin and nowYouTube.
Don't forget to subscribe, andyou guys can also go on there on
the website.
Get some swag, get a nice shirt.
I was telling you right now,there's some good stuff on there
(54:16):
.
Sean, if you want to getsomething, you let me know you
can get hooked up, but I thinkyou're headed in the right
direction.
I'd love to see where you go.
I'd love to have more you know,more of this interaction a
little bit later and then, youknow, maybe we come back to this
and say this is what we haveimplemented.
You know, we're in a number ofstores we don't have to mention
who, but we're in a number ofstores.
This is how it's working, thisis where it's going.
You know again, if you want toreach out to them Sean S-H logai
(54:42):
and just see what they're,what's going on, visit them on
social media.
I really appreciate you beinghere, sean thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Thank you so much.
It's been.
It's been so great seeing youagain and, yeah, we're going to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
And, guys, I will tell you, as always, get your
collections low to get yoursales high.
Have a great one.
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your host, pete Schaul.
Today we're talking about somecrazy stuff.
Now you might remember thesix-part series that we did on
AI Completely different setup.
Now I've got Atlog here withSean Karakatu.
Now, sean, tell me what's youractual title.
I'm the COO Chief Operator.
So we got the COO here of Atlogand now let me tell you what's
(00:29):
happening.
I came across them at FRDA, butwe didn't get a chance to meet
up Right.
So, mrda, here we are inbeautiful land of the Ozarks.
Mrda is a great place, if youguys don't know about it yet.
The Missouri Rental DealerAssociation.
Thank you, cleek, and all thepeople who are associated with
the Missouri Rental DealerAssociation.
We appreciate you.
But I did get a chance to comeout here.
(00:49):
I will be speaking very soon,but besides that, I got a chance
to catch up with Ellog and findout all about them, and the
truth is we want to dig a littledeep and see what's going on,
what's under the hood.
So, sean, talk to me a littlebit about yourself.
Listen, there's nothing morethat I can tell you that we need
new, right, we need new in therent-to-own space.
But tell me a little bit aboutyourself.
(01:11):
How did you get here?
How did this happen?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, so just to give a little background on the
company.
So we are a company that'scalled Outlog.
We have three co-foundersmyself, vraj and John and we had
a close contact to the companythat was in the RTO space, so we
had the chance to learn fromhim, um, and really like go into
his stores see, see whatproblems that we could identify.
Um, and we thought what betterthan to bring AI to an industry?
(01:37):
Um, that has, you know, reallyum been looked over in the past.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Now, so let's, let's talk about that.
Yeah, you guys, like from afresh new idea.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
The idea of AI is not new right the idea of AI has
been around for a few years.
It grows and grows and grows asthings happen.
Listen, it's on our phones.
It's on our everyday chat.
Btgpt is getting closer toreplacing Google search every
single day.
So, as this happened, okay,there is no at log.
You're there and then you seethese ideas.
What made you think, okay, thisis where I need to be this,
(02:13):
this is the place where I needto incorporate myself.
And first, how did at log getthe name?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, so we so, my co we're both we're history majors
in school, so we really likedthe idea of atlases, like these
books with big maps in them.
And then log kind of camethrough.
We did a search on ChatGPT.
We were like what are coolsuffixes that we can add on?
And then we were like atlog,atlog and it could be call logs.
(02:39):
It could be like a log is anypiece of information.
So we were thinking like atlas,like these beautiful history
books and like books of maps,and then log, like just any sort
of piece of information.
So it's like at log, we combinethose together.
Okay, All right.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So you guys see this right and you see that there is
a space that we need to come upwith.
What made you say this is goingto be the industry that I'm
going to do it?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Right, I think the biggest thing for us is we
really enjoy the communityaspect.
My dad's a small business owner, so we were really trying to
look at a wide array ofindustries to identify a problem
and fix.
But I think when we wereworking with this operator, we
got to see what are the bigissues that RTO is facing and
we're starting with these callsbecause we think it's something
(03:25):
that the AI technology thatwasn't good five years ago but
is really really good now and wecan really implement.
And then, on top of that,getting to meet the community
being at MRDA, frda it's been areally, I think, interesting
experience to really see howtight-knit everyone is and kind
of get involved in that space aswell.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, I mean, let's be honest, guys, he started
golfing, he's been on thefishing trip, he's been included
, the cliques have included him.
But so you get through thisright.
Missouri Roundup Associationsays, hey, come on, you guys are
here and you're showing out,but let's back up a little bit
and go.
(04:05):
Sean?
Where did you get the AIexperience from?
What puts you in that realm tosay this is something that I can
do, this is something that Rajcan do.
Let's tackle this, because Iknow what.
Where did you get theexperience from?
Where did you get the knowledgefrom?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so we're kind of fresh out of Vanderbilt.
So we we recently graduated,we're all kind of computer
science people Like John was oneof the best CS majors at
Vanderbilt like perfect GPA,things like that so we're really
ingrained in the space andwe're in a program right now
called Y Combinator, which islike an investment program in
San Francisco, so we learnedfrom like the best AI people in
(04:38):
the world.
Essentially, we heard from SamAltman, who created ChachiBT.
He was the president of theprogram that we did a couple of
years ago.
We heard from Sam Altman, whocreated ChachiBT.
He was the president of theprogram that we did a couple
years ago.
We heard from the CEO of Airbnb.
He did the same program as us,and big, big companies that
you've heard of have done whatwe're doing right now.
So imagine DoorDash, instacart,dropbox just household names
(04:58):
and our hope is that we'llbecome a household name in the
RTO space as well.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, you're definitely coming into a space
that needs it, and I'm going tosay this I've said this for a
while on this channel I dobelieve in the rent-owned
industry.
I also believe that we're alittle bit behind.
I feel like that we can getdialed up a little bit,
especially at the pace that AIis going and seeing it
transition for the last fewyears.
Now I'm looking and going whereare we at that and how do we do
(05:23):
that?
Now, in the last six-partseries that we had, we talked
about using already existing AIto integrate into how we do it,
but we didn't have an integratedAI already into what we're
doing.
So it was the idea of AdLog tosay we want to create software
that has AI intently in it to doan everyday rent-to-own task,
exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So imagine there's like two types of AI, right?
So there's AI systems that youcan use, like you can go into
ChatGPT and make it talk aboutRTO, right?
Or what we're doing is calledAI native or it's called
vertical software.
So we're focusing in on aspecific industry, finding the
specific problems that they have, and then thinking about, like,
not just how to ai the wholething, but to ai specific
(06:05):
aspects of it that the ai isreally good at doing and then
training it right, because ai isjust like a person when a
person does something, they getbetter and better at it, and the
ai is the same way.
So that's imagine like if wecan verticalize that like find
specific niche problems, um, andthat we're building towards
that.
So imagine like the industry ispretty specific in itself and
(06:26):
then, just like working withdifferent operators, we've had
the chance to see, like what arethese like crazy scenarios that
they can get into and buildtowards that?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Okay, so help me out.
You mentioned some names.
You mentioned John.
We've mentioned Raj who's.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Raj.
Yeah, so Raj is the CEO of ofOutlog.
He's the one with the kind ofconnect family connect to the
RTO space.
Yeah, and he's he's our CEO.
So he has a CS background and ahistory background, so really
like kind of like has the salesside and the marketing side and
then also the tech side as wellokay who's John?
(07:03):
John is our CTO, so he's supertechnical.
He was like a CS and math kidin school and like kind of the
smartest smartest guy you know,like knows it, can tell you
anything about a computer, cancode in any language and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
So when you say CS, what is CS?
Cs is computer science.
Computer scientists Okay, soJohn Sean and computer
scientists okay so john sean andvaraj are together we're trying
to put this situation where wecreate this software to work
with seamlessly and rent to ownright to create what?
What is the goal of that?
Like when you, when we say thecreation of ai and then
(07:38):
utilizing it inside theworkspace, what can I expect?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
yeah, we want to start.
So we're thinking about thehighest roi problems, right, and
one of the big things we'rethinking about the highest ROI
problems, right, and one of thebig things we've seen is the
number of calls that people inthe store have to make.
So our first kind of thoughtwas our wedge could be like our
entry into the space.
Are these voice agents thatallow kind of stores to
alleviate some of the burden offtheir employees?
You know, who aren't maybemaking the most calls per day?
(08:04):
Or you know, have hundreds ofcalls to get through and they
just like literally, can't do it.
Like you know, someone comesinto the store, oh I can't make
the five calls I was supposed tomake while they were in.
Or like I have to go to mylunch break, I have to pick up
my kid from school.
So you know, any any one ofthese scenarios can happen and
sometimes you fall behind onthose calls and it's really
important to call a customerright on time because there's
(08:26):
much more likely to pay whenthey're one day late than when
they're 14 days late.
So even small things like thatis what we saw as we were trying
to.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Sean, you sound like you've been talking to somebody
in the rent-to-own space.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, we have.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, so from not having a background to being in
the store and then realizingthat there is, there is some
things that we can get workingon Right and you say that we're
going to start this.
Man, I don't want a robocaller.
I feel like that.
That's out there.
You know there's thatrobocaller where it's.
You know it's the same line overand over again and it dials
multiple numbers and it justtries to get a transaction out
of you.
Yeah, what's different betweenthe at log AI and a robocaller
(09:02):
that I've had for 10 years?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, I think the two big things right.
The first is we come into yourstore so we really try to
identify what exactly you needright, so we can set up specific
parameters.
We can have a negotiate likeimagine anything a human can do
the AI can do pretty well.
And then also it sounds.
We've showed people demos inperson and over the phone and
they're always shocked by howgood the voice is, cause it's,
(09:26):
it sounds like just like someoneyou know.
When we were in the first store,we did it in um, we like had it
on speakerphone and there was aperson walking distance and
they're like is that Reggie fromlike XYZ store?
And it's.
So I think it's very nice forus to hear, cause we're we're
listening to these voices allday trying to test them out, so
when people think they, theyreally do sound like real voices
(09:47):
.
So an auto dialer, you're justgoing to get the same robotic,
monotone voice where with us.
Like you'll get someone withwith you know emotions and
expressions, and like we'llalways have that same level of
energy, whether that's at 9 amor 8 pm in the evening.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So you guys got to understand this.
Now, I was going to the booththat they have at the Missouri
Red and Yellow Association we'retalking about the 2025 booth
and I go by and I'm talking tothe guys and we can do an
example of a call right at thebooth, right?
So if somebody comes up to youguys, you can show them hey,
this is what it sounds like.
Now, I'm not going to lie, itsounded like one of the guys at
(10:23):
the booth.
I said that earlier.
I thought it was one of theguys at the booth, but obviously
he wasn't on the phone and Iwas able to see that.
So you guys have this abilityto kind of show what it can do
with somebody who comes up toyou.
So if I was looking at just arun of the business, kind of
what does it sound like, you cando that right then and there.
Right yeah, but right then andthere, right yeah, but now
you're saying there's differentvoices.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, so the voice that we showed you was one
example of like a voice that wereally like.
So that's the one that we show,but we've been testing out like
hundreds of different voices soyou can have any accent from
anywhere in the world.
Um, we're currently testing outdifferent languages.
We have Spanish currently, um,and we've had a request from
certain store owners fordifferent languages also, so
(11:06):
that's something that we're kindof bringing out.
But, uh, we recently had like aFrench accent that we've been
testing.
Um, so it really gets reallylike, and I was listening to the
French accent.
I'm like this sounds like myFrench teacher from high school.
So it's like we've we've hadsome pretty interesting
interactions with the, with theAI, but you know, it can be a
man or a woman, it can be.
You know, they could be fromthe North, it could be from,
have a Southern accent, reallyanything.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, so I mean, are we looking at a server farm
somewhere that's going to be setup and you know we've got to
have it ultra cool for the AIindustry?
Is that something that you'reworking?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
towards.
So I think right now, like wedo the AI application, so the
companies that are doing thechips and the actual large
language models, what it'scalled, it's often referred to
as LLM.
So ChatGPT, for example, is runby OpenAI's LLM, and there's
Anthropic, which is Claude, sothat's its own LLM, and then
(12:00):
Facebook has one like metacalled Llama.
So all of our systems were kindof agnostic to the data center
and the LLM, so we just pickedthe best one that's going to
sound the best for you and toyour specific application when
choosing what voice to pick andwhat that voice is trained on
and says so is it possible tohave somebody on the background
(12:22):
using a chat?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
GPT versus a cloud.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So yeah, like the voice itself is powered by that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Okay, all right, so help me out.
We got to there by kind oflistening in and going okay, I'm
in this rent-to-own space.
I see that there's somethinggoing on.
I think I want to fix it, buthow do you stay in touch with
that?
So you've done it.
We're going to go down thisroad of making calls and you
think that it's a good segue inlet's get the collections calls,
(12:50):
let's find a personable voicethat's going to call you and set
this up with your accounts.
But how do you stay in touchwith the rent to own?
How do you know that we'restill traveling down the right
road?
What kind of?
How do you get that feedbackand how do you know?
I want to make anotheriteration to the analog AI.
Okay, for right now we're doingcollection calls, but maybe we
want to go into sales calls,maybe we want to do a callbacks,
(13:10):
maybe we want to find out howthe delivery was or whatever the
case is.
Yeah, how do you stay in touchwith the business?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, our, I think our biggest thing is talking to
store owners, like wherever weare.
We had really great interest atFRDA.
We talked to a lot of thestores down in Florida and,
being in Missouri this week,like we've had the chance to
like see kind of what people'sinterest is, how their specific
stores because you know, if youhave two stores which we have,
70 stores you have completelydifferent problems that you're
facing.
(13:36):
I guess some of them the same,some of them are different.
So our biggest thing is likekeeping in contact with our kind
of like familial connection,always relying on him to like
give us some advice and feedbackand things like that as like
our first line of defense, andthen going to our first
customers and saying, hey, likewe saw that you guys wanted this
first.
Like can we incorporate moreinto your store?
(13:57):
Like what is your feedback forus?
So that's kind of the processthat we're taking.
I think when you build somethingspecifically for someone,
that's like what our programteaches us.
It's called make somethingpeople want, right, like we
don't want to sell some.
Like.
Like we don't want to sell yousomething that you don't want
right, like you don't want tosell someone a couch that's too
big for their living room, right?
(14:18):
So like we're kind of trying tolike get the perfect couch for
you or get the perfect AI thatwill work for you, and I think,
with that philosophy in mind,it's a lot of like taking
people's feedback in andincorporating that into the
product.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Well, I'm going to, I'm going to always say listen,
I'm not saying that the ownersare not right, or the owners and
I.
That's one aspect of thebusiness.
But I would definitelyincorporate, you know, some of
the RMs or some of the dms,because they're going to see it
from a different light, and thenyou're going to have the
general usage of it through thestore managers and the sales
people and the collection peopleand getting their feedback on
it might also be right something.
(14:51):
But you know, going from that isis there anybody else involved
in this?
This is all at log solo, or isthere some kind of collaboration
that you're you, you're you'rekind of feeding back into to
kind of help you get throughthis?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, so right now it's all outlog solo Um and we
are actually currently raisingmoney right now.
So one of the parts of theprogram is we are a venture run
fund um venture run company, sowe go out and we talk to
investors to help raise money umto essentially build more for
the RTO industry.
So we're really excited to, youknow, show people in investors
(15:29):
that might not know whatrent-to-own is.
It's always funny when we havethese conversations because
these are people who went to thebest schools.
All they do all day is deploycapital as venture capitalists,
so they're not really in thesame kind of space.
So we've not only had to teachthem what the AI does, what the
voice agent does, and then alsoteach them about the rent-to-own
(15:51):
space and about both furnitureand tires.
So I think that process hasbeen really interesting for us,
being this bridge between boththe technology side, like
bringing technology to therent-to-own industry, but then
also bringing the rent-to-ownindustry to the technologists
and to the investors, to showthem that you know there is room
for growth in this space andthat we are the right company to
(16:12):
bring it forward.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
So if I was sitting on a bunch of money, I can
invest in that law right now.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, yeah, we're taking investors.
So if you're how does that?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
work?
How does that work If I want toinvest?
And let's say I'm just sayingif I had some money I wanted to
invest?
How does that?
How does?
Is it a share that they'rebuying?
Is it?
How does?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
that work.
Yeah company it's called.
It's like the safe model Um.
So right now we are this weekwe were raising $2 million at
about a $20 million valuation.
That's our goal.
Um, we're going to see how, howwell it goes, but um, currently
like that's why Raj and Johnaren't here with me right now
they're in SF um presenting toinvestors.
(16:47):
So that's kind of yeah, likethat capital will help us
continue to build into the spaceum and give us that leeway to
really like come into the storesand work with the different
owners as well, so that I meanthat's that's super important.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I'm glad that they're taking care of that and
we'll come back to investinglater.
Now you have a couple ofdifferent ways to look at this.
Right.
We have some businesses thatare bigger than others.
Is this like a business tobusiness model for large
companies?
Can you scale this down for theguy or the gal or the couple
that have just one store?
Can it be affordable for them?
(17:20):
Or is there a break even markwhere it's like it's better that
if you have 20 stores, so thatthat way the cost is more
effective?
Can I have just one store on it?
Can I have 50 stores on it?
How would you break that downand say this is the way it
should be?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, so we price by store.
So our hope is that everyone inthe rent-to-own industry is
going to be eventually on thatlog.
So whether you're a one-storeowner that wants to just test it
out in a store or make yourstore more efficient, that's
something that we're reallyexcited to do, because a
one-store owner has a lot ofinformation that you know a big
chain might not, because youknow you're probably there on
(17:54):
the ground, you know youremployees really well.
There's like an added, likeextra level of kind of knowledge
surrounding that.
And then if you're 50 or 70 ora hundred store owner, you know
you have district managers, youhave leaders, you have all these
employees.
So there's a lot of knowledgethere as well.
So kind of our plans are verysimilar across the board or per
store and then, based on thesize of the company, we like
(18:16):
work with them to see you knowhow you know.
Are we going to do a pilot testin a small number of stores and
expand into the rest of them,or do we do kind of like a
volume based program as well?
So we can we figure the kind ofthe pricing and the details out
with each store, but our goalis to work with every single
rent to own store.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
So one thing that I'm very curious about is that rent
to own is very personal.
Yeah, you know, it's one ofthose relationship driven
businesses.
That's what we do.
A lot of the owners that you'regoing to talk to are going to
say how do you get more sales?
How do you do this?
Well, first off, you got to,you got to create the
relationships with people, right.
So, moving forward, it seemslike relationships are starting
(18:56):
to disappear, right?
Everything is fast, everythingis on the phone.
I don't talk to somebody who'sselling me something on Amazon,
I just buy it, it shows up.
I don't talk to the driver.
I don't talk to anybody, itjust shows up.
There is no personalrelationship.
I don't like it, it goes back.
They give me my money back andI'm good when rent to own is.
(19:19):
You know, we want to build thatrelationship.
We want to make sure that theyunderstand and they're happy
with the product that they have.
So how?
How do you feel about theautomation versus going into a
business that is heavily reliedon these relationships?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, and I think that's what we're trying to
build on the best with thatfeedback aspect I was talking
about before.
We had a recent example of likedelivery drivers right, like an
owner doesn't know how well adelivery driver is doing in the
home of the person that they'regoing to and that's a really
high risk job.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
It's probably one of the most important parts of the
job.
I mean, I don't care who youare.
If they go into the store andthey build that relationship
with a manager or a salesperson,that's great, but the guy who's
most important is going to bedelivering it into your house so
that he's not knocking overyour favorite picture or
scraping your wall or pullingthe little string on the rug and
it just kind of all the waycomes out like the cartoons, but
it's a group thing.
(20:11):
I don't want to say anything isone more important.
But the lasting impression isusually the last person who's
been in where you stay right.
So did I put it where you wantit?
Did I set it up for you?
Did I show you how to use it?
Did you understand how theservice and the function of the
features work?
Do you know about our loanerprogram?
And you know that could reallymake or break it?
So how does AdLog affect that?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, so one of the things that we've been thinking
about recently we had someonerequest was having an agent call
the customer once the productis delivered.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Now, when you say agent, we're talking about AI,
yes, the AI agent.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So we would have a call go out to the customer as
soon as they have their stuffdelivered.
So right then, and there youget their real raw emotion and
we can see who was delivering it, how well they did, did the
person like it, what did they?
You know, were there any issuesthat we may be able to fix?
Um, and what were the goodthings that they did?
So we can provide thatconstructive criticism and you
(21:06):
can say like, say, you know youdo a hundred deliveries in the
week.
We can summarize all of thatand get and give you like the
high points right.
Okay, like these 85 deliveriesdid really great.
Oh, I hit the wall in onedelivery and the other 10, you
know they didn't provide anymeaningful feedback, so it's
kind of based on Providingtraining opportunities.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, exactly Okay.
So I'm going to be honest withyou.
I love the sound of it, yeah,but you're not the first person
to come to the show or therent-to-own industry and say,
hey, I have this great idea.
So not that long ago I wouldsay, let's just go back a year.
Okay, we're talking to what theycall the R2O, and it was like a
(21:45):
rent-to-own collections piecewhere there was this idea that
collections could be automatedand they were going to do
certain things not far off ofwhat you were talking about.
And there was an idea this isgoing to get implemented, this
is going to be the new wave.
And there was a fizzle.
I mean, there was like onefirework and then after that
everybody was left like, okay,what's next?
(22:07):
And it was like there's cricketsin the room, initiates at log
from people who have tried tocome into the space and do calls
and kind of get to a pointwhere this is it's going to call
you at the right time,hopefully it's going to say the
right things and it's going tochange everything, and then it
not.
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
yeah, I think our big difference is we have been kind
of built on the philosophy Iknow raj really says this a lot
of showing up, um, like that'swhy we're here, like we really
do want to build thoserelationships out.
Um, and like we both havepersonal family connections to
get the rent to own space.
Like when my parents firstmoved to America they went to a
(22:46):
rent to own furniture store toget, you know, those first
couple of pieces of furniturethat they had.
So it's meaningful to me tohelp contribute to an industry
that contributed to me when Iwas young.
So I think that's a big aspectof it.
And then I think, just likeeveryone is so, so genuinely
sweet and nice, like I think,like obviously we have to prove
(23:06):
out the product and we that's,that's, that's the onus there is
on us.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
It is it, is it totally is.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
But I think, like I think we are some of the
smartest people, um, like we aregoing to bring some of the
smartest engineers on board andI think the fact that we're also
have that venture backing isreally important, like a lot of
these companies might not havethe resources or the the capital
to really put in the time andeffort, um into creating the
software specifically for rentto own.
So both showing up, showing outand then having that resources
(23:37):
necessary to really create aproduct for this industry.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
So let's say we're talking about this, right, let's
say I have Bob's rent to own,yeah, we'll say Pete's rent to
own, okay, pete's got the bestrent to own, pete's rent to own.
And you come in and we'retalking about making calls.
And we're talking about, let'ssay, a possibility to have the
callbacks and possibly somethingmore that comes down the road.
How do I know how well I'mdoing?
Do I have to wait to the end ofthe month to collect that data
(24:02):
and put it together, or do I seeit real time?
Is it on a dashboard?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
How does that work?
Yeah, two things.
With us is everything isunlimited and everything is live
.
So if you say we did a round ofcalls on Monday, you could see
it the same day as the calls aregoing.
You can see the transcripts,you can see how the AI performed
.
We also do compliance calls.
Let's say you can have it readover transcripts from real
people.
(24:26):
So there's a wide plethora ofthings, but the easiest thing is
you have a dashboard so that isactive between at log and the
rto store at at any time so youcan hop in and see how much
money was collected today, howmany calls were made, how well
is the ai doing, what is thesuccess rate?
Um, what is the average liketime on the call?
(24:49):
And you can see like is theaverage person happy with the ai
voice or are they not right?
Like we can do sentimentanalysis, just basically see
like is the average person happywith the ai voice or are they
not right?
Like we can do sentimentanalysis, just basically see
like are the calls going well?
Are they not as well?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
so okay, so we got real time live.
We're trying to make calls.
We're going to start there,we're going to get the
information coming, but nowlet's get a little deeper.
Yeah, because to integrate.
So are we talking aboutintegrating with the operating
softwares that are currently outthere, or are we talking about
Adlog is going to be able togive you an operating software
(25:21):
that you can collect money onand it calls and does these
things for you?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah.
So I think what we've beentrying to do is every owner is a
little different, right.
Every owner has a differentpreference of you know how they
want to collect the payment,whether that's through their POS
or that's not.
We also work Stripe is a bigpayment collections company that
also has the same investor asus so we have pretty good deals
through Stripe to implement thatfor the stores as well.
(25:47):
So what we do is we really workwith the store and with their
POS and their systems to try tohelp incorporate as much as
possible, and then from thatpoint, our hope is that we'll
continue to build software forthe rent-owned industry.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So what kind of information does the computer
need to be successful?
Because you have a lot ofdifferent operating softwares
out there okay.
You've got some like VersaRentthat are going to be a little
bit more on the edge, maybe notas cutting as what you guys are
bringing to the table, but alittle bit more on the edge.
You can use a mouseno-transcript, that are like I
(26:41):
don't want to upgrade becauseit's not broken, I don't mind
having the AI call, I don't mindhaving the AI collect, but why
do I need to change all mysoftware and do anything for
this, like I would love for itto integrate?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, I think that's why we're thinking through kind
of the first iteration of thecompany being the voice agents
and having that be that initialstep, so that we can also learn
about how you know the RTOsoftware that currently exists
is being used, identify, youknow, maybe there are issues
with the software, maybe thereyou know it is, you know, 20, 30
(27:16):
years old and there areimprovements to be made.
And then kind of working withthose with that software to say
like hey, like these are how wecan, we can help make things
better, and then eventually likecontinuing to make different
versions of software that canreally revolutionize how the RTO
business is done.
That can really revolutionizehow the RTO business is done.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So, when we're talking about developing this,
are we talking about afull-fledged sourced out,
because right now, like, let'ssay, versarat and I'm just going
to use an example, because alot of people who are moving
forward have them Now you haveRAC that's using its own, you
have Aarons that's using its own.
So we're talking about thelarger dealers that are smaller
in the sense they're not athousand stores, right, I mean
(27:55):
large enough to have a hundredor so.
Now they are using VersaRent,right.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
VersaRent also offers .
You know, you're talking aboutback end, you're talking about
inventory, you're talking aboutthe ability to, in some cases,
schedule, and then you know theidea for them to I can schedule
it here.
I can have them take the rentalorder here.
I can have them take thepayment here.
I have all these accounts andprocessing here.
What scares me too is and I'lltry not to get too far off of
(28:20):
that, but I mean you're talkingabout a system that has quite a
bit and then, with the access ofAI, how does that work with
personal information?
Because you're going to havethis AI source integrated and
embedded in the software.
Now, you know, I don't wantsomebody to go hey, man, give me
all them socials over there.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
You know what I mean.
Give me all the birthdates andthose IDs.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
How do you keep it secure?
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, so what we do is we have agreements with these
big LLM providers, as I wasmentioning before.
So imagine, like, if you justuse chat to BT or whatever link
large language model, right howthey train their data is based
on what the information youprovide is.
So we've gone out and we haveagreements with these companies
that basically say that any datathat we touch cannot be trained
(29:06):
on by them.
So that's how we keep both yourinformation secure and also
ours.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
That makes a good idea.
It worries me, you know.
I'm just gonna be honest.
I mean, it worries me and youknow some of the reasons I say.
You know, yeah, some of themmight be old but, I doubt that
anybody's trying to hack theseold systems.
You know they're gonna go likeI can't even dial it like what
the heck am I doing?
No, leaving that one alone, andit just.
You know it gives people asafer idea.
(29:33):
So have you?
I mean just curious.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Do you have anybody on the hook who's willing to try
?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, so we have two customers right now.
Okay, I won't say their names,for.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's okay, it's okay.
Yeah, but you have two you havetwo different companies in the
rental space that are alreadylooking to say, hey, let's try
this out.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yes, we just signed a couple of weeks ago, so we were
in Florida and then we've beenreaching out by by APRO and by a
couple of different avenues.
So I actually was drivingaround Missouri and Kansas last
week going from store to store.
So we've had some pretty goodinterest and we're excited to
kind of pilot with this firstcustomer and our big hope is
that, you know, this customerwill serve as a model for all
(30:14):
the other customers we have aswell, of like incorporating with
that system, learning more fromthem, getting that feedback and
really like building thoserelationships out in the right
tone.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So what is it that you're pitching now?
Because we're talking about wejust finished talking about what
could be available in thefuture and what you want to go
to.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
If somebody comes to Outlook right now, what's
available right now?
Yeah, so our biggest, our coreoffering right now is voice
agents.
So anything that you would callfor in an RTO store we can do.
So.
Imagine you're a store owner.
Someone calls at 6.05, fiveminutes after the store closes.
They have no way to get aquestion answered.
They have no way to figure outhow to do a payment online, um,
like, just like basic inboundcalling.
That's.
That's step one, right?
(30:58):
The second step from there isoutbound calls, whether that's
you know collections calls, youknow charge offs, things like
that, or just like basic latepayment calls.
Getting people, um, who are,you know, one to seven days,
seven to 14 days, 14 to 28 days,and like, just giving them
those reminders because you knowthese are really good customers
, they've just forgotten to pay,right.
So getting those guys on boardwith the outbound calls.
(31:22):
And then eventually we're alsotrying to do sales and marketing
calls and learn more about thecustomer, build customer
profiles, so eventually we cansay like, oh, like, johnny
bought a TV last week, right,and he he, you know, paid cash
in full in two and a half months.
Like, let's try to sell Johnnyanother, like, maybe it's a,
maybe it's a living room set,maybe it's a TV stand to go
(31:45):
along with his TV, things likethat.
So so you got a lot going onright now.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yeah, we do.
We got a lot going on, okay,all right, so the roadmap.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
You're doing collections right now.
Yeah, we do.
We got a lot going on okay, allright.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
So the roadmap you're doing collections right now.
We can possibly start goinginto sales.
What is?
What is the next two years foroutlaw?
Look at like, like you,starting with collections calls,
you can possibly go into salescalls.
We could then start going intothe callbacks for the deliveries
.
Where are you after that?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
yeah, I think our biggest.
I think, once we've masteredvoice, the voice across the
stores and the calls, what we'llbe able to do is, like I
understand these fundamentalproblems right and whether
that's like, for some stores itmight be the pos, for other
stores it might be inventorymanagement.
Um, it might just be like we.
We had one operator say thatthe front of the he wishes the
(32:32):
front of the store was smallerand the inventory in the back,
like the area in the back, wasbigger.
So even stuff like that,thinking about what sort of
solutions can software provideto alleviate these big headaches
that RTO owners are having?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Is there an idea to integrate websites with the AI
in order to do real-timeinventory checks and see
availability?
Hey, I entered in the zip code.
Well, you're like 20,000 milesaway and I can't really do it,
or you're in our delivery area.
We have the possibility ofscheduling you between four and
six.
How far away is that?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, we've been talking to some partners who are
in the website space in the RTOindustry already and have made
really great connections.
Is that Wild Brands?
Yeah, wild Brands.
Oh, we've been talking about it, listen.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I love Wild Brands.
Ryan Kress is a friend of theshow.
You know I love what they do.
They are really good at whatthey do.
The integration that they have,the possible integrations that
they can do and the forwardthinking.
He's definitely on the edge ofthat and I love his thinking on
that.
So I'm glad that you have theopportunity to to work with him,
because he's he's somebody to.
(33:37):
He's somebody right now.
Okay, that you know.
Wow Brands is definitely movingforward and I like that.
You know if there's going to bevendors working with each other
, at least as the vendors thatare already here and we use.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, he's given us a lot of great advice, so we
always love um potentiallyintegrating with the system, um,
and like getting to understandthat web, like website, and how
stores are using that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Right, so I know that there's no going to be final
date, right?
You can't say well, it's goingto be fully done by this day
because you're going to beadding and upgrading and
updating.
But what date looks like in thefuture where you can say this
is at least going to be a fullversion, or at least the full
1.0 version, that it's going tobe at that time before we do an
upgrade or something like that?
I mean, are we talking about ayear or two years?
(34:20):
How, what is it looking like?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, the voice agents were fully, fully live
with.
We can pilot it out in the nextcouple of weeks and then I
think our full vision for thecompany is really, with that
feedback and kind of what we'reexpecting is in the next year
and a half to two years, thatwe'll really understand like
continue to understand thesefundamental problems through
(34:43):
feedback and then be able tobuild from there.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So let's say I have a store.
Okay, Again, we're a pizzarental home, the best rental
home that you're ever gonna gointo and I want to use AdLog
right, I say okay, adlog, youguys have a great idea.
I'm just a one-man band.
I need some help.
I think this is going to workfor me.
What has to happen?
Like do I need a certainbandwidth in order for AdLog to
(35:08):
work correctly?
Do I add a computer tower inthe background that has full
access?
Or like like help me out, howdoes it work that you can start
getting somebody on therewithout going like super
technical?
But I mean, do I need a serverin the back?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No, so essentially what we do is we like to call it
white glove onboarding.
So we would come to Pete's rentto own.
We would the best rent to own wewould sit with you right, we
would kind of take in all theproblems that you're having.
We would understand whatsoftware you're using, how
you're using it, why you'reusing it, and take that
perspective and then also talkto the people working in the
(35:43):
store, talk to what they need.
And that's kind of how we'vethought about this process,
because for us we're trying tolearn as much as possible.
So if we can learn from thebest rent to own store in the
industry, that's that's superbeneficial for us, right?
So that's kind of how we'rethinking about it.
So, say, you want to incorporatein a store today we would fly
out to you, um, we would kind oftalk to you about you know
(36:04):
which one of those voice agentsyou want to use.
Do you want inbound?
Do you want outbound?
Do you want sales?
Um, do you want collections?
Do you want late payments?
Like what sorts of things isthat specific store looking for?
And then understand thedemographics of the store.
Like we can have them call inSpanish.
We can have, say it's a storein like an older area.
Like you know, the third of themonth is a super important date
for them.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Very important.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Very important so we can understand, like, what are
the specifics behind that storeand really tailor it to you.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
So it sounds great Okay behind that store and
really tailor it to you.
So it sounds great Okay.
But let's say Pete's RTO, thebest rent to own ever.
That's a one guy, that's a oneman band.
Okay, I have one store and I'mlooking in this one town.
Now let's say you get a callfrom somebody who's got 20
stores.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, are we white gloving, every single location.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So what we start and the reason.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I say that is you know.
Let's say you got a guy inGeorgia, you get a guy in Texas,
you get a guy in Missouri andthey all have 20 stores and
they're like hey, you know, sean, I'm ready to go.
And you're like Woo, okay, howdo I, you know, how do I make
this happen?
Yeah, how?
Where are we going from here?
Is there a scale up?
Is there going to be more thanyou guys, or is there going to
be in field?
Like how, what are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Yeah, I think, as you know, I think when the demand
is there, we'll start hiring andI think one of us will always
be on site.
I think that's kind of the goalat the moment.
But I think that's one of thebig things that the investment
is for.
And also, as we grow the numberof stores, I think we'll learn
so much more right.
The product will be so muchbetter that maybe we don't have
(37:35):
to white glove every singlestore.
We can white glove the entirechain at once, right?
Like if we can incorporate intoone store.
That first store is the hardeststore, right?
It's like the first time you dosomething is the hardest time
that you do it.
So I think the next 19 timesfrom there should be much, much
simpler.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Okay, yeah, I mean talk to me a little bit about
AdLog itself.
So we're talking about what itcan do, what we expect it to do
all the calls, the collections,possible sales and all this
stuff.
What is AdLog itself?
How are you guys?
What's the company's culture?
We have three guys with threehigh-listed titles, but I don't
think there's anybody else there.
So these have got to be longworking days.
(38:11):
I mean, talk to me, what is atypical day for Sean and Viraj?
What do you guys do?
Do you wake up, drink coffeeand go straight to?
I've got to figure this out, Imean.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
That's exactly what we've been doing.
So the program that we're in,really that's the emphasis.
So we wake up at 9 am andimmediately get started.
The coffee pot is brewing, it'sready to go.
I'm on my computer as soon asmy alarm clock goes off.
So I think for us it's reallyputting in the work, because
(38:43):
we're not only learning, we wantto build a very niche
technology for this industry.
So I think that's really likewe want to bring our work ethic
to it.
So we work 9am to 12am, we talkto our mentors, we talk to the
store owners and, um, it'salways funny, cause I was
driving around um, kansas andMissouri before MRD and that's
(39:04):
like one of the ways that, likeI'm trying to show out because,
you know, the other two couldn'tbe here right now.
So I was trying to kind of beas present as possible and it
was really cool, cause I wasgoing from store to store
passing out our smart AI guideand had a couple of store owners
come up and say like hey, likeI saw your guide, like thank you
so much for coming and droppingthat off, and I was able to do
(39:24):
that in person.
So, yeah, that was reallysomething that we like really
take into to our culture is thatshow up, be present, and we
spent a lot, a lot of hours onthis.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
So how do, how did we get here?
How did we?
I mean, and not just the analog, as we've kind of described,
but like how do you, where doyou come from that you get up
that early, stay working all day, every day on the go, like who
put you on the?
Who put you on that road?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, I think, like I think that work ethic for all
all of us comes from our parents.
Like we, like I, went to areally like really academically
challenging high school.
I'm originally from Phoenix, soI can speak the same for Raj
and John.
They went to very similar highschools to me.
We all met at Vanderbilt.
(40:15):
Vanderbilt was a superacademically challenging
curriculum in school and I thinkwe really excelled there.
Because, you know, I alwayslike to say Vanderbilt's work
hard, play hard, and that's kindof the energy that we bring as
well.
Like I went out um fishing andwoke up for golf at 6 AM today,
um, and I'm still, you know,working throughout the whole day
(40:36):
.
So I think for us, like it'sit's, it's a, it's a bit of a
balance, right, like we want tobring a full sales to the
industry, um, and that isbringing our like Vanderbilt,
work hard, play hard as well.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Okay, I mean the reason I ask is listen, I'm not
trying to take away fromanything or anybody.
I have seen people in yourshoes that they have the
knowledge.
No drive.
Yeah, you know, I want to getup, I want to work the nine to
five and I want to go to bed orI want to play, like you said.
I want to be able to do that.
That's what I went to schoolfor.
I want so that the time that Iam working I'm good and when the
(41:09):
time I'm off, I'm good.
So you know the reason I saythat is is, guys, if you, if you
see the guys that I'm talkingabout from Outlaw, there is not
one white hair on his head,Unfortunately.
I'm kind of, but I see adifferent type of work when I
talk to you guys and I wastalking to the guys earlier.
You know the number one thing Ido see a lot of listening that
(41:32):
I love because, let me tell you,there's nothing worse than
somebody telling you about yourown business.
You know what I mean.
The second thing that I see isthat everybody's interested in
an answer, or at least how toget to an answer.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
If I don't know it.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
It's okay, help me get there.
That's not something that yousee all the time.
And, guys, just so that youguys are aware, because that
means a lot to me, it means alot to the show, but, number one
, it means a lot to the rentalindustry because, listen, these
relationships are important tous.
Our customers are family.
If you don't believe that youdon't belong in this business,
okay, we would be nothing and wewould go nowhere without them.
And so the idea of finding away into this new timeframe of
(42:06):
the world where AI is going tobe more prevalent, a way where
you know, listen, self-serve isalmost like on every situation.
You know, I can go to Walmartand I can order it and they'll
bring it out to me.
I can go to Walmart online, Ican go to Amazon but you know
we're even buying groceries nowwhere I can just go on my phone,
do, do, do, and a day laterthey're going to bring me
everything that I can even use acredit card to get miles off of
(42:28):
it.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It's just crazy how it works.
So you know the idea thatself-service here.
It's here and we've got tofigure out how to make the
industry work with us, for usand with the way the customer
appreciates it.
I'm going to shop at yourlocation because you know I have
the opportunity to do it thisway or that way.
So, as we move along and we'rethinking about everything that
(42:53):
we're thinking about, is thissomething that can make it?
Speaker 2 (42:56):
please tell me, is this something that can make it
to an app To like a mobile appLike a phone app yeah, I think,
eventually we want to giveowners access, right, we want
access at any point in time.
So I think, less than Iwouldn't say an app per se, but
I would say you would alwayshave access to it on your
(43:16):
dashboard at any time on awebsite so you could pull it up
on your phone.
More so on a customer level, oh, on a customer level, yeah.
Yeah, I think the idea ispeople are buying things online.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
We're app-driven, we're app-driven.
Look, dude, if I don't havethat app, I'm not doing nothing
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
exactly People are buying things online left and
right.
So I think one of the biggestparts, an app is just a mobile
version of a website, right, soI think that's less of what we
do and more of what a websiteprovider would do, but I think
the idea of, like, eventuallybeing able to take purchases
online and make purchases, oreven like, request that purchase
online, is something that we'vereally been thinking about,
(43:53):
because you know, that's hugefor our business, right?
Like we want the, if you'remaking a sales and marketing
call, we want them to be able tolock in to the PS5 or the TV
right then, and there, yes, Imean you know, speaking candidly
.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Listen, I love the rental home industry.
I wouldn't be if I didn't.
I've been here for 20 plusyears.
I've worked for a number ofcompanies, I've done a number of
positions.
I think that, as much as I lovethis business, we are a little
bit behind.
I see the need to move up andit's crazy that I see somebody
who also sees that from ageneration's standpoint away.
(44:26):
But we can agree on that.
I love the business.
I love being able to see thepeople that I know.
Time and time and time and timeand time Again it's funny Short
story I worked at Buddy's HomeFurnishings.
I left and went somewhere elseand I came back.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
We're talking about like five-year gap.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Came back and I took over a region when Buddy's Home
Furnishings.
I go back to the store that Iused to manage and within two
hours two people came in that Iused to deal with.
Wow.
Now we're talking almost like10 years before Came in.
Oh hey, pete, how you doing Now, mind you, I haven't seen him
in 10 years.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
They're called straight first names.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Right, right, right.
And he was like where have youbeen?
And it was like, well, you know, I did this and this.
Oh, so you're back, that'sgreat.
And I was like I can't believeyou're still here, right, you
know what I mean.
So the relationships are soimportant to what we do and I
never want to understate that.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Or overstate the need for AI.
But I and we've got to marriagethat together and I think that
there's an opportunity to dothat.
But we're going to be watchingyou, Right, Because I'm going to
tell you I think and I have torephrase it, I got to look back
on it because my memory isterrible it could be R202.
But I remember that.
This collections thing, youknow, we did a thing on it and
it just seemed so great and,like you said, you know what.
(45:50):
We've got to figure out a way tomake these guys stick.
10-year, 100,000 mile, itdoesn't matter, and you're like,
you got my attention now.
And I'm not saying they're agood car, bad car or not.
But, that definitely said waita minute, at least said wait a
minute.
If we're willing to standbehind it that much, let me go
check out this car at least.
And then here we are.
They're like the third orfourth largest car manufacturer
in the world right now Again,good, bad or indifferent, that
(46:12):
is the truth.
So, looking at that, and I waslike you know, I love the idea,
I love the passion for it.
Let me tell you, if there'sanything that I love in this
business, it's the passion toget something done and to do it
right and to get there until youget it right.
But you know, seeing somebodyelse who was in the space and
you know, kind of like bailingout on it for whatever reason
(46:33):
and I'm not saying good, betterand different they're not here
anymore.
So you know what's todifferentiate the staying power
of Outlaw versus somebody who'stried it and then decided.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Yeah, I can.
I can give you some insight.
We talked about Outlook'sculture before and I think one
of the big things that we reallystick by is Brian Chesky.
He's a CEO of Airbnb.
He came and spoke to us and hewould say that the first couple
of years of Airbnb, everybodythought he was nuts right,
because he was pitching the ideathat people stay in other
people's houses that you don'tknow and was pitching the idea
(47:06):
that people stay in otherpeople's houses that you don't
know.
And who would want to stay in astranger's?
house right so he would say thathe would be the first, he was
the first guest of Airbnb.
He would go book a house and gostay in the person's house and
then he would do all of thesedifferent things where he would
take photos of their house tomake your house look like a
hotel and really get nittygritty on the ground.
And I think that's the samelevel of perseverance and grit
(47:31):
that we want to bring to ourcompany as well.
And I think, as I mentionedbefore, like that's why we're
showing up in these places andthat's why, like we're not,
we're here to stay, we're not,we're not trying to leave, Right
, Um, and I think you know I'veI've been mapping out all these
different trade shows that arehappening.
We're really excited to attendthem.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
We're trying to figure it all out.
We're trying to get there.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
And even just like talking to the store owners,
like I think that's why we wantto do the white glove onboarding
, because it really integratesthat relationship with them,
that like we care about them, tofly out to their store, to
really be on the ground, learntheir problems and create those
you know lifelong relationships.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well, you know, it's funny when you were talking
about the fact of the Airbnb.
Yeah, so somebody that we hadon the show was Joseph Kopser.
Okay, he was a keynote speakerin San Antonio, I believe, for
the RTO World.
I got to know him a little bitman sharp, amazing guy.
Now, what happened wasinadvertently.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I the.
Rto world, I got to know him alittle bit.
Man sharp, amazing guy.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Now what happened was inadvertently.
I didn't know this.
He didn't tell me this at first.
He's somebody who tries to seethe future coming.
What's coming our way?
Don't be on the tail end of thebell curve okay.
We need to be on the forefrontof it, and he saw that, just as
I do.
I think Renton needs it right.
So we're talking about it andin the conversation and you
(48:51):
mentioned Airbnb and it remindedme of something that we had
talked about.
And so Joseph, before Uber wasUber had helped create the
rideshare program that he soldthat eventually became Uber.
I was like you know that forwardthinking is like you never know
how far it'll go right, I meanI think and and I'm gonna have
(49:11):
to go back and make sure that Idouble check this but I think
that the guy who had ring, whichwasn't called ring at the time,
he pitched a shark tank.
Yeah, he did, he did and theysaid no, so he renames it puts
it out there like everybody hasa doorbell with a camera.
Now, does it necessarily mean aring?
No, but when we're talkingabout it's almost like Windex
Everybody calls glass cleanerWindex.
(49:32):
Does it mean that it's Windex?
But I mean, like everybody's,like you got a ring Doesn't mean
you have a ring, but it was theprominent number one thing that
came out and now everybodyassociates that name with hey,
do you have the outside light?
Do you have the doorbell light?
Do you know?
I know the ring has thiscommunity and it builds.
(49:53):
So looking at it now and goingman, there's an opportunity out
there.
I see an opportunity.
I'm with you guys.
I want to go back to what wesaid earlier investing.
Now, let's say I have a milliondollars in my back pocket.
Right, I don't know, pete's thebest rental owner owner ever.
I don't know if he's got amillion dollars, but so if
somebody said because I mean ourlisteners are gonna ask yeah if
there's a way to buy into this,because they feel like there's
(50:14):
something that you know.
Not only are they helping theindustry, right, but you want to
put some money in the pocket,right.
Well, how do you do that?
How does somebody go aboutreaching at log ai and saying,
hey, you know, I think I want tobe a start of the process, or
or I want you guys to come outand do the white glove, or I
have questions.
How do they reach you?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
H-A-U-N.
Sean at Outlookai and I can.
We'll send you over theinformation.
If you want the white gloveonboarding, if you want Outlook
in your stores, if you want toinvest in us any sorts of
(50:54):
questions, you can send them myway.
If it's just like how to useChatGPT for your store, how to
use a different AI model foryour store, we can do that too.
Whatever AI questions you mighthave, those are all things that
we like.
We just want to be here as aresource for the industry
because you know we've comefresh out of this, we're in San
Francisco, we've been in SanFrancisco for the last couple of
months, just like being in theheart of AI, and our hope is
(51:17):
that we can grow with thisindustry as well.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
So getting back to it , s-h-a-u-n at at log A-T-L-O-G
dot AI.
Now, if we want to reach out toRaj, it's V-R-A-J atlogai and
if they want to check out thewebsite, atlogai you can make it
easy.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
All right, so it's original name.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
You can find it, guys , anywhere.
Now is there a social mediapresence, Because I did see a
video.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
I liked the video.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Yes, yes I saw the video and I was like you know
what these guys are reallytrying.
I actually thoroughly enjoyedthe video, good, good.
So I was like you know, I gotsome competition out there.
But I really liked the video.
I thought it was amazing and Ithought they're trying.
Maybe they get it.
If somebody wanted to visit thewebsite, they go to Outlookai.
What are they going to see onthere?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, so right now we have our waitlist.
So it's it's.
We have a waitlist and our keyfeatures on there at the moment.
So if you want to book a demowith us, you can book a quick 15
to 30 minute demo.
We'll hop on call with you.
Show us, show you the platform,give you a call, let you listen
to it.
We'll talk about, like, whatyour specific needs are.
That's kind of our biggestthings.
Like our website isn't just sothat you come find information,
so that you come find us Right,and it's like who better to hear
(52:32):
from than the source itself?
So we'll hop on call with yousame day.
Like that's.
That's the type of service thatwe want to provide.
Um, and we're on all socialmedia platforms.
So you saw the video.
Um, we were kind of wanting torecreate like a furniture store
type of vibe, so that was postedon the Y Combinator LinkedIn
page.
It did pretty well.
We got like 17, almost likealmost 2000 likes, which is
(52:55):
pretty cool to see.
And then we have an Instagrampage, we have a Facebook page,
we have a Twitter page.
So we're kind of on all the bigsocial media channels as well.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
Okay, good.
Well, listen, guys.
The reason I wanted to talk toyou about it is because what
else are we talking about?
Every time we have aconversation about the future of
Rentone, what two letters comeup, a and I, and you're not
going to get away from it.
Rto is going in that direction,sean.
I'm going to tell you right now.
I appreciate you coming down andsit with me telling and sit
with me telling us a little bitabout Atlog AI, because I'm very
(53:25):
curious in the direction thatit goes and I really, I really
want to know more.
So you know, just to be honest,I'm going to be spying on you a
little bit of social media.
I'm going to check out thewebsite.
No-transcript, you do reach outto the show.
(53:56):
It's Pete at theRTOshowpodcastcom.
That's Pete at theRTOshowpodcastcom.
You're welcome to go to ourwebsite and send us a direct
message.
You're welcome to see us onsocial media, which is Facebook,
instagram, linkedin and nowYouTube.
Don't forget to subscribe, andyou guys can also go on there on
the website.
Get some swag, get a nice shirt.
I was telling you right now,there's some good stuff on there
(54:16):
.
Sean, if you want to getsomething, you let me know you
can get hooked up, but I thinkyou're headed in the right
direction.
I'd love to see where you go.
I'd love to have more you know,more of this interaction a
little bit later and then, youknow, maybe we come back to this
and say this is what we haveimplemented.
You know, we're in a number ofstores we don't have to mention
who, but we're in a number ofstores.
This is how it's working, thisis where it's going.
You know again, if you want toreach out to them Sean S-H logai
(54:42):
and just see what they're,what's going on, visit them on
social media.
I really appreciate you beinghere, sean thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Thank you so much.
It's been.
It's been so great seeing youagain and, yeah, we're going to
talk about it.
Speaker 1 (54:53):
And, guys, I will tell you, as always, get your
collections low to get yoursales high.
Have a great one.
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