January 11, 2024 • 44 mins
Join us for an enlightening conversation with domain industry pioneer Mike Mann. With a legacy spanning back to the mid-1990s, Mike has been instrumental in shaping numerous leading brands and innovations that continue to define our industry today.
From his groundbreaking ventures like BuyDomains and DomainMarket.com to iconic domains like Sex.com and the .CO extension, Mike's contributions have left an indelible mark on the digital landscape. But it's not just about business—Mike's unwavering commitment to philanthropy shines through his work with organizations like Grassroots.org and Make Change, where he continues to make a positive impact in the lives of others.
In this interview, we delve into Mike's journey, from founding BuyDomains to curating a portfolio of over 200,000 domains. We explore the strategies behind domain management, discuss recent sales, and even engage in a live negotiation over a domain one of our clients is eager to acquire.
Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights from one of the domain industry's most influential figures. Tune in today and discover the stories behind the domains!"
About Saw.com
We’re passionate about digital assets here at Saw.com. It’s our mission to create a transparent environment where you know what’s happening with every step of your domain sale or acquisition (and secure the best possible price!)
About Jeffrey:
Jeffrey M. Gabriel is the founder of Saw.com, a boutique brokerage that specializes in acquiring, selling, and appraising domains. With over 14 years of experience in the domain industry, Jeffrey has a proven track record of closing multimillion-dollar deals and delivering exceptional value to his clients.
Jeffrey's core competencies include remote team management, online marketing, and strategy. He is passionate about helping businesses and individuals achieve their online goals and dreams. He has been involved in some of the most notable domain sales in history, such as Ai.com, Sex.com, and Poker.org. He is also a Guinness World Record holder and a frequent speaker and writer on domain-related topics.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on the uncomfortable podcast, we have
Derek Meany, co-founder ofonmecom.
Derek decided to leave thecomfort and notoriety of his
Google project management roleand dive into the tumultuous
waters of an entrepreneurshipWith his co-founder that did the
same as in leaving Google aswell.
(00:20):
They didn't just step out oftheir comfort zone, they leaped.
Listen today about what it'slike to work at Google, how they
raised money and launched hisnew company, onmecom.
Derek is also a customer thatacquired the domain onmecom from
our company, sawcom, and wealso cover the acquisition, why
(00:40):
they liked the name, why theypicked it, what it was like to
be on the other side of thenegotiation and what they were
thinking during the process.
And if you're thinking about it, onme is an online gift card
company that is aiming to makeyour gifting experience more
seamless and delightful.
I look forward to seeing thefuture versions of this service
and what they do with it, andyou can always get alerts of our
(01:03):
new episodes on sawcom podcastor follow us on Apple podcast,
spotify, youtube and many others.
And, as always, thanks forlistening.
(01:26):
Welcome to today's episode onthe podcast in our spotlight.
Today, we're discussing a thebeginnings of a fascinating
career journey.
Imagine working as a productmanager at giants like Whirlpool
, credit, swiss Google andYouTube Sounds like some pretty
cool dream jobs there.
Now picture leaving that allbehind to dive into the world of
(01:50):
digital gifting.
That's exactly what Derek Meanydid and launched onmecom, and
we're going to talk about thattoday and a little bit more.
So here we are.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself and, you know, let's
get into just the basics of yourcareer and your experience, and
then we can get into onme, yournew, your new launched website.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sounds great and we're a client of sawcom, so
yeah, yeah we'll be here, jeff.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Exactly, we can certainly get into that part too
, yeah of course, no happy toshare.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Very glad to be here.
My name is Darren Meany.
I'm actually calling it fromDublin today.
I'm just home for Christmas,first mobile.
But I was born in Ireland and Ifirst studied in University
College Cork.
I then went to London for asmall bit of time to work in the
investment banking at CreditSwiss.
It was all going fine when Iwas there.
It's now obviously gone underand part of UBS, but I don't
(02:43):
think it's downfall was becauseI left After that.
I then went to the US and did mymaster's at the University of
Notre Dame thanks to a verygenerous scholarship from the
Noctin Foundation, which was thekindest thing a bunch of
strangers have ever done for me,and then I was leaving my
master's that I basically wenton and actually I started with
the Google APM program, whichwill be probably one of the most
(03:05):
famous of the APM programs thatare now kind of like everywhere
.
But it's an Associate ProductManager role, which is a very
nice thing for a big techcompany to do, whereby generally
product managers came fromjunior engineers that really had
a product focus, and Google wasone of the first places to
realize that.
It's quite helpful if you justtake a new graduate who's very
(03:25):
fresh to the world and throwthem in the deep end in the role
, and it's an amazing program.
I couldn't speak higher aboutit.
I think it's well known amonggraduates in the US and kind of
the world over, and it wasdefinitely one of the best areas
of career you could have,especially if you're looking at
kind of an entrepreneurialfuture in some ways.
And then I was actually basedin Zurich, switzerland, for the
last four years, two and a halfof which I spent with Google,
(03:48):
where I worked in Google Flightsand then YouTube, so spent a
huge amount of time in SanFrancisco, where I'm obviously
based now, trying to build acompany with my co-founders
Zatar Haral.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's quite a story, so let's just get into it
before we get into yourbusinesses.
About what is it?
What is it like working atGoogle compared to some of these
other companies that you'veworked for?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Oh, like definitely that everyone says it, but it's
really true.
Like the people you get to workwith at Google are really
incredible.
Most places in the world, youknow, you look under the hood
and it's a lot of people tryingto do the best they can.
But, like normally places arequite chaotic and I think the
best place I've ever worked wasdefinitely Google.
Like it's a large bunch ofpeople who are just as kind as
(04:32):
the nicest people you can find,who are all trying to do a
really good job.
And you know, I think Googleoffices are quite famous for,
you know, there's like threegreat meals a day, there's a
huge number of pool tables andall the fun stuff.
You are quite busy when you'reworking there, but it's
definitely like a.
It's definitely a bit of aplayground as well.
There's a lot of funny rolesthat people turn around.
(04:52):
One of the funniest ones Iheard was adult crush.
It really made me laugh.
But it's an incredible place towork.
You get to work with incredibly, let's say, like 10-year-old
and you know serious people inthe computer science space.
It's a really talented bunch ofpeople.
It's just.
I think it was one of the bestplaces to start my career,
(05:14):
especially in a product rolewhere you get like a large
oversight over like teams andhow they work and you know you
kind of start off in meetingswith quite senior people, even
as a very junior product manager, so you really get a sense of
like how the business works fromthe early days.
There's definitely, you know,tech companies in the last few
years have really changed, youknow.
I think in many cases they'rebecoming they're no longer tech
(05:35):
companies, they're just becomingcompanies where they now have
to be profitable and do all thekind of regular company based
things.
But still, I think tech is anamazing place to work.
You're treated incredibly well,especially as like a junior
person, and when I joined therewas a huge amount of attention
given to like younger employeeswho are trying to grow and,
let's say, get up to speed witheveryone else.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, so working there you mentioned, you know,
entrepreneurship, and usually ata company of that size, that
word isn't usually thrown aroundwithin it and usually people,
when describing it, doesn't, itdoesn't really work.
And then you just mentioned itagain that it's a tech company.
So when you work at Googleespecially someone like you
people are feeding you ideas orproduct ideas or pieces of a
(06:19):
product every day, which, withinan established business, even
creating a new product is likebeing an entrepreneur within
your own business, right, howhard is it to, if you had some
new product line idea or somenew widget at Google, to go to
somebody and say, hey, what doyou think about this?
And actually it becoming areality, cause that, like the
(06:42):
company I worked for before, aunit registry.
We got up to, you know, over ahundred employees.
Now, that's nothing compared toGoogle, but when I first started
working there, there was 10 ofus, right, and then it grew to
that, and so by the time to getnew things out, it took longer
and longer and there wasdifferent.
Oh well, it'll affect this,it'll cause this, this is, this
is a lot of.
And then the lawyers gotinvolved and things, so I can't
(07:03):
imagine the layers of approvals.
So what was it like to take ifsomeone had a good idea for
something?
What was the process in so manywords, and how hard was it to
get it done?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Google is definitely a very bigship and as the ship grows,
your kind of rudder stays quitesmall and it's definitely not
it's definitely not the mostagile company in the world
anymore and I think I graduatedin 2019 and I went straight to
Google.
I definitely, if I was in theearly 2000s, would have been a
(07:36):
much better time to join for thekind of company that a lot of
people who kind of really wantto work in entrepreneurship role
and kind of want to have solike.
As you mentioned, google is anincredibly tenured company.
That's obviously much later inits lifestyle.
It really depends on whatyou're working on at Google.
I think you know from theoutside Google looks like one
company, but if you lookinternally, there's like 150
(07:58):
different products that peopleend up working on and they all
kind of operate as their ownmini company in different ways.
So I worked first in Googleflights, which is quite small
and an amazing group of reallytalented people, and in that
smaller space you work with oneor 200 people and when someone
has a good idea, it's somewhatagile to get moving and you can
really you can speak to theright decision makers and you
can put it on, let's say, aroadmap or a product timeline.
(08:20):
That's within, like you know,six to 12 months and you've got
a chance to get it out the door.
And then I also worked atYouTube, which is obviously much
bigger and you know there's ahuge number of different kind of
product people that are allfull of ideas and all trying to
get things out the door and inthat case you're definitely
competing with a lot more thingshappening.
It's still like a great place tohave like quite a lot of impact
(08:41):
.
I think what you get is you getmassive numbers of users that
use your products, so, like youcan make small changes to
products that end up impactinglots and lots of people, whereas
in a startup environment, youoften get to make sweeping
changes to a product thatthere's often not a huge number
of people actually interactingwith.
So I think there's kind of adelicate balance there.
I think that, yeah, it's muchharder to Google doesn't turn in
(09:04):
a dime and if you're full ofgreat ideas and you want to see
them implemented in the nextnumber of months, it is
definitely a more 10 year, 10company where you have quarterly
release cycles and lots ofstructure and you know huge
things.
There's also like massivereputational risk and you know
endless expectations in a postIPO company and when you're set
up you don't have any of that.
So it's still possible, butit's definitely not as agile as
(09:27):
a startup by any means.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Got it.
So before we move on becauselet's talk about on me over
Google, here is, since you'veworked on YouTube and you've
worked on flights is there anyquirky part of the product or a
little Easter egg in either ofthose products that most of
someone like myself who usesboth of those products, might
not even know exists, that wecould go and see after the show
(09:50):
or something can tell us aboutit that we might be able to find
or just not know about soonerthan later?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Like I worked at flights inYouTube and my co-founder
Citarell worked on like maps andphotos, so I think those are
better known for like GoogleEaster eggs, as they're often
called, like small things thatyou find in places.
One of the small things that Ithink not enough people find is
in Google flights you canactually search for like a
continent.
You can put in, like you know, acountry or a continent and it
(10:19):
takes you to a whole new sectionof the product that's called
Explorer, and Google flighthasn't done a good job of, let's
say, showcasing this wellenough in the product, but it's
a really cool feature.
If you just search for, let'ssay, like Asia, or if you search
for like South America, younormally get taken to a much
more visual experience thatshows you the whole continent
and, basically, from yourlocation, flights to every
single city that you could go to, and I use it a lot for
(10:41):
planning my own vacation, mainlybecause I know how to use the
tool quite well.
But it's an amazing way of, ifyou have a weekend free and
you're in Europe, it's a greatway to see like all the
different cities you couldtravel to and like the different
price for the flights.
And then this is a kind of apower to move, but if you apply
filters, it applies toeverything within Explorer, so I
often use it for I'll set likea flight leaving on Friday
(11:01):
between 3pm and like 7pm andthen coming back on Sunday night
between, like you know, 6pm andonwards, and it's like an
amazing tool for planning kindof weekend getaways.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's sweet.
And then you know what I didn'tknow about that and I bet you,
a lot of people are gonna listento this, don't either.
So that's great that you saidthat.
So let's talk about you knowfor myself included is that I
always had that itch.
When I graduated college, Ididn't have the same opportunity
to work at Google, but when youstarted working there and
(11:32):
working in the working world wasin the back of your mind,
saying to yourself you know, Ilove this, these people are
great to me, but I have an itchto go do my own thing.
Or in the midst of workingthere, it just kind of came
where you're like you know, Iwanna go do something on my own
and launch my own product.
When did that kind of start tocreep?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
in?
Yeah, it's a good question.
There's a lot of people who youknow entrepreneurship became
like really hot over the lastfew years and in some ways I
think I'm quite allergic to thetitle of being an entrepreneur,
mainly because it's been kind oftaken around and shaken.
It's a very loaded term thesedays, but I was always really
interested in.
I actually always lovedbusiness from being like a kid
(12:14):
and I really loved anything youcould do to make a buck or
something like that I justthought was really exciting and
I always just liked, you know,helping people and building
things and like having somethingthat you do.
I always thought it was superfascinating and actually like
when I was a university student,I remember thinking I was like
I need a way to make enoughmoney for like rent and random
(12:34):
stuff during my week and Iactually started an iPhone
repair company.
Never thought I'd be doingsomething like that and like the
margins are actually reallygood and my seven, a very good
friend, dave Kalnan, built kindof like what we call it was
called shatterie in Ireland andwe actually get explored really
well and you know it actuallyled to the first ever kind of
scholarship I got for likeinnovation entrepreneurship back
(12:56):
in my home university, inUniversity College Cork, and it
was kind of coming out of thatthat really helped me get a
scholarship to the US, I thinkalways really involved in this
space and you would always getback here.
I definitely I loved computerscience.
I kind of studied computerscience and economics originally
and then did a few other bitsand I knew, leaving that I'd
love to get experience in, let'ssay, some big companies and
(13:17):
then you know, with the guys ofwhen a good idea comes along
that you're kind of a bit morecapable and a debt that actually
executing on that.
And yeah, definitely think beinga product manager is definitely
one of the best roles you havein terms of you see all the
right stuff, you reallyunderstand how the business
works, how you liaise back withengineering teams and design
teams and like all the peopleyou need and kind of like the
(13:37):
software development kind ofside businesses.
And yeah, when I was at GoogleI was always kind of keeping an
eye out for something that wouldbe interesting and like always
wanted to get back to, maybebecause it's over glorified and
too many of you know you worksomething like you've got all of
your friends kind of want to dothe same.
And if you spend enough time inSan Francisco, you know way too
(13:57):
many people who are gettingfunded to do all sorts of things
and eventually you're like Ireally want to throw my hat in
the ring and do the same.
So I think I always knew I washere and I always find it really
exciting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So when I decided to leave a uni registry and become
an entrepreneur myself and tostart my own company, there's
that moment when you eithercalled or walked into your
boss's office or sent an emailwho knows when you said I'm
giving my notice.
So when you gave your noticeand hit send, or he answered the
(14:33):
phone and you said it, did youhave a holy shit.
What did I just do?
Moment Cause I did.
What did you?
You know what were you feeling?
So you did it and they're like,oh, and then you know where is
it.
Did you already have yourpartner, your co-founder and him
?
Did you already have yourrelationship?
You know, you'd both plan to doit on the same day, you know,
(14:56):
did you both?
And then, when you did it, didyou call each other after and
say, all right, we did it.
Now what do we do, you know?
So what?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, like you're 100% right, Like everyone has
that moment somewhere on the wayfor you, kind of go like what
have I done?
Yeah, yeah, and like in inhonesty, like getting getting a
good job at a university waslike super helpful and like it
gives you a bit of a financialbase to kind of like you know,
plan your next thing and you'releaving.
A well-paid job somewhere likeGoogle is not an easy thing to
(15:26):
do and they also have a lot oflike very clever internal tools
that, like you know to projectyour, your stock growth and how
your seller is going to go overthe next few years, and there's
a lot of very clever systemsthat really make you feel like
you know your path to safety andeverything else is staying in
your, your comfortable tech joband turning with them.
That is.
It's really hard.
It is.
One of my closest friends is aguy called Vera Wittem and we
(15:46):
went skiing in Switzerland and aski tour.
It was what a five hour climbto the mountain called the
Foulhorn and the whole fivehours was just me annoying him
about.
Like what am I going to do?
Am I going to leave Google?
Should I pursue this idea ornot?
And incredible guy and he kindof talked through the whole
thing and he was like, look, itseems like a good idea, you
should probably leave.
And I was working for Iactually met him for dinner
(16:08):
recently and I was just going togo call him Ibrahim, who's now
a director at Google slashYouTube, and he was incredible,
like he was just a great manager.
He knew that I was verypassionate in the space and I
think he was like, you know,just very sensible advice about
these kinds of things.
And then it was with him.
I obviously said I was like,look, I'll probably be giving my
notice.
And then you write the email.
My holy crap moment definitelycame, handing over your laptop
(16:28):
and your badge at the very safeand comfortable reception in
Google's Switzerland.
Because you know, we used tojoke that it was like it's
golden handcuffs when you'reworking in a tech company where
you have, like this lovelyincome and everything's great
and you have three meals a dayand all your friends are there,
and you used to call it actuallythe golden handcuffs within the
golden cage.
The golden handcuffs was Googleand the golden cage was
(16:49):
Switzerland, where everythingjust works flawlessly.
And it was very stunning, butit was, it was all right, it was
very difficult to leave.
And then, I think, a few weeksout, you kind of you get a
chance to think about it all andyou're like, oh, this is fine,
like you can always go back andget a job somewhere, you'll be
fine, and then more like youneed a bit of hunger, I think
when you're going towards thismaybe it was the same in your
case, but sometimes you need,you need.
(17:11):
You need something that reallymakes you want to fight for
getting something over the lineand getting something done.
But yeah, I definitely had thatmoment as well.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, I mean I think for myself.
I love the.
I love the beginnings of abusiness, I love building new
things and processes andcreating revenue streams and
teaching people and addingpeople to the team.
And then when you kind of getto that point where people say
start talking about the good olddays, you know you've really
(17:40):
built a successful businessbecause they're talking about,
you know, the early 2000s.
Well, in the early 2000s Googlewas still possibly going to be
like a Yahoo where their stocktanked or bad things happen, but
obviously it's been.
You know this way so.
But that's great.
Yeah, there's always that,there's always that moment.
Now you said each of theproducts are kind of like their
(18:02):
own business within the company.
So how did you meet yourco-founder if he was working on
totally different products, tomake that relationship?
How did?
How did you meet?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
him.
Yeah, it's, we actually we'rein the same kind of like star
program, the the APM program Imentioned earlier, and there's
like this kind of 45 people fromall over the world that are in
this and it's great.
There's like a lot of trips andeverything else.
And he was actually working ona feature on Google Maps at the
time where you could like sharelocation with one another.
And we were on a skiing trip inTahoe in California and he was
(18:32):
like, oh, we should use a newfeature and we kind of shared
location with each other and wewere always really good friends
of the program and we'd alwayskind of stayed in touch and
whenever I was in California,we'd like, you know, just grab
lunch and stuff.
So we became like really goodfriends through that.
And randomly, just after I leftGoogle, a friend of mine was, I
think he was in Greece for amonth, so he gave me his
apartment in New York.
So I was just living in NewYork for a month and I opened my
(18:54):
Google Maps one day and I justsaw a little pen next to about
two blocks over.
That was like Satara's locationand I was like, oh, my God,
he's not really a basicCalifornia.
It was like what are you doingin New York?
And he was like, oh, I justleft Google here visiting some
friends.
And I was like, dude, we shouldtotally go for coffee and be in
for coffee somewhere on like4th Avenue.
And we basically just sat down.
He was like what are you up to?
(19:15):
And I was like, oh, I've gotthis like idea to start building
something in the space, and youknow, I've already laid out
most of the groundwork and I'mkind of looking for like a
technical co-founder and startedstudying computer science at
Cornell.
And he was like, like,literally at the table, we're
kind of like we should do this.
And you know he'd just left.
He was kind of making some ofhis plans as well.
And eventually we were like,look, he was like I love the
idea, like Satara is reallyfunny, like he always wanted to
(19:38):
be an inventor, he lovesbuilding things, he loves making
things.
And yeah, just, we just kind ofclick from there.
And then there was a few otherswere kind of wait at the time
or like, look, we should just,we should just get all in and do
this.
But yeah, and I think to yourpoint about like, let's say, you
leaving university and doingthese things.
You get such an amazing networkwhen you join a big company and
like there's lots of youngpeople, everyone's really hungry
(19:59):
and that kind of stuff, andthat's really stood to us.
Like half my friends are peoplefrom the APM program even today
and like Satara obviously Ialways joke he's like my work
husband, where you spend some ofyour co-founders, like you get
to know every corner of everyoneand like there's no hiding when
you work that many hours likeclose together and it's
(20:20):
incredible.
You really need a strong baseand there's the skills that I
definitely do not have, thathe's incredible at and I hope
there's a few that I have thathe's lacking, or else he'll get
rid of me pretty quick.
But no, we went through thatand it was really great.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So you obviously had a few years since college.
He has two.
You're in the same program.
Okay, I mentioned when I sentyou the survey before interview
that you guys raised just under$2 million from Mastercard.
I'm going to probably destroythis company's name or person's
name to Lara Hippie.
Yeah.
How do you pronounce that?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, I did it right, yeah, I think, lyra, the
American tournament hippo isoriginally from the French side.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Okay, and then focal or focal right.
So typically, and from my I'venever done a raise before.
But for you to get that muchmoney, especially from a company
like Mastercard being involved,how do you?
How did you go in there andpitch them?
And without the experience ofleading, you know, massive teams
(21:24):
or building a business orworking at you know I know you
have worked at Google, butyou're a product manager.
You weren't managing teams, youweren't launching the products
yourself, and same with yourcolleague.
You know you're two recentlycollege grads.
So how did you, how did you gettheir attention when so many
others are going to them withtheir ideas?
What was that like?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, it's a good question.
It's funny, I would probablysay, like a product manager it's
kind of modern sense in a techcompany is probably the best
role you can actually have tokind of like prepare you for
definitely like your fundraisingjourney where, like normally as
a product manager, you're kindof put in the hot seat, where
you're kind of responsible forabout.
You know, depending on howsenior you are, there's lots of
levels to this, but you'renormally responsible for like an
(22:06):
engineering team and a designteam and lots of other
affiliated teams and like whatthey all work on.
Like you're supposed to be theperson who's designing the
entire roadmap of products andfeatures of like I'm working on
Google Maps and we should spendthe next quarter building better
navigation features and moredepth maps and colors and all
these things.
So you're you're kind of usedto being the person that's
dreaming up the future andeffectively communicating at the
(22:27):
back with all of the necessaryteams to kind of do these things
.
So one of the best skills youactually want to learn as a
product manager really is likehow do you align teams along a
vision, how do you get by andhow do you like really captivate
people with something that'sexciting to build, that
motivates people to want tobuild it.
And I think in a software worldit's really hard to build things
and you need really crystalclear ideas of what you actually
(22:49):
want to do and you know the.
The joke in any tech company islike an engineer can work a
certain and you know workinghired in a software.
Let's say, our informationworld is a very hard thing to
kind of grasp, and people whofeel motivated and bought into
what they're building work 100x.
Someone who's kind of like, oh,I'm just doing this to get it
out, and that's one of yourbiggest jobs as a product
(23:11):
manager is to really paint anexciting enough future that your
software engineers feel likecompelling to get over all of
the hurdles.
That's needed to get somewhere.
And so I think those skills youactually learned really well in
modern tech, especially in theproduct role, and that really
stood to us when we went back tocompanies.
What we're basically doing asyoung founders is we're saying
we have this crazy vision andthis is our plan to get there.
(23:33):
And yeah, we, basically weactually when we first started
we thought we could bootstrapmost of this Like we actually we
had a really great contact thatintroduced us to MasterCards,
who I met it's funny enough,skiing in Switzerland and they
really love what we were doing.
Obviously, we we'd no idea thatlike someone like MasterCard
would be that interested in whatwe were building.
But we've like a lot ofinteresting stuff in the payment
(23:55):
kind of back end that we wantedto bring to market.
And we started speaking to someof the guys, definitely David
Galvin, who's the one of thedirectives kind of fintech
partnerships at MasterCard.
We got kind of networked toquite early and he really loved
what we were building and yeah,we've actually had an amazing
kind of relationship with theirdata and services team and yeah,
we were kind of almostsurprised as well that they were
that willing to work with asmall company.
(24:15):
And once we got kind ofMasterCard on board and we had
like a really solid base forwhat we were building and we
knew exactly what we were goingafter.
Then we kind of were able tocarry that forward to kind of
like other investors.
And you know it's I think ifyou're building any company,
there's about 100, 100 difficultyeses you need to get from
people along the way Definitelyone of the reasons why building
a company is a little bit easierin the US.
I think people are much morewilling to take a shot in a
(24:37):
small company and you know it'sit's like rolling a snowball
down a hill, like you get thefirst one and you can use that
to unlock number two and thennumber three and by the time you
get to number 15, you've kindof got like a small mound behind
you that you kind of carry inas a bit of momentum and then
when you get to number, you know100, you've got like a small
village of people who are kindof helping you in all these
small ways and package.
And we definitely saw that.
(24:57):
So we, we got moving for fouror five months and we kind of
got.
You know, we got the MasterCardon board, we got some other
things.
And then we went toinstitutional investors.
We actually had, like you know,a very well put together kind
of plan.
We industry experts across theboard who kind of looked at what
we were building and we're ableto kind of like pitch that back
to sophisticated kind of likeVC investors like Lyra, hipaa of
, I think, 1.2 billion in assetsunder management.
(25:18):
They backed a Venmo, so theywere kind of used to fintech
ideas like this.
We were kind of working with afew people there that were like
really great.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So I'm sure some of the listeners have done that,
are going to try to do this fortheir own ideas.
What would be like two of thebest tips that you learned if
you knew it going into it whenyou're going to do your pitches
that you you definitely learnedbecause it was your first time.
What will be those two quicktips?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I think there's a really great advisor, who's
also a small angel by angelinvestor in our company.
He's a good friend.
He's a Swiss guy called Andreasand he gave me some advice
before I did an institutionalfundraise and if I listened to
him a bit closer, I think itwould have saved us like a small
bit of time.
And like, bear in mind, weraised money in H1 of this year
where, like fintech investmentswere down 85% and he was like
(26:07):
raising around is all aboutmomentum.
He was like you put together avery good narrative, you bring
it to lots of investors and youyou get a deal over the line.
I think it's really true likeno deal is perfect.
I think every deal that getslike a VC check has like one or
two things that are a bit weakabout the overall idea.
Maybe it's the team, maybe it'ssomething else, and you need a
bit of momentum to kind of getyour deal over the line.
And I think what you reallywant to do is you want to go out
(26:29):
and speak to a lot of peoplequite quickly not in in that
kind of way but I think you needto have a small bit of
excitement about your deal orsomething like that to get it
over the line.
And I think, you know, vcs arealways looking for really
talented people with like hugeideas and you know, in their
space talent moves fast andthey're always looking for that
like one in a hundred deal.
And you know the idea of when Ifirst kind of you know, when I
(26:52):
was going to market, I thoughtit would be much more like it's
all about kind of like qualityand you can speak to one and
then do you know the one nextweek and then do another one the
week after and you'll meet theright people along the way.
But I think in that space, youknow, people really want to see
that there's lots of otherinterests and there's lots of
other people looking at thisdeal and it's really like hot in
that space.
And I think we started we juststarted speaking to people and
like people were very interestedand you know people really
(27:13):
wanted to kind of do follow-ups.
We spoke to like lots of thereally big name VCs in this way,
but it was when we kind ofstarted speaking to more at the
same time and created kind of alot of momentum with what we
were trying to do that thingsactually progressed really
quickly and yeah, we were reallyhappy to meet like great
investors who've been reallyreally helpful thus far and like
, yeah, having good investorshas made a huge difference in
like connections and you knoweverything.
(27:35):
Really, they're just likereally well connected people who
are incentivized in yoursuccess, and I think that's what
you're always trying to do insmall companies is like, how do
you find really powerful peoplewho can really help out and make
them want your baby slashcompany to succeed as well?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And yeah, it's been basically that All right, so
let's so for our listeners here.
The reason or the way that youand I have met was you inquired
to purchase the domain on mecomthat we had for sale.
You worked with my colleague,rob Watson, to acquire it.
He was representing the seller.
(28:10):
You came showing your interestto purchase the name.
What were some of the otherdomains that you were thinking
about, or the names of yourcompany that you were thinking
about?
Or was it just on me all theway, that what you guys were
married to?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, no, it's a really good question.
We we actually like it's reallyhard to name, like I haven't
had time to choose what we dothat well, but we actually build
gift cards around hobbies andinterests and yeah, with that,
like we really want to make.
Like the future digital gifting, in our view, is much more like
it's based on the things thatwe really care about, you know,
like golf, or calligraphy, orskydiving and and all of these
(28:43):
really tangible things, andtherefore we work with like
multiple brands on each giftcard.
And then with what we do, weactually have, like you know,
multiple different products.
Like our golfing gift card,like golf on me is very
different from like dinner orrestaurants where we do dinner
on me, and these are two verydifferent kind of products.
And we had a huge challengewhere, like how do you name
(29:03):
something that works for 150very separate things?
And we had different names.
Like originally we're thinkingof calling this like wish card
or something more, like magiccard or magic pass, and there
were so many names that havebeen thrown around that you know
we'd like a spreadsheet ofnames and eventually I was so
allergic to looking at anythingthey were naming.
I was like we need to befocusing on like building
(29:24):
infrastructure and all thisstuff that needed to get this
out.
And we sent a survey out andeventually we tested like 10
names and all of our friendskind of gravitated towards on me
.
And you know, in the Americancontext people say to like.
You know, like, oh, dinner's onme or like hey, come on, it's
on me, and people just reallylike that and it's kind of a
natural fit.
And one of the biggestchallenges we actually had was
like at the start we're likegreat, it's a four letter dot
(29:46):
com with two real words.
It's going to be a bit of achallenge to get this one over
the line, but we kind of theseller met Rob and yeah, it took
a few months but like we werequite happy in the outcome in
the end.
But yeah, naming was definitelya challenge we're very happy to
have like the dot com we reallywanted.
We definitely looked at a fewother domains but like dot com
obviously comes with a hugetrusted element and I think when
(30:07):
you're a small company, it'sone of the things you're trying
to get.
You can put your logos ofinvestors and everyone else down
.
You're trying to make yourselflook as reputable as possible,
but definitely having like aclean dot com is there's no
other way around it.
We did look at like five or sixother variants but we're like,
take the head off the snake, getthe what you can, your exact
name, dot com and, like you know, hope you go from there.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And in the decision making process, did the
investors get involved with thediscussion?
Or was it really up to you twoguys to make that decision and
say, okay, we're going to spendthis money on this and that's it
?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, like we can always touch base of their
investors just like chats aboutyou know what you're doing.
Some of the times their adviceis really helpful on matters
like this.
I think we're obviously in theconsumer space.
We do a lot of B2B as well, butwe definitely have a consumer
consumer arm and we wanted aname that was like just really
easy for people to remember and,you know, somewhat snappy and
normally you need like somethingto happen someone's head for,
(31:02):
like they receive a gift cardand it's like oh, it's called
like dinner on me and it's on medot com and I think, oh, that's
quite clever and like just asmall bit of a joke that replays
in someone's head and thechance of them actually
remembering it.
So I think it was it kind ofmade sense for us and when the
name came up within a pricepoint, that like made perfect
sense, given like what we'draised and everything we're like
and you know you don't want itto, you don't want someone else
to take it.
(31:23):
And when Rob kind of mentionedit was like oh, like we know the
seller and they're interestedin selling, we're like okay,
like let's see where this goes.
And then we were quite happywhen it came up we're like, okay
, let's just do this now andlike we can call that done and
march forwards.
I think we had internally we'dactually we owned on hyphen me
dot com and we had internal warno end about hyphen.
(31:43):
Honestly, I was.
We were so happy to pay themoney to get the team fully
aligned and like branding andnaming and all this stuff, just
like it's funny you think thethings will like suck small
energy from the founding teamand kind of people will be like
all sorts of stuff.
This hyphen became such acontentious point in the company
that in the end we're like ifthis solves that problem, it's
also quite helpful.
So we're very glad.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
In the in the, I've noticed the Europeans.
They don't mind the hyphen asmuch.
But in the United States yourarely see hyphens being
marketed, especially toconsumers.
Maybe a B2B product you mightsee it, but a B2C the companies
that end up getting the hyphenend up having to buy without the
hyphen, you know, later on intheir in their journey and then
(32:28):
obviously they get to pay a lotmore Usually when that happens,
wow, was there a point?
Was, was there a point?
If the seller was unwilling tonegotiate, would you guys have
bought it anyway and bit thebullet?
Or were you pretty at your, atyour end of you know your budget
and willing to walk away andand stick with what you had was
(32:48):
there?
Was there that kind ofconversation, or or was it?
You know how did that go?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, now the deal is done, we can, we can be more
honest about all of these things.
Yeah, in our case, we had a fewdifferent domains we're looking
at on mecom, like clean wasdefinitely the the one that made
the most sense.
But that said, like you know,when you're when you're very
small company, there's lots ofother things that you can spend
capital on that might be betterto do and I think we had a price
point in mind that kind of madesense for us.
(33:14):
And then, yeah, you know, forexample, when we're, when you're
a consumer company, we'reactually working at the moment.
Obviously we just launched preChristmas.
So, like this, like 16 giftcards or so are part of our like
first offering that are live at.
On mecom, what we wanted to bespending your money on is like
real doesn't make your beertaste better, is kind of the.
The joke in the entrepreneurialcommunity is like is that
(33:35):
making your direct productbetter and is this helping you
get to like your?
You know, like users andtraction and like really clear
ground evidence of like tractionas opposed to all your other
metrics?
And the answer that wasprobably like no in the very
early days.
And then when we were workingwith Rob.
He was very helpful, kind ofjust saying like look, this is
kind of you know, this is thedomain that's for sale.
It's probably we'll go tosomeone else if you guys don't
(33:56):
buy it.
And we had a price point in mindand we were kind of able to
negotiate quite well with theseller and in the end we were
like where we got to, we werekind of like okay, this now
makes perfect sense for us.
Or even with where we are, wethink it's worth investing.
And you know, in your consumerspace you're trying to get
people and you're really tryingto like hold them and you're
like one of the big things wespoke a lot about was like you
know, internally is like someonecan really love your product
(34:17):
and if they're sitting down in acoffee shop speak to their
friend, you want them to likequickly communicate exactly what
it is.
And you know and sounds supersexy when someone says like, oh,
go to on hyphen mecom and yourhyphens hidden someone in your
auxiliary or your auxiliarykeyboard and someone has to find
it.
And I think what we really wantto go okay, we're gonna be
working on this consumerexperience.
(34:38):
You want it to be instantly,and so we're gonna see across
tables on mecom.
You go from there, and it justmade a lot of sense really.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Okay, that's great.
And then one more questionabout the domain purchase
experiences.
Usually when we talk tostartups like yours and let's
say, the price is pretty out ofreach at the time or you don't
want to put up the capital, I'msure Rob offered you a payment
plan at one point or another.
Was that just not an option foryou guys and if so, why?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, I don't think we spoke too much about payment
plans.
I think we we had a price pointand range, that kind of like.
That worked.
That made sense and I think youknow what we're really looking
at also as a small company islike this will sit on our books
as an asset and you're alsogoing to want to defend it to
vote yourself.
Obviously, I'm the CEO of thecompany, but there's very little
power when you're a smallcompany.
That means absolutely nothinglike satires or CTO, but like
(35:32):
everyone's exactly the same.
When it's when you're a smallgroup of people and I think you
know in my head I was basicallylooking at the economics of this
is like this is going to sit onour books as an asset and I had
to sell it.
Is it still worth?
You know that amount kind ofvibe, and you just put it like
you know we've great investorson board and you want to be able
to make sure that you candefend any decision to them.
If they asked you about it andI think in this case it hit a
(35:53):
space that it just really madesense for us we were like, okay,
this is.
You know, it's a four letterdot com with two real words, and
it came in at a price pointthat we were happy with and we
were like look, this is bothadvantages to the business and
it should hold its worth.
If not, like grow into thefuture, makes perfect sense to
just pull the trigger at thisprice point, and that's kind of
what we did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Got it.
I was looking at your websiteand I'm not just saying this
because you're one of our guests, but I love it.
I think it's very clean, thecolors are nice.
I think it's very obvious whatyou're offering is and
understanding how it can workand how people can use it.
My question to you is is thatwould you you said you're going
(36:34):
to be having a bigger releasenext year in your next release,
would you do something thatfocuses on some fundraising,
Kind of like a go fund me, butwith using this product?
Is that in the cards?
Is that a possibility?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Firstly, thank you so much for the call out and our
UX designer.
Honestly, he's one of thegreatest in the world.
He's incredible.
In terms of fund raise, youmean kind of like doing your own
fundraising on onmecom and nottake investors.
I'm saying like so.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
For example, I was actually talking to a friend
about this a couple of weeks agoand him and I were both kind of
chuckling saying with go fundme.
When it first came out I likedit and I liked the idea in the
premise, but now I feel likewhen someone wants to go fund me
, there's no accountabilitythere and there's nothing there
(37:29):
that makes me feel good aboutgiving money to these stories
that a lot of the timepotentially are bullshit, to be
totally honest.
Right, but like if my kid isdoing a fundraiser for trying to
help kids buy sneakers or theyneed books for their school and
(37:50):
there's a certain limit thatyou're going to do and you need
500 bucks to raise money forschool and it's for books, well,
maybe Barnes and Noble youcould buy a $500 Barnes and
Noble card and you know it'sgoing to go to books.
It's not going to just go cashto these people and then they
just go buy puppies and jewelrywith it.
They actually do.
It's automatically done the wayit's supposed to be and I can
(38:11):
set those up and then I couldadvertise this that you know
sawcom is doing a raise to helpbuy turkeys and there's a
grocery chain called Publix nearme.
So buy your Publix gift card orall these different gift cards
to these four grocery stores andthen we're going to go buy
turkeys with them, you know,like something like that, rather
than just throwing money atsawcom.
There's because we're not anonprofit, there's no
(38:34):
accountability.
They're just going to taketheir 20% and give me the check
and then who knows if I'm goingto buy any turkeys, right?
So I was thinking there's anelement for you to be able to,
you know, offer that.
Is that part of the release oris that far out of the span of
reality?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
No, it's a really good point and there's like,
there's so many, there's amillion ways you can go.
There's a like we talk a lotabout, like what money is
internally and this, but likethere's like a spectrum of money
and if you give someone likecold, hard cash, yeah, it's like
it can be used for anything andthat's one of the, obviously,
principles of money.
But you're so right, like theidea, one of the use cases of,
(39:14):
let's say, like the gift cardindustry in that whole space is
like you're giving this to thisperson because, like, and if you
think about it quite deeply,it's almost like you want your
recipient to be able to spendthis guilt free for like one of
their hobbies and interests.
So, like, if you give someonewho's a runner like a Nike gift
card or a running on me,obviously we should promote
ourselves they can go into thatstore and spend a kind of guilt
free.
But one of the other things youget as a sender is you're
(39:35):
basically saying, like they'regoing to spend it on what I want
them to spend it on and youknow it's.
It's a positive piece, becausewhat you're basically saying is,
like I know you love runningand like you will get to spend
this guilt free, but what you'realso saying is like you will
actually spend this on running.
So it's like a gift and it kindof pigeons holds you into that
kind of like area and it'sreally important.
And yeah, there's a whole usecase of kind of that like loose
(39:56):
accountability and it's it's a.
It's something we've spoke alot about.
It's very similar to what wecall like group gifting, where
it's like you have a friend thatalways wanted to try painting
and you know four friends wantto come together and put 50
bucks each on like a painting onme or a painting gift card, and
you know you put 200 buckstogether where that person can
use it and again they're likethey're going to be using it
within their hobby interests,where they'll get to enjoy and
do all these things.
But like, yeah, the theaccountability arm is like quite
(40:18):
important and, as you mentioned, there's a really great use
case there as well, where it'slike you know a business wants
to help out employees andthey're going to be giving them,
let's say, gift cards this way,just with the kind of like
knowledge and when a lot of B2Bkind of stuff as well, you can't
really give people just likecash, because it could be used
for like all sorts of purposes,even for, like we do, ux studies
or fill out surveys and stuff.
(40:39):
It's just a really kind of safeway of you know B2B, like
incentive management kind ofthing.
And yeah, there's a huge usecase for like what you mentioned
and like a few others kind ofaround it that we're definitely
looking into, especially kind ofthe B2B space, that are really
exciting for us.
Again, it's like your kind ofproduct manager role of phasing
all these things incorrectly to,let's say, like get your
initial base and roll that intokind of something else and how
(41:01):
do you unlock this next piece.
So it's definitely on theroadmap, but we probably won't
get there for a few months yet.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I'm sure, I'm sure, and there's always these, all
these.
That's the other problem withstarting your own business is
prioritizing what's actuallygoing to make you the money and
kind of cutting through thenoise right, and it's like I
could come up to you right nowwith excitement and give you
that idea and then you go as aproduct manager, you know that
you need to pick where you'regoing to put your resources into
(41:29):
right, because you can't justdo everything at the same time
and you can't just push asideyour strategy that you've set
forth unless it's tried and trueand you're going to do your
math and figure out if it's theright decision.
I mean, you're, you know you'remaking a major change.
The other thing I was thinkingabout is and I think this is the
(41:50):
domain, or in me, is the use ofsubdomains and you're talking
about the different categories.
So you could do dinner dot onme dot com or, you know, shoes
dot on me dot com or sports doton me dot com.
Is that?
Would subdomains be somethingthat you would, you could
categorize and then if you wereto market different verticals,
(42:11):
you know you could use those.
Did you guys ever think aboutdoing any of?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
that?
No, 100%.
We actually we initially hadthat plan like from the get go.
We're like, oh, it'll be likeso sexy, you get your gift card
and it goes straight to like youknow, like running dot on me
dot com and we're like it'sgoing to, it's going to look,
yeah.
The only thing that it doesn'twork great for is Google treats
every subdomain as a entirely,let's say, its own website.
And because we have like 100and you know, I think we're at
(42:36):
the moment where it's 70, we'rekind of planning to get to like
much more than that, to be morespecific and nuanced in what we
can offer in terms of gift cards.
And when you're a small companyand you want to build your kind
of CEO or sorry, seo, let's sayequity or presence, you really
want to have things consolidated.
So we you know it's it'sdifficult to build strong SEO
for one website.
If you shared that into 70different websites, it becomes
(42:58):
extraordinarily difficult.
So I think for now, keepingeverything as the on me dot com
slash, like running itdefinitely sounds really nice
and it's kind of something sexyabout seeing the like running on
me and sentence case like all,like normal.
But at the moment we're likemainly for SEO.
We need to keep everythingtogether in the future.
If we get big, we get lots ofnice backlinks and everything
(43:18):
else that puts us away to thetop.
It's definitely something youcan implement, but at the moment
, mainly for SEO purposes, we'retrying to keep it more together
.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
You don't have any connections at Google and pull a
couple strings to get yourselfto the top of the rankings
without having to do much.
Is that not possible over there?
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Unfortunately, like the not, we tried everything we
could, jeff.
No, unfortunately, google, youknow when you're, when you're
pulling in tens and tens andtens of not hundreds of billions
of dollars from a piece everyyear.
People get unwilling to helptheir friends with this moment
of kickback in that way.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
But yeah, I hear you.
Awesome.
Well, thanks for your time.
We really appreciate it andenjoy your time in Ireland and
good luck with the business.
Today on the uncomfortable podcast, we have
Derek Meany, co-founder ofonmecom.
Derek decided to leave thecomfort and notoriety of his
Google project management roleand dive into the tumultuous
waters of an entrepreneurshipWith his co-founder that did the
same as in leaving Google aswell.
(00:20):
They didn't just step out oftheir comfort zone, they leaped.
Listen today about what it'slike to work at Google, how they
raised money and launched hisnew company, onmecom.
Derek is also a customer thatacquired the domain onmecom from
our company, sawcom, and wealso cover the acquisition, why
(00:40):
they liked the name, why theypicked it, what it was like to
be on the other side of thenegotiation and what they were
thinking during the process.
And if you're thinking about it, onme is an online gift card
company that is aiming to makeyour gifting experience more
seamless and delightful.
I look forward to seeing thefuture versions of this service
and what they do with it, andyou can always get alerts of our
(01:03):
new episodes on sawcom podcastor follow us on Apple podcast,
spotify, youtube and many others.
And, as always, thanks forlistening.
(01:26):
Welcome to today's episode onthe podcast in our spotlight.
Today, we're discussing a thebeginnings of a fascinating
career journey.
Imagine working as a productmanager at giants like Whirlpool
, credit, swiss Google andYouTube Sounds like some pretty
cool dream jobs there.
Now picture leaving that allbehind to dive into the world of
(01:50):
digital gifting.
That's exactly what Derek Meanydid and launched onmecom, and
we're going to talk about thattoday and a little bit more.
So here we are.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself and, you know, let's
get into just the basics of yourcareer and your experience, and
then we can get into onme, yournew, your new launched website.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sounds great and we're a client of sawcom, so
yeah, yeah we'll be here, jeff.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Exactly, we can certainly get into that part too
, yeah of course, no happy toshare.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Very glad to be here.
My name is Darren Meany.
I'm actually calling it fromDublin today.
I'm just home for Christmas,first mobile.
But I was born in Ireland and Ifirst studied in University
College Cork.
I then went to London for asmall bit of time to work in the
investment banking at CreditSwiss.
It was all going fine when Iwas there.
It's now obviously gone underand part of UBS, but I don't
(02:43):
think it's downfall was becauseI left After that.
I then went to the US and did mymaster's at the University of
Notre Dame thanks to a verygenerous scholarship from the
Noctin Foundation, which was thekindest thing a bunch of
strangers have ever done for me,and then I was leaving my
master's that I basically wenton and actually I started with
the Google APM program, whichwill be probably one of the most
(03:05):
famous of the APM programs thatare now kind of like everywhere
.
But it's an Associate ProductManager role, which is a very
nice thing for a big techcompany to do, whereby generally
product managers came fromjunior engineers that really had
a product focus, and Google wasone of the first places to
realize that.
It's quite helpful if you justtake a new graduate who's very
(03:25):
fresh to the world and throwthem in the deep end in the role
, and it's an amazing program.
I couldn't speak higher aboutit.
I think it's well known amonggraduates in the US and kind of
the world over, and it wasdefinitely one of the best areas
of career you could have,especially if you're looking at
kind of an entrepreneurialfuture in some ways.
And then I was actually basedin Zurich, switzerland, for the
last four years, two and a halfof which I spent with Google,
(03:48):
where I worked in Google Flightsand then YouTube, so spent a
huge amount of time in SanFrancisco, where I'm obviously
based now, trying to build acompany with my co-founders
Zatar Haral.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's quite a story, so let's just get into it
before we get into yourbusinesses.
About what is it?
What is it like working atGoogle compared to some of these
other companies that you'veworked for?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Oh, like definitely that everyone says it, but it's
really true.
Like the people you get to workwith at Google are really
incredible.
Most places in the world, youknow, you look under the hood
and it's a lot of people tryingto do the best they can.
But, like normally places arequite chaotic and I think the
best place I've ever worked wasdefinitely Google.
Like it's a large bunch ofpeople who are just as kind as
(04:32):
the nicest people you can find,who are all trying to do a
really good job.
And you know, I think Googleoffices are quite famous for,
you know, there's like threegreat meals a day, there's a
huge number of pool tables andall the fun stuff.
You are quite busy when you'reworking there, but it's
definitely like a.
It's definitely a bit of aplayground as well.
There's a lot of funny rolesthat people turn around.
(04:52):
One of the funniest ones Iheard was adult crush.
It really made me laugh.
But it's an incredible place towork.
You get to work with incredibly, let's say, like 10-year-old
and you know serious people inthe computer science space.
It's a really talented bunch ofpeople.
It's just.
I think it was one of the bestplaces to start my career,
(05:14):
especially in a product rolewhere you get like a large
oversight over like teams andhow they work and you know you
kind of start off in meetingswith quite senior people, even
as a very junior product manager, so you really get a sense of
like how the business works fromthe early days.
There's definitely, you know,tech companies in the last few
years have really changed, youknow.
I think in many cases they'rebecoming they're no longer tech
(05:35):
companies, they're just becomingcompanies where they now have
to be profitable and do all thekind of regular company based
things.
But still, I think tech is anamazing place to work.
You're treated incredibly well,especially as like a junior
person, and when I joined therewas a huge amount of attention
given to like younger employeeswho are trying to grow and,
let's say, get up to speed witheveryone else.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, so working there you mentioned, you know,
entrepreneurship, and usually ata company of that size, that
word isn't usually thrown aroundwithin it and usually people,
when describing it, doesn't, itdoesn't really work.
And then you just mentioned itagain that it's a tech company.
So when you work at Googleespecially someone like you
people are feeding you ideas orproduct ideas or pieces of a
(06:19):
product every day, which, withinan established business, even
creating a new product is likebeing an entrepreneur within
your own business, right, howhard is it to, if you had some
new product line idea or somenew widget at Google, to go to
somebody and say, hey, what doyou think about this?
And actually it becoming areality, cause that, like the
(06:42):
company I worked for before, aunit registry.
We got up to, you know, over ahundred employees.
Now, that's nothing compared toGoogle, but when I first started
working there, there was 10 ofus, right, and then it grew to
that, and so by the time to getnew things out, it took longer
and longer and there wasdifferent.
Oh well, it'll affect this,it'll cause this, this is, this
is a lot of.
And then the lawyers gotinvolved and things, so I can't
(07:03):
imagine the layers of approvals.
So what was it like to take ifsomeone had a good idea for
something?
What was the process in so manywords, and how hard was it to
get it done?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Google is definitely a very bigship and as the ship grows,
your kind of rudder stays quitesmall and it's definitely not
it's definitely not the mostagile company in the world
anymore and I think I graduatedin 2019 and I went straight to
Google.
I definitely, if I was in theearly 2000s, would have been a
(07:36):
much better time to join for thekind of company that a lot of
people who kind of really wantto work in entrepreneurship role
and kind of want to have solike.
As you mentioned, google is anincredibly tenured company.
That's obviously much later inits lifestyle.
It really depends on whatyou're working on at Google.
I think you know from theoutside Google looks like one
company, but if you lookinternally, there's like 150
(07:58):
different products that peopleend up working on and they all
kind of operate as their ownmini company in different ways.
So I worked first in Googleflights, which is quite small
and an amazing group of reallytalented people, and in that
smaller space you work with oneor 200 people and when someone
has a good idea, it's somewhatagile to get moving and you can
really you can speak to theright decision makers and you
can put it on, let's say, aroadmap or a product timeline.
(08:20):
That's within, like you know,six to 12 months and you've got
a chance to get it out the door.
And then I also worked atYouTube, which is obviously much
bigger and you know there's ahuge number of different kind of
product people that are allfull of ideas and all trying to
get things out the door and inthat case you're definitely
competing with a lot more thingshappening.
It's still like a great place tohave like quite a lot of impact
(08:41):
.
I think what you get is you getmassive numbers of users that
use your products, so, like youcan make small changes to
products that end up impactinglots and lots of people, whereas
in a startup environment, youoften get to make sweeping
changes to a product thatthere's often not a huge number
of people actually interactingwith.
So I think there's kind of adelicate balance there.
I think that, yeah, it's muchharder to Google doesn't turn in
(09:04):
a dime and if you're full ofgreat ideas and you want to see
them implemented in the nextnumber of months, it is
definitely a more 10 year, 10company where you have quarterly
release cycles and lots ofstructure and you know huge
things.
There's also like massivereputational risk and you know
endless expectations in a postIPO company and when you're set
up you don't have any of that.
So it's still possible, butit's definitely not as agile as
(09:27):
a startup by any means.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Got it.
So before we move on becauselet's talk about on me over
Google, here is, since you'veworked on YouTube and you've
worked on flights is there anyquirky part of the product or a
little Easter egg in either ofthose products that most of
someone like myself who usesboth of those products, might
not even know exists, that wecould go and see after the show
(09:50):
or something can tell us aboutit that we might be able to find
or just not know about soonerthan later?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Like I worked at flights inYouTube and my co-founder
Citarell worked on like maps andphotos, so I think those are
better known for like GoogleEaster eggs, as they're often
called, like small things thatyou find in places.
One of the small things that Ithink not enough people find is
in Google flights you canactually search for like a
continent.
You can put in, like you know, acountry or a continent and it
(10:19):
takes you to a whole new sectionof the product that's called
Explorer, and Google flighthasn't done a good job of, let's
say, showcasing this wellenough in the product, but it's
a really cool feature.
If you just search for, let'ssay, like Asia, or if you search
for like South America, younormally get taken to a much
more visual experience thatshows you the whole continent
and, basically, from yourlocation, flights to every
single city that you could go to, and I use it a lot for
(10:41):
planning my own vacation, mainlybecause I know how to use the
tool quite well.
But it's an amazing way of, ifyou have a weekend free and
you're in Europe, it's a greatway to see like all the
different cities you couldtravel to and like the different
price for the flights.
And then this is a kind of apower to move, but if you apply
filters, it applies toeverything within Explorer, so I
often use it for I'll set likea flight leaving on Friday
(11:01):
between 3pm and like 7pm andthen coming back on Sunday night
between, like you know, 6pm andonwards, and it's like an
amazing tool for planning kindof weekend getaways.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's sweet.
And then you know what I didn'tknow about that and I bet you,
a lot of people are gonna listento this, don't either.
So that's great that you saidthat.
So let's talk about you knowfor myself included is that I
always had that itch.
When I graduated college, Ididn't have the same opportunity
to work at Google, but when youstarted working there and
(11:32):
working in the working world wasin the back of your mind,
saying to yourself you know, Ilove this, these people are
great to me, but I have an itchto go do my own thing.
Or in the midst of workingthere, it just kind of came
where you're like you know, Iwanna go do something on my own
and launch my own product.
When did that kind of start tocreep?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
in?
Yeah, it's a good question.
There's a lot of people who youknow entrepreneurship became
like really hot over the lastfew years and in some ways I
think I'm quite allergic to thetitle of being an entrepreneur,
mainly because it's been kind oftaken around and shaken.
It's a very loaded term thesedays, but I was always really
interested in.
I actually always lovedbusiness from being like a kid
(12:14):
and I really loved anything youcould do to make a buck or
something like that I justthought was really exciting and
I always just liked, you know,helping people and building
things and like having somethingthat you do.
I always thought it was superfascinating and actually like
when I was a university student,I remember thinking I was like
I need a way to make enoughmoney for like rent and random
(12:34):
stuff during my week and Iactually started an iPhone
repair company.
Never thought I'd be doingsomething like that and like the
margins are actually reallygood and my seven, a very good
friend, dave Kalnan, built kindof like what we call it was
called shatterie in Ireland andwe actually get explored really
well and you know it actuallyled to the first ever kind of
scholarship I got for likeinnovation entrepreneurship back
(12:56):
in my home university, inUniversity College Cork, and it
was kind of coming out of thatthat really helped me get a
scholarship to the US, I thinkalways really involved in this
space and you would always getback here.
I definitely I loved computerscience.
I kind of studied computerscience and economics originally
and then did a few other bitsand I knew, leaving that I'd
love to get experience in, let'ssay, some big companies and
(13:17):
then you know, with the guys ofwhen a good idea comes along
that you're kind of a bit morecapable and a debt that actually
executing on that.
And yeah, definitely think beinga product manager is definitely
one of the best roles you havein terms of you see all the
right stuff, you reallyunderstand how the business
works, how you liaise back withengineering teams and design
teams and like all the peopleyou need and kind of like the
(13:37):
software development kind ofside businesses.
And yeah, when I was at GoogleI was always kind of keeping an
eye out for something that wouldbe interesting and like always
wanted to get back to, maybebecause it's over glorified and
too many of you know you worksomething like you've got all of
your friends kind of want to dothe same.
And if you spend enough time inSan Francisco, you know way too
(13:57):
many people who are gettingfunded to do all sorts of things
and eventually you're like Ireally want to throw my hat in
the ring and do the same.
So I think I always knew I washere and I always find it really
exciting.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So when I decided to leave a uni registry and become
an entrepreneur myself and tostart my own company, there's
that moment when you eithercalled or walked into your
boss's office or sent an emailwho knows when you said I'm
giving my notice.
So when you gave your noticeand hit send, or he answered the
(14:33):
phone and you said it, did youhave a holy shit.
What did I just do?
Moment Cause I did.
What did you?
You know what were you feeling?
So you did it and they're like,oh, and then you know where is
it.
Did you already have yourpartner, your co-founder and him
?
Did you already have yourrelationship?
You know, you'd both plan to doit on the same day, you know,
(14:56):
did you both?
And then, when you did it, didyou call each other after and
say, all right, we did it.
Now what do we do, you know?
So what?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, like you're 100% right, Like everyone has
that moment somewhere on the wayfor you, kind of go like what
have I done?
Yeah, yeah, and like in inhonesty, like getting getting a
good job at a university waslike super helpful and like it
gives you a bit of a financialbase to kind of like you know,
plan your next thing and you'releaving.
A well-paid job somewhere likeGoogle is not an easy thing to
(15:26):
do and they also have a lot oflike very clever internal tools
that, like you know to projectyour, your stock growth and how
your seller is going to go overthe next few years, and there's
a lot of very clever systemsthat really make you feel like
you know your path to safety andeverything else is staying in
your, your comfortable tech joband turning with them.
That is.
It's really hard.
It is.
One of my closest friends is aguy called Vera Wittem and we
(15:46):
went skiing in Switzerland and aski tour.
It was what a five hour climbto the mountain called the
Foulhorn and the whole fivehours was just me annoying him
about.
Like what am I going to do?
Am I going to leave Google?
Should I pursue this idea ornot?
And incredible guy and he kindof talked through the whole
thing and he was like, look, itseems like a good idea, you
should probably leave.
And I was working for Iactually met him for dinner
(16:08):
recently and I was just going togo call him Ibrahim, who's now
a director at Google slashYouTube, and he was incredible,
like he was just a great manager.
He knew that I was verypassionate in the space and I
think he was like, you know,just very sensible advice about
these kinds of things.
And then it was with him.
I obviously said I was like,look, I'll probably be giving my
notice.
And then you write the email.
My holy crap moment definitelycame, handing over your laptop
(16:28):
and your badge at the very safeand comfortable reception in
Google's Switzerland.
Because you know, we used tojoke that it was like it's
golden handcuffs when you'reworking in a tech company where
you have, like this lovelyincome and everything's great
and you have three meals a dayand all your friends are there,
and you used to call it actuallythe golden handcuffs within the
golden cage.
The golden handcuffs was Googleand the golden cage was
(16:49):
Switzerland, where everythingjust works flawlessly.
And it was very stunning, butit was, it was all right, it was
very difficult to leave.
And then, I think, a few weeksout, you kind of you get a
chance to think about it all andyou're like, oh, this is fine,
like you can always go back andget a job somewhere, you'll be
fine, and then more like youneed a bit of hunger, I think
when you're going towards thismaybe it was the same in your
case, but sometimes you need,you need.
(17:11):
You need something that reallymakes you want to fight for
getting something over the lineand getting something done.
But yeah, I definitely had thatmoment as well.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, I mean I think for myself.
I love the.
I love the beginnings of abusiness, I love building new
things and processes andcreating revenue streams and
teaching people and addingpeople to the team.
And then when you kind of getto that point where people say
start talking about the good olddays, you know you've really
(17:40):
built a successful businessbecause they're talking about,
you know, the early 2000s.
Well, in the early 2000s Googlewas still possibly going to be
like a Yahoo where their stocktanked or bad things happen, but
obviously it's been.
You know this way so.
But that's great.
Yeah, there's always that,there's always that moment.
Now you said each of theproducts are kind of like their
(18:02):
own business within the company.
So how did you meet yourco-founder if he was working on
totally different products, tomake that relationship?
How did?
How did you meet?
Speaker 2 (18:11):
him.
Yeah, it's, we actually we'rein the same kind of like star
program, the the APM program Imentioned earlier, and there's
like this kind of 45 people fromall over the world that are in
this and it's great.
There's like a lot of trips andeverything else.
And he was actually working ona feature on Google Maps at the
time where you could like sharelocation with one another.
And we were on a skiing trip inTahoe in California and he was
(18:32):
like, oh, we should use a newfeature and we kind of shared
location with each other and wewere always really good friends
of the program and we'd alwayskind of stayed in touch and
whenever I was in California,we'd like, you know, just grab
lunch and stuff.
So we became like really goodfriends through that.
And randomly, just after I leftGoogle, a friend of mine was, I
think he was in Greece for amonth, so he gave me his
apartment in New York.
So I was just living in NewYork for a month and I opened my
(18:54):
Google Maps one day and I justsaw a little pen next to about
two blocks over.
That was like Satara's locationand I was like, oh, my God,
he's not really a basicCalifornia.
It was like what are you doingin New York?
And he was like, oh, I justleft Google here visiting some
friends.
And I was like, dude, we shouldtotally go for coffee and be in
for coffee somewhere on like4th Avenue.
And we basically just sat down.
He was like what are you up to?
(19:15):
And I was like, oh, I've gotthis like idea to start building
something in the space, and youknow, I've already laid out
most of the groundwork and I'mkind of looking for like a
technical co-founder and startedstudying computer science at
Cornell.
And he was like, like,literally at the table, we're
kind of like we should do this.
And you know he'd just left.
He was kind of making some ofhis plans as well.
And eventually we were like,look, he was like I love the
idea, like Satara is reallyfunny, like he always wanted to
(19:38):
be an inventor, he lovesbuilding things, he loves making
things.
And yeah, just, we just kind ofclick from there.
And then there was a few otherswere kind of wait at the time
or like, look, we should just,we should just get all in and do
this.
But yeah, and I think to yourpoint about like, let's say, you
leaving university and doingthese things.
You get such an amazing networkwhen you join a big company and
like there's lots of youngpeople, everyone's really hungry
(19:59):
and that kind of stuff, andthat's really stood to us.
Like half my friends are peoplefrom the APM program even today
and like Satara obviously Ialways joke he's like my work
husband, where you spend some ofyour co-founders, like you get
to know every corner of everyoneand like there's no hiding when
you work that many hours likeclose together and it's
(20:20):
incredible.
You really need a strong baseand there's the skills that I
definitely do not have, thathe's incredible at and I hope
there's a few that I have thathe's lacking, or else he'll get
rid of me pretty quick.
But no, we went through thatand it was really great.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So you obviously had a few years since college.
He has two.
You're in the same program.
Okay, I mentioned when I sentyou the survey before interview
that you guys raised just under$2 million from Mastercard.
I'm going to probably destroythis company's name or person's
name to Lara Hippie.
Yeah.
How do you pronounce that?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, I did it right, yeah, I think, lyra, the
American tournament hippo isoriginally from the French side.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Okay, and then focal or focal right.
So typically, and from my I'venever done a raise before.
But for you to get that muchmoney, especially from a company
like Mastercard being involved,how do you?
How did you go in there andpitch them?
And without the experience ofleading, you know, massive teams
(21:24):
or building a business orworking at you know I know you
have worked at Google, butyou're a product manager.
You weren't managing teams, youweren't launching the products
yourself, and same with yourcolleague.
You know you're two recentlycollege grads.
So how did you, how did you gettheir attention when so many
others are going to them withtheir ideas?
What was that like?
What was that like?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, it's a good question.
It's funny, I would probablysay, like a product manager it's
kind of modern sense in a techcompany is probably the best
role you can actually have tokind of like prepare you for
definitely like your fundraisingjourney where, like normally as
a product manager, you're kindof put in the hot seat, where
you're kind of responsible forabout.
You know, depending on howsenior you are, there's lots of
levels to this, but you'renormally responsible for like an
(22:06):
engineering team and a designteam and lots of other
affiliated teams and like whatthey all work on.
Like you're supposed to be theperson who's designing the
entire roadmap of products andfeatures of like I'm working on
Google Maps and we should spendthe next quarter building better
navigation features and moredepth maps and colors and all
these things.
So you're you're kind of usedto being the person that's
dreaming up the future andeffectively communicating at the
(22:27):
back with all of the necessaryteams to kind of do these things
.
So one of the best skills youactually want to learn as a
product manager really is likehow do you align teams along a
vision, how do you get by andhow do you like really captivate
people with something that'sexciting to build, that
motivates people to want tobuild it.
And I think in a software worldit's really hard to build things
and you need really crystalclear ideas of what you actually
(22:49):
want to do and you know the.
The joke in any tech company islike an engineer can work a
certain and you know workinghired in a software.
Let's say, our informationworld is a very hard thing to
kind of grasp, and people whofeel motivated and bought into
what they're building work 100x.
Someone who's kind of like, oh,I'm just doing this to get it
out, and that's one of yourbiggest jobs as a product
(23:11):
manager is to really paint anexciting enough future that your
software engineers feel likecompelling to get over all of
the hurdles.
That's needed to get somewhere.
And so I think those skills youactually learned really well in
modern tech, especially in theproduct role, and that really
stood to us when we went back tocompanies.
What we're basically doing asyoung founders is we're saying
we have this crazy vision andthis is our plan to get there.
(23:33):
And yeah, we, basically weactually when we first started
we thought we could bootstrapmost of this Like we actually we
had a really great contact thatintroduced us to MasterCards,
who I met it's funny enough,skiing in Switzerland and they
really love what we were doing.
Obviously, we we'd no idea thatlike someone like MasterCard
would be that interested in whatwe were building.
But we've like a lot ofinteresting stuff in the payment
(23:55):
kind of back end that we wantedto bring to market.
And we started speaking to someof the guys, definitely David
Galvin, who's the one of thedirectives kind of fintech
partnerships at MasterCard.
We got kind of networked toquite early and he really loved
what we were building and yeah,we've actually had an amazing
kind of relationship with theirdata and services team and yeah,
we were kind of almostsurprised as well that they were
that willing to work with asmall company.
(24:15):
And once we got kind ofMasterCard on board and we had
like a really solid base forwhat we were building and we
knew exactly what we were goingafter.
Then we kind of were able tocarry that forward to kind of
like other investors.
And you know it's I think ifyou're building any company,
there's about 100, 100 difficultyeses you need to get from
people along the way Definitelyone of the reasons why building
a company is a little bit easierin the US.
I think people are much morewilling to take a shot in a
(24:37):
small company and you know it'sit's like rolling a snowball
down a hill, like you get thefirst one and you can use that
to unlock number two and thennumber three and by the time you
get to number 15, you've kindof got like a small mound behind
you that you kind of carry inas a bit of momentum and then
when you get to number, you know100, you've got like a small
village of people who are kindof helping you in all these
small ways and package.
And we definitely saw that.
(24:57):
So we, we got moving for fouror five months and we kind of
got.
You know, we got the MasterCardon board, we got some other
things.
And then we went toinstitutional investors.
We actually had, like you know,a very well put together kind
of plan.
We industry experts across theboard who kind of looked at what
we were building and we're ableto kind of like pitch that back
to sophisticated kind of likeVC investors like Lyra, hipaa of
, I think, 1.2 billion in assetsunder management.
(25:18):
They backed a Venmo, so theywere kind of used to fintech
ideas like this.
We were kind of working with afew people there that were like
really great.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So I'm sure some of the listeners have done that,
are going to try to do this fortheir own ideas.
What would be like two of thebest tips that you learned if
you knew it going into it whenyou're going to do your pitches
that you you definitely learnedbecause it was your first time.
What will be those two quicktips?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I think there's a really great advisor, who's
also a small angel by angelinvestor in our company.
He's a good friend.
He's a Swiss guy called Andreasand he gave me some advice
before I did an institutionalfundraise and if I listened to
him a bit closer, I think itwould have saved us like a small
bit of time.
And like, bear in mind, weraised money in H1 of this year
where, like fintech investmentswere down 85% and he was like
(26:07):
raising around is all aboutmomentum.
He was like you put together avery good narrative, you bring
it to lots of investors and youyou get a deal over the line.
I think it's really true likeno deal is perfect.
I think every deal that getslike a VC check has like one or
two things that are a bit weakabout the overall idea.
Maybe it's the team, maybe it'ssomething else, and you need a
bit of momentum to kind of getyour deal over the line.
And I think what you reallywant to do is you want to go out
(26:29):
and speak to a lot of peoplequite quickly not in in that
kind of way but I think you needto have a small bit of
excitement about your deal orsomething like that to get it
over the line.
And I think, you know, vcs arealways looking for really
talented people with like hugeideas and you know, in their
space talent moves fast andthey're always looking for that
like one in a hundred deal.
And you know the idea of when Ifirst kind of you know, when I
(26:52):
was going to market, I thoughtit would be much more like it's
all about kind of like qualityand you can speak to one and
then do you know the one nextweek and then do another one the
week after and you'll meet theright people along the way.
But I think in that space, youknow, people really want to see
that there's lots of otherinterests and there's lots of
other people looking at thisdeal and it's really like hot in
that space.
And I think we started we juststarted speaking to people and
like people were very interestedand you know people really
(27:13):
wanted to kind of do follow-ups.
We spoke to like lots of thereally big name VCs in this way,
but it was when we kind ofstarted speaking to more at the
same time and created kind of alot of momentum with what we
were trying to do that thingsactually progressed really
quickly and yeah, we were reallyhappy to meet like great
investors who've been reallyreally helpful thus far and like
, yeah, having good investorshas made a huge difference in
like connections and you knoweverything.
(27:35):
Really, they're just likereally well connected people who
are incentivized in yoursuccess, and I think that's what
you're always trying to do insmall companies is like, how do
you find really powerful peoplewho can really help out and make
them want your baby slashcompany to succeed as well?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And yeah, it's been basically that All right, so
let's so for our listeners here.
The reason or the way that youand I have met was you inquired
to purchase the domain on mecomthat we had for sale.
You worked with my colleague,rob Watson, to acquire it.
He was representing the seller.
(28:10):
You came showing your interestto purchase the name.
What were some of the otherdomains that you were thinking
about, or the names of yourcompany that you were thinking
about?
Or was it just on me all theway, that what you guys were
married to?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, no, it's a really good question.
We we actually like it's reallyhard to name, like I haven't
had time to choose what we dothat well, but we actually build
gift cards around hobbies andinterests and yeah, with that,
like we really want to make.
Like the future digital gifting, in our view, is much more like
it's based on the things thatwe really care about, you know,
like golf, or calligraphy, orskydiving and and all of these
(28:43):
really tangible things, andtherefore we work with like
multiple brands on each giftcard.
And then with what we do, weactually have, like you know,
multiple different products.
Like our golfing gift card,like golf on me is very
different from like dinner orrestaurants where we do dinner
on me, and these are two verydifferent kind of products.
And we had a huge challengewhere, like how do you name
(29:03):
something that works for 150very separate things?
And we had different names.
Like originally we're thinkingof calling this like wish card
or something more, like magiccard or magic pass, and there
were so many names that havebeen thrown around that you know
we'd like a spreadsheet ofnames and eventually I was so
allergic to looking at anythingthey were naming.
I was like we need to befocusing on like building
(29:24):
infrastructure and all thisstuff that needed to get this
out.
And we sent a survey out andeventually we tested like 10
names and all of our friendskind of gravitated towards on me
.
And you know, in the Americancontext people say to like.
You know, like, oh, dinner's onme or like hey, come on, it's
on me, and people just reallylike that and it's kind of a
natural fit.
And one of the biggestchallenges we actually had was
like at the start we're likegreat, it's a four letter dot
(29:46):
com with two real words.
It's going to be a bit of achallenge to get this one over
the line, but we kind of theseller met Rob and yeah, it took
a few months but like we werequite happy in the outcome in
the end.
But yeah, naming was definitelya challenge we're very happy to
have like the dot com we reallywanted.
We definitely looked at a fewother domains but like dot com
obviously comes with a hugetrusted element and I think when
(30:07):
you're a small company, it'sone of the things you're trying
to get.
You can put your logos ofinvestors and everyone else down
.
You're trying to make yourselflook as reputable as possible,
but definitely having like aclean dot com is there's no
other way around it.
We did look at like five or sixother variants but we're like,
take the head off the snake, getthe what you can, your exact
name, dot com and, like you know, hope you go from there.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And in the decision making process, did the
investors get involved with thediscussion?
Or was it really up to you twoguys to make that decision and
say, okay, we're going to spendthis money on this and that's it
?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, like we can always touch base of their
investors just like chats aboutyou know what you're doing.
Some of the times their adviceis really helpful on matters
like this.
I think we're obviously in theconsumer space.
We do a lot of B2B as well, butwe definitely have a consumer
consumer arm and we wanted aname that was like just really
easy for people to remember and,you know, somewhat snappy and
normally you need like somethingto happen someone's head for,
(31:02):
like they receive a gift cardand it's like oh, it's called
like dinner on me and it's on medot com and I think, oh, that's
quite clever and like just asmall bit of a joke that replays
in someone's head and thechance of them actually
remembering it.
So I think it was it kind ofmade sense for us and when the
name came up within a pricepoint, that like made perfect
sense, given like what we'draised and everything we're like
and you know you don't want itto, you don't want someone else
to take it.
(31:23):
And when Rob kind of mentionedit was like oh, like we know the
seller and they're interestedin selling, we're like okay,
like let's see where this goes.
And then we were quite happywhen it came up we're like, okay
, let's just do this now andlike we can call that done and
march forwards.
I think we had internally we'dactually we owned on hyphen me
dot com and we had internal warno end about hyphen.
(31:43):
Honestly, I was.
We were so happy to pay themoney to get the team fully
aligned and like branding andnaming and all this stuff, just
like it's funny you think thethings will like suck small
energy from the founding teamand kind of people will be like
all sorts of stuff.
This hyphen became such acontentious point in the company
that in the end we're like ifthis solves that problem, it's
also quite helpful.
So we're very glad.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
In the in the, I've noticed the Europeans.
They don't mind the hyphen asmuch.
But in the United States yourarely see hyphens being
marketed, especially toconsumers.
Maybe a B2B product you mightsee it, but a B2C the companies
that end up getting the hyphenend up having to buy without the
hyphen, you know, later on intheir in their journey and then
(32:28):
obviously they get to pay a lotmore Usually when that happens,
wow, was there a point?
Was, was there a point?
If the seller was unwilling tonegotiate, would you guys have
bought it anyway and bit thebullet?
Or were you pretty at your, atyour end of you know your budget
and willing to walk away andand stick with what you had was
(32:48):
there?
Was there that kind ofconversation, or or was it?
You know how did that go?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, now the deal is done, we can, we can be more
honest about all of these things.
Yeah, in our case, we had a fewdifferent domains we're looking
at on mecom, like clean wasdefinitely the the one that made
the most sense.
But that said, like you know,when you're when you're very
small company, there's lots ofother things that you can spend
capital on that might be betterto do and I think we had a price
point in mind that kind of madesense for us.
(33:14):
And then, yeah, you know, forexample, when we're, when you're
a consumer company, we'reactually working at the moment.
Obviously we just launched preChristmas.
So, like this, like 16 giftcards or so are part of our like
first offering that are live at.
On mecom, what we wanted to bespending your money on is like
real doesn't make your beertaste better, is kind of the.
The joke in the entrepreneurialcommunity is like is that
(33:35):
making your direct productbetter and is this helping you
get to like your?
You know, like users andtraction and like really clear
ground evidence of like tractionas opposed to all your other
metrics?
And the answer that wasprobably like no in the very
early days.
And then when we were workingwith Rob.
He was very helpful, kind ofjust saying like look, this is
kind of you know, this is thedomain that's for sale.
It's probably we'll go tosomeone else if you guys don't
(33:56):
buy it.
And we had a price point in mindand we were kind of able to
negotiate quite well with theseller and in the end we were
like where we got to, we werekind of like okay, this now
makes perfect sense for us.
Or even with where we are, wethink it's worth investing.
And you know, in your consumerspace you're trying to get
people and you're really tryingto like hold them and you're
like one of the big things wespoke a lot about was like you
know, internally is like someonecan really love your product
(34:17):
and if they're sitting down in acoffee shop speak to their
friend, you want them to likequickly communicate exactly what
it is.
And you know and sounds supersexy when someone says like, oh,
go to on hyphen mecom and yourhyphens hidden someone in your
auxiliary or your auxiliarykeyboard and someone has to find
it.
And I think what we really wantto go okay, we're gonna be
working on this consumerexperience.
(34:38):
You want it to be instantly,and so we're gonna see across
tables on mecom.
You go from there, and it justmade a lot of sense really.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Okay, that's great.
And then one more questionabout the domain purchase
experiences.
Usually when we talk tostartups like yours and let's
say, the price is pretty out ofreach at the time or you don't
want to put up the capital, I'msure Rob offered you a payment
plan at one point or another.
Was that just not an option foryou guys and if so, why?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yeah, I don't think we spoke too much about payment
plans.
I think we we had a price pointand range, that kind of like.
That worked.
That made sense and I think youknow what we're really looking
at also as a small company islike this will sit on our books
as an asset and you're alsogoing to want to defend it to
vote yourself.
Obviously, I'm the CEO of thecompany, but there's very little
power when you're a smallcompany.
That means absolutely nothinglike satires or CTO, but like
(35:32):
everyone's exactly the same.
When it's when you're a smallgroup of people and I think you
know in my head I was basicallylooking at the economics of this
is like this is going to sit onour books as an asset and I had
to sell it.
Is it still worth?
You know that amount kind ofvibe, and you just put it like
you know we've great investorson board and you want to be able
to make sure that you candefend any decision to them.
If they asked you about it andI think in this case it hit a
(35:53):
space that it just really madesense for us we were like, okay,
this is.
You know, it's a four letterdot com with two real words, and
it came in at a price pointthat we were happy with and we
were like look, this is bothadvantages to the business and
it should hold its worth.
If not, like grow into thefuture, makes perfect sense to
just pull the trigger at thisprice point, and that's kind of
what we did.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Got it.
I was looking at your websiteand I'm not just saying this
because you're one of our guests, but I love it.
I think it's very clean, thecolors are nice.
I think it's very obvious whatyou're offering is and
understanding how it can workand how people can use it.
My question to you is is thatwould you you said you're going
(36:34):
to be having a bigger releasenext year in your next release,
would you do something thatfocuses on some fundraising,
Kind of like a go fund me, butwith using this product?
Is that in the cards?
Is that a possibility?
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Firstly, thank you so much for the call out and our
UX designer.
Honestly, he's one of thegreatest in the world.
He's incredible.
In terms of fund raise, youmean kind of like doing your own
fundraising on onmecom and nottake investors.
I'm saying like so.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
For example, I was actually talking to a friend
about this a couple of weeks agoand him and I were both kind of
chuckling saying with go fundme.
When it first came out I likedit and I liked the idea in the
premise, but now I feel likewhen someone wants to go fund me
, there's no accountabilitythere and there's nothing there
(37:29):
that makes me feel good aboutgiving money to these stories
that a lot of the timepotentially are bullshit, to be
totally honest.
Right, but like if my kid isdoing a fundraiser for trying to
help kids buy sneakers or theyneed books for their school and
(37:50):
there's a certain limit thatyou're going to do and you need
500 bucks to raise money forschool and it's for books, well,
maybe Barnes and Noble youcould buy a $500 Barnes and
Noble card and you know it'sgoing to go to books.
It's not going to just go cashto these people and then they
just go buy puppies and jewelrywith it.
They actually do.
It's automatically done the wayit's supposed to be and I can
(38:11):
set those up and then I couldadvertise this that you know
sawcom is doing a raise to helpbuy turkeys and there's a
grocery chain called Publix nearme.
So buy your Publix gift card orall these different gift cards
to these four grocery stores andthen we're going to go buy
turkeys with them, you know,like something like that, rather
than just throwing money atsawcom.
There's because we're not anonprofit, there's no
(38:34):
accountability.
They're just going to taketheir 20% and give me the check
and then who knows if I'm goingto buy any turkeys, right?
So I was thinking there's anelement for you to be able to,
you know, offer that.
Is that part of the release oris that far out of the span of
reality?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
No, it's a really good point and there's like,
there's so many, there's amillion ways you can go.
There's a like we talk a lotabout, like what money is
internally and this, but likethere's like a spectrum of money
and if you give someone likecold, hard cash, yeah, it's like
it can be used for anything andthat's one of the, obviously,
principles of money.
But you're so right, like theidea, one of the use cases of,
(39:14):
let's say, like the gift cardindustry in that whole space is
like you're giving this to thisperson because, like, and if you
think about it quite deeply,it's almost like you want your
recipient to be able to spendthis guilt free for like one of
their hobbies and interests.
So, like, if you give someonewho's a runner like a Nike gift
card or a running on me,obviously we should promote
ourselves they can go into thatstore and spend a kind of guilt
free.
But one of the other things youget as a sender is you're
(39:35):
basically saying, like they'regoing to spend it on what I want
them to spend it on and youknow it's.
It's a positive piece, becausewhat you're basically saying is,
like I know you love runningand like you will get to spend
this guilt free, but what you'realso saying is like you will
actually spend this on running.
So it's like a gift and it kindof pigeons holds you into that
kind of like area and it'sreally important.
And yeah, there's a whole usecase of kind of that like loose
(39:56):
accountability and it's it's a.
It's something we've spoke alot about.
It's very similar to what wecall like group gifting, where
it's like you have a friend thatalways wanted to try painting
and you know four friends wantto come together and put 50
bucks each on like a painting onme or a painting gift card, and
you know you put 200 buckstogether where that person can
use it and again they're likethey're going to be using it
within their hobby interests,where they'll get to enjoy and
do all these things.
But like, yeah, the theaccountability arm is like quite
(40:18):
important and, as you mentioned, there's a really great use
case there as well, where it'slike you know a business wants
to help out employees andthey're going to be giving them,
let's say, gift cards this way,just with the kind of like
knowledge and when a lot of B2Bkind of stuff as well, you can't
really give people just likecash, because it could be used
for like all sorts of purposes,even for, like we do, ux studies
or fill out surveys and stuff.
(40:39):
It's just a really kind of safeway of you know B2B, like
incentive management kind ofthing.
And yeah, there's a huge usecase for like what you mentioned
and like a few others kind ofaround it that we're definitely
looking into, especially kind ofthe B2B space, that are really
exciting for us.
Again, it's like your kind ofproduct manager role of phasing
all these things incorrectly to,let's say, like get your
initial base and roll that intokind of something else and how
(41:01):
do you unlock this next piece.
So it's definitely on theroadmap, but we probably won't
get there for a few months yet.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
I'm sure, I'm sure, and there's always these, all
these.
That's the other problem withstarting your own business is
prioritizing what's actuallygoing to make you the money and
kind of cutting through thenoise right, and it's like I
could come up to you right nowwith excitement and give you
that idea and then you go as aproduct manager, you know that
you need to pick where you'regoing to put your resources into
(41:29):
right, because you can't justdo everything at the same time
and you can't just push asideyour strategy that you've set
forth unless it's tried and trueand you're going to do your
math and figure out if it's theright decision.
I mean, you're, you know you'remaking a major change.
The other thing I was thinkingabout is and I think this is the
(41:50):
domain, or in me, is the use ofsubdomains and you're talking
about the different categories.
So you could do dinner dot onme dot com or, you know, shoes
dot on me dot com or sports doton me dot com.
Is that?
Would subdomains be somethingthat you would, you could
categorize and then if you wereto market different verticals,
(42:11):
you know you could use those.
Did you guys ever think aboutdoing any of?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
that?
No, 100%.
We actually we initially hadthat plan like from the get go.
We're like, oh, it'll be likeso sexy, you get your gift card
and it goes straight to like youknow, like running dot on me
dot com and we're like it'sgoing to, it's going to look,
yeah.
The only thing that it doesn'twork great for is Google treats
every subdomain as a entirely,let's say, its own website.
And because we have like 100and you know, I think we're at
(42:36):
the moment where it's 70, we'rekind of planning to get to like
much more than that, to be morespecific and nuanced in what we
can offer in terms of gift cards.
And when you're a small companyand you want to build your kind
of CEO or sorry, seo, let's sayequity or presence, you really
want to have things consolidated.
So we you know it's it'sdifficult to build strong SEO
for one website.
If you shared that into 70different websites, it becomes
(42:58):
extraordinarily difficult.
So I think for now, keepingeverything as the on me dot com
slash, like running itdefinitely sounds really nice
and it's kind of something sexyabout seeing the like running on
me and sentence case like all,like normal.
But at the moment we're likemainly for SEO.
We need to keep everythingtogether in the future.
If we get big, we get lots ofnice backlinks and everything
(43:18):
else that puts us away to thetop.
It's definitely something youcan implement, but at the moment
, mainly for SEO purposes, we'retrying to keep it more together
.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
You don't have any connections at Google and pull a
couple strings to get yourselfto the top of the rankings
without having to do much.
Is that not possible over there?
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Unfortunately, like the not, we tried everything we
could, jeff.
No, unfortunately, google, youknow when you're, when you're
pulling in tens and tens andtens of not hundreds of billions
of dollars from a piece everyyear.
People get unwilling to helptheir friends with this moment
of kickback in that way.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
But yeah, I hear you.
Awesome.
Well, thanks for your time.
We really appreciate it andenjoy your time in Ireland and
good luck with the business.
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