Jose Montero - Reinventing the Name Tag With Blue Social

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What is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Jose Montero here with us. Jose Montero is the co founder and CEO of Blue Social, which is an instant way to share your social media and contact information with a simple tap. I've known Jose for the past couple of months because he actually just raised over $1 million on Republic and I recently had the founder of Republic here on the podcast. So it was a great follow up after having him on the show. Before we get started, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend. I really appreciate it. Let's get into the show.

All right, what is going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Jose Montero, the founder of Blue Social, here with us. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Jose.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Casey. I'm excited to be here and to share some insights and what it's been building this company.

Yeah, man, I started following you, I would say, a couple months ago. You guys at Blue have had so much traction with your Republic campaign and just getting the investment from Tim Draper and we'll dive into all of that. But for those who may not know what Blue Social is, can you bring them up to speed on what you guys have created up to this point?

Yeah, yeah. So we first started off with a mobile app that uses Bluetooth technology. So we started that in 2016 that essentially allows you to discover people within Bluetooth. So I'll put up here and right now I'm at my office. So you'll start seeing some of my team members start popping up and populating here. Right. So you'd be able to discover people who were also on the app within Bluetooth, click on their profiles, you can see who they are, information about them, their social medias, you can notify them to be social. Right. And we launched that in 2016, grew a lot and got a lot of organic downloads. But one of our latest products, the biggest challenge with that, Casey, was in order to discover people, they needed to have the mobile app. So the network effect challenge. The chicken or the egg? What came first, the chicken or the egg or wasn't magic? Well, our latest product which uses NFC technology, is the magic for us on how we grow the network. This is a product that we launched about nine months ago now, 10 months ago, we've now sold over 50,000 all over the world. And we're starting to scale up a lot now with this. This allows users to actually, it's like a smart business card. We have smart stickers as well and buttons where you can simply tap it on any NFC compatible smartphone and it'll instantly share all your contact information, social medias directly into their phone and they could add to contacts and they don't have to be on the network. So that's kind of what we've been working on.

I love this man. And I would consider myself as a very social person. I've hosted a lot of events and you know, I'm always looking for the next event to go to. And networking is super important to me. And I want to ask you, like, where did this idea come from and what made you want to go all in on this concept? You know, like, what led you to that point before we get into the story?

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, so the idea came to me back actually in 2012 when I was in college from two observations. The first observation was when I was walking around campus, noticed students weren't really socializing, but yet they were glued to their phones on social media, right? So started to make me think, okay, is social media making us less social? The second observation I made was when I was in class room of like 60 other students. I just realized that every single student that was sitting around me had an online identity. They were all on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat was barely coming out in 2012, but everyone was on these platforms. But there was no way to know who these students were without having to walk up and ask, right? So I was like, man, there has to be a better way to connect people's physical identities with their digital identities. And so I wrote down the idea in 2012. I've always written down ideas, right? And ever Since I was young, just never acted upon them, you know, which many of us do a lot. And so wrote it down. And then in 2015, summer 2015, after I quit my job at LA Fitness as a manager, there, I was looking for something new. And when I came across blue, I was actually with my best friend Louis, and we were talking about life. You know, what are we gonna do? How can we make money? Or how can we change the world? And it was when I was going through my ideas of notes that I had in my phone, and I came across blue and the idea of blue, and for some reason, it was the only idea that I had a star next to it. And when I saw it, Casey, like, I got this instant chills down my spine, like, chills of assurance almost. I didn't. I didn't know what it was, but I knew this was something. And that's. That's the day, you know, I decided to burn the ships. I had the tattoo from Think and Grow Rich, chapter four, you know, and I was like, you know, what? If someone. If I don't do this, someone else will, so might as well be me. And that's when I decided to kind of really fully pursue it. Jump in. And I had no idea what I was doing.

Yeah, that's so cool, man. And I want to bring people up to speed because I know, like, I referenced at the beginning, you guys had such a successful Republic campaign. I just had Kendrick, the founder of Republic, on the podcast, as well as Tim. Tim Draper. You guys raised over a million dollars with him. He was on the show. And I think it's cool for everyone that's listening to, you know, to dive into that next chapter of, you know, you had this idea in 2012, in the last 90 days, it seems like you guys have had so much traction and some big things happening. I'd love for you to tell the listener today what have the last 90 days looked like at Blues Social for the people that may have not have seen the campaign go live because you guys crushed it. And I've been watching from afar, and it's super cool. And I wanted to say congratulations on the success thus far.

Thank you. Yeah, so I would say, like, the last 90 days, you know, is a lot of, like, growing pains right now. We're in the middle of scalp because, you know, we raised now, you know, 1.1 million from Tim Draper and Draper Associates, and then we also now raised them another million through the crowdfund of Republic from. With over 4,000 investors. So the finance is nice. But that's not success in my eyes. Success in my eyes is user growth and getting the users on the network. You know, that's my most important because we have, I would say like a six to nine month window to really build this network to take advantage of our proprietary Bluetooth technology. And what we have a patent on is with your device, we essentially turn your device into a beacon. So when you turn on blue and you have Bluetooth on, you can simply slide it in your pocket. And as soon as you cross paths with someone in real life, you'll be notified in real time. So it's a passive technology. So I would say the last 90 days, you know, it's been a lot of like setting the infrastructure. We have the sales team going now with enterprises, reaching out to enterprises, selling custom smart branded cards, you know, to enterprises and organizations as a way to go contact list now with COVID 19. And because of COVID 19 hit, right events aren't really happening. You know, it's a lot of that's on hold. So now, you know, going forward, this is, you know, you know, God and the universe literally laid out this time because I started this five years ago, right, 2015. So for me, I wanted the success sooner, but I think if it happened sooner, it wouldn't have happened in the way where now like, you know, all of this is happening with COVID And now we have a contactless solution for networking and even businesses wanting to implement proximity marketing, right, or contactless marketing. So we've been just setting a lot of infrastructure and growing the team. We have about 15 people right now. We're looking to get the second story here at the office so we can start hiring 2050 salespeople and more developers. But it's a lot of growing pains, but it's exciting at the same time.

What made you want to go with Republic? Because I know, I recently learned about the platform through one of my mentors, Aristotle. And I know when I first found out about it, you guys were on it. You guys are one of the first trending campaigns that I came across. And then I found out you were the guy behind it. I was like, this is super cool. And you were the first person that I knew personally that launched on Republic. And I know that we had that, you know, that FaceTime call about it. So my question to you is, what made you want to go with Republic and what was that experience like?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, I've always been about, you know, building this company for the people, right? So actually, back in 2017, during the ICO launches, I actually wrote up a white paper and was, like, ready to launch an ICO because, you know, I want people to be part of this. I want an opportunity. My team was, you know, didn't want to, and I'm glad that they told me not to because of, you know, the big up of the crash of ICOs and then the crash. Right. So that opportunity passed by. But, you know, I looked at Kickstarter, I looked at indiegogo, I looked at, you know, all these other platforms. But what really stood out with Republic was the idea of a crowd safe. You know, a safe agreement, which stands for a simple, simple agreement for future equity. Right. And I saw that as a new instrument that Y Combinator came out with, I think, in 2017 or so, as a way for founders, you know, and investors to come in, but, you know, be more founder friendly.

Yeah, totally.

So that really enticed me to it. And then also, you know, the Meet the Draper show, in order to be on the Meet the Draper show, they had us go on Republic as well, be part of this. And I think Tim Draper, he's a huge advocate for, you know, having. Allowing the public to invest into companies and crowdfund and so forth as well.

Very cool. What? Because I know that you were looking at different, you know, different ways of crowdfunding and bringing in the people. Did you have a moment where you were gonna go traditional venture capital, or was Republic the platform that you wanted to go with the moment you saw it? Because I know when I heard about it, I was like, this is very intriguing, and it's a very interesting concept, and I'd love to hear your thoughts as a founder, but also advice to other founders. Right. Where it's like, what made you pick and choose the type of ways that you wanted to raise capital? Because there's a lot of ways that people can, and Republic happens to be one of them. And that's what you chose. So what's your experience there on raising capital?

Yeah, you know, I mean, I. As a CEO, you know, I was. I was spending. I spent five years trying to raise money. You know, I was denied by hundreds of investors. 2016, 28, 2017, all the way up until now, you know, if not. Yeah. Multiple hundreds of investors. So it's not that I didn't want to go the traditional. Didn't want to go the traditional. I was trying, you know, but I think with this. This vision of blue, it's so big and scary and, like, crazy thinking that some of the angel, you know, angel investors. So we raised the friends and family in 2016, raised about 140,000 in 2016 to get the initial MVP out the product. And then after that my goal was to raise from angel investors, Right?

Yep.

That was a struggle. You know, it's very challenging, you know, having a consumer product or a new social network. Right. People, that doesn't sound like, okay, everyone wants to come up with the social network. So a lot of investors were telling me, go B2B, go to Enterprise, build something for enterprise. But I knew what I wanted and I wanted the network of users and people to build a world of friends. Right. To be able to walk anywhere to anything and know who's around you or what. Of course, it's opt in. Right. Like a name tag. Whenever you want to be social, you put on your name tag, you take it off. And so traditional financing was always there. And I pitched hundreds of times at competitions. It was just very hard because a lot of angels were acting like venture capitalists.

Yeah.

You know, and your guys, and a lot of you, a lot of the viewers here, you know, I'm sure you guys are struggling with the same thing is a lot of angels act like VCs when in reality they're supposed to be the angels that help us get to that next step.

Yeah.

And that's why they're called angels. But I think the market has changed and a lot of people are now, you know, especially now with the economy, a lot of people are, you know, angels, I would say, are a little bit scared to pull the trigger. Right. Venture capitalists, I would say they're starting to invest a lot into companies right now because they understand that in down markets, those are when the companies come into fruition, the big companies, the Apple companies that, you know, doing all that. Right. And so what led me to the crowd, you know, to the crowdfunding, you know, is I've always been wanted to decentralize this network, you know, and that's still the goal is to one day decentralize it. And you know, right now all the interactions that happen on your device are decentralized, stored on your device, on your local device, so it doesn't go up to a server or anything. And that's because we're all about protecting our users and data.

What's your advice to someone that has, you know, pitched hundreds of investors and received so many no's? Because that takes mental discipline and grit. And you know, I believe a lot of people couldn't handle that. So what kept you motivated through this process? Because as someone that's been, you know, recently found out about Blue a couple months ago and have seen the success thus far, it's like, I personally, you know, you don't see that. So I'd love to hear it on your end. Like, what kept you motivated through those hard times over the last five years of building this company?

Yeah, you know, that's a great question, man. And, you know, honestly, like, it's tough. I'll be real. Like, there's times I broke down because, you know, I was chewed out by investors or, you know, they made me think that I, like, you know, I wasn't good enough or this and that. And it's tough out there, you know, and it's. It's. It's what, you know, I've always been taught, you know, your why is going to drive you way further than. Than anything else. And if you have a why, a strong why, you know, like, my why is to really build a world of friends. And also my, you know, my mom and my parents, you know, my dad's involved, my sister's involved. There's four founders. My dad, me, my sister, and then Mario Contreras, who's our chief development officer, who's been here since the beginning, too. And, you know, so what kept us was not just, you know, my wife, but also my team, you know, being supporting each other when we had no money, you know, and still had to get things done. You know, it's. And when it comes to, like, talking to angels and getting those no's, good, because. Keep getting those no's, because you're gonna find one person that will say the yes. And if you have the right attitude going into these pitches and you really believe in your product, you know that right investor will come along. That right investor was Tim Draper. For me, you know, he saw the vision. You know, he saw. I didn't expect to go into venture financing, you know. Right. Like jump Angels, right?

Yeah.

Right. But at the same time, like, you know, through Law of Attraction, I'm a huge believer in Law of Attraction. And, you know, the right people, the resources and timing will happen at the right moments, even if it feels like it's taken forever. It's been five years I've been trying to raise money.

Yeah.

You know, it's tough, especially when my team needs it. I need to help my team, pay my team so they could have provide food for their families and food on their plate. Right. And it's a struggle, but I think it's it's the CEOs and the founders duty to really raise that capital and not give up, because literally, like, you know, you could be three feet from gold and not even know it. And, you know, it's. It's. It's crazy because, you know, we put our last injection of $12,000 into the company in the beginning of this year, and we're like, okay, like, we need to make this work. Like, my family and I, you know, have invested over $600,000 cash into this since 2015. We've sold three rental properties all moved into one house too, because, you know, this is something we believe in. And so we burned the ship, so there was no turning back. So we just had to figure out how to make this freaking thing work.

That's so badass, man.

Thanks.

Yeah, because, like, this is, like, just this excites me because I didn't know this, you know, about you and your story. And I think it's super cool to hear that. And it's not only inspirational to me, but for the people listening and just through those hard moments of going all in, I want to ask you, day to day, team culture. We talked about this before we got started. You've done such a great job in my eyes, just documenting team culture and showcasing the journey for the short period of time that I've been, you know, a believer in blue. And you. So what have been your core values within your organization and how have you been able to build team culture?

Right, okay. Yeah. So, you know, with our culture, you know, we're very open, and we were, you know, because of the blue network. Right. We're all about authentic interactions, so being real with each other, you know, letting us know our intentions and where we want to go and where we want to grow. Because we have a lot of people in this company that have a lot of potential, and we see that potential and we want to grow their potential. You know, we're not, you know, and at the same time, too, you know, it's. It's a lot of collaboration. I'm huge on collaboration and masterminds. Right. The mastermind principle on Think and Grow Rich, you know, there's two minds. There's mine in yours right now, but there's a third mind right now that's shooting this intelligence to us or ideas and questions. Right. And so building the mastermind effect is something that, you know, that excites me because there would be no other ways to come up with solution without the mastermind. And, you know, it's. It's the Documentation that you've seen. I just recently started getting into it actually and actually got my videographer here, you know, and so I wish I would have documented the journey more four years ago. Right. All the way up until this point. Right. But at the same time, I can't live in that regret. It's only from here on out that I gotta do. And that's why I'm starting to document it because I want to show like this is. A lot of people see us now and think of like us as an overnight success and don't realize the five years that we put into this, you know, blood, sweat and tears. But if I could show the journey now, documenting it on what it's like for the culture and how to build, you know, a billion dollar company. Because I truly believe this will be a billion dollar company. I wrote it on my mirror the day I decided the, decided to do this. I went home to my parents house because that's where I lived at the time. I was 21, 26 now. And so I went home and wrote on my, wrote on my mirror the next generation social networking tool, Billion dollar Idea. And I put a star next to it and it's up there today. And what's crazy is if you, you could have a dream and a vision and write an idea, but until you write it down, it will not manifest itself because it has to become in physical form. Yeah, right.

You speak a lot on thinking grow rich. And I know those are principles and I'm a huge fan of that book. When did that book become important to you and when did you get introduced to it?

Yeah, I was introduced to it in 2012 actually through one of my mentors back when I joined a MLM company called Vemma. Yeah. And it was a energy drink company. People call it pyramid schemes and so forth, but I saw it as a way, because I was a lost boat, you know, I was just going with the flow right after high school and in college, not, not really doing much with my life. And it wasn't until I got a mentor, you know, and I strongly advise everyone that's listening get a mentor in whatever it is that you're doing because your mentor will help so much. And as business owners, we need events sometimes and here and share our, share our challenges and problems. Right. With someone. And so the book was actually recommended to me by mentor in 2012. And the whole concept of Think and grow Rich and the law of Attraction and the movie or the video on YouTube called the Secret. Right. That's when I was Introduced. And actually with the movie the Secret, I would first start with that. The Secret. If you haven't watched that on YouTube, I recommend it because as soon as I saw that, I literally sat 12 of my other friends in my living room and forced them to watch it because I believed in it so much. And look at to where I am now. Yeah, right. And I'm not here. I'm not trying to brag or boast, but it was all part of the law of attraction and acting as if you already had it.

Yep. Dude, I love that, man. What are some of your daily rituals that you've implemented into your life throughout this journey?

One of them is obviously planning. You need to plan the day like, you know, the night before, plan the date, the next day ahead so you already know what you're getting into. I started making a habit to wake up early, not gonna lie. Today I woke up a little late. I've been aiming and striving to always wake up like at 6:30, 7:00', clock, get my morning coffee in, read a book or look over my planner in the mornings, go over emails and then come into the office here by like 8:39. That's when my team starts showing up. And pretty much throughout the day I'm just checking in with the team, making sure all the things are getting done and strategizing with the team, masterminding on new ideas and concept because we're all learning. You know, I haven't done this before, but I'm excited to learn and to grow into the individual that will make this happen and all that too.

So I love it. Super cool, man. When it comes to just Blue Social as a platform, what are you excited about moving forward in 2020?

Yeah. You know, so with Blue Social and the platform, right, that's our goal is to build a platform. And the vision for Blue is for in two to three years to be able to walk anywhere and discover people that are also on the network that want to be friends in the vision of a world of friends. And because of this, once we have the network, we could introduce other aspects that our technology can provide, like proximity marketing with beacon technology or integrate into smart homes and smart devices and appliances. Right. Login with blue, just like, you know, imagine walking into your home and it's a smart home. And because you logged in with blue, it knows it's Casey, it knows that you like the temperature this and the lights like this, you know, and that's the vision because in order Internet of things have been talked a lot about the Past decade or so.

Right.

But it hasn't came into fruition because there's no network. Right. A lot of people are already implementing beacon technology where it allows, you know, essentially a beacon is Bluetooth. So as soon as, so let's say for example, Macy's has, has beacon technology. And if you have their mobile app, as soon as you cross paths Macy's and walk past Macy's doors, they'll send you a notification, say, hey Casey, come into Macy's today for 15% off. So that technology is there. However, the adoption isn't because in order to, if I walk into a mall, I would have to download every single store, brand app to be able to receive the coupons. So there's no singular network. So what we've done, the vision right with Blue is we've taken that same technology, technologies and incorporated into a social aspect because people want to discover people more than anything else, especially in these times. And you know, loneliness is a huge problem. That's one of our big things is to b, help cure loneliness in the world. You know, it was considered a pandemic by the U.S. health consensus in 2018. Right. And a lot of us feel that way sometimes. And it's worse. You know, not only mentally, right. Psychologically affects you, but also physically. They say loneliness is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And so, you know, our goal in the cure to loneliness is in person interactions. So that's why the Bluetooth and that's very important to us and to our company because we want to help facilitate authentic interactions between people.

Love that. I love that man. I have two more questions before I let you go. And that is, you know, looking back over the last five years, starting Blue now, raising capital, what advice would you give yourself if you were to start over and you know, give your 18 year old self a piece of advice?

I would say for sure. Patience. Have more patience and enjoy the journey more in the dream. Because the dream is the journey.

Yesterday.

Yeah. And now you know that what has happened is happening, right. It feels surreal, right? Because you know, throughout the five years I should have enjoyed the journey more, the challenges more and the nos more, right. And the rejections more. Because once you're there, right, like people get to that status of success and once they, once they get there, they're like, now what? Because the journey was the dream. And if you realize that and you can wake up every day realizing today's the dream, this is the dream I just woke. You know, even though you're waking up from a Dream. This is a dream. And we could control this dream, a reality, you know, through our mind and perseverance in action. So I would for sure tell myself to have more patience and to know that what I know, I know.

That's epic, man. I love that. Last but not least, just for everyone listening, where is the best place for people to learn about Blue and where can they pick up a smart card? Because I know it's something where once they have their hands on it, they're not going to be using business cards anymore. They're going to be tapping everyone with the blue smart card.

Exactly. So yeah, we. So if you, you can visit our website, I have it right here. It's www.blue.social and I actually created a coupon code for all the listeners here and for yourself where it's KC20 to get 20% off. It's right here on the back. Maybe you can see that. Also I did want to mention because I know a lot of business owners listen to this. We did just start offering custom smart cards Powered by Blue and our technology. So if you're interested in ordering some custom smart cards for your organization to go contactless, please reach out to Saleslue Social. We also are looking for people who are hungry, who are in e commerce that want to sell our products Powered by Blue where you guys can make the money on the hardware. We just want to build the platform for you guys. So look, you know, because this is a big market, it's enough for everyone to have a bite of and you know, I just want to build this for the people. At the end of the day, I love it.

Well, everyone listening, make sure you check out Blue Social. I'll make sure to link it down below. And that being said, Jose, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Yeah, thank you, Casey. I appreciate you having me.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters An Apple original series the world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place face it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

My God.

Go.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV Plus.