Bringing a Consumer App to Life, w/ Yuval Brisker, Co-Founder and CEO of Mezu

Hey everybody, this is Mike Belsito, co-founder of Product Collective, and we're back for another industry interview. You probably see the setting here a little bit different than normal. Usually you might see, you know, two different screens, two people kind of calling in, but today we're actually conducting the industry interview live in person. So I'm excited for that. It'll be a little bit different. And I'll share a little bit more about my guest in just a minute. But for those of you that are tuning in for the very first time, welcome. I really appreciate you making the time for this. I'll share a little bit about what these are all about. And then also just a little bit more about Product Collective too, just so you're familiar with that. But these industry interviews, they're 30-minute live video Q&A chats. And we have them with product leaders really from all around the world. We do these twice a month. Usually it's on the first and third Wednesday of the month, right at 1:00 PM Eastern. And this is a chance for, yes, for me to ask questions of our guests, but I love it for you to ask questions of the guests as well. So I'll be monitoring. There's a section called Ask a Question. If you see that at the very bottom, anytime, even right now, if you have a question that you want to make sure that we ask our guests, just put it in the Ask a Question section and I'll be monitoring that throughout. You'll notice that there is also a chat on the screen as well. And that's awesome. You could feel free to use that chat and introduce yourself, maybe share where you're from, what product you're working on. It's fun to see where people are tuning in from. But yeah, that chat, if you want to leave a question there, you're welcome to. I'll do my best if I could see the question in the chat, but even better if you can use the Ask a Question section if you have questions. If you don't and you want to sit back and watch me ask our guests questions, that's fine too. I do want to mention, if you're learning about Product Collective for the first time, maybe you saw this video chat and you signed up for it, but you weren't sure what Product Collective is. We're a community for product people. Really, there's around 20,000 product people from all around the world that are involved in Product Collective in some way. We have a weekly newsletter that we curate every single week. We do these live video chats. We have a pretty active Slack channel. There's about 7,000 product people in the Slack channel every day, trading ideas, best practices, getting feedback from others, that sort of thing. So if you want to be in on any of that, you could just sign up at productcollective.com, and it's free to do it. So you could check it out there. We also meet in person at Industry: The Product Conference, and we actually have two editions of Industry. One that happens in the springtime. In this past year, we had it in April in Dublin, Ireland. That was our second edition in Europe. And then this fall, that's our global edition. That takes place this September. That'll actually be the 5th edition. We're on pace for around 1,200 attendees, which we're really excited about. There's all sorts of speakers. I think we have over 20 speakers this year, including Grammy and Academy Award-winning artist Common, Jason Fried of Basecamp, Nikita Miller of Trello, all sorts of other people. So actually the early bird pricing ends on June 30th. July 1st is when the day of show rate goes into effect. So if you want to save a little bit before then, or if you just want to check out details about Industry, you could just go to global.industryconference.com. Or if you just went to industryconference.com, you'll, you'll be able to direct yourself to the Global Edition there. So definitely check that out and consider joining us if you haven't joined us before. But it's always nice seeing some familiar faces for the people that join us year for year too. So with all of that, I want to go right into the topic and introduce you to our guest. And again, I get to do it in person this time. Our guest is Yuval Brisker, the CEO of Mezu. And Yuval, thank you so much for making the time.

Thanks, Mark.

Yeah, appreciate it.

So happy to be here.

You know, you are— you were actually right in our offices. You know, Yuval and I work out of the same building, really. So it wasn't too far to get to the meeting today.

Shortest commute I've been doing. In the last, you know, 25 years.

Which is always a good thing for sure. But you know, so you've been operating Mezu for, it's been over a year now at this point.

Yeah, Mezu went live about a year ago. Okay.

And, but before that you also had a really successful company that was on the B2B side. It was, you know, Mezu is for consumers, but Towa was on the B2B side. It was really successful. You had an exit with it.

Yeah. And got acquired by Oracle.

Which I think people have heard of Oracle before.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm curious, maybe we could start things off by— well, first of all, maybe first, can you share a little bit more about Mezu and what you're up to now with it?

Yeah, I mean, Mezu, very different from what I did before, obviously. I like to say I can already be, you know, I can already carry the title of serial entrepreneur because this is my third company. My second company, as you said, was a B2B software cloud software company that was focused on field service, and it was sold to Oracle, acquired it in 2014. And I really didn't want to do the same thing over again. It's not interesting for me. I wanted to try a completely different area. I'd always been kind of super interested in the consumer side, as complicated and as, you know, unpredictable as it is. I mean, when you look at the differences between, you know, enterprise software and consumer-based software, I think, you know, the level of unpredictability in enterprise and consumer software is a lot higher. And trying to understand who your customer is and understanding what sort of the interaction with your product is, is a lot, lot more complicated. But yeah, I didn't want to do the same thing over again. And I've always been a person who responds to their own needs. Very classic kind of entrepreneur in that I'm usually solving my own problem. And that's how I started Towa. I solved my own problem for, you know, waiting for the cable guy. And in Mezoo's case, I really found myself in many situations around the world where I didn't have cash in situations where I wanted and needed cash. Like I was in a farmer's market, you know, in Paris or I was, or New York, and they were not taking any credit cards and I needed cash. Or I was walking to a, you know, I was going to a hotel and wanted to pay the valet. And I realized that there was nothing that really replaced replace the actual experience of cash, which is giving money, you know, and giving and getting money with people that you actually don't know.

Yeah.

Um, and that you don't want to exchange any contact details.

Yeah.

Meaning the, the concept of, uh, you know, the payment apps that existed out in the world such as Venmo or Square Cash, um, they're all based around the idea that you're actually giving money to people that you know, to your sort of social network. Whether it's, you know, personal, close, or, you know, family, family, you know, close family or friends, you usually have their contact information and you can, you know, send them an email with basically look at their email address or their phone number and send them money using those. It's actually the concept that was developed by PayPal at the very beginning but moved into the mobile sphere. I call that a virtual check, not, you know, not really cash. Sure. And so I realized there was a kind of a gap in the market and on two levels. One, that there was nothing out there that actually replicated the experience of cash, meaning I put my hand in my pocket, I give you something, you take it, and I never see you again. And in that context, I've never exchanged any kind of personal information with you. And then the idea that you couldn't travel with it and that none of the apps that existed in our market are really kind of portable and transferable to other places in the world. So I kind of put those two together and I thought, well, what if I could actually develop an application that could allow you to give and get money with people you don't know or don't want to exchange any contact information with, as well as kind of travel the world and be more sort of mobile in that respect. And then kind of as the idea developed, you know, it became more and more clear that that kind of idea gels around ideas and concepts of privacy. And how do you protect your identity, your personal information while you're actually exchanging money?

Yeah.

And so it all kind of came together and this idea that we wanted to produce sort of the first, I would say, meta payment app that allows you to give and get money with anyone and pay for anyone, pay for anything and to anyone anywhere.

Yeah.

And that's really what Mezoo is about. Pay anyone anywhere for anything using one app. It doesn't matter what kind of situation you want to pay both people that you know. So it kind of replicates the sort of classic payment P2P experience, but also, you know, unique mechanism that allows you to exchange money with people that you don't know and have a one-time connection with. And then, you know, on an elevated sphere, really to, you know, produce something that protects people's privacy and identity, which obviously has become a huge and hot topic since we started the company. We didn't start the company to focus on privacy, but I think that as the last year and a half or 2 years have kind of evolved, not just in the technology sphere, but in the world in general, the issues of privacy and how do I protect my personal information, how do I protect my identity, they've become so paramount. To our societies, to the future of our democratic societies, and so on and so forth, that we're kind of on this crusade that says we've developed a piece of software, an app that's available in both app stores, that's completely connected to the banking world, but allows you to actually exchange money without having to share any of your personal information. Meaning I don't need to know you, you don't need to know me, you don't need to know any of my identity or contact and to do that in a really fast, easy, and simple way.

Yeah, I think that's great. And I've been a user very early on, so I can attest that works pretty well. So I think that's awesome. It's good to share that context for everybody. But I imagine though that the kind of the process of getting Mezu started as a consumer app of something that, you know, you're putting this out into the universe for consumers, That had to be a lot different of a process than with TOA when you're bringing that to life. You know, that's targeting businesses. Yeah. I'm just curious if you think back to the sort of bringing to life stage, but consumer versus B2B, what were some of those major differences for you?

I mean, I think that the biggest difference is having, you know, really intimate and long-term relationships with customers. That with a B2B product, you have the opportunity. So it all starts with an idea, right? I mean, without the idea, there's nothing. And when you have the idea, you're not— the first thing you don't, you know, you do is not like go, you know, develop it and give it to somebody. I think you go through a process, and the process is, okay, I start talking, you know, first thing I think about the idea, and I kind of develop the sort of the ecosystem of the idea called, you know, the idea ecosystem, which means what does this need to be in order to have actually a real life, you know, what kind of components does it need to have in it, who are potential customers, what's the use cases, but all that is, you know, to do that really before you actually, you know, so that's kind of the genesis of of it. And then the next thing that I think that's actually quite similar in that respect is really to talk to people and say, you know, hey, I'm thinking about this.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and, and, and what do you think?

Yeah.

You know, and so I think in both, in both cases I did that. So that's where the similarity is, which is you have an idea, it's solving a problem. Like I said, usually, you know, in both, in both these companies, it kind of solved my personal, you know, pet peeves. Um, and once I, I, you know, I usually say if you experience the same issue or same problem more than 3 times in a, you know, given time, meaning I'm having this problem and it's a recurring thing that I'm experiencing, then there's a problem to be solved. Then you're not the only one. Then there are other people probably experiencing the same thing because it's, you know, at the end of the day, lives are pretty similar in many ways and definitely in sort of the more mundane sort of logistical administrative stuff. And then so it gives you an opportunity to actually solve a problem for a lot of other people. I would say the, the, the where it starts diverging is in the interaction with the customer. So, so, you know, in both cases there was an idea. There was sort of the beginning of an ecosystem of sort of, you know, solutions to the idea. And there was an initial sort of outreach to people asking them, do they think it's a good idea or not? Yeah, getting that feedback, getting that initial feedback that kind of, you know, anchors you in, uh, in, in, in sort of in the reality of the potential of the thing. And without that, I think, you know, you can't really embark on a huge venture because so that I think in both cases, you know, I, and in a funny way they both had a consumer component. Even my B2B idea had a consumer, it was more like B2B2C. Yeah. So there was always this, like, there was at the end, there was a consumer need and the problem that I was solving. Where it diverged is really in that interaction with customers. With a B2B product, I think you need to go out and find your first customer. Customer and, and find that kind of visionary person who will adopt, you know, your, your, your solution, or, or be turned on by the solution that you're creating just as well as— just as much as you are. Meaning the, the visionary potential customer for a B2B product is probably some kind of executive in some, you know, company that is a target, you know, customer of yours. And it's not an easy thing to find. Usually corporations, and, you know, tend to be quite conservative in their adoption of new technology, though I think that's kind of shifted over the last 20 years. Um, and when you find that person, then they become their— your, your actual partner in a way. Yeah, because, because you can't— because they're going to be taking a risk and sort of betting their career on you, especially if it's an important product to their business. And finding that, you know, that customer, that partner-customer or customer-partner is the key component in my mind to developing a successful enterprise product. Because I mean, this is a general product conversation, not just about messaging, right?

Yeah.

But, and I think that whereas with the consumer side, you really have to get to a much more developed I mean, they say, you know, you need to test well in advance and talk to customers, and then— but I think you, you have to get to a pretty, um, I think pretty evolved product before you actually bring it in front of customers. I think the level of expectation of, of functionality and slickness and sort of what consumers are used to as a result of their interaction with the mobile phone, with a smartphone, is so high today that if you bring a raw product, something that's too raw, it's like seeing a house that's still under construction. Some people can visualize what it's gonna look like when it's done and a lot of people can't. So it's a very tricky kind of balancing, you need to balance between You know, having the idea, wanting to test it out actually with real customers, with real, you know, users out, you know, who are consumers. Yeah. And then putting something that's too raw in their hands and they can't just take it far enough, you know, to see where it's going to be, you know, how the house is actually going to look when it's, you know, the walls are all painted and the furniture is all there. I think that's That's the biggest challenge, I think, when you're developing a consumer product as opposed to a— with the enterprise product, I think it's much easier in that respect. It's not easy. Nothing's easy. Sure. For nothing's easy. Yeah. They're easy and building a new business and building a new product.

It's not as easy.

They don't live in the same universe in my mind. So anyone who thinks that there's an easy path, there isn't any.

Yeah.

It doesn't exist.

Yeah.

Uh, it's by definition hard. So anyone— and you've, you've built businesses as well, so you know, you know exactly how hard it is. You may have a great idea and have a relevant market, could be a little before its time, be a little after its time, it could be a little— it could be just right, we need to find the right customers. So I think easy doesn't live in the same universe as, you know, building a product and building a company.

But for enterprises, you can— you have, it sounds like, give a little bit more leeway to almost test something that isn't quite ready for the main stage, workshop it with the customer.

I mean, I think with an enterprise customer, you can bring them into sort of not completely built home and say, you know, hey, I need you to figure out with me where to put the furniture.

Yeah.

Or, you know, where to hang the pictures, you know, because you can show them the frame, you can give them the sense of where it is and how it actually could operate spatially. But you, you, but you can bring them in and say, how would you like to see this? What would work best for you? You know, how would you feel most comfortable in this house? Whereas with it, with the consumers, because it's such a vast audience and so diverse and you don't really know at the end of the day who's going to download your app, right? Uh, you can't actually put something that's too raw in the environment. That's where the problem is. Yeah, because you may be off building something that's completely, you know, like the masterwork of your life and you put it into, and you have to bring it relatively complete into the market. And then you find out that, oh, well that didn't really work, or they didn't like that, or they're not clicking that button. And so I think that that's kind of the balance. It's incredibly hard to actually strike. And that's the biggest thing that I find the difference between the two.

I'm glad you brought it up because it's, yeah, some people think, well, you start with an MVP and that's probably true, But the expectation for what that MVP looks like, that minimum viable product, that's changed in the consumer's eyes. It's like now, because I might give feedback to somebody that's putting something in front of me that might be completely off if it doesn't feel polished, at least to some extent. So I appreciate, I appreciate you, Greg, because it kind of might not be conventional wisdom for a lot of people.

I think it goes against conventional wisdom because the conventional wisdom is Test it, test it, test it with the customers. But, you know, and I think it's important to actually put stuff in front of testers and interact with people who are not part of your organization or your circle even. I don't believe in putting in front of your friends and family because, you know, even there's always a bias.

It looks great.

It looks great. You know, they might not want to hurt your feelings, but, you know, and some people will be fine and tell you the truth and tell you what they really think. But I think that's there's a danger there.

Yeah.

And, and you have to actually take that into account. So then how do you actually balance between what you think they're saying? So I think you do have to put it in front of people, and sometimes you'll have real discoveries, but it's a complicated, you know, balance. And I, I, I'm, I'm a believer that, you know, I'm a Steve Jobsian in that respect. You know, I, I believe in product, in product management, but, uh, But first thing, product management in a startup, it always has to be with the CEO and the co-founders and so on.

The founders playing that product.

They have to.

Yeah.

Because I mean, they are. It's their product. They cannot pass off product management to a team in the early phases of the company. And I haven't.

Yeah.

We haven't, my partner and I. But I'm a Steve Jobsian in that respect in that you're going to poll 1,000 people, you'll get 1,000 answers. Sure. And, and, and maybe at some point you need to actually interact and ask people what they think. But I think it's, it, or, you know, you don't want to do it too early because you want to be able to develop your ideas far enough that people can see what you're actually trying to do.

Yeah, so got it. No, I appreciate that. Um, I, you know, so with— I guess once Mezu was at the point where it was out there, people were using it, I was an early user again, you know, I know at that point it's usually the goal is, well, let's find product market fit. But that's such a, it's not an easy sort of path and it can be confusing when you're in a process. So I'm just curious for you and the team, what was that journey or what is that journey like? And how do you, like, when do you know you're there? So like, how do you figure that out?

First thing, we're not there yet. We're still figuring it out. And I think first thing, there's a time component to everything. You know, it's rare that you have, you know, there's a lot of successes in the world. There's different levels of success. And so I'm always wary to, you know, you wanna be inspired by the great successes of, you know, definitely the world of technology and we know who they are. But there are many, many, you know, successes that are not at that level of, you know, like, you know, they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And so I think you've got to be very careful to shoot for the stars and, you know, and the moon, but be willing to go, you know, into outer space, just that's enough, you know, or to take off and sometimes just to get from place to place. So I think, you know, that, that, that is, it's a key component for how you actually approach the thing. I call it the thing. 'Cause the thing is really what it's all about, right? What are you trying to do? You know, what are you trying to accomplish? What's your main objective? And I think you need to actually have that sort of vision in your mind all the time. And because the day-to-day is not gonna be, you know, easy and it's not gonna be about the vision all the time, but it has to actually be the underlying driver of everything you do. I think finding product market fit is probably the most difficult thing in every company. And I think that, you know, you look at, I think you need to look at the opportunity and you need to look at your vision and where you want to take the thing. And you have to continuously test it out in terms of how people actually use your product. What works for them, what doesn't work for them. And sometimes it'll take you off the mainstream of what you wanted to do at the very beginning. I mean, the sort of the stories of pivoting are out there. And so I think that the most difficult things are obviously having the inner flexibility, I would call it, openness to understand, you know, that, you know, your initial— so there's two phases. One, what I call the Steve Jobs phase, which is the phase in which you develop things, you know, almost blindly to what people, other people might think. It's old Henry Ford, if I'd asked them, they'd wanted a faster horse. Yeah. And so I think it's very dangerous to ask people at an earlier, too early a phase. You have to get to the place where the thing is ready to go and it's out there and it's living in the world. That is the point where you try, you're beginning to fine tune or making big changes based on the response that people might have to what you know, to your product. Yeah. So that's where we are right now. We're, we're really gauging every movement that people have with our application to see what part of it is being actually being used well. What, you know, what do people like about it? So I know in that respect, you know, my inspiration was Raul Vora. Yeah, right. Yeah.

CEO of Superhuman, right? Speaking at Industry coming up in the fall.

What a plug. Damn, help with your plug. Uh, and I read— I don't know if you've ever read his piece about finding product-market fit.

Yeah.

And, you know, I thought it was incredibly, you know, enlightening and very succinct, you know, um, piece of writing.

Yeah.

And thinking.

Yeah.

And we use that survey that he talks about, you know, to actually understand what people really like and don't like about the app, and it really works. Yeah, first thing, you know, that the first, you know, fundamental question of like, you know, how would you feel if you no longer could have, you know, in our case, Mezu, you know, very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed at all. To me, that's an absolutely essential, you know, question to ask your users, right, on not day one but on day 10. You know, whenever you are— you have enough of a body of users and you've got enough of a of a customer base, which we do have, then you want— you have to ask them the question. It's an absolutely essential thing to do because, you know, how will you know?

Yeah.

So I think that's where you do start, you know, you do go out and actually ask people like, what do you think?

Yeah.

And that to me is the fundamental question. Do they like what you have fundamentally? Yeah. And are they— will they be, you know, disappointed if they no longer have access to it?

And that could be a scary question to ask too because it's It's like, well, what if the answer is not what we want to hear? Right. But you got to ask the question.

I mean, I think that if you're going to spend your time and money and life energy on anything, you at least want to know that people are going to be sorry if it's not going to be there. And so I think that to me is an absolutely essential first question. And then he has a series of other things that people that you need to ask and we ask them all. And that kind of changed the way we look at the product. So that's my biggest piece of advice to people to look at that kind of— that first thing to read that article about product market fit and to ask your customers once you've put it out there in the market and let it kind of live a little bit, then go ahead and ask them the question.

And I'll email everybody that's tuning in now with that article. So later on, keep an eye out for that because I think that's a great article to point out. So thanks for that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, and I think that there has to be a certain level of continuous, um, uh, self-education. You know, I, I built a company, sold it for a lot of money to Oracle. I don't assume that I know everything. I'm constantly reading and constantly, you know, engaging myself in, in people's thoughts. You know, I'm trying to understand what, what people are thinking and how they're you know, how their view is different than mine. Yeah, but that one was a fundamental one.

Yeah, thank you. Um, we only have a couple minutes left. Time kind of flies by. Oh boy, almost 1:30. Um, somebody did ask, by the way though, and I did want to make sure I get to it, what's behind the name Mezoo? Are you able to share that?

Sure. So I was born in Israel, lived most of my life here, but, but, uh, but I was born in Israel. And when I look for the word for cash, well, cash was taken. So mezuman in Hebrew means cash. So we cut off the last two syllables and we call it Mezoo because we did a lot of, you know, we did a lot of investigation about kind of names and how do people catch and relate to names. And we realized two syllables is great. M is a great, you know, you know, having that M in the beginning, a Z is very this thing. So it's just made a lot of sense. Mezuman, mezoo, it means cash in Hebrew.

I like it. All right, great. I guess kind of to close things up, maybe just for people to kind of walk away with one big takeaway, like if you want them to walk away and understand what's most important as somebody, especially focusing on the beginning stage of a consumer app, maybe that product person could be a founder, could be a product person working at a startup, but What's that one takeaway? What's most important for that person to think about when launching a consumer app?

I think you need to solve a problem and have it very clearly defined and that, that know exactly what it would— look for the gap, find the gap, and be connected to the gap because it's not just an intellectual undertaking. It's an emotional, creative undertaking. It's not just about the analysis. It's about what irks you, what's missing for you. And if you find that gap and have a solution that you think you have for that gap, then you need to actually stay steadfast and develop it initially in almost laboratory conditions and do it in the most pristine and pure way before it goes out into the world and then start gauging the world. But give that first moment of creation the respect that it needs, which is a little isolation almost from the rest of the world. And I know that there's a little bit of, it's kind of not super conventional wisdom on that level, like you said, but I really believe in it because it is an act of creation. Creation and creativity. And you, and you know, it's the old, you know, camel is, you know, horse designed by committee. You don't want to have, you know, 50 people working on, you know, creating, you know, a horse. It's going to look like a camel, you know. And so I think that's to me the most, the biggest and most important thing. Stay true to your core idea and do as much as you can to, you know, to develop it to enough of a pristine or you know, or, or, uh, um, developed stage, put it out in the world and then start asking people.

Well, thank you. Well, I, I know we're at the end of our time, but maybe if, if you wouldn't mind letting people know where they could keep tabs on you, like where they could learn more about Mezu. I know you have a podcast too.

Yeah, I just started podcasting at Yu-Velocity, like velocity but Yuval, Y-U-V-A-L-O-C-I-T-Y.com. Cool. Mezu is at mezu.com. Uh, The app is a very beautiful and rich payment app that allows you to give and get money without sharing your personal information. At mezoo.com and Mezoo in both app stores. And feel free to write us anywhere.

Awesome.

Anywhere in those places.

Well, thanks so much.

Join me at youvelocity.com.

Join him. I'll share the info on that as well. And I just appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you.

My pleasure.

And thank you everybody for tuning in. We have several more sessions that are already scheduled for the future. So you could go to productcollective.com, click on interviews, you could learn more about them there, but we will see you next time. Thanks again.

He's great, by the way.