Infrastructure and Connectivity Tech with Hilliard Sumner of Cox Mobile

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, Tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo the taco standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana Estee be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Startups get the party Startups get the party started.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom and I am thrilled to have you here. On the Tacos and Tech Podcast. We interview builders of technologies, of companies, of communities, and we do it weekly. So thanks for tuning in. Every Tuesday, a new interview and on Fridays we talk about what's new in the San Diego tech ecosystem from a news perspective. So make sure you join us there as well too. We also have a tech newsletter that comes out every other week@freshbroodtech.com you can subscribe to listen to it without further ado. Enjoy this episode. I'm Neil Bloom and we've got this podcast that's been running for four years now. We've interviewed technical leaders from CEOs, CTOs and everything in between. And so today we're going to do a little bit of deep dive on some infrastructure tech and connectivity tech. Do you want to give us a quick 60 second overview, high level of what Cox Mobile is?

Yes. First, I actually kind of like being called like a tech guy. But anyway, I have my roles in sales strategy and I am, as you guys will hear over the next few minutes, you know, heavily engaged in Cox Mobile and the rollout of our sales strategy. But I think where we are with Cox Mobile today, for those that are not aware, is that we are effectively launching all of our Cox markets on the residential side starting earlier this year. So huge accomplishment. We are officially an MVNO a mobile virtual network operator. A lot of acronyms. I'll go around. We actually wanted to really keep our package, our plan offerings very simple. So our customers can choose between a $15 a month by the gig plan and or a $45 unlimited data plan. So unlimited talk and text. They have the ability to switch between plans back and forth. So if you want to go from bodyguig to unlimited, you can do that. We also have a full robust portfolio of devices, thank goodness from Apple to Samsung. We also have a very cool TCL flip phone that you guys can see out back. We also have the ability to do byod. Bring your own device. We do device financing. We are growing our customers month over month and it has been what I would say, a journey, but a successful one. Awesome.

Well, our audience, like usual tech enthusiasts like to peel back the layers a little bit what went into it because we know you don't just snap your fingers. And especially a company that's been around for 125 years which pretty much has been in the game of connecting people, whether it's from the written word of newspapers to the spoken and now, you know, AI derived word of everything in between. You've been with the company 20 plus years now. So you've touched a lot of industry sectors and products. You want to give us a little bit of kind of the widespread of the kinds of things that you've touched today.

I started at Cox in the Virginia market 22 years ago. That's a long time ago anyway, not backwards. Yeah, let's not do the math. But I started at Virginia Market as a part time sales agent. So this will actually date me but I think it's relevant to some of the stories that we're going to talk about where I actually apply for my part time sales job. We had classified in the newspaper and then we start doing that but like that's how long ago it's been. And I got on with Cox Communications. I have my day job, I have a degree in biology and I would do cadaveric donor transplantation. So we would remove ligaments and stuff like that for transplantation. Then I would cut over to my part time job at Cox selling cable in the evening from 5:30 to 9. True story. And I would have to call my boss and say like I'm going to be late, we're stuck. But like over that first like few years at Cox we would sell. It was like cable company. I think everyone probably remembers like back in the day just cable was like the commodity. And then at some point it went from cable to digital to Internet or Cox at home for those that have been around a while, to landline phone to home life at some point. So through all of that I've had the opportunity to, you know, navigate a career in Cox Communications, heavily on the residential side, and then started getting into more strategy and like product launch. So that's been sort of like my sweet spot like the past 10 years is trying to figure out how do we take would potentially be like something that we need to integrate into our portfolio and figure out how we sell it, how we position it, how we can get this into the homes and the hands of our consumers. And that's where like mobile. Three years ago I came onto the mobile team and next challenge and trying to figure that out.

Okay, well on our podcast we were able to interview Tony Krueger who leads.

Up the mobile team.

And we know this has been in the works for years and actually there was a previous start to mobile in the past, so kind of dusted off some plans and said let's get back to it. But what was. When did you get involved? Like when is something like that you get your teeth sunk into because it just went live this year or end of last year. But what does behind the scenes look like of getting a new product?

I think for those that don't know for any sort of like new business or product launch. And I know we think of mobile wireless as a product, but it truly is like a business inside of a business. So I came on about three years ago specifically to once the business case was approved, like how do you take this business case and bring this into flash? What does that mean for retail? What does that mean for our reps that have to sell? How do they key it? How do we train? Do we need to hire people? What does that whole end to end experience look like? And that's where I came in about three years ago to really help define the experience. And then from a sales perspective or sales strategy, how do we enable our sales teams to sell, to pitch, to support, to activate devices, which is very different than cable. There's no such thing as rolling a truck for a mobile phone. If your phone is broke or we can't make a call, you are not a happy camper. So that is a very different space for us. And we wanted to make sure that the trust and the confidence that our customers have with us, we didn't want to compromise that by launching mobile. So we're very intentional about getting it right and wanting to launch and test and pilot and do things the right way. And it took about two, two and a half years to do that. And now we're launched and we're six years in. Six months in from our national launch. Feels like six years, but six months in from our national launch.

Okay, so where was testing like in specific geos, you'd go nationwide. What does the test.

Yeah, we picked three markets we would first test like in a product environment. So this is just technology in the product. And then we did an employee trial. So a few testers, friendlies such as myself, and then we went to Hampton Road, Las Vegas and Omaha. Those are our pilot markets in August of last year and began to slowly grow like, you know, piloting like can we activate a device? Can you see Cox Mobile, which is an amazing thing to see for the first time, like when you actually, you know, get a new phone and you see the Cox Mobile logo as the network. Like the first time that happened, it's like we can make a call, we're on the network, we can send a text. Is a very fulfilling and rewarding thing. You know, three years ago was like a spreadsheet or, you know, something that we thought about or aspired to do. And then just through the art of the possible and the art of just building and perseverance and challenges, got it to where we got it today.

I picture the first cell phone ad that they talk about, the guy walking. I kind of picture you doing the same.

Yeah.

With your own phone.

Yeah, we do a lot of celebrating picture taken. But I think you have to celebrate success along the way. And I talk about it all the time. There's a lot of firsts like the first sale, first Apple first, you know, X amount of customers and doing a lot of celebrating and really trying to make sure we go up and to the right for the next few years and try working on, well, just as.

Much building up the tech and get there's just as much the business side preparing as well too, which I know is, you know, a bit more of your day to day. So imagine doing the customer development work also to say, what does our customer want and need? Were you involved in that and kind of doing the discovery? What were some of the things. Can you share some of the original asks and needs that said, oh, we've got something we can solve here.

Yeah, it was actually fun. It was a different experience for me, but it was a learning experience. I think sometimes you can go into strategy and launch and you just say, all right, let's just build and Design. We said, let's, let's not do that. Let's think about like every specific potential, not everyone, but as many use cases that says, all right, Neil is a Persona and he has a wife and three kids. He walks into a retail store and he wants to buy a phone. What does that experience look like? And we actually mapped that out over the course of like six months. We called them blueprinting sessions. I think it was three or four three hour sessions a week. So it's a lot, Blueprinting is a lot. But it really helped us to find out like what we wanted the customer and the rep to experience throughout each step along the way. And then that built the requirements for what the product is today. We were very intentional about how we wanted to design it and what the experience wanted to. What we wanted the experience to be for our customer who ultimately that's where I view like success. You know, ensuring that our customers have a reliable product. It works, they can use it, and if something doesn't work, we have your back. Got it.

So you're live six months now. Have you seen new use cases that you didn't even blueprint that have already come out?

Yeah, we have. We've seen quite a bit. We've seen theft, we've seen fraud, we've seen true. And again, true story. A woman in Omaha customer who never had a cell phone.

Wow.

Never. That was not a use case that we had where she never had a cell phone her entire life. Her grandkids were happy. But we've seen all kinds of like these end case scenarios that you just don't plan for. You can't plan for it. But when they happen, how do you bring the right people into the room to figure out what to do? Is it a defect? Can technology step in? Do we have to call our network? All of these different things. We were in very sort of hyper aggressive or hyper support when those issues came up.

Oh, we've gotten, all of us have gotten used to our life being a bit more platformatized. We're used to, you know, having a suite of, suite of solutions which Cox is kind of adding to with mobile. How does that play in? So mobile now is alongside someone's Internet and wi fi and phone and everything else. How did that play in and kind of draw out?

I mean, I think for us it is opportunity. I think, you know, when you look at the fact that we have 6 million broadband customers and our ability to take that sort of fixed connection in the home and providing another connection outside of the Home, which is mobile, that is an amazing opportunity for us to be. And when you look at what our peers have done and even our competitors, we've earned a right to compete in this space. Right. We've earned a right with our customers to say, you know what, we can also provide you data outside your home. And thinking about like just this converged world of data everywhere. And I think the pandemic, and we were talking about it, challenge everyone to think about it differently. You know, I have to stream, I have to connect to teams call. If I have to run out, I need to make sure I can go from my teams meeting to my teams on my phone and back and forth. And that's where I think mobile really helps to round out, like our portfolio that says data everywhere, Cox. And make sure you're covered in the home. We have 4 million hotspots that a customer can connect to at any time. And now if you subscribe to mobile, if you're an eligible data customer, you have, you know, an unlimited data plan or buy the gig plan that can meet your data services. And I think that will bridge very nicely into convergence where we can figure out how do we want to package that together, how do we want to market that together, how do we want to think about, well, what's next? Like, there's going to be some other disruption in this market, whether it be economic, whether it be technology. And we also have these over the top competitors. Like what used to be a traditional competitor is now different. I don't know if you guys heard that. That came out two days ago. And it's really like we don't have enough competitors already. But I think it's just a super competitive space. And, you know, as a salesperson and a competitor, I'm glad to be in it.

Yeah. And more product use cases with Apple's VR. More devices that need connectivity as well, too.

That's right.

And maybe Cox VR down the road as well.

Hope so.

Yeah. You kind of took us into a little bit of the future. Like, where do you. Where is mobile headed in the next two, two years?

Well, as a salesperson, growth first and foremost. But other than that, I think we have to continue to evolve and compete, meaning a bob in creating our foothold in what we want to be as a mobile provider. Getting more awareness in the market. So that way customers that are walking into stores, calling or clicking on.com know about Cox Mobile and we are sought out as a wireless provider. I think that awareness will continue to grow and we'll do all Kinds of creative things. We'll partner with a lot of folks in this room, even on like potentially on the CB side. And then we have to just continue to add in more to this product. We have to launch new devices, we're going to have new promotions, new campaigns. We're going to think about different ways to package Internet with mobile and mobile with multiple lines. So all of these things are on the roadmap and they're coming soon and it's going to allow us to really take where six months in. Holy crap. We went from. We had a plan of record and then almost every month we've had to make an adjustment and we have to be agile and we have to go to our senior team and say, look, our plan has changed and you know, we're going to ask you for something that we didn't know was going to happen or we're going to have to adjust in the market because the marketplace is changing rapidly. Those are real conversations, but they're helping us build a better and brighter future. So I think going out into the outer years, we're going to keep it going.

Yeah, it's exciting and I think to be able to like, learn from your customer of where they bring it, where they take it.

Right.

I'm already planning when will I do my first podcast from Car using a hotspot. Right. And that we've definitely all done zooms from our car for sure. But the next stage is a podcast from Car and then other. The other Iot peripherals that are about to come along that way as well too. So very exciting to see having this mobile platform really that brings us to other places.

I think the other cool part, and you talked about customers is the customer reception of this has been. And I've visited probably eight to 10 markets over the past, like year since we launched and going into a store call center and you hear it and some of our sales team is here. Like they walk in and they're like, when did this happen? And just, you know, they are curious, they're inquisitive, but they're also like, wow, it's $15 a month. Tell me more. So I just think the. We've earned the trust in our customers to pitch mobile and to be a wireless carrier. And I think that's the part that gives me a lot of like, confidence and like hope and faith that we're going to do well because our customers, they want this product and we are treating them in a different way than probably some of their carriers. Today we're giving Them flexibility. We're giving them at some point some additional incentive to switch over. So I think those are like the opportunities that we have on the customer side.

Well, a company that's been around 125 years, obviously staying power has to be earned as well too. Right. And be able to listen to the customer and constantly adapt and say, what are your problems today and can we solve? That's evident.

Right.

That's ingrained in the company culture and it's not something I'm sure you guys take lightly as well. So the customer, you know, really is gonna always push you forward in that regard. This is always hard to transition into. But the customer always loved to eat. We love to eat tacos and it's a great place to take customers and do a little listening session with them as well. By the way, over tacos, do you have a favorite taco spot?

I do, I do. Gave this some thought when I was probably in my 20s, it was a different taco. So everybody expectation or level that I'm a little bit mature in my palate, I would say. There's this place that I go to. I've been there three times to New Mexico in Riviera Maya. It's at a resort and it's called Aimo and it's on the beach and they have the absolute best fish tacos ever in my entire life. Love it. Yeah. Very expensive to go there. But what.

So what's the right order? What's the. What are the pros order?

The pros order.

What's the smart order to at the spot is kind of fish tac.

Fish tacos or carne asada.

Okay, got it.

Hands down, you're not going to lose.

Got it. All right, well, we have 280 entries in our tacos database. It's a new one. It's a new entry that we're mapping and putting a dot in Mexico for it. Not our first Mexican entry, but first on that coast of Mexico, which is cool. Do you have other favorites? Other. I mean there's the right taco of the right time of day, right. Like there's the morning, there's the 2am.

There'S gingerbread taco, but I would say bar taco in Atlanta is a good one. Pork belly taco or fish tacos? Yes, simple margarita. Awesome.

Done.

Really good.

Done. I love that. Thanks for tuning in to tacos and tech podcasts. You can find all of our episodes on freshbrewedtech.com as well as on Twitter at Tacos and Tech Pod. Also follow fresh brewtech on all of your social platforms and make sure to share and give a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Play. Thanks again.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started Startups get the party Startups get the party started you want taking tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it hey. Startups get the party Startups get the party started Startups get the party Startups get the party started Startups get the party Startups get the party started you want tech and tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it hey.