Samantha Urban - CEO of Urban Translations

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast where we discover cutting edge technology and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neal Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador, and together we're going to uncover what technology San Diegans are creating with our own blend of local lifestyle. This podcast is proudly brought to you by our friends at Cox Business. Cox Business provides broadband Internet and cloud services to the modern tech company and is a longtime supporter of the startup community. Alongside Techcoast Angels and San Diego Venture Group, Cox Business will be co hosting the annual John G. Watson Quick Pitch Competition in October where entrepreneurs will be vying for $75,000 prize and the potential for additional investment. Go to quickpitchsd.com for more details. Welcome back to another episode. This is Neil Bloom, your host of the Tacos and Tech podcast and I am joined in studio here at Downtown Works with Samantha Urban, CEO of Urban Translations. Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Neal, tell us quickly what's Urban Translations?

Sure. So it's a hospitality platform that enables guests of hotels, resorts, casinos to be able to go into the room. They have a tablet and they can order anything from room service, spa, reservations, all from their tablet. And it's usually hotel provided. And the big kicker is everything is multilingual. The other benefit is they get to control things in the room like lights, temperature, that type of stuff. So leveraging Iot. And then of course, because the guest is doing everything, we're also increasing revenue for our clients. And then that platform that we've done for hotels and resorts, it also applies to restaurants, cruise ships, pretty much the whole gamut of hospitality, comedy clubs. I mean, you can think of a billion other places, resources for us, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

Really Cool. I want to hear about the genesis of this and obviously what you guys are up to now. But let's dive back. How did you get into the tech world and maybe what brought you to San Diego?

Sure. I was originally from Camarillo, which is in Ventura county, back in the 80s. I was very fortunate to live across the street from a woman who was in technology. And that was very rare back then. Nobody had computers, of course, in their homes then at least it was extremely rare. She was very fortunate that she worked for a technology company. Did so I was all of maybe four years old and I would go over to her house and she showed me what windows back then looked like and it really wasn't anything. It wasn't even Windows 3.1 at that point. I was just fascinated When I was a little kid, I would do everything possible to collect money. And by the age of 10, I bought my first computer with $1,000 of basically saving Christmas money and birthday money and all that stuff.

Wow.

At 10. And so for me, I feel always that I'm a hardcore technology person, coming from that background and just really leveraging the fact that I got a taste of technology when it was at the very beginning. And so that was really great. And plus, it was good to have somebody like her, a female, showcase that she could be a high level technology person as a female in the 80s. And that was just something that I knew I was going to strive for, do something with software. And so that was always the itch I had. And so when I bought my first computer, it was Windows 3.1 and I found myself in DOS all the time trying to figure out how to program and hack. And then it just escalated from there. So I went and I got my degree as a computer scientist and I did a double major. So I love computer animation and I love computer science, but when it comes down to it, obviously anything in the arts is very competitive. So when I transferred universities, I went back to the East Coast, I dropped my computer animation degree and focused on computer science. Long story short, I get out of there, get offered all kinds of different jobs in the technology industry, and I wind up working for the U.S. patent Office.

Oh, interesting.

Very interesting.

In DC.

They were in Alexandria at the time.

Okay.

Yep. So back then, it's just very interesting. My career goes full circle. So I was reviewing patents for graphical user interfaces. So I'd get all these different patents from Microsoft, IBM, Google, everybody. And after a certain point I realized, you know what, I'm going to start losing my technology skills if I don't get back into being a programmer doing something with this. And I didn't want to be a patent lawyer, so I just kind of saw the trajectory and decided to change course. And so after I got promoted, I lasted about a year and then I went back to being a software engineer.

Oh, interesting. So did you stay local on the east coast or where'd you go?

Yep. So I went back to where my family was. Well, they were in New Jersey at the time. And so I worked for a software company that did barcode decoding.

Okay.

So this is before the Internet got really huge and everybody was working on HTML and all that type of stuff and, you know, CSS and all the fun stuff. So I got into really hardcore programming. And then while I was working on that, I Realized, you know what, I love this, but I'm not an introvert and what else can I do with my computer science degree? So then I eventually stumbled upon project management. And that was one of the things where I found it was the best of both worlds because I could be an extrovert and kind of manage everything and make sure that everything was flowing in the right direction and at the same time use my detail orientedness to get the work from a developer, scope everything out, work with them and find out, you know, what if they tell me something is going to be delivered in three weeks, but I knew it was going to be delivered in three hours, I could call them out on it. So I had this wonderful engineering skill set behind me that helped me become the best project manager possible. And that's when I was working for the third largest social network in the world. At that time, it was myyearbook.com.

Oh yeah. What happened to myyourbook.com?

They did really well and they eventually sold to a company called Kpasa. And when they did that, they sold for 100 million and everybody made out really well, including myself. And so that was a really great career move. I was there for about two and a half years. So I got a great amount of experience launching, I don't know, maybe about 30 plus projects on that website. Pretty much everything went through me to go live, including all the advertising, like ABC Family and that type of stuff. So anyway, with all of that really good stuff going on, they had a really good user base, really good advertisers, they had good money, good employees, everything like that, they sold it. But then once the CEO kind of let loose, he realized, I want it back. So then he did, and then he took it to IPO and so they converted their name to now meetme.com.

Oh, so it still exists?

Still exists.

Oh, that's cool.

But I mean, back in the day that was, you know, MySpace was still number one, Facebook was number two, and my yearbook was number three. And then all the different, you know, social media companies came out and, you know, my yearbook just kind of struggled to stay at the top, but they still did really well. Obviously they sold for a pretty good amount. So that's kind of what happened there. And after that point, then I realized, you know what, I want to do something else with this. And then I was being looked at by a company that was more of an ad agency working with Facebook directly. And so that CEO acquired me and I worked with him for a while and that company also got sold and it was a really good thing for me because then I was building up everything to be a CEO. I eventually became director of sales and marketing. And so I kind of just checkboxed everything working in the patent office so I could file my patent. Being a software engineer, so I knew how to build my product, of course. And then of course going into project management, which is basically being a CEO, you know, just within the company and then doing sales and marketing. So that's kind of what happened. And as those companies sold, I was able to focus on my own company. So that's kind of the whole career path.

Interesting. Did you always know that was where you end up owning your own or what point did you say, I'm an entrepreneur?

Never. And I still don't. Honestly, I feel that that word gets thrown around quite a bit. And for me, I just, you know, that 10 year old self of Mount Mine always knew I want to create really amazing software to help the world. That's it. It was always in my heart. So I never thought, oh, going to create my own company and be a CEO, that just really wasn't on my mind. So when that happened, it was more or less when I got my idea. I realized that I was meant to create this and bring it to the world. And I did my research, being a patent examiner, found out nobody was doing it, and then within two months, I created my company.

Wow. So when was that? When did you create your first company?

Oh my goodness. 2009 is when it all started.

Okay.

But mind you, I was still working for other companies behind the scenes. I wasn't ready to just go, all right, I'm done with this. Because as anybody who's building their company for their first time should know, you shouldn't just quit your job and go straight into starting a company. You want to build up one. A really good base of money lowers your risk. Start attracting team members and really understanding is this solution something that's going to make money? Because a lot of people just go. And they go, I have this idea, I found this need and they create it. But they haven't really vetted through the process that people are going to pay for. And that was something that was really important, of course to do. Because if you're going to put that much time and effort into something, you've really got to make sure that it's something that's viable.

Yep, definitely de risk it, you know, all the way through. So what point did you make the leap? What made you actually go full on into it?

It was the second company, once that one got bought when I was a sales and marketing director, I helped them get Coach as a client, DreamWorks, all kinds of really big heavy hitter brands. And that was one thing that was really helpful for me, of course, to close those deals. But then also it helped our company get a lot more recognition and we had some great clients already. But around that time there was a company called Buddy Media and all these other social media companies and they're getting gobbled up. So while that was happening, we were getting looked at as well. And when the decision was made to sell the company, it was loud and clear I was meant to be full time on my own thing. So that was pretty much it.

That's really cool. So your space is in the hospitality you think you mentioned you started in the restaurant originally. What steered you towards that area? Because I'm not hearing that from my yearbook or ad agency area. What brought you towards that direction and industry.

So the good thing is, is my whole background is obviously technology, right? My family, a lot of hospitality, between cousins, my father, there's a lot of hospitality in there. The one good thing for me that I found out over time is you could put me in any business and I'm going to see different inefficiencies and I'm going to have a solution to help fix those. And if people take 5% of my advice, they're going to be more efficient and make more money. And so when I found this challenge in the hospitality industry and realized I could fix it with software, then that was the easiest thing for me. I took my knowledge of my family, what I'd seen, and then also think about it. I mean, for us, you go to restaurants, right? You stay at hotels, you know the experience that you ideally want to have, right? So taking in that user experience, just being the guest yourself, applying it to my skill set of figuring out inefficiencies and fixing them and all that type of stuff, tying it with my background, I mean, it just was a natural fit. But the original story is really going to Brazil, obviously. I named the company Urban Translations. Urban is my last name. It means city. I want to make sure that we have my software all around the world helping people in every city that's big and major we'll focus on first. So with that, the translation component is one of the critical pieces. It's one of our features. It's not the main thing that we do, obviously, but because of Brazil. Have you been there? I have not yet added to your bucket list. I know you've been to amazing places like Antarctica, but Brazil is another great one. A little warmer for sure.

It's on my short list. Oh, yeah.

So with that, Rio de Janeiro is the number one traveled city in South America, but nobody really speaks English. And if you go, even during the World cup and the Olympics, and I did do that, it's still that challenge. So my friend and I, we used to do buddy vacations, and we decided one day to go and do Brazil. Never been down in South America. And we just picked it on a whim. Little did we know that there was some challenges with that. So we went to all these different restaurants. Fast, casual, fine dining, pretty much everything. You get the server come over, paper menu, all in Portuguese, turn to the server. English? No. Anybody? Manager? Anybody? English? No. Well, I'm a picky eater. I also have some dietary restrictions. My friend is a vegetarian. So with Brazilians loving meat, there was no way she was going to order anything. And I know I wasn't. So we walked out of 11 restaurants in six days.

Whoa.

Yes.

Got it.

And then we flew back to the U.S. starving, of course. And I was in a really great place in my life. This is during the time period I worked for my yearbook. I love my career. I love the people I was working with. Everything was going great. I just went on a fabulous vacation and I was at peace, very centered. And I'm sure you can imagine when people are in that, you know, content place in life, that's when all the magic happens, if you're aware and you listen. So I went to a restaurant, of course, because we're hungry, and I just was observing. Server came over, just like they did in Brazil. But this time it was different. They took our order, went to their point of sale machine, and that's when it dawned on me. Why can't the server bring me a mobile version of his point of sale? So if I'm in Brazil, Tokyo, France, I can press English, order everything exactly as I want. And the big kicker is that it goes back to the kitchen in their native language.

Yeah, sounds easy enough.

Exactly. And you know, I've had that comment many, many times. But the whole thing is people need to execute. If you have a really good idea and you know it's viable, then you have to start vetting it, right? And then take action. And so that's what I did. So within the two months, I filed for business, filed for my patent, and did all that stuff. You know, having my software engineering background, I started writing out the specs, user flows, wireframes I'm a geek when it comes to that stuff. I love it. And then I knew I was going to be putting on the CEO hat, so then I needed to attract the software engineer to build this from the ground up. And I did. So that was kind of what happened. And like you mentioned, restaurants is where we came from. But the restaurant industry is very, very difficult. They will eventually move more in that direction and we are seeing that, you know, there are some other companies that have some different business models for us. We like to put everything in the system. Right. Not just doing desserts and appetizers and that type of thing. We like to have everything cohesive into the menus. So you don't need paper menus if you don't want them. Right, right. But the whole thing is with restaurants, they have low margins. It's one of those industries where they're very technology adverse. As society has moved on and there's more technology out there, they're getting bombarded with it. So all kinds of different vendors and it's just not an easy space to compete in. So we found quickly, you know what, we can leverage our platform today to work with hotels and cruise ships and all this other stuff. And we'll get to cruise ships, we'll get to airlines. But we found this niche with hotels, resorts and especially casino resorts that has really worked out well for us. So we put a lot of effort and energy into working on that. And that's what's really been, I don't know, the current space we're in. And as we've moved along, we've gotten these wonderful partnerships like Samsung and as you know, Google recently came up. So that's what we're really leveraging right now to get our name out there.

Really cool. Well, tell us a little bit. It sounds like, I mean, you've been working on this for a bit, but it sounds like you may have moved around for it. What actually brought you to San Diego?

That's a good question. So I originally worked for all these companies on the east coast, primarily Pennsylvania, and I had a house there. Everything was wonderful, but that's not where my heart was. I grew up, like I said, in Southern California and my desire has always been to get back here. So that was always been kind of the one thing that I told anyone that was going to be working for me, that I will eventually be moving to California. So that's what happened. And for me, the Philadelphia Tech sc, especially back then, not very good. I don't know how it's Changed, but there's just not a lot. Even my yearbook was not even in Philadelphia. It was in Bucks county, which is about 45 minutes north, if you didn't know. So there just wasn't a lot there for me. And so there wasn't resources. And for me back then, I thought, you know what, this was around 2011ish. I decided to move to San Francisco. For me, yeah, natural fit, right? I figured, you know what, eventually we'll go after investors. Eventually we're going to need more talent. So let me go to the Bay Area. And so that was, of course, you know, with good intention. But for me, when I got there, right away, I was very aware that that was not the city I was meant to grow the company. My biggest reasons, especially because I always think about talent. You know, what makes a company. It's not me, of course. I need to lead the team and everything, and I need to have all that strategy and I need to execute. But really, it's made up of everyone, so many different departments. And as I was going to grow the team, I want to find the best talent possible. And up in the Bay, the disappointing thing that I found is there weren't enough genuine people.

Interesting.

There were, you know, I'm not saying that the whole city is horrible or anything, but, you know, of course it's very expensive. So that's one thing, you know, of course, growing a company there. But the real thing is talent. And I didn't like the fact that everyone, you know, was really looking for, you know, the next best thing or to have their own company themselves. And that's fine. I'm happy to have employees that eventually go off and do their own thing. But if their mentality is always just ready to fly away, that's not really what I want to do. I wanted people that want to, you know, stick around, at least for a little while and grow with us. So I just didn't like that. And it's funny because I have an employee that kind of helps relate the situation. So with la, everybody wants to be an actor, right? It's the whole thing that everybody knows about. So then everybody, you know, just has that about them. Well, everybody in the Bay Area wants to be this tech star, and it's just not gonna happen. There are the unicorns out there, but everyone's striving for that. And that doesn't feel just like everybody wanting to be an actor in la, Everything is kind of fake. So I got that right away with San Francisco, and I decided, you know, what? I grew up in Southern California. I love Southern California. It's time to get back down there.

Got it.

So I was up in the Bay Area less than a year. Okay, shut down that office, came down to San Diego, and I knew that this was the perfect fit for the reasons of, of course, you know, it's beautiful, the weather is phenomenal. It's even better than Ventura county for price, in my opinion. I really dislike when people say that San Diego is so expensive. I would love for them to see an analysis between even Philadelphia, let's say condo prices, with San Diego condo prices. And even if Philadelphia is less money, the amenities in San Diego outweigh everything. So therefore, it's more cost effective, in my opinion. And that's with a lot of different cities. And there's always somewhere in San Diego you can go for whatever price point you need, you know? So that whole cost thing, I really wish people would get over because it really can be cost effective to live here. And then, of course, my distaste for the Bay Area's people. San Diego, I find everyone, I'm sure there's outliers as well, but everyone to be genuine. And this is the type of culture that I want to grow my company and the people that I want to pick to be on my team. So I love that. And then I guess the last thing I'll say for why San Diego. I'm very fast paced, obviously. I grew up half of my life on the east coast, so I have that east coast mentality. And go, go, go, go, go. Well, San Diego is very calm, it's peaceful. And so that helps balance me. And so that's one of the biggest reasons why I'm here.

Got it. Great reasons. Something interesting to discuss a little bit is just that of the three cities, sf, la, San Diego, and I've lived in all three as well, people are moving there, right? Everyone's moving to these three cities, more or less. You don't meet many people who are born and raised in San Diego or San Francisco. Yeah. And so what's interesting is that it attracts a certain culture, the city itself, Right. Like, people don't move there saying, I don't know, you don't move there with the actor mentality. Like, you're surrounded by it and you kind of join that culture. It's kind of interesting. Like, San Diego may not think we have a brand or anything, but we are attracting a certain kind of culture from the same places that San Francisco is just attracting a certain kind of person. And it's Interesting for you to spell it out that way, to compare the three main cities and say, this is our brand. And it definitely resonates with everyone that's been on this podcast, too. What's going on here? So just kind of validating what you're saying there, for sure. So tell me what it's like to be a founder in San Diego, growing a software company here.

Yeah, it's great. I want to change it for the world. So I guess I've been down here for about five years now, and I've told everyone, you know, this is headquarters for good. You know, I will never leave. There's no reason to. Even when I fly to Hawaii, whether it's on personal or business, I am happy to come back, you know, before all the hurricanes and everything. Going to St. Thomas. I love St. Thomas, but paradise is San Diego. There's nobody that can deny that, you know, and if they do, then they just have different preferences, you know, not everyone wants to live in a climate like this. I get it. I just. I've had enough snow in my life. I've had enough of all the other weather and stuff like that. So I'm very happy to be back in California, but then I don't hold any of my team members back. So for us as a company, you know, we grow as much as we need to in different ways. So, for example, if we're opening up another country, as we start getting more sales and get more concentrated, well, then, yeah, we want to get an employee there. So that's how our strategy is. We don't say everyone has to be in San Diego, especially if people don't want to be here. Again, it's preference. I'd love for every team member to be here, but it's not mandatory. You know, this day and age, you know, people can work from anywhere as long as they are efficient and everything else like that. They don't need to be micromanaged. Well, then great. Be anywhere in the world. So we have employees in Mexico, Venezuela, east coast and west coast of the US and also Europe. And we'll continue to expand in different places, but headquarters, no matter what, is always in San Diego. And as we continue to grow, especially right now, we're in a really great growth period. We're looking for more San Diego people to hire, and it's all different departments. It's not just engineers. We're looking for marketing people and stuff like that. So there's plenty of different roles for people to come to San Diego and come into the tech world. Without having to be a tech person, which I really love and like to remind people, because people don't always think that we still have a marketing department just because we're a tech company. We still have operations and stuff like that. And that's not my company, it's everybody around here. So for us, we will continue to grow here. And this will always be headquarters. And we recently were in Barrier Logan, which I really like, up and coming area, lots of artists, great district. So we had a whole second floor of a building and that was great. And then we decided once that lease was up, we went to Point Loma and like I mentioned, we're over at Regis now and that allows us to expand as well, you know, and also have offices all over the world, because they're all over the world. So I thought that that was a really good model. And if we decide to get another office on our own again, we might, you never know. But in the meantime, that's kind of, you know, how we were focused office wise. And then to your point about leveraging the ecosystem here, we've gone through Connect, the incubator. That was really great. Continue to leverage that as well. I would say that another great benefit is we do have investors in San Diego. There's going to be a lot of people that say it's hard to get investment in San Diego. And that just depends on what you're doing and who you know and how you're leveraging things and how you're connecting. But I think that there is plenty of money here if you go to the right sources. So we have a great investor, Sylvia Ma, and she is a part of so many different things within the San Diego community. And so for that type of stuff, that's how I feel that we have gained strength in San Diego, is leveraging her as an investor, all the great things and all the great programs that she puts on. And then we were talking about this before the podcast. We got the award for MetroConnect and that's a grant to expand internationally. So the San Diego World Trade center and the EDC have been so supportive, you know, and that's been, you know, almost a full year of support right now. And pretty much anything, you know, we can think of that we might need help, hey, we want to get in with the San Diego airport. We contact them and they get us a connection, warm intros, letters of recommendation. I mean, you can't really complain, you know, and I think that that's something that people who don't know about San Diego should be aware of because we are, let's say, a smaller city comparatively to the LA's and the San Frans of the world. That allows you, no matter how big your company is, to get to the right people and to make a difference, whether it's helping people in the government, making connections, getting to the businesses that you want to be connected to, meeting high level executives at different companies from Qualcomm to whatever. It's more possible, I feel in San Diego. And that's something that I think is overlooked because people don't realize that yeah.

Everyone'S very accessible here, that's for sure. Something back on you said about the capital, just to reinforce. It just seems like good companies capital finds its way to good companies. Right. So I mean that's enough said there and I think you've proven that, that's for sure.

To find it locally, I think we have, I think it's 60, 40, 60% San Diego investors and 40% outside of that, maybe more. 50, 50 now. And then the other unique element for us, we have about 70% female investors and 30% mal. I think something also unique.

It is, it is really unique. It's something interesting that we're tracking in San Diego just from Startup San Diego's perspective. Last year in 4400 attendees, 42% were women. So nearly 50, 50 women to men attendees for Startup Week, which is something really special. It's 3x the norm for a tech conference.

Wow.

So there might be something special going on here in San Diego. I think you're touching on it. There is. Obviously with Sylvia's group, there is a very really strong women in investing group. You're going to see a lot of that at Startup Week. Actually we haven't announced it yet, but you'll see a lot of those kinds of highlights and topics because we think San Diego might have something very different about it in a very good way. And it happens to be relevant right now too. But I think San Diego has some really interesting balance, that's for sure. Whether it's cross border or across the genders maybe. Is there something looking back on your career, going back to when having a neighbor, a woman in tech kind of inspire you that way? I don't know. Have you been affected by being a woman in tech and kind of your trajectory when you look back?

It's a great question. You know, I want to say no because it's never come up to me in my face. You know, there's never been anything negative or bad. You know, I'm Very happy to have a very positive bubble. You know, I do everything in my power to help people and to put my genuine, you know, soul, I guess, out there and always to be giving back and stuff like that. And so because of that, and I'm doing it from a genuine place in my heart, you know, I notice that what I attract is that type of mentality as well. So I don't think that I've ever had anything directly affect me. But you never know. You know, I feel that, you know, maybe my company could be at an even better state if I was a male CEO. Maybe you never know. Maybe we would have gotten more deals, maybe we would have gotten investment faster. You know, you never know because it's never been something that someone has told me, oh, this person said this negative thing about you because you're a female. I've never had anything like that in my life. But you never know what happens behind the scenes. You know, there could be some, you know, discriminatory stuff that I just don't know about. You have no idea.

But what about the positive trajectory? I mean, being influenced by a woman immediately from tech from a really young age? I mean, have you found a connection to other women in tech at every stage of your career too?

Not really. I would say that, you know, being a computer scientist, I was always that typical. If you hear other females in my story, especially, you know, growing up in the 80s and everything and then, you know, going to College in early 2000s, you know, anyone in that realm typically will say they were one of the only females in their computer science class. So I would say that, you know, during my high school and college years, and I did, you know, two years in California, I did a semester in New York City, and then I finished up at Rutgers my last two years. So I had a taste of a lot of different universities and every single time I was always top of my class and one of the only females else. And so I didn't really get it there, especially, you know, too much mentorship or anything. It was really afterwards that I started attracting that and a lot of times it was males, you know, and that's fine too. I have no problem with that. But then kind of what started happening as my career started really taking off with urban translations and getting more recognition, I started doing a lot of speak engagements. So things kind of turned where whether I was getting mentorship or guidance or any of that type of stuff along the way, maybe it wasn't as much as I could have had in my life. Instead, I was able to give that back. And that's what was really what I really care about. So I usually do the Cal State San Marcos Women's Hackathon. And so I'm on their advisory board, and also I'm a judge every single year. And with that, they've pulled us in to do speaking engagements with Sony and other companies like that to speak. And what they do is they invite all the middle schoolers and high schoolers that compete in this hackathon and just kind of give them advice. And one of those Sony events was one of the best speaking engagements I've ever done. Whether it's for tech or hospitality, it doesn't matter, is because I was able to inspire these young women to realize that I look young and I'm really successful. And these girls who are maybe not like me, maybe they're more introverted, it they see this youngish girl on the stage saying, hey, look at what I've done with my career, and see that and realize, wow, I can achieve that. And so those are the types of things where it's like, I leave one of those events and I am just hyped up on great energy, and I just want to conquer the world. And I remember getting off the stage, and all of a sudden, all these girls just run up to you, and they just created a big circle around me and just started asking questions. And there was even this one girl who looked at me, and I was looking at her face. I was like, do you have a and question? She's like, no, I just want to listen to everything you say.

Wow.

And, you know, that's the type of stuff that keeps me moving and going, you know, and so these different events, whether it's Sylvia's, you know, the Hair Venture Summit, or other, you know, women, you know, talks and everything. Connect has done some. You know, I get pulled in a lot for that, because in San Diego, I mean, let's face it, there's not a lot of women CEOs, let alone in tech. You know, maybe some in bio, but, you know, it's just there's few and far between. So when it happens, you know, we all kind of run into each other at these events, but it's great because then we can help inspire the next round of females that want to, you know, be crazy enough to be a CEO. Right? So I think that, you know, to go back to your question, it really hasn't been me so much as focus on getting that mentorship, but really me now giving back and wanting to give it to other people, because I know how important that is. And I don't know if I necessarily needed it as much as some people, you know, this day and age, because people, I feel, are less social, they're more focused on being online and, you know, social media, but that's not really social. So I feel that women these days need more inspiration, even more so than when I was growing up. So I'm happy to kind of fill in with that. And then the person who did it for me, her name is Linda Perkitt, you know, my neighbor. And, you know, I will always be forever grateful that she showed me that. My first computer.

That's great. Yeah, I mean, I think the community definitely. I see you all over town giving back to San Diego. I think that's actually a trend in San Diego. A lot of us do that, right? A lot of us are building and making sure we're building up at the same time, too, which is pretty cool to run into you all over town doing that. So I know you've been working with Samsung for a little bit now, and you were just fresh off a plane from London with Google's partnership meeting. Tell me about the backstory there. How did you start working with Samsung and where are you headed? Where's the company headed with these two big partnerships?

So, wonderful question. So I'm very proud to say that, yes, we are partnered with Samsung, and like you said, we've had that partnership for a little while. I'm even more proud to say that because of our Samsung partnership. So we officially announced it after the fact, because last year, of course, around January, CES happens. So we waited until after CES and we announced it, you know, over PR and everything. So from that we got a lot of press us. It was really wonderful. And little did I know that one of the head of partnerships over at Google was watching us. So he was checking me out on LinkedIn and just watching the company progress and grow. And it was about a year's time he reached out to me and said he'd like to talk. And so I, of course, had a phone conversation with him that was the end of last year. And we really hit it off. And it was great because we had very similar career patterns being software engineers and everything, and then moving into different roles that were more strategic and more sales oriented and partnership oriented. And so anyway, he was like, you know, I'd love to come down to San Diego, or I'd love to host you up in Mountain View and kind of go over what I see for our Partnership. So it's a whole nother world when you're in a position where these big giants are coming after you. Right. So that's one of the most wonderful things. And so we did, we got hosted up in Mountain View around March and we started going through why Google wants to partner with Urban Translations. And that's one of the questions I would say to any company, any CEO, when you're getting into a partnership, ask them why, because you're going to find some really interesting things. And his name is Max. He gave me, I'd say, about 10 or 12 reasons why he wanted to partner with Urban Translations. A lot of it is confidential. They have a pretty hefty NDA. But there are some really good reasons of where we fill a gap that they just do not do well. Well, and it's interesting to hear Google admit where they don't do well. But I mean, they have such great resources and a great focus on what they do well. So they know that they rely on partners for other areas. And so they sought us out. And we had, you know, a two and a half hour meeting up in Mountain View and kind of just went through all the different particulars and what was, you know, really a great point. I asked them just kind of to understand what they. How they view partnerships and everything. And he said, listen, if we don't do something within six months, then, you know, Google kind of just says, okay, this partnership isn't going to happen for us. We're very agile, we move very, very quickly. Our engineers are amazing. They wanted us to leverage some of their APIs and do some stuff together. Even before we left Mountain View, I got an email with all these wonderful, great APIs that we could leverage for our hospitality platform.

Wow.

One of the big factors that I can obviously say, we leverage Android tablets and we have from the very beginning, we are hardware agnostics so we can use other devices and do other things that we take one of the most important things that they gave us and we give it to one of our engineers to review and find out how long would it take him to do. He said, give me two weeks. I'm a master at this stuff. Give me four weeks and it will be completely perfect. You know, two weeks for beta. Well, anyway, we give it to him and it takes him a lot less than two weeks. So I send an email to Max and say, hey, we've already worked on the this. It's now in qa. That obviously does something to someone, go, wow, they really mean business. I came to Them want to partner with them, and they actually execute. And so instantaneously, he introduces us to the global head of partnerships at Google, and that's when things went up a notch. So then we started talking with him and we find out, wow, he has other initiatives that he's interested in partnering with us on. And when he kind of hears more of my story, it just resonates with him really well. He was an entrepreneur back in the day, and he eventually started working for Google because of that company. And so he really admires other CEOs because he's been there, done that, and he knows how difficult it is. And so he's just been a wonderful asset. And so it was three weeks before the Google Android Partner Summit, and he asked me, samantha, I'd really like to present Urban Translations on stage as a use case for using Android tablets in hospitality and all these other things. Can I please do that? And it's one of those moments, it's like, absolutely. What do you need?

Not a chance.

You say, no, absolutely not. And it was three weeks away. But it was one of those beautiful things where I looked at my schedule, I had some stuff going on, my assistant cleared my schedule, and I said, I'm going to London, and I brought my VP of product with me. And so we just got back from London, my goodness, it was Thursday night. So I'm still kind of getting a rest from that, still. And it was really great because from there it was invite only. It was only partners and Google people. And right away we recognized that Google people were wearing green lanyards and the partners were wearing white. So you knew exactly who to go up to if you wanted to continue to talk to more Google people. And what was great is people knew us because our direct contact was already talking within Google about us. And they have a lot of initiatives that they want to work on. So I can't talk about all the cool stuff, but it touches on a lot more areas. Obviously, our platform is great for ordering and all that type of stuff. We also have the advertising component that I kind of mentioned. There's all kinds of great things that we do, but there's. There's more than just that, more than just being multilingual. And not only does Google see that, Samsung sees that. And so we're all kind of joining together and working on different initiatives that the hospitality industry has never seen before. So we have a big conference coming up. It's called High Tech, it's in June, it's in Texas. And so we're going to be unveiling some new technology with Samsung there. And if it makes sense, we might be unveiling some stuff that we've been working on with Google. But either which way. We have this amazing list of new features that our team is working on as I speak. They're diving into it right now and it's really phenomenal. So we're just prioritizing some really cool initiatives with Google and Samsung and then we have some new clients that we're launching. So the team is just working on some great stuff. It's really exciting.

Really cool. Well, congrats. It's really exciting.

Thank you.

And excited to see where it's at over the summer too.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit more about San Diego to you. Do you have a favorite taco spot?

That's a good question. So I know you're gonna ask me this. My answer is no. But then this is my first official announcement of something. So you're getting this. First and foremost, Neil, I'm putting this out there. To any San Diego restaurant, whether it's a taco shop or whatever it might be. My desire, especially with my company, is obviously to help people. I want my clients to make more money. I want them to be more efficient. I want guests to be able to, you know, order in their own language or if they speak English, fine. I just want them to be able to be, you know, order and you know, have a good experience at the restaurant and everything. Right. My other secondary thing is I really want restaurants. Whether it's, you know, room service at a hotel or a regular sit down restaurant or, you know, takeaways, whatever it is, you know, to go. I want these folks to start giving better food to our society. So for me, I don't really go to restaurants, so it's kind of funny that I'm in this industry, but I have so many dietary restrictions right now, I can't. So my offer to the world or to San Diego, however you want to put it, any restaurant that is serving organic food and healthy oils and everything like that, and they kind of go through my checklist of good stuff, I will give them free software, free service and free tablets.

Wow.

Just for feeding this population with better food.

Wow. That's great.

Yes.

You heard it here first. We'll put it out to the restaurants, to the community.

Exactly. So that's kind of one of my internal things that I've told the team. Not everyone knows about that yet, but now they will. I really want to make sure that if I can make a difference in this world. Not only am I doing all that great stuff for my clients and for travelers around the world, I also want to see if I can make a change in our food industry. And I know that it's really challenging to take on the giants in supermarkets and everything and to make sure that they're stocking the right food. But if I can incentivize restaurants to convert over from using bad oils, bad flowers, and all kinds of other stuff that's just not good, and get rid of that non organic food and convert over. Because especially in San Diego, I know that most people will pay, fine, an extra dollar or two if everything is organ, you know, and that's something that's really important because there are more diseases these days and it's not about just, you know, lack of exercise or that. It really comes down to diet. And I've seen way too many people go through health challenges and really, if they change their diet, everything would be fixed. I did it myself and I know how powerful it is and I just want that to happen more across the, you know, city and the world. And as much as I can help. So that's really something that hopefully, you know, there'll be at least one restaurant in 2018 that we can deliver free software and free tablets to, but they will have to go through again, my protocol of what I deem as healthy. And if they hit that, then I'm happy to do it for the rest of my business's career. So that's one thing that we're going to do with restaurants. And then as we continue to grow, then I also want to do it to resorts. So any resort that's more of that wellness type of resort, I'm happy to provide a tablet in every single room. As long as they are providing good food to their guests. Of course, we'll add all the other features like spa reservations, golf reservations and stuff like that. But as long as they have good food on property, I want to get to the point where I'm giving them free tablets. I don't care if it's 400 room hotel. If they hit my criteria, I'll give them 400 free tablets and of course, software and service.

Wow.

Yep.

That's a great cause.

Thank you.

I like that. I imagine it's the same in the craft beverage world as well. In terms of beer and coffee. Then you would give the same offer.

Same offer, but that's challenging.

Yeah, we actually are starting to have a craft juice scene that's actually very prominent in San Diego Kombucha scene.

That's true.

Healthy drinks. Suja Juice based here.

Which is great, by the way. They are wonderful. They were at the TEDx event and I got to taste them. We won that innovation alley of.

Yeah.

This past year. So yeah, those are great companies. And so anyone that's on that wavelength, I'm happy to provide. Or, you know, it might be something where they don't have, let's say a retail shop or a restaurant or some type of bar, but if they wanted to do maybe some free advertising, because we do have advertising in our platform, that's something that I'd be willing to do. So that's just something to keep on people's radar for sure. But I will say I don't drink anymore, but when I used to. Modern Times does have a really, really good beer. So I don't know about, but I'm more on the dark side where it's more chocolatey and it doesn't even taste like a beer. And then usually the alcohol content is like what, 9% or something. So you only need one drink. But I know Modern Times has a really, really tasty one. So there's your beer answer.

Got it. That's a great. Modern Times. And they're a coffee maker and a beer maker.

That's true too.

Both questions at the same time.

Very true. Yeah. And another good new coffee place in Uber. So Ocean beach, if you go to ob, what is it? OB Garden Cafe. It's brand new. They are one that is making good waves towards organic. So they are one that I might actually personally approach to see if they want free software and tablets. But that one is a really good, nice spot because they have an outdoor area, indoor area. They even do yoga on the roof and everything. But it's a nice little place to get coffee or tea and then walk to Ocean Beach.

Really cool. I had breakfast here last week.

There you go. How'd you like it?

It was great.

Yeah.

And then hung out and stayed and worked for the morning. That's a great spot.

I like it too.

Yeah. Well, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate getting to know you.

Yeah, thank you. Neil.

Where can people find you? Are you on Twitter? LinkedIn, email? What's the best way people can get in touch or follow you?

Absolutely. So we have a social media manager who really gets out all of our news. So if you want to see all the recent stuff, we were just in London for Google. You can get us on Twitter. We're t digitalmenus and then Facebook. Urban translations, LinkedIn, urban translations and Instagram too.

Really cool. Well, thanks, Samantha.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Neil.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Blum. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego Tech ecosystem. This has been a partnership with the San Diego Venture Group and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation's SD Life Changing Campaign. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom and on Linked.

Sam.