The Future of Technology - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 018

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be. Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy. Welcome everybody. My guest today is a visionary. He's an entrepreneur, very innovative entrepreneur, certified Microsoft programmer. He's the CEO and founder at Jago Technologies. Welcome, Frederick Apagene. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you very much, Josh. I just— I really do appreciate you having me on your podcast, and I'm looking forward to learning more from you and sharing my my story and journey.

Yeah, I've been excited for this. Since our last conversation, you were sitting, I think, on the beach in Hawaii. And you're somewhere inland, I know.

So I'm in Columbus, Ohio.

So opposite of that, opposite end of the, of the, of the climates, at least. Well, good. Let's just jump right in with my— the first question I'd like to ask guests is, from your perspective as a CEO and founder, what are some of the opportunities that you see at the C-suite level that maybe other C-suite members aren't seeing or could learn from?

Um, definitely one of the things I actually would start with is, you know, the— on the inside of the company is my approach to getting employees that stay around is kind of like the Phil Jackson approach. I just actually finished reading his book, uh, one of his books, and that was again another great takeaway. But that's been the approach since I started JEGO, and, you know, especially JEGO. I have other businesses that run themselves. We're going out there to recruit top performers in their roles, treating them like stars, and selling them the why, our culture, why they would be joining us, and creating an environment that will foster the development of their own personal goals, their vision, whatever it is that makes them come alive. I like to learn about that and see if it's possible for us to create that environment in our company. Because again, you know, one of the biggest problems that's also expensive in companies is that churn, you know, the replacement of new employee— of employees having to have, uh, you know, start again, the learning curve. That's expensive. You know, so if we could reduce how many times, you know, how many times I have to replace a team member or a specific role, that saves us time as a company, allows us to move faster. So that's one of the things that I would mention right now.

Yeah, one of my favorite coaches of all time, and I was a big, big fan of the Bulls growing up. So what a great, what a great leader he was, and what a great team he produced with those superstars that he was able to find and make work together. So now you've got these individuals that you can share your vision with and get them excited and make sure they fit their whys. But then how do you work? How do you make them work together? That was his other secret. I think that— I think it's just so important at the C-level that everybody's working together. But what are some of the ways that you've done that?

On my side? So again, the name of the book— I've tried to pull out some other ones too— 11 Rings is the name of the book. And just like you said, he was able to create a great team. One of the reasons I sought out to study his methods was, first of all, I played the game of basketball. So I'm a team player. So I love working with other people. I don't believe in celebrating wins by yourself. Obviously, we all have individual personal goals that we all go after. But I love winning with people. 'cause it's so much more fun. You know?

Yes.

It's so much more fun when you win with people that you, you know, you face this obstacle together, you had to go through turbulences and all that. And then you come out victorious. You know, there's a different feeling. It's electrifying. And it's kind of like a, it's kind of like a high that I go after when, you know, winning with people because, It takes the community to build anything. So now how do you win with people? In order to win with people, you guys have to work together. Just like you're talking about Phil Jackson was probably the greatest at doing that. 11 Rings, right? That was the title of his book. You have to know how to, you have to understand people first, right? Yeah. Before you can even lead people effectively. And I'm still a student of that. Of people, you know, the psychology behind how people think. And that's a big part of what we do in technology. And you're in marketing, so marketing is now pretty much driven by tech. It's pretty much tech field right now because all the data and software applications and all these different things that have to be used in order to drive, drive, uh, growth or conversion results. Um, whereas with us, we're thinking about, okay, when we create this product, this design, or replace this button here, how is, how is that going to impact them psychologically? How is this color going to impact them psychologically? So we're not just only engineers. In a way, you have to take on the psychological lens. So you have to understand what makes this person feel a certain way, right? Because you can't manage everyone the same way. And that's one thing he mentioned, like when he got— so he worked— well, he coached the Lakers and he coached the Bulls. And, um, the key thing I noticed was his ability to listen to his players. Even when him and Kobe had issues initially, if you remember, um, Kobe almost had him— well, Kobe had him suspended, from what I remember. So, and they ended up being great. They ended up working great together. So when, when that happened, Phil Jackson went back to look at what he had gone wrong and learn more about Kobe again as a person. What makes this guy tick, or what makes him happy, and what does not make him happy. And he brought a new method. So for me, on my side, what I do is I like to, I like to get personal, even though a lot of the typical approach in corporate America is not getting too personal. I like to get personal because when it's personal, first of all, not personal like in terms of business, You know, when they say don't take it personal, it's business— not like that. Most understanding the person, like, how's your family? You know, why are you up till, you know, 1 o'clock working on the company? Do you have a friend? You know, hobbies? What are other things that you like to do and enjoy? So once I understand that person, obviously all those things doesn't give me a full understanding of the entire person. It takes time. But every conversation, I want to take something away about that person so I can improve my leadership approach with them. So there isn't friction. So that's one, that's one of the ways that I, you know, get— let them know me as well on a personal level, share some personal obstacles or things I'm— I find challenging, or personal challenges, and give them opportunities to share Advice would mean.

Yeah, so we're, we're in a very interesting, um, age of business when you think about being personal and getting to know the person. Um, can you imagine playing basketball on Zoom? Like, we have taken the entire personal interactions away from our business relationships, but yet are expected to still have some level of personal, personal Connection. So how have you noticed that, or have you noticed that? That's, that's a, it's a real challenge, I think, for people these days, especially at the C-suite.

It is. So for me, I, I mean, I was, I'm an in-person communicator, right? And I love, I've traveled, live in different countries, Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Gambia, Europe, America. It's like you mentioned earlier, Hawaii. Key thing I like, I see, just looking at the different cultures, how people think. Um, but going back to what you said, nothing replaces in-person communication. Like, I met you digitally, I think you're a great guy, so far, great to have conversation with. We're having this conversation via Zoom, which could have been done via coffee or drinks or dinner, lunch, how it used to be typically, right?

Right.

But I believe there's pros and cons, right? This allowed us to save time. You can, you know, you could quickly, you know, you have a t-shirt. The only reason why I have this suit and tie is 'cause I just came from another meeting that was in person. Which is close, close by. So, I feel like it's given way to enabling a more lax culture in corporate America.

Mm-hmm.

Right. You know, the trend of the half suit and tie and, you know, half pajamas. Yeah. Right. That's again, and they're, I've seen parties where— oh, not parties, where work parties or work events where they've had people dressed like that to, you know, show what your at-home office attire is, or yeah, work from home attire. So that, when people— I feel like that gives room for people to get relaxed, and that, that, in that, in that sense, they— it could help with longevity as well, because when they feel relaxed and they feel like they have some type of autonomy, which they should have. That's like the number one thing humans strive for is autonomy, control of our own personal lives. Okay, I could do this. So it allows them to give more towards the company as well. Um, but I do think it definitely— there's certain things that it took, you know, some people are really— a lot of people have actually adapted to like virtual coffee or virtual happy hour, things of that nature. I still think it replaces human in-person communication. However, with the technologies and those haptics devices and stuff like that, that allows you to feel through Oculus. Like, I just got my daughter an Oculus Lens a few weeks ago. And, you know, again, I've always been a big fan of AR, not just fan, but built AR/VR solutions through my innovations lab company above that. And Jago actually also has an AR experience that will be released soon to the public so they can see what the pod looks like in person and all that. Uh, so I've always been curious about how we'll communicate and still get to engage our other senses.

Yeah, right. So that's interesting. I got two stories to share. One is I had a meeting on Monday with a client. It was a half-day meeting, and I had done two weeks earlier a full-day virtual meeting with his team, and, uh, like five people on his team, but— and I was piped in virtually. And I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to fly to New York for your half-day meeting. And I want to take a trip to New York anyway, visit my daughter. I'm not going to charge you more, but I'm going to show up, do the half-day, and we're going to do it in person. And when we met in person, the dynamic was exponentially better. I mean, I hugged the guy. I'd only met him twice before when we left. You know how it is. You just meet somebody, you get a connection, and the team was more engaged. We still had another person remote. So there was still that element to it. But because I was there, I just had a much stronger sense of connection. And then the other story I'll share is I was just on a call a couple of days ago with an IT company that I do some work with. And they're into multi-energy haptics, which we can talk about. That's pretty fascinating tech that they've got some IP around. But we decided that we're going to start doing— because we are all remotely located from Canada to LA to Omaha, Nebraska, where I'm from. We're going to start doing Oculus, uh, weekly meetings and see that, see what that experience is going to feel like, because that's kind of where I think these meetings start to go to. Yes. Yeah. So that's the plan.

I love it. You know, you know, I was— the reason I was smiling is because, again, I've— before JEGO, like 7 years ago, I used to sell AR solutions to businesses. It was so premature. It was expensive and premature. Yeah, when I say sell, you know, I started my software business as the sole engineer years ago, so I would go sell and then build the software applications myself. So I would— I wasn't selling to just anybody, it was again price points. I would just pick, you know, certain businesses, uh, that came into our pipeline along where like we did some work as architects. So I've always been a fan of this technology because of the power, the opportunity to, first of all, if you're in here, I'm here in Columbus and you're in Omaha, right? Or Nebraska. Yeah. So it allows us to connect. I don't know you personally. I haven't met you in person, but I feel like I know you and I, I know Josh, right? We could grab a beer or drink after this, or, you know, that's the power of, you know, these technologies. So like you just mentioned, they're using Oculus. Like, are you familiar with Microsoft HoloLens?

No, I've not used any of— I've not ever— I'm not a gamer. My son is. I've never put on one of those, anything like that. So this Oculus experience is gonna be a first time for me in the VR/AR world. So I'm excited.

It's amazing. Yeah. So Microsoft HoloLens is a step higher than, uh, it's also more expensive. The HoloLens is like $500 and Microsoft HoloLens. The reason I mentioned that is because it's actually designed for what you're doing. But HoloLens has the feature where you can work remotely. You know, everyone has their avatars and such, where the Microsoft HoloLens uses AR. So it makes it feel like you're in the same office in the boardroom. You've seen like Westworld. Yeah.— or any of like, any of those sci-fi shows where they show it looks like the person is in front of you. The only difference, those guys don't use glasses. It's like a hologram. So you should definitely check out Microsoft HoloLens. I believe from when I tried it out with my daughter, I believe Oculus actually has a similar technology that they have, obviously not the same one. So you'll be good with Oculus, but definitely, What you just mentioned, I was smiling because I'm like, man, this is really happening right now. It's accelerating. It wasn't supposed to happen to like 2030, 2025, and the pandemic sped up the timeline.

Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did speed up a lot of things. It made a lot of things more acceptable. We've been, we've been providing services, fractional CMO services for clients virtually from day one. Our first client was out of town.. But then now it's just, it's an expectation that that's part of the service. Before we had to kind of work around that as an objection. Now it's like, oh, what do you mean you want to come meet me in person? Like, yeah, I want to do that.

Yeah. That's so— I, it's, it's, it's amazing. And that's, again, with companies like Jago, that's what we're similar to what you did with your fractional CMO is again, allowing people not to, you know, again, the word business name sells itself, right? So that's the same thing with us, is being able to address that convenience needs, bringing things, products and services that you need using autonomous electric pods to your location. So again, insight— again, this, this is tied to what we're doing, right? So that's what We're after is, you know, selling that, giving you back more time, convenience, giving you back your time that you can use for more productive, productive things. And that's why people love these things. Like, like your client said, what do you mean you want to meet me in person? I have other things that I want to do with that time, right? It's the 1 hour via Zoom. As soon as you get off the phone, you can go right up or go out, go wherever you need to go to, go to your room. Go see my daughter, whatever, right after immediately. You don't have to commute, you don't have to get on a plane. So it's not just the money you spend on commuting, it's that time. Yeah, right. And we're realizing, again, we're in a capitalist-driven world, I understand, but we're realizing there's more to life than chasing that 9 to 5 every day, or chasing that business idea or business, or building your businesses or whatever it is that we were doing prior to the pandemic, that was— this is the norm, right? The pandemic came, showed us that there's other options. First of all, there was a lot of problems that were brought up, such as not being able to have access to healthcare when you needed it, which is again going back to the fractional CMO and convenience, which led to a surge in the demand for telemedicine. Yeah, right. The need for contactless, which is kind of why Zoom took off as well— contactless communications, remote communications— also led to the same, uh, acceleration, um, or led to the fact— led to the acceleration in the robotics autonomous space as well. So what— just seeing the mindset over time, I mean It's definitely across the board the last 2 years, and it's crazy. It's been 2 years already, uh, almost 2 years, pretty much 2 years. Yeah.

Uh, yeah, yeah, I think I remember it was March 13th. I was in, um, Florida for the Players Championship golf event, and we, we showed up on a Thursday, right? Uh, it's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday event. We went to the Thursday event. Thursday night they said they're canceling Fridays for, for for spectators. And later that night they canceled the whole tournament. So we booked our tickets, flew back Friday, and that was the beginning of pandemic. I can totally remember that day, that whole weekend.

I was in Cincinnati with my wife the day before the lockdown, I believe. And that was like our last time out for like a year. So we didn't know that was, we thought it was only 2 weeks, 'cause it's never happened. Right? Yeah. Modern economics history, right? Here's your modern economics. Because you can't imagine the possibility of the world shutting down for months. It's a disaster. And we're still— the world is still recovering from that disaster that took place.

That was unimaginable. Yeah. So tell me about Jago. I think you've got a very innovative product you're working on, solution you're working on. I'm just really curious about how you you got started in that, in that space.

Certainly, certainly. As we were just chatting, you know, I started as an engineer years ago as a teenager. And over time, my brain became used to whenever I see a problem, I solve it with technology. And I worked on different types of technology solutions, from software to hardware, worked on IoT, a lot of electric, always been pro-sustainability, come from a manufacturing background with our family business, been around since 1985, worked on a lot of products and industrial-related products. So I've always had that brain of using, building things to solve problems, or that mindset. So during, in 2018, I experienced inconvenient experience where I lost a loved one in a car accident. And it took the EMT about 4 hours to arrive at his location. And again, which goes back to convenience and time, right? So it took 4 hours. It's a very long time. We talk about medical emergencies, right? So he did have, basically have the opportunity to fight for his life in the medical, with medical attention. So that was where it started. And I wanted to, again, create a solution to solve a problem, a pain that I experienced. Because most of my business solutions I've always created start with personal experience or someone else that I know. Like obviously not, I'm not trying to solve every single problem, but the ones that are personal to me or that I see others will find value. I would attempt and to create solutions to that. So that's how it started in 2018. Um, I was also already working on other technology businesses and startup at the time that was focusing on-demand, uh, services being curated on the platform. And we were supposed to create the product, the autonomous vehicles, on that company. However, from a marketing perspective and just an investment perspective, we decided to pivot pivot and separate the two. That company got on the NASDAQ tower, had investors, customers, all that, worked with WeWork, the organization. So we already had a good understanding of the customer base in the sense of how people think about convenience. We knew the market was there. We also knew the kinks behind platform business models, and my company has built platform business models for so many startups and businesses globally. So I can't say I'm a platform business expert because I've worked on over 30 different software applications related to that, and I love it because of the ability for it to create value for businesses long after the investment. So that's how I would start. I'll share my tips on that, on the other stuff regarding platform business models later in the conversation, if that— if we get to that. So 2020 is where we— again, we've kind of had this conversation, and I love the flow of it. So the 2020 part, when the pandemic kicked off, when we had to be at home, and the need for convenience, and, um, led or created a perfect business opportunity to introduce autonomous electric vehicles. And over time, that has continued to this year has created a perfect opportunity from our EV charging solutions because we have electric vehicle chargers as well. We're getting ready to build out our electric vehicle charging station hubs where the JEGLE pods will be stored. So we'll be opening that to other EV owners as well. So there's been the market, it's really a situation where I identify data that was inspired from my experience building IoT smart city solutions, trading, you know, mid-range decent amount of stock options, right? Made a decent amount of money from it. My favorite stock options, companies or tickers, were EV-related companies globally, right? From America to China, who were there from NIO, Tesla, Lucid. And it's interesting because I, I was at the Lucid facility recently, and I'll share a story on that if you want me to share a bit, but I don't think I can share too much of that. But nonetheless, the market created a perfect opportunity. So it's data-driven, market-driven. There's a need for e-mobility. On a government level, on a private level. So being that I have over 15 years of business experience, I saw the perfect opportunity to use a problem that— I'm sorry, use a solution I created to a personal problem in 2018, right? And, uh, to introduce that now as opposed to 2025, 2030, when the market will be become saturated, and it's like you're clawing in to get— you wouldn't be able to get in at that time, you'd be pushed out. That's what happened at that time. So I know it's a long road from infrastructure development to having the fleets on the road and all that. So we— I wanted to start early with that process because it's a race to 2025 and 2030, right? So by starting early, we get to have access to certain resources and partnerships. And obviously there will be obstacles and there will be hurdles, but we'll be able to jump over them. So that's the story behind Jericho as to how we started it. We saw the opportunity to seamlessly connect autonomous electric vehicles to customers using IoT infrastructure, a mobile app where they can see where it is, what product or service is in that park currently, wait time and all that, and request that service or product to them. It will also be used for transportation in certain markets. In the U.S. market, because the approach to it being used for product and services is because of regulations as well in the U.S. market. Other markets in Europe, for example, it's— they're allowed to use the transportation for longer miles. In the U.S., it's shorter miles. So that's why we use the other approach of Commerce First, which ended up being apparently pioneering solution in the space. And we are, you know, we've been able to secure investment from investors, angel investors, venture partners, and we were approached by StartEngine to have our campaign to raise money on there. We're raising $1 million on there, and we have been getting really good traction from the public. Right now it's about $80,000, a little over $80,000. We've raised over $150,000 from angel investors and we're continuing to raise more for our C round and we're getting ready for our Series A as well.

Yeah, so the pod is essentially a working pod that's sustainable EV-powered, but it has some transportation capabilities?

Correct. It will have—

yeah, actually you do have like— is there a prototype? And has there been a prototype?

Or—

yeah, your model stage.

Okay, there's a model right now in front of us. So what it looks like— that one was wood carved, this is 3D printed. So we have phases, um, as you know, in deep tech. So current— the current phase where we are, we already have our prototype that is currently being made. Um, and we're getting ready for production as well, so that we're not just building to have a prototype that's been tested for the next 2, 3 years. We're working with large-scale manufacturers that are able to create these at scale. Yeah. So the biggest part for us is the top hat, right? That's this. That's also 3D printed. The top hat has to be made and created. We're using different materials and composites for that. And then obviously the biggest part, the brain of the computer, with the modules and chassis, that's the crucial part of it. But build, that's already ready. That's ready to go. That's good. We have partners for that. Our partner for the top hat is in Italy, and we'll be making more announcements on that, uh, soon as well. Very same company that worked on Lamborghini and Ferrari. Okay. Yeah, so they specialize in what we're working on.

So how do you, um, how do you take this vision and, and like, what are the— what's been the biggest, I guess, challenge for you bringing this to life in the last couple years?

Capital.

Capital, right? So what do you need the capital for? For building the product?

Yeah, building a product. And we already have, um, so we already have a non-working prototype, again, as mentioned, without the chassis and the corner modules, right? So the next phase for us is getting those corner modules, which are very expensive. And also we have to build our hubs, our routes. There are different parts to this, which is why we started with that EV charging station, is figuring out a lower way to reduce our costs, get more partners involved. We have to build our routes, map our routes out. We have to establish our communication protocols. We have to establish where our energy infrastructure will be, who is providing energy, which is what That's why we decided to keep that in-house, because we figured out how to make our energy source cheaper as opposed to working with someone else. And we'll be able to allow others to use those EV chargers. That allows us— think about the Amazon model with the books. Books wasn't their end-all be-all. They just used it to get people into their ecosystem. So we're using the EV charging to get people into our ecosystem. We have an EQS, that's the electric S-Class, so I know as a customer for EV needs that there isn't— there's actually something called— there isn't sufficient rather supply or availability of EV charging. There's something called charger wars that's currently going on. So again, our goal is to have 1,000 charging stations across our hub locations globally. That's a small fraction compared to the goal. In the US, there's 13 million charging stations that's needed. Right? So all, all of us are working together to bring our own contributions to meet these sustainability goals. Right? Our contribution is opening up our hubs to allow other EV charging or EV owners to use them, as opposed to just closing them up and just only having JEGLE pods use them to charge.

So you're putting the charging stations down first as a way to start building that infrastructure, then the pods come secondary to that. Um, and what's the, what's the big goal for the pods? Does that become a mobile workstation for, for anyone anywhere?

Correct. And yeah, there was something you mentioned earlier about, you know, with the VR meetings. One of the things we do, we do envision is being able to have VR meetings in our pods.

In your pods. Wow, that could be interesting.

Yeah, we're— we, we actually have a VR company that we're partnering with that's going to be supplying that end of the technology too. Um, so we have a space for work, automated workspace on wheels. You know, that's another way to look at it— real estate space on wheels, and it's shared. That's what we believe the future is. We believe the future is going to be shared. It's going to be gig-driven, um, in the sense of people having flexibility on how much they want to work. They might choose they want to work 14 hours a day, 24 hours today, and that's it for the week, rather, or 8 and spread it out the entire week. So our platform gives them an alternative to brick and mortar but also allows them to bring their services in a safe, secured space to their customer's preferred location. That's what we're after here. And just if you're familiar with other companies in the space like Nuro, Nuro is identified as one of our competitors. They have great relationships with Domino's and others. They more so focus on product delivery, and, um, you know, right now they're delivering pizzas primarily And it works.

We're excited for them. Yeah. And that's a transportation solution primarily then, you know, how do you deliver a pizza? But you're thinking work first as the pod.

Correct.

What's the use case for someone? Who's your ideal customer? Sure. Somebody that's trying to travel and work at the same time, or somebody just needs work to show up to their house, or give me that demographic a little bit.

Sure, sure. Our first target use case area is actually healthcare. So for example, like bringing COVID testing or any healthcare testing to your location as opposed to you going there. And also, we all know when you go to a hospital or clinic, they just do that hour wait, or even when you're on time, you might wait a certain amount. So for a business— busy, busy business professional, you're able to bring— have this brought to you saving time, and you're able to do more things with that time that's been saved as well. And also, what we plan to do— so with smart city organizations, what we plan to do, what we've had meetings with folks, is providing our pods to be used for transportation as well. We have demand right now, or interest from on a government level for fleets and charging stations to be provided. We've submitted, we've had, we have contracts right now, sales contracts that are pending for our charging stations infrastructure. And again, those charging stations are the low-hanging fruit to get, do relationships too with the cities as well, because we have to have that established before the pods get them. So it saves us time, going back to what we're talking about, which is saving us time That's what we're waiting for when the pods are on the road and we're like trying to get those relationships going. By doing this, we get those relationships. We signed with an advisor, Shoemaker Advisors, to help our government relationships nationwide and globally as well, a law firm.

So the pods are kind of— could be— they could be a— the solution, a service provider builds their own custom pod for their business service, and can deliver that then to the point of use autonomously.

So correct, correct. So you can have— so there are two there. If you're a large organization, you can have your own single custom pod or fleets of that. If you are a small business, we'll have pods that are available to the public where businesses can go rent they can reserve them X amount of period, a day, 2 days, right? And provide those services, right? So that's how that would work in on that side. So there's the B2B side and there's a B2B2C side as well.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Just thinking about all the applications that you could bring to somebody. You could bring somebody a gym, you know, with exercise equipment and put it in a pod. You could bring somebody, a copier, you know, an off—

Kinko's, uh, you know, more, uh, what's the other one that actually need that is the, uh, the, uh, we, uh, um, I'm gonna bring for it, uh, notary service. Notary services, yes, that's a big one. You ever tried using the notary service online? Speaking about sometimes they don't show up.

Online. Yeah, it's a mess. You try to go to the bank and they don't always have somebody there.

It's just— it's, it's, it's actually, it's actually one of the markets that I've like looked at because again, for me, my personal experience, whenever I experience something inconvenient from hair to transportation, healthcare, I instantly start thinking, how can I use technology to reduce that? If I don't think I can do it, I leave it alone. If I know I can do it, I go after them. I've solved so many problems with technology. I know for sure, you know, that, that market is a very interesting one. And the good part is what we're looking to do is partner with other businesses. We're not the ones that's providing the services again, and they would have access to that space on wheels. Like the customer finds them on our platform and it's connected. So you think of the platform business model, like, you know, Uber Eats or any of those last similar models where you have a marketplace and you facilitate transactions between two parties, and then you connect that logistics aspect. Amazon bought Zoox for $1.2 billion last year, if you're familiar with Zoox. And, you know, we saw one of the things that allowed Amazon to thrive during the pandemic was they control their logistics network. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, well, it's fascinating. I'm excited for you, and I can— and I, and I understand how you've got— you've had this idea that was, you know, 10 or 15, maybe 20 years away from coming to life, but now the pandemic just fast-forwarded everything. I think I read a— I think it was Peter Thiel that did a TED Talk once. Like, he did a study of all his portfolio businesses and tried to figure out what was in common with the ones that were most successful. And he looked at capital raise, management team, business idea, business model, and timing. And market timing was the one thing that had the highest correlation to success in all of his businesses that were successful. As a marketer, that makes sense, but it's market timing. It was the timing. You just If you're too early, it, you know, doesn't matter how much money you have or how much, uh, you know, I've been there, so I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been there. Everybody, I feel like every business person's probably experienced that, you know, right? Because you, if you're not, if you don't know what it's like to be too early, you can't tell when it's perfect time. You, you have to experience both too early, too late in order to know what, ah, This is, you know, perfect timing. All the people tell you, actually, because in my case, it was all the people making me realize that we are— again, this execution, there's a lot of, just like you said, all those things that Peter mentioned, this team, our execution strategy and everything. So far we're doing good, and there's room for us to be greater, and it's continuous. We have to earn that every day. And that's why me and other professional folks, like themselves and that could work with us and that work with us. You know, we have our team comprised of engineers from Tesla, Lucid, um, Caterpillar. And so we're excited to just learn from everybody and just apply what we have to.

Yeah, it's very exciting. And, you know, you've kind of staged your rollout of your, your business a little bit because of timing. So the timing's perfect right now for EV charging stations, right? All the cities want them, all the customers want them, everybody needs them. You may just— the pods, a little bit of a stretch right now. Yeah. Okay, but that's coming. The timing will be ready for that. You've got all the charging stations out there, so you've been thinking through it as well.

Yeah, right. Thank you. Yeah, that's, that was, that's a strategy I knew was with the pods. I knew I, I know how— I know the timeline, rather. I know where we are, where the market is. I have the data and this— I have all this information and data. So I'm literally— I love playing chess. Yeah. So it's literally— so, so this is one of my best business decisions in the sense of pivots and market decision. Obviously, there's still so many other decisions from product to to sell to end users that have to take place. So again, this is, these are some insights I'm sharing in terms of pivots or some things that made me pivot easier or make, made my pivoting decision easier. Cause pivoting is never easy, but making a decision to pivot, which is hard, right? Cause humans hate change, including myself. Oh, you know, well, it's just how we are. Why go to something new when you already have this? Yep. Right. So when you have— when you're armed with data and experience, you know, it's easier.

Yep. And I think there's, uh, you know, I hear that marketing's about solving challenges and business about solving problems. And I've heard this: there's two types of problems out there. There's ones that people know they have and the ones that they don't. And when you know you have a problem, it's a lot easier to sell something. So people know they need charging stations right now, so you can solve that problem. But they don't know they need this, this pod, this, this, this on-demand service pod is not something people think of and know that they have a problem because it's not there, but it'll come.

It'll come. Yeah. No, I mean, that's actually, it's, it's a reason I'm having a smirk on my face is because that is literally with the pods, what that is, right? I've combined different many, you know, inefficiencies and bad experiences from personal to other people's experiences. Right. And you look at the space, most people are approaching from a transportation perspective or angle, right? Want to move products from point A to point B. That's what's been the case the last probably 10 years. That's what pods will be used for. No one's really looking at it from another angle. You had, you have Neuro doing pizza delivery, but still in sense transportation. But bringing business experiences, that's different. That's also part of our patent that we filed.

Yeah, I was thinking you want to go from the concept of I need a pod for pizza delivery to I need a pizza oven delivered so I can make pizzas. Like, that's the thinking that you need people to change, right? You don't need the pod to deliver the pizza, you need the pod to deliver the oven. So that person can use it and make the pizza.

And that's a big leap. Right. I see. I see. Yeah. Right. Giving them the space to do what, what it is that they want to do. Right. Um, and do it efficiently. So, I mean, there's a lot. So one, another area too, um, people being able to, the biggest part for us is being able to experience this service as well. While you're on the go. Hence Jago. Yes. The go is the mobility part. The name Jago was inspired by Goddess Commerce. But basically if you wanted to get to this station, you were going from your office, you can reserve a pod, tell your meeting partner, whoever's meeting with you, your colleague or business partner or accountant, whatever, meet with me here. Well, the pod picks you up, picks them up. And takes you both to the station. Now you don't have to go here or go wherever. It's shared and you get off. It's automated. That's part of that. I think you also touched on that earlier about being able to experience the service on the go. So that's actually what we're— what our end goal is. This is milestones that we have to check off 'cause US regulations, NHTSA regulations, doesn't allow certain— first, for right now, it doesn't allow the vehicle to be on its own completely. It has to be an attendant, concierge, supervisor, right? Basically not driving it but being present. So at the moment, the best use case areas that we've determined is healthcare, any personal care service that brings it to you, stops, waits for an hour, Provides itself not just an hour, but the time duration provides service and goes to the next stop. Yeah, it goes to the next—

it could be, uh, yeah, beauty care, um, lots of, lots of different versions of that might make sense.

Yeah, healthcare is a— healthcare is the, uh, healthcare with, you know, with, um, and COVID testing, IV therapy, which is a growing area because of the pandemic. Everyone wants to It's a growing— it's a fast-growing business. So we've actually partnered with some health organizations that provide those services. So when our first pod is on the road later this year, that's what we'll be using them for, on basically in terms like on-demand healthcare services. And we spoke with some tech giants in the space. I can't mention the names, obviously, that have a health sector, and then also logistics you know, on-demand space. Can't mention their name, and they're interested in working with us for on-demand healthcare provisions and pharmaceutical needs. That's another part too. And one of the— one of our partners is interested in using them for healthcare transportation, which is still— when I mean elderly or people with disability, being able to transport them from their home, whatever location, to the hospital or wherever without having to call Uber or any of the other needs as well.

Yeah, I think about even things like dialysis where, you know, people generally have to go into an area for a couple hours. You could trans— and it's difficult to bring that equipment and make it a permanent installation in your house, but if, you know, if your Jago could come by and with an attendant and get your treatment, that might be a much more comfortable way of managing that disease than, you know, some of the other options they have.

Very, very interesting there, huh? You're, you're like— I think I know one of our VCs had mentioned that one of his, uh, friends was dealing with that, so— or his father. So that's You're like the second person who's mentioned that. And we do see the possibilities of having mobile urgent care. This is right now what's in the way of that, or in the way of having a full-fledged urgent care is regulations. So that's why we're starting with those low-hanging fruits ones like the IV therapy, 'cause that has more room to be mobile right now and it's easy to set up. And same thing with the, with the testing, test COVID testing, especially primarily, um, doesn't need much equipment to— Yeah, like blood drives, blood drives, things of that nature. Yeah. It's a long way from the basketball court, a long way from the best, a long way. It's very interesting. It's been an interesting journey, I, I must tell you. Uh, you know, but I do treat every— I do treat, like I mentioned earlier, about how I approach our culture at JEGO is like Phil Jackson, with I recruit the best people at roles, from our CMO, CFO. Our CFO is a CFO for Miami-Dade County. He used to play basketball too. Oh yeah. And now He's managed. Yeah. So now he's managing, you know, he's managing, he's managing a billion with the city's IT infrastructure, with the financials over there. And he's bringing that wealth of experience to our team. I saw my approaches again from basketball mentality, opportunity to create another, rather invite another leader who can help create other leaders. Yes. So he was there from day one. And also our pilot Marcus was with Miami. City of Miami. So that the relationship that he, you know, and insights with him work, working at that county level, which, you know, is priceless. So that is my mentality. I don't think I have all the answers as a founder or as a CEO. No one does. And you, you work with teams, you know, that's why it's called a company. People who are working together to— or by bringing along the principles I learned and how I shape my mind, how I think, from resilience to consistency. Because I— one thing I learned from basketball is that you have to show up every single day. You stop working out, you stop training, you will lose that skill set. You might maybe be basketball— you don't play in a year or two, 2 years. When you're not a professional, it doesn't matter, right? We could go a month, a year, 2 years. I played in 2 years and I made all these buckets and all the shots. You can't do that, right? Mark Cuban said business is a 24/7 sport. Yeah, right. And you're supposed to— you— why— like what you mentioned there, right? Um, if you— every moment or time, the longer you wait, someone else is having that stage, you know, someone's working hard to take your place in business. It's just the reality. So basketball helped me with that mentality, like showing how to be persistent. The biggest part is just being a team player.

I've also found good analogies between sports and business, um, you know, from the, from the team perspective and the individual perspective, like you, like you were saying. There's, there's a lot of good A lot of things that we learn, that's why I've always wanted my kids to grow up participating in a sport, something that they could learn what it takes to be self-motivated, but also part of a team. Because I knew, you know, as they grow and go into other areas of life, that knowledge transcends just the sport. And you've, you know, you've articulated that today. Kind of your approach to leadership, the lessons from playing basketball yourself.

But it's so true, so true. Indeed, indeed. And if you don't mind sharing, what were— what are some of your favorite insights from sports? Like, what was— because you did mention from a team and individual perspective. I just want— I'm curious from one or either from the team or the individual perspective, what, what's some insights that you learn or still apply? Actually, like you flying, telling the client that I'll see you in person in a world where people are like, oh, let's do Zoom. Like, no, let me see you in person. I'm going to come to— that's like the show up. Is that the show up mentality? I guess.

Yeah. I think the, like, some of the insights that come to mind for me is, um, I don't want to say that life's like playing a game, but if you enjoy the game, if you enjoy the sport, it's not a lot of— you're motivated to continue to improve and do better. And I think business is a lot like that. If you can find the right business, something that you're passionate about, like a soccer team you join or a basketball team or whatever team it is, you want to be there and you want to do your best and you're motivated and excited. So I think that's an insight I take. When you're on a good team or you're playing something that you love to play, you're at your best. And when you're not, you're not. I'm not tall enough to dunk a basketball, but I kick a soccer ball. So that's where I gravitated towards. So So I think that's part of it. I think the competition, and it's not just like— most sports, you're not taught just to win to win. You're taught to play the game and winning's a result of playing the game well. But if you lose, that's okay too. There's another game to play. So it's the competition drives you, but it's not the end game. Winning is not the end game. You learn that. And the lessons that you learn when you don't win or when you make mistakes or when you— some of the the best lessons I have growing up is when I made the worst plays on the football team, when I, you know, got beat deep. I mean, I still don't forget about getting beat deep. I didn't do my assignment. I didn't make my coverage and it cost us the game. And that's, you know, 30 years later, it's still imprinted on me. It reminds you, you know, you got to do your assignment. You got to do your work. You got to do the things you're supposed to do to help the team. And so those are just some of the general lessons and insights. Insights I think we get from sports. That's not— you can get it from other ways, but I think sports is probably the easiest thing for people to tap into to get some of those lessons.

It is. I love, I love those insights, man. And I, I took, I took notes because, you know, it is like you said, there's always going to be another game and that's another shot, you know. And that's how I approach is, well, it's like, you know, as soon as you, you take that shot in soccer, when you, you kick it and the goalie catches it, or you miss— I mean, you could play 90 minutes of playing of soccer. That was my first sport before I learned basketball, funny enough. So, but I ended up being too slow to catch up with the speed of— at the time I had a growth spurt, so I couldn't catch up with soccer players because they were fast. I could play striker, I could be a striker or goalie, But I just ended up— I ended up falling in love with basketball. And when I— at the time when I started, I wasn't the tallest. I was actually shorter compared to a lot. I just loved the sport. I don't know why, I just loved it. Still love soccer though. I, I— it's funny because I do leg raises with my basketball, but I'm not— I'm not— I'm not obviously not like you soccer players. Like, I could do like probably like 5 or 3. 3 leg raises. But I love on the court, I enjoy like if it's out of bounds and you have like send it back in court or inbounds, I usually, you know, you know that little move you do with the dribble move where you use your leg and push it to the side and then you kind of like when you're having a long distance kick on one side. Yeah. I love doing that on the court. So, but I'm not, you know, that's just like, you know, just like you said, that preparation, things that you remember. One of the things I do remember from sports is getting my ass whooped. And so, yep, and knowing what's, what's, what's your strength, right? That's again going back. I'm not going to go set up a medical equipment, right? That's not my area, that's not my strength. I don't build medical equipment. I will get my ass— excuse my French— handed to me by people who are experts in that area. Right. Right. And you know, anything is possible in life. You just, you're just going to end up trying way harder and longer than someone who's been doing that for a long time. So, but again, yeah, principles that you, it transcends, it really does transcend sport.

It really does. Yep. And you know, my, my son played soccer too. And I remember him telling me once that his coach said, you know, soccer's a game of mistakes. And the team that usually wins just makes the least amount of mistakes. And that was an interesting way. It wasn't all about doing the right thing. It was doing less of the wrong things. And I think some of that plays out in business. I think in marketing, a lot of that is real because there's so many tests, so many things you're always trying to figure out marketing. Marketing's not as easy as other aspects of business because you're— No. You're trying to test and figure out, you're trying to figure out the person, What makes them excited? What the words to use on the website, you know, and you're just testing all this type of stuff and A/B testing all the way. Yep, all the time, all the time. And so you're going to make mistakes, but if you can make less of them, get lucky now, then, uh, you're gonna have better results.

Indeed. I like that analogy of figuring out how to make less, less mistakes, um, as opposed to, um, because I mean, you know, mistakes are inevitable, right? It's like, I guess when you prepare more, you reduce the number of mistakes, right?

I get more practice, right?

Right.

The number of touches you have on the ball, the number of practices you make, you're going to get better and better every time.

Indeed. 1% better. That's another insight on my side.

Yeah, 1% better daily.

Agreed.

Well, this was, this was fantastic. Frederick, I really enjoyed our conversation. We covered a lot of different things from a lot of basketball to medical devices to technology, all sorts of stuff.

Soccer. Let's not forget soccer, man. I literally, when you were talking about that, just, just remember my, you know, days playing soccer.

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was good. What's the best way for our audience to get in touch with you if somebody heard something that they wanted to to pick your brain on more, reach out, what's the best way for them to do that?

Sure, they can find me on LinkedIn, my full name. I'm sure you spell it out.

Yeah, we'll have it in the— we'll have in the show notes. So LinkedIn's the best way to, to grab you. That's perfect.

LinkedIn. And you can find, um, Jego as well on Instagram. So it's Jego Technologies, so J-E-G-O Technologies. And you can find me on Instagram as well. Uh, I answer questions, we have lives on Instagram. So my handle as well. I can share that. It's Above Average Mind, so Above Average Mindset, so A-B-O-V-A-V underscore mind, A-B-O-V-A-V underscore mind. And we do, as mentioned, we do have our seed round active, so you can learn more about JEGO. There are videos and images and write-ups that has been vetted by several levels of compliance and SEC It's visible at startengine.com/jego. That's startengine.com/jego. J-E-G-O.

Great. All right, well, we'll make sure to get all those details in the show notes so people can easily find you. And I really appreciate it. It's been great today. Thank you, Frederick.

Thanks again, Joe. I appreciate your time, and this was very, very, very engaging conversation. And as you had mentioned, it will be, you know, relaxed but also very insightful. I left this session with a lot of insights, and I'm looking forward to learning more about your Fractional CMO business as well.

Great, love to share more on that.

Sounds great, Joe. I appreciate it, Tom. It was great connecting with you again.

And that's a wrap. There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-Suite Retreat. See our show notes, and more episodes at fractionalcsuitretreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at yourcmo.com. Your CMO dot com, spelled wrong on purpose.