Episode w Raad Mobrem (Co-Founder & CEO of Intro)

Hello, everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of Build in Public podcast. I'm your host, KP, and today I am super thrilled to have Rad Mobram, co-founder and CEO of Intro, on the podcast. Welcome to the show, Rad.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

I usually start with like a long hype intro because I love the guest and I'm thrilled about who the guest is in the background. In your case, I dove straight into what you do, but I want to underline one special aspect that I heard about you, which is from Austin, from some of your team members, the people that I interacted with, and including Alexis Ohani, the fact that you are such a people-centric giver. And I think Austin said he practically knows everybody in LA and has always come across as someone who wants to just connect people and be a human router. So those are the words literally that came out of Austin's book about you. But how would you describe yourself? As in, I know you're working at Give us— give the audience a little intro about who you are, what you do.

Well, they're too kind. I think, to be honest, no matter what happens in my life, I still try to be a kid at heart. And I think when you have that mentality, you attract that energy from other people. And even if— I always have this saying, I was talking about this with a buddy of mine yesterday, which is you have to be the energy you expect back from the world. And I want the world to be kind to me. I want the world to be helpful. I want the world to just be a better place. And I try to do that with every one of my relationships. And I try to be the inspiration for others to do it as well for others. And so anyways, but my story kind of getting to it, this Persian kid who grew up in Santa Barbara, which is like the best place to grow up, but also it's a very Caucasian, non-Middle Eastern place. And so having like a family who came straight from Iran to there, and it was definitely some cultural adjustments and I had to kind of learn different things and how to a different perspective on life and so forth.

How old were you when your family moved to the US?

Well, I was born there. My parents were— they were 21 and 20, and then they got married immediately, pretty young. And my dad is this crazy engineer. I mean, he's actually now one of the chief engineers at JPL, Jet Propulsion Labs, NASA. Super smart, but very quiet, very shy. And my mom, very outgoing, very energetic. And so I didn't have the biggest network there. But as a result of kind of like this different perspective and understanding, I learned you observe a lot more. I think that's what happens. You observe a lot more. And I was able to observe kind of going back to what I was saying before, that I'd rather be someone who wants to be helpful towards the world and be a net positive in terms of the energy they put out. So,

well, so one thing you just straight right off the bat, I have to comment is, as a fellow immigrant, as in someone who identifies kind of like torn, like between being Indian, like I grew up in India for the first 20 years and then moved to the US at 21. I've been here for 12 years now. There's a lot of parts of me that are American that are still Indian. And it's fascinating, I think, to your point about your skills around observation, your skills about studying a new culture, new society, I think kind of makes you a bit more empathetic.

Oh yeah.

Because you just don't take things at face value. You look for nuance. And as you know, in most things, when you look for nuance, you'll find it. And there's no binary like this, someone's right or wrong, or this is the only way to do things. I remember growing up and there were so many things that I did and I never questioned them because that was the only way to do.

Yeah.

And then you move to the US and you're like, oh, wow, wait, there's also other ways to do things. Uniquely, distinctly American thing that you were like, huh, that was interesting. Or you remember fondly or in any sense.

The first one. Oh my Lord.

One of the first ones, maybe.

What is a different thing? American culture. I just noticed this is, for example, people don't go stay at friends' houses as much, whereas in Persian culture, I notice when I tell my American friends and by the way, like, you know, I'm Persian American. I've lived here my whole And so I definitely connect with American culture more, but I do have elements of the Persian-ness that I inherited. And I have noticed this, which is I'll invite friends to come stay with us and it makes them uncomfortable because they think I'm just saying it as a nicety. And I'm like, no, no, we're serious. We want you to come stay with us when you visit. And that is weird to them. I've noticed that. That is so funny. We love that kind of stuff. We love to be hospitable. And I just remember when I would go visit My mom's friends, either in Iran or in different cities, when we go visit them, we'd always stay with them. They'd always bring these like huge plates of fruit. It was an absurd amount of fruit that I've never seen so much fruit in my life. And there was no way we would all be able to eat that. But it was just so hospitable. Everyone wanted to kind of please each other and provide a good experience.

It was a display of affection, I bet. Right. But anyway, so jumping from there to— we were talking about culture, we're talking about—

Boring your audience with all the Middle Eastern stuff. Let's talk about the real stuff. No, I mean,

I think they're all— a lot of my followers are actually worldwide. I'm sometimes shocked that I get like podcast ratings from like some countries that I've never been to, or I'm like, wow, this is crazy. It's like blowing up in Macedonia. Why? Why? I don't know. But I mean, so one other thing about your journey, like, you know, we're going to get to Intro in a second, but there was a chapter about your story that I read and I thought it was interesting where you— this is your second— is it a second startup, Intro, or is it a third or fourth? What brought you to Intro?

Yeah, second tech startup. I had a little small thing before, but that was just kind of like a college side business. But the first The first real business that I started was a company where we built an operating system for small businesses. That first business that we were was a very small business. We were selling physical products and we decided to build a software to help us automate a lot of things. We originally looked at solutions like NetSuite or other softwares out there that would help a product-based business grow and scale and manage their back office stuff. Ultimately, everything was too expensive or was too clunky. So we decided to build our own. We built this operating system for small businesses. We raised some capital for it. And then we partnered with Intuit with their QuickBooks Desktop product. We had partnered with Shopify, with Square, with a number of commerce-based solutions. And we quickly became one of their top-performing apps on their app stores. We were our own product, but that's how the integrations work now is through their app store. And what ended up happening was Intuit acquired us and then our product became the foundation for the new QuickBooks Online. And that was pretty cool because I always wanted to build something that would impact small businesses. I just think Small businesses are the lifeblood of especially the US economy. And to be honest, the global economy. And I felt really good about doing something like that because if we helped people grow their businesses and stop focusing on this back office stuff, but instead focus on the things that they like better, which is the sales and creative aspect of their businesses, that felt really good to be able to be a part of that. And to do that at the scale in which we could with QuickBooks Online was, it was honestly a dream come true. I'm very, very grateful for that experience and that opportunity. And now QuickBooks Online, I think it's used by like 8 million businesses globally. It wasn't a global company before. And so now it's all over the world. And yeah, it's just cool to be able to be a part of that and set the vision for it and the product and design. It was just so cool. So

were you part of the acquisition? Like, did you work at Intuit for a while later or was it just company assets? And

I had to work there for a year. I ended up working a little bit longer. I just wanted to see some things through. And then, yeah, the entrepreneurial energy or that urge to start something again kicked in. And so I didn't see myself working at a big company for a long time, although that is a totally respectable and great way to go about it. For me personally, I want to keep impacting in a way where I can lead the way. That's who I am. And so I decided to take some time off, reenergize myself, and then come back and build something again. And that's what we did with Intro. And it wasn't always easy. It wasn't like we had the perfect idea from day one. I've actually had the idea for Intro for a long time.

I was going to say, like, what were you sort of like, you know, was this brewing in your mind even while you were at Intuit or this suddenly like one day you woke up and you're like, you know what, this is broken. Like, I just want to go fix it. Like, what was the origin story of Intro?

So it actually started back when I was 18. And, you know, this was like a pretty— it was such a serendipitous moment and it was such an incredible moment. I honestly remember it like word for word. I remember it like it was yesterday because it was so impactful in my life. I was walking down the street. street with a friend of mine. I was with the right person at the right time, and she recognized this guy who was across the street from us. She's like, hey, that guy, I know you're into entrepreneurship. He's the founder of Kinko's. His name is Paul Orfalea. I just heard about him. Wow. He was kind of more famous in our town for creating Kinko's, which is, I mean, everyone back in the day in the US knew about that company. And so I don't know what got into me. I think this is kind of going back to my parents being super shy or my dad being super shy. Even though my mom was energetic, she was still a little shy around certain folks. I had to learn to just be a bit more courageous and go up to people and build my own network. And so I just decided to go up to him. I went across the street, I tapped him on the shoulder. He looked down at me and I said, hi, Mr. Orfalea, I hear you're the founder of Kinko's. I'm a young aspiring entrepreneur. And I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. And he said, yes. Honestly, I was blown away. Wow. I was blown away that he would even say yes to that. We sat down and in 15 minutes, I'm not even kidding you, I learned more about entrepreneurship than I had ever learned before. I was so inspired by this person's story. He told me how he had started. He didn't even go to UC Santa Barbara. That was where he started his first shop, which wasn't even a shop. It was like a little closet with a copy machine that you would pull out onto the street. Wow. Kids who were riding back between their home, their college town, their home and the college town at UCSB would see that copy machine and they would come copy their notes and obviously give it to their friends and stuff. And so I was so inspired by his story. And then at the very end of it, he asked me when I was going to start my company. And I took that as a vote of confidence that we chatted and he believed in me and that's all I needed. And I honestly, in that moment decided, all right, I'm going to become an entrepreneur. That is like what I'm going to do in my life. And it was, I get a little emotional about it because it was just so cool. It was such an incredible experience for myself.

Why do you think that? played a big role in the younger version of you? Was it the validation or was it the fact that he was so humble and relatable? What was the most iconic moment for you? What was the special emotion from there?

So with Paul specifically, Paul, he's an interesting guy. So he suffers from ADHD and he's dyslexic. And so I, in hearing that, I would've never thought that someone like that could build a massive company like that. And he was also very much a kid at heart like myself. And so I realized that, and he even says this himself, look, everyone thinks of folks who can build a company as this supreme being or something. They're just so much smarter. They're so much better at everything. And in reality, it's a whole range of folks. And I think a lot of folks have different sets of geniuses. And for some, they might not be able to build a B2B SaaS company quite well, but they could build an incredible restaurant group. And so there's all kinds of different entrepreneurs. And I just learned from him that, He was very relatable. And I felt like I saw myself in him and he definitely saw himself in me. And he really did encourage me. And I think that encouragement too, from someone who did it, gave me the confidence to think that I could also do it.

I have this phrase that I call belief capital. I mean, something that I picked up while I was reading a bunch of, I think, Twitter threads or something. And I think I wrote a whole Substack about it saying, A lot of people think venture capital is like the financial transaction is what makes or breaks a business, which is true to an extent. So everyone's obsessed about venture capital, but I think there's much more. There are 2 other layers that are significantly more important. The one before it is social capital. Someone super influential or someone with deep, strong network co-signing on you is very, very valuable. But much more important than that is the one that comes way earlier. It's the belief capital. And that person may not eventually end up writing the check or may not eventually have enough social capital to pass on to you. But when they see you, when they see the potential in you, when you were so young or when your idea was so fragile and forming, can completely make or break the game. So I think all of us in the game of entrepreneurship and being a founder, we've had those people who came into our lives. Even maybe they were there for 1 day or 15 minutes, or maybe we never got back to them. I had some people who I'm shocked to watch. The scene was set, perfectly for them to come in and believe in me or do something magical. And then they moved on and I never really got to interact with them later because of any reason, but it just changed the entire trajectory of my career. And it seems like that's what he did for you, Paul.

And to be honest, it wasn't just Paul. I mean, Paul was the biggest reason why, but okay. So then after Intuit, and I was 27 when that happened. So that to me is crazy. I'm not one of those people who believe that I deserve all this. I have some entrepreneurial friends and they're incredibly successful who do believe that, but I'm a different kind of person in the sense that I think luck plays a lot of it. And so when this happened to me, I asked myself after I left Intuit, I had some time to think, why did this happen to me? Yeah, I am smart, sure. A lot of people are smart. I definitely work hard, that's for sure, but a lot of people work hard. So what were the key indicators? What were the things or the— not indicators, what were the key things that kind of helped accelerate my career? And something I look back to was I was always, because of that energy I would put out into the world, that positivity and that helpfulness, I was able to surround myself with really high-caliber people who were either 1 or 2 steps ahead of me in terms of their company, they were the same level as me, or they had already really made it. I mean, they built billion-dollar companies. And because I was around those folks, I just shut up and listened, and I listened to what they had to say. And I took the information that I heard them say and learned And I took that because I knew they were already doing it and that it worked for them. I was confident that that information was correct. And I was able to really accelerate my own career as a result. And I think that is one of the biggest reasons why I was able to find success at a younger age or how I think that was a big catalyst for my success. And

then learning by osmosis.

By osmosis. Yeah. It's like you can read everything, but reading can also be outdated. And so in the moment, being able to understand What is the best approach or what is someone else doing and it's working for them? Being able to do that and trying to apply that to your different thing is a great way to go about it, to approach a problem and potentially solve that problem. And funny enough, once I found success, a lot more doors did open up for me. And I'm very grateful for this as well. And I think it's because I live in LA as well. Not just entrepreneurs, but all kinds of people, people who are celebrities or musicians or athletes. I even have friends who are famous artists. I know a guy who's a famous poet. I like asking this one fun question at dinner parties to people I sit next to, which is, tell me about yourself. They say they're doing something pretty special. I ask them, how did you become great at what you do? Man, oh man, I just kept hearing the same response. Now, all their stories were a little bit different, but I kept hearing the same thing over and over and over again, which was, Because each one of these people had access to somebody, or in some cases, a group of people that helped guide them to their greatness. Right. And that those people were also great. And exactly what you said, which was some of them had mentors that were there for a long time. In some cases, they met someone for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and they heard something that just caused an epiphany in them. And they went down a different path, one that they would probably not have gone down. And in some cases, they didn't even meet the person. They just followed them on whether it was Twitter or whether it was, they followed their career. If it was a famous actor and they studied them and they would just learn these things and pick up on that. And through osmosis, basically become better and ultimately great at what they do. But every single one of these people, they had access to somebody. And now even those folks who never met that person, they would go on and become better at what they do. And they got more access and more exposure to the right people. But for the most part, yeah, access is a good key indicator of who who has a higher chance of finding success in the craft that they're trying to achieve greatness in.

Yeah, it's so true. I mean, it's also, I think the big part of like what you get from it when you have access to these greats and the talents is like, you can, I think a lot of people actually have the talent, like, you know, they have the calling, but they have the self-doubt cloud that's always hanging. And they always think that it should take, it should be easier. It should have been easier if they were really talented or the path is taking longer than they expected. But then you ask the greats and they're like, yeah, heck yeah, it took longer It is supposed to take longer. The first part of this ascend to that state of whatever talent you are in is always filled with the valley of self-doubt, right? Because you're like, am I doing this the right way? And my favorite part is on the other side when someone really acknowledges that that's how they felt too, and they just did it anyway. And time is the answer for many things. It's really not your— stop second-guessing your talents. Time is the answer. And intent is the answer. Try again, but be yourself. Don't fake. Don't try to be someone like somebody else. And some of this is so obvious when you look at it from an objective. If you and I were looking at someone's tennis game and we're like, the young player who can literally see themselves doubt themselves to losing shit, and you're like, it's easy for us, but for that tennis player, so much is going on in their head. And for that person to get 15 minutes with Serena Williams or even whoever, it could be someone they were looking up to. And if Serena says, yeah, that was a really great technique, it's just that you need more And like, goddammit, I was second-guessing my technique for 15 months and now, oh yeah, my technique was okay. Maybe I just have to just practice more. It completely changes their self-narrative, you know?

It's not just about— you can go and search Google. You can go search Google for a lot of information. And sometimes, you know, the thing is though, like not all information on Google is created equal. Like it is hard to find high-quality information, especially with what's going on and how people create content just to like get higher rankings. But so, and then even if you hear information from somebody, it's not always just that. It's really the information plus the confidence to act on that information. And I think the person that you hear that information from has a high correlation with the confidence that you have.

Yes. I mean, people say it's the message. I think it's the messenger. 100% it's the messenger. Like people say it's the— like, I mean, I've seen this myself. When I was at 414 followers on Twitter, Rad, now I have 30K. I said the same damn thing, which I'm saying today, which the message hasn't changed. I'm saying the same 5, 6, 7 things that I'm saying to all the people, because half the time I'm telling myself, this is my own reflection in public on Twitter or whatever, on podcasts, whatever. The message hasn't changed. I just got more credibility because I put more reps in the game, more shots on the goal. And I became way more confident in the execution to the point where I've learned from looking around around the greats that I admire. And I'm like, there's no real difference between what they're doing and what I'm doing, or what anybody who is 4 steps behind is doing, except that they've just gone out all out and kept doing over and over. And so being prolific is what makes the messenger so magnetic. I don't think it's just the message. Anybody could type up the same 4 words and say, work hard, smart, blah, blah, blah. The reason why Naval's so viral, I think, is because it's Naval. It's coming from the mouth of Naval Ravikant, as opposed to some guy with no credibility and hasn't put skin in game, hasn't done tough shit, you know, same thing with Elon Musk.

So yeah, if Naval said eat, pray, love, people would go crazy.

Right, exactly.

There would be a lot more eating, a lot more praying, and a lot more love.

Exactly. I think like, if you think about like, there were so many people who for years and for decades kept saying, we need to get serious about carbon. We need to get serious about going to fully electric or the EV future. But none of them really had the level of skin in the game and the credibility and the intent that Elon Musk has. And hence the world stops and listens. Because otherwise it's— I mean, I remember growing up in India and I knew that the future was green. Like I was, I was, I mean, like it was obvious to a 4-year-old kid growing up in India with not much that, oh yeah, of course the non-renewables are going to be extinct soon because, you know, they're non-renewables. We got to go to green. Right. And, but it's not the message. It's the, it's the messenger and the actor and like to what level and context they have about the message too. So all this, I mean, let's zoom fast, fast forward to the birth of intro. It seems like you're describing the components that came together? What happened that made it obvious to you that you have to go start this?

So I didn't start it right away. And so this is a big thing where I think entrepreneurs make a mistake, which is they have this idea and they just start doing it. And they don't think about the other ingredients that create a successful business. And I just didn't think the timing was right. And the reason why was I thought if this was going to be like, if we did something like this and we took the medium that people were comfortable with, which was phone calls, it wouldn't be as valuable. There's something about seeing someone face-to-face and, you know, Even texting is interesting, but I just didn't think people would pay enough for that.

Right.

And we had to make it worthwhile. Like it's a 2-sided marketplace. Like the expert needs to make enough money where this is like worth it to them. And then the consumers need to feel like they're getting enough value for the amount of money that they're paying. And so, so I just never thought the timing was right. So we actually, like, I kind of put that one in my back pocket. And what I did actually after Intuit was I raised money. You know, a lot of people wanted to kind of invest my next thing and I wanted to do something different than what I had done before. So not in the B2B space, but something around connecting people. And I wanted to build a social type product, but not like a social network, but something that helped connect people.

Right.

And we just kind of built this lab and we tested different ideas and it was all themed around kind of connecting people when they were out in the world, which is a really hard thing to do, by the way. You know, there's a number of social networking pros who are like, anything that's around connecting people when they're out and about, you've already lost. I always find it funny when people say that something is impossible because that's what they said about a lot of things and then somehow made it possible. But anyways, we started working on this and we tried different variations, different products. And I'm not even kidding, the last thing that we worked on, the last version of that product just absolutely took off in Los Angeles and everyone knew about it and everyone was using it.

Was it still called Intro or was it something else?

No, no. This was called Wrap. Okay.

I see the pun there. I see.

We, you know, until we had like a real name for it, we called it Radical.

Very convenient, right?

If I'm named Rad, I gotta, I gotta use it somehow.

Please tell me you have an LLC called Radical Labs or something.

Well, our company name or corporate name is Radical Group Inc.

So of course, there you go.

Of course. And so we built this product and it just really started taking off and people were using it and it was growing. And the whole idea was it would inspire people to go out into the world to connect with their friends, but also make new friends. And we built this product. I won't get too much into the details of it.

Was this pre-pandemic though?

Pre-pandemic. And then I'm not kidding you, we're about to launch 2 more cities on March 19th, 2020. And we had planned these 2 new cities. And then all of a sudden we kind of heard news early February. We're like, late January, early February, and then boom, world shut down. Everyone was asking themselves, what's going to happen? Is this a short blip? Is this a thing? Something that any person who's ever worked on a social product knows is viral coefficients. So when I saw the viral coefficient for this disease, for this virus, I was like, oh my Lord, this is going to be bad.

It's a different kind of hockey stick you don't want, right?

It was a true hockey stick. So basically we took a couple months and we thought to ourselves, all right, we have some money left in the bank. Do we just give it back to the investors and shut this down? Because this isn't going to be over anytime soon. And one thing that I just noticed happen as a result of the pandemic was this, what we're doing right now, which is everyone became comfortable with video calls. Right. It became the new way to socialize and the new way to communicate, this new medium, which was more— it was a deeper conversation. You can see people's facial expressions. You can almost feel their presence without— it's the closest thing to being In person, as close as you can be for now.

Right. I think it's one or two steps removed from the real experience, but it's definitely way better than texting or just audio. I know Zoom has its own— I mean, video conferencing has its own tax, which is like it is. If you do it 8 times a day, it can be taxing. But given the benefits of it, to your point, it is the closest thing to being IRL. And also it's not comparable that way, but I think it's got a different set of benefits that are not part of the package that comes with IRL. You and I are not in the same zip code. Exactly. And still, imagine across the world. And I think that's beautiful.

It's very beautiful. And so we saw that. And whenever I see a massive behavioral shift happening across the world, I mean, this— I think it was about 2 weeks. It took about 2 weeks to have worldwide adoption for the most part. That's it. And then the growth, I just kept watching the growth numbers and it was incredible. And so I took that idea out of my back pocket that I had for Intro that I always wanted to I always wanted to do this company. This was one of my favorite ideas. And it was my main squeeze. This is what I wanted to really do in life. And it was around connecting people, but in a positive way, in a way that's very authentic to even who I am and my own story and hearing all these other people, hearing the stories of all these other people who have found success in their life and greatness in their craft. And I called my co-founder and I said, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do this company. I totally believe in it. And we are going to work like crazy for the next 6 months. I was like, you think you've seen hard work? You haven't seen anything. And we just worked around the clock because honestly we had nothing else to do too. He came and he lived here basically in my house and we just did not stop and we worked our butts off. And that's when we started working on Intro and really everything else that's just started happening, was a miracle. I do have a pretty extensive network, but I also know the folks that I know, it would take a moment for them to say yes to something like this. But what ended up surprising me was how many of them said yes.

I think that's one of the biggest challenges in this two-sided expert marketplace concept, whether it's Intro or whether it's anything else. It's getting the, in your case, let's say supply is basically supply of experts. And these experts are really busy, in some cases famous people. I saw a bunch of really famous people on there. I'm like, oh, So convincing them that this is actually worth their time is one of the bigger challenges early on. So how did you overcome that? Apart from, of course, you say, let's say you pull some favors from some friends, but I'm sure you're like, that's not sustainable and scalable. So how did you— what was the unique insight there?

Yeah, well, to be honest, in the beginning it was pulling a lot of favors and it wasn't like I was begging them or anything like that.

But you just cashed in your social capital. That's one of the things we talked about, Austin and I, like how much social capital you built up by years of years of just being who you are and being helpful and like, you know, building connections. And you said, all right, it's time. I'm doing something new. Let's— do you want to be part of it? I'm sure they were like, sure. I'm sure they tried it, but the product had to keep them in.

Totally. So one of the first people, one of the folks that I called first was actually Roger Berman, who's married to Rachel Zell. And I asked him, I wasn't trying to even get Rachel on there. I had asked him, I wanted to learn a little bit more about the styling world and would the economics of something like this work for them? Because if you think about it, what we're doing What they're doing is not too dissimilar to telemedicine. Telemedicine enabled doctors who are already seeing patients to basically see some of those patients in a virtual, more efficient capacity. Like if you're sick, like the last thing you want to do is get in a car and drive somewhere.

Right.

So allow them to see some of their patients in a virtual capacity, but then it also took some geographical constraints within the same state because there's regulatory issues of going across state, but allowed them to also see more people that they otherwise would not have seen—

Right.

Geographical constraints. And so we wanted to do the same thing for other kind of service providers or knowledge workers and see if doing this virtual type offering would make sense for them. And so I wanted to learn a little bit more. I wanted to learn about the interior design world, about style, stylists, about makeup artists and all sorts of stuff. So I called Roger and I was like, hey, you know a lot about the styling world. What do you think? Like, do you think like a stylist would want to do this? And like, would it be interesting to them? And he's like, hold on, let me go get Rachel real quick. So he got Rachel. I told her the idea and she's like, count me in. I'll be one of your first experts. Oh, nice. And I was like, what? You're going to do this? Like, I wasn't expecting that. And she's like, anything for you. Like, of course. And I actually, I love this idea. And she even told me on that phone call, which blew my mind and I just loved it, which was, she's like, one of the reasons I think I've been more successful in my career is because I'm always willing to be more accessible to everyone than everyone else. There's this kind of like closed off, like— Yeah. club with a lot of these different verticals or industries. And with her, she's always willing to do more than everyone else, always wanted to be more accessible. She's like, for God's sakes, I let a camera crew come record my life, which is a very uncomfortable thing.

Right.

But I did it because I knew, I just knew that by being more accessible, I would be able to connect with more people and ultimately build a following. And so she said yes. And then she was incredibly helpful. I mean, she ended up investing in the company. company as well. Wow. But before that, I mean, she just opened up her whole Rolodex as well. So we got more stylists, more makeup artists on there. Then I talked to— I just kind of, you know, reached out to various like folks in the wellness space, like fitness, celebrity fitness instructors and so forth. Right. I reached out to my friend Sammy Clark, who's like a really well-known kind of like fitness or celebrity fitness influencer. And I asked her if she would do something like this. Would this be interesting? She's like, Yeah, anything

for

you.

And were there any concerns around the economics, unit economics for these people? Like, would— like, in terms of, I know there was 15-minute chunks is the minimum, correct? And what was like some initial learnings for you on the way you guys tested this model? Because it had to make sense for some of these people who were, you know, they were really successful. And for them to like spend their time with like an average Joe dialing in from Indiana, how did you make sure that that was well designed?

So whenever we think about how much someone makes, we always think about, all right, this is their hourly rate. But unlike someone who has like a salary, a salary is like you have this salary and you're supposed to work 40 hours a week. Sometimes you work more, sometimes you work less, depends on the company you're at. And that equates to your hourly rates. But with folks like stylists and nutritionists and basically people who are working with clients, that's assuming all their hours are filled up. That's their hourly rates. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of them have extra time. And this is the myth. This is the big myth that everyone thinks is true, which is once you hit a certain level of success and fame, you're just like untouchable. You're not human. You're like this, you're like almost this like superhero in a sense. You're on this pedestal and you have zero time and so forth. And I'm going to break that myth right now. The most successful people I know that run billion-dollar companies that have thousands of employees, they all have time. It is incredible how much time they have and what they have, what they care about more is really about who they give that time to it. They're just a bit more precious about it.

And the activity and what they're doing with them. I think the activity is also a huge factor. If they get to do more of what they love, I think that naturally creates more time in my view, compared to like the stuff that they don't care about, they don't want to do.

100%. So number one is they are not— their hours are not completely filled up. And so there is a lack of efficiency in terms of their hours being capitalized, I I don't know what the word is, but then the second thing is that they do have time. They may not have time. So like interior designers, for example, they take on really big projects with somewhat, especially the interior designers we go after with really well-off clients. And some of these bigger projects can take, you know, 1 to 5 years depending on the scope of it. And they might be completely filled up in terms of taking on big projects, but they still have time. They still have time in between. And so for them to be able to fill up their time in between with these micro consultations that are very easy, very fun for them. It was kind of a no-brainer. And we said, just charge more than your normal hourly rate. You know, in some cases, some of the folks who have done really well in life, you know, they aren't charging their hourly rate. They're just doing this more because they want to connect with people, but they also want to have a filter for who's actually serious about them. And then the monetary layer is a great filter. Alexis donated. He doesn't need the money. He's done so well. He, you know, even if he charged $10,000 an hour, he still wouldn't need that money, you know?

Yeah. That's what really piqued my interest when I first saw Alex's profile and like the way he was doing this. And, uh, he, by the way, he was— kudos to Alex, he was the one who brought Intro into my radar. So he's doing a great job of evangelizing you guys.

Yeah.

But no, I mean, I thought it was really clever and really well-intentioned. Like, you know, he, in this case, I saw that money goes to a charity that he believes in. And I thought it was another cool way of, you know, like giving people like a feeling All right, I don't need the money. In many cases, at the top 1%, you don't need the money. So making them not obsess about the unit economics, because there's a cause and there is a calling, something that's beyond measurable and beyond money, such a great psychological hack. I mean, not a hack, but you know what I mean? It's such a great redirection of what the focus is here. You're trying to create more magical moments that Paul and you had.

Mm-hmm.

And if Paul was so worried walking down that street about, okay, each 15-minute chunk of my time on the street here is at $800, and why would I talk to Rad? That wouldn't have happened, that interaction you guys had. So I loved it. I mean, I've seen so many marketplaces, especially around business advice before, and it's very hard to get it off the ground. And one of the reasons is one, the cold start problem, like getting the right kind of experts who really want to do this and for fun. I mean, do it really meaningfully, not just show up on the homepage, but never really be active. Second part is how do you figure out the unit economics so that it makes sense for them or they feel like they're getting So that's the supply side. So tell me a little bit about the demand side.

Where did you see the most— I'll say one more thing too. A lot of these folks that we go after, they're on either Instagram or Twitter, and especially the business folks who don't need the money or anything like that. I mean, the amount of time they spend on Twitter is insane. And part of the reason why is when they post something that's information related, when they're trying to share knowledge with the world, they feel good about that. There is a kick to you, a positive kick to your ego or a boost for your ego. And I have to tell I'm an expert on Intro. I'm surprised that anyone books me because I just don't think I am as good as any of the other experts on there, but I get booked quite often. I am not going to lie. It is the most incredible experience I have ever had in terms of being helpful to others. People who are booking us are not other folks in the tech industry. It's real small businesses. It's real businesses who are like, hey, this is my business. I've been able to grow it to this stage. We're doing $900,000 in revenue per year. I just don't know what to do next. I had a call the other day where I explained to someone what customer acquisition cost, CAC, and lifetime value is and how to think of that framework and not to be scared about putting marketing dollars to ultimately drive more lifetime value and more customers. And their mind was blown. And this is stuff that the tech world knows quite readily, but also there's other things that I've learned that that a lot of folks don't know. And so to be able to kind of just share that information with real businesses, like, you know, once again, like the heartbeat of our economy, I think that is the greatest feeling of all time. I just leave every single conversation just— I need— if I'm having the worst month of my life, I just need one of those intro calls. And I'm not kidding. It just makes up for all of it. Yeah, really. It is such a great feeling.

It's such a satisfying feeling too, when you pass on, you know, some of the hard knowledge you've had to gain and you can genuinely help people. I mean, my favorite part, the other thing too, Rad, you've— I mean, a lot of things that you guys did unintentionally or intentionally is super clever. And that's why I was chatting with Austin. By the way, folks, I'm talking about Rad's team here, but like the whole team, like I've been fascinated. I said the same thing to him too, is that comparing, like sort of thinking about advice, not just vaguely, but likening it close to like telemedicine is super smart because what happens is by default, what that messaging with that kind of line of thinking and strategy, you're kind of self-selecting the people who have acute pain as in like acute business need. Mm-hmm. And they have a specific acute business need. So what it does is it filters out all the nonsense and the people who would be generally more upset or disappointed about, oh, I spent 15 minutes and I didn't get my value back, are the ones who don't know what to ask and they don't have a sense of urgency in the ask. So I have a lot of these office hours and things that I do at On Deck and generally on my Twitter. I do so many things after my pod and stuff. And my least favorite interactions were the ones where the person was just trying to pick my brain with no agenda. And it's this literally, at least if there was a younger person who wanted to emulate me, at least there was something I can pass on. pass on, but it's someone who just wants to shoot the shot or whatever. And I'm like, that's just vague. And they're the ones who are generally more disappointed compared to someone who wanted to ask me a specific question about, let's say, building in public. And they've tried 4 methods and the results, let's say, are not adding up. And they want to ask me to assess what they could do better. Oh my God, I love it. It's such a creative challenge.

Totally.

And so it's like a brainstorming exercise for me with that person. And half the time I don't care how much I'm getting paid. To me, it's just getting to do more of what I love. And so I think that's where it's genius that you're You're kind of by self-selecting, by saying it's kind of like telemedicine, you're self-selecting people who have a specific ask because they're very, very clear about what they want. Like this guy who wanted the CAC definition, I mean the CAC suggestion. And also it's something that they've been struggling with and they're ready to put some money behind it. So you are like, they have seen the skin in the game behind their ask.

And it's a great filter. It really is. The biggest thing is that monetary layer is the fact that you have to pay to get a session with these people. Number one, people should get paid. I think that's a good thing. Imagine if—

Create economy. Everyone's like, I think, yeah, do it. I mean, same thing with doctors to your point.

Yeah. Imagine if you went and someone says like, hey, come help us with this thing. We're not going to— we're not— we're going to hire you, but we're not going to pay you. We would be like up in arms about that. And so I think you should definitely pay. But the biggest thing that it does is that it does filter exactly how you said it does filter out people who are not serious and do not have like real questions. And then the time limit as well, man, when you know you have a 15-minute session or a 30-minute session or 45 or even a 60-minute session and there's a timer, it prepares you to, you know, it makes you prepared for the call. You want to maximize that time you're paying for it. You're now putting a dollar amount to each minute and that does something for people. And then we also ask a number of questions before the call to help guide those folks into asking really high-quality questions.

I thought that was clever too. I saw that. It was such a cool product design thing that I thought that because there were prompts as you fill out the profile, which I know I hadn't seen in other like, you know, prior attempts at this same problem. And because it kind of primes your mind around, okay, these are the kind of things that I should be asking the expert. And this expert generally gets these kind of questions, kind of like opens up, you know, that breaks the ice for you. You know, the other fun thing that I'm curious about is repeatability. And like, if you think about from the demand side, like these customers who, let's say, had this first experience of interacting with someone and they got the value, what trends are you seeing? Like, what are some observations you're making about what's making them come back to it over and over again? Or are they coming back to the same expert? Are they shopping around and then sticking? Is there a longer format, like a repeatable format too coming up?

Yeah. Okay. So the first thing I always say, whenever you launch a new product, a new company, everyone tries to do too much in the beginning. And I just wanted to stay really focused on the one-on-one video aspect. And what we wanted to do was we wanted to create that thing everyone says in the tech world, that aha moment. And of all the products I've ever created, of all the companies I've ever invested in, of Anything I've helped advise, I have never seen a stronger aha moment than this product by far. It's not even close. And maybe Uber, but maybe the first time you used Uber, that was pretty cool.

That was pretty freaky. I was like, I can't believe I'm like in a stranger's car. Like, this guy is like, what if it goes wrong all the time? I was like, I remember texting my friend, like the fact that I'm going to my destination to make sure that, you know, like, hey man, if I end up in a dead body or a trunk somewhere, let me know. But I mean, no, you're right. Uber had that magical effect.

It had that one magical moment. And so, so yeah. So for us, I mean, even during our beta, we did in the first 2 months, we did 400 sessions and I called every single one of those customers and I wanted to get their feedback. I wanted to learn what was good, what was bad, what could we change? What are we missing? And every single per— I'm not even kidding you. Every single person that I talked to, they couldn't even come up. It was kind of like not my favorite thing as a product person because I want to figure out how we can improve. Every single person just wanted to share how over the moon they were. They were like, first off, like, we didn't believe this was true. Like, I didn't know what this product was. If it weren't for the expert actually like sharing it, you know, to their own followers, like, we would have thought this was like not real. Mm-hmm. And then I booked this person. Then there's like a couple days or sometimes like a week wait to jump on the video call with that person. I joined the video And then all of a sudden, Rachel Zoe or Nate Berkus or whoever actually showed up in the video call. That was crazy. And then what they were all blown away by was, number one, how good all these folks are. They're so good at their craft. And what would happen is these folks, these consumers would have these questions that they've had in some cases for years. I'm not even joking. Yeah. Years. And they would ask the expert these questions and the expert's so good at what they did, what they do, they answer Very quickly. And the most beautiful thing in this whole thing is the initial relationship going into this whole thing between the consumer and the expert is kind of like this. This person is looking up to this person and this person asks questions to this person and this person basically starts telling them the answers. And then quickly it becomes this, and it's 2 people who are really into the same craft. There's a reason why this person is so good at what they do. It's not just because They're naturally good at it. It's because they love it. And then this person who's so interested in what this person has to say, and it just becomes a human conversation. And the same thing happens for both sides, which is, wow, I just met someone really cool and that was so amazing. And I learned so much on both sides. The consumer or the expert also learns a ton from the experience and what these people are going through and how it gives them ideas for other parts Of the world for content that they can create. Yes. Media. And so

I think that's underrated. Like there's so many times at the end of my office hour session, I walk away with 3 or 4 prompts that I go and create full-blown Substack newsletters or I create like a workshop on the prompt because I'm like, I can't believe a set of, let's say, founders who are struggling with this particular topic that I just answered. And I'm like, wow, I can't believe this is a thing. And I go test it on Twitter and usually there's like a bunch of replies. I'm like, whoa, this is actually a problem. Maybe like create a whole thread around this or a whole piece of content. So the expert is walking away with just as many much value in my view. And that's why they want to come back to it.

Yes. And they feel good about it and so many other reasons as well. And then, so that's what I look for. So it was just so strong. People were blown away. I had 4 people of the 400 start crying on our feedback call. They were just so moved. And, you know, and it's not just entrepreneurial experts or interior designers and stylists. We have some wellness coaches and we have one person who's a mindset coach. And so there's like some topics where if you learn something, it's deeply moving on a personal level. And I've never had, like, no one cried when they use QuickBooks Online. No one ever did that. And so it was an emotional moment for me too, because it was like, whoa, I never thought I would create something like this where the impact was this intense. But in a very positive way, it was like, it was a good cry. Like they learned something that was impactful for them. I remember one lady in particular, she had booked an expert. I won't say exactly what she said, but what she said at the very end was, and she was tearing up, she's like, I learned something that I wish I had learned about 25 years ago. My life would have been better as a result. But now I can start to live a much better life with a different perspective. And that just alone, just for that one person, this whole thing was worth it.

Yeah.

That was so cool to me. And so it was so motivational. And I

just How do you put an NPS number to that? Something like that, right? It's such a profound moment.

Yeah, the NPS on that one out of 10 was 100. So it was pretty crazy. So I always look for a product like that. So if you have an experience like that, people are going to come back. And so our retention rate has just been unbelievable, or we call it our rebooking rate. So about 60% of everyone who comes and books once comes back and books one or more additional sessions.

Whoa, that's— yeah, that's huge.

Yeah, it's incredible. And so then what happens is a lot of times they'll come back and book that same expert, but then because we have different categories and different types of experts, they'll discover other experts as well and book them. So we're seeing a lot of that. That is great. That is like what we need as a business like this to make it work. And we're seeing strong signals this early on. So—

So I got 2 questions.

Oh, you asked one more question. Sorry, I'm going to cut you off.

No worries.

You asked us about, is there more ongoing recurring type stuff? So one-on-one video calls was our wedge into the market. At the end of the day, we want to give you access to these experts so that you have a chance to learn from them and gain opportunity. And I don't think it just has to be in synchronous one-on-one video calls. I think that's a really strong value proposition, especially for the price point, but there are other ways as well where you can have ongoing interactions with these folks. And that's what we're building right now. And I'm really excited to launch that kind of stuff in the near future.

I was— that was actually my follow-up in there where I was going to ask you about the product roadmap. Like, are there some features you're excited about? What's the future look like for Intro?

I don't want to talk too much about the product roadmap because like we— I like to be a little bit secretive about it, but I know which goes against your whole philosophy, which is build in public.

I'll make an exception just one time. Yeah.

But ultimately it's not too far from creating different mediums and different methods for connecting with these experts, whether it's synchronous or not synchronous. For example, some have asked us, are you going to do a Cameo thing where you can request a video from an expert? I think that works really well for Cameo as a birthday card or a greeting card that's virtual from a celebrity that you know I think that's a really fun experience. Personally, I love Cameo. I book them all the time.

All the time. Yeah.

And they're so fun. But I just think that works for that method. For getting knowledge, I think a one-off video from an expert is not the ideal experience, but there's just different ways to kind of have less basically asynchronous methods for connecting with these folks. And I think there's interesting features that also allow some of our really well-known experts to scale without necessarily having to spend a million hours on this. And so we think about that a lot, but we always, always make sure that everything we build feels like the consumer is getting a personalized experience. That is really important to us. And it's clear that the consumers have shared being able to get access to these folks. And then secondly, being able to get personalized information is really important because once again, you could then just go read stuff on Google or Wherever. That's all information that's for everyone. We want to create a more personalized experience.

I love it. Awesome. I mean, super excited about the future and all the experiments that you will continue to run. It seems like you just scraped the surface. I don't know, like 1%, 2% of what could be built here and how big this could be. So really excited to be rooting for you guys from the sidelines. It's a problem statement that resonates deeply with me both ways. Like, I see myself as someone who would be a consumer, would love to like chat with people who, again, like depending on my acute pain or like my specific need, I remember I remember a few years ago, I mean, I was before On Deck, I was very particularly needing fundraising advice at the time. It was very hard to get. This is pre-pandemic. It was hard to get that in Atlanta, in the circles that I was part of, on the vertical that I was wanting to build. B2C consumer social fundraising advice was what I was looking for. It was very hard here, and I would've loved to have Intro back then. I would've 100% used it. And again, that speaks to the specificity and acuteness of the pain. As an expert, oh my God, This is a delight. And especially—

You're going to be an expert on intro.

I know. I know. Thank you. I mean, I was floored when you guys reached out to me and Alexis tagged me and everything. And I was like, I would love it. I mean, first of all, to your point, like it's one of my favorite things is just to teach and entertain and help others, especially on topics that I deeply care about. Because it doesn't feel like work. It feels like fun. And I'm sure every expert on the top of their game feels the same way. They're not looking at it as work. Otherwise they wouldn't survive. that long. And so it's such a unique opportunity for the experts to groom and kind of create, sort of help the next generation of talent in their verticals and niches and also get paid at the same time, you know, and whether that goes to charity or whether that goes to them is secondary. But so yeah, super stoked, rooting for Intro and, you know, all the future experiments. And I just want to— is there a way— where can people find you on the internet? Where can people follow you specifically too?

Oh, so I'm on Twitter. My handle is @radmobram. R-A-A-D-M-O-B-R-E-M. It's kind of a longer name. Or you can also book me on Intro. If you go to intro.co/radmobrem, you'll be able to find me there. And, you know, some of my proceeds go to charity as well. So I'd love to chat with you there and be as helpful as possible.

Awesome. Thank you so much. I'll make sure we include all the links you mentioned in the show notes. This has been a fun chat, Rad.