Cory McKane 0:00
Hi, dude, how do you pronounce your last name? I owe me I owe me okay. I thought it's always like it's either an L or and I exactly.
Matthew Iommi 0:06
I have my own legal team sometimes on some document really early on put an L on like guys
Cory McKane 0:11
thing. Okay, so I owe me I owe me. Yes, Italian cool. Okay, so we have Matthew Iommi, here, the CEO of Fetty. And if you don't live in Austin, you might not know what Fetty is, but you're gonna know soon, because I don't we're gonna get to your expansion plans. But um, you guys have taken over Fetty by storm. I'm gonna give my sorry, Austin by storm. I'm gonna give myself 1% credit for promoting it. But I mean, you guys have been killing it. Can you tell everyone what buddy's about? And then we'll go to your background after that.
Matthew Iommi 0:43
Yeah, definitely. So Fetty is a group rideshare platform. And essentially, what we do is we transport groups and businesses together and on demand. Right now groups of six or more have essentially two options without Fetty. The first option is to reserve a charter vehicle days or weeks in advance, pay a five hour minimum for a 10 to 15 minute trip and have no payment flexibility deposits, one person has to pay the upfront, it's just an outdated charter model. Right? The other option that these groups have is to split up the group and take multiple vehicles, whether it be their personal or other ride sharing. And what that does is it creates an inferior transportation experience, because you're not with your friends, as well adds to congestion adds to emissions, and adds to cost. Exactly. So kind of what we've done is we've created a platform that kind of combines the efficiencies of high capacity vehicles with the efficiencies of rideshare technology to create kind of this group, first group rideshare platform.
Cory McKane 1:38
Very cool. And that's more complicated than how I would have worded it. But that's definitely what you guys do. I mean, it's like you got rid of the need to if you have 15 people, it's like you're no longer getting seven people in one Uber on each other's laps illegally, and then getting like, three in the other and you're crammed and you're uncomfortable. And now you're just like, Oh, cool. This is called Fetty. And I've done this like 12 times, so I can I can I can attest to how convenient The ferry is. And I'll start with my first my first story. I was bringing this up earlier. So the first experience with Fetty. I met Justin, your co founder he co right, CTO, CTO, gotcha. Okay. I met Justin and he I met him I met him like a week before and then it was my friend Maria's birthday. And it was like a Wednesday and her birthday was Saturday. And then Thursday the bus were supposed to use gotten to crash so we couldn't use it. Not a fatty it's a different thing. But he hasn't entered the picture. Yeah, so the bus like a full last bus we're gonna use crashed. And I was just
Matthew Iommi 2:40
like, it wasn't the old outdated model reserve a days. Yep, man. Yep, exactly. Yeah,
Cory McKane 2:45
there was it was like a whole last like bus rental company or something like that. And what happened was, we were just like, freaking out cuz there was no buses, we can rent. It was like some busy weekend and like April or May. And essentially I call Justin, I felt like kind of a badass too. And I'm like, like, I know somebody. And I call Justin. I'm like, Yo, man, like, can you help us out at all? And sure enough, you know, we paid him like through an invoice instead of the app, because we wanted to like, we want to make sure it was right and never use the app before. So we booked three fatties in advance. And sure enough, like, I got all the numbers of the drivers and we come downstairs as a group of like, 42 of us and just three black vans roll up at the same time. And I was just like, I felt like, I was like, I did this shit. And it was cool to have that experience. Yeah. And the second point is, I think to kind of get your guys's timeline going. So that was in like, April or May and no one really knew about Fetty at that point, it was kind of being used. And then 2022 This of this year, yeah. So like it was people knew it, but like it really it was it the growth has been exponential to where in August tell you what, during
Matthew Iommi 3:46
to prior to that time, most of the people who knew us kind of were kind of the younger college students that we hadn't really expanded. Part of our go to market strategy is starting with these university hubs. Right. It's well, around that time, that's when we started so yeah, a lot of those kind of younger younger adults older adults didn't know about us. Yeah,
Cory McKane 4:05
yeah, I think I don't know when it exploded specifically I'm I'm sure you have the data points. But the the end store within for this story, I guess is that I was at a party three weeks ago. And there was this girl who wasn't in tech at all had noticed that affiliates is a very much tech company. And it will it will it's growing and more like the public, but it started to tech. And she was just like, Hey guys, I'm gonna call a Fetty. And I was just like, I was like, oh, no, this guy is nice. That's cool. Yeah. And it was cool to see like a regular person in Austin. Just like not even mentioned the word Uber it'd be like I'm calling a Fetty
Matthew Iommi 4:35
definitely now. And it hits me it's me too. There was one time where I was at Whataburger. And I was just sitting down with some friends and I overheard a group of girls that I presumably went to UT. Yeah. Saying, Hey, let's get a fatty and just kind of, yeah, just kind of those moments really, really open your eyes and kind of give you confirmation that whatever you're working on seems to be working.
Cory McKane 4:57
That's so cool. I've been waiting I've had I had low chemo. So those with we strive but like it's a lot harder because it's like, it's just trainers and gym owners. But I've been waiting to be in the gym and hear a trainer say like, Hey, get we try we need to work out together like that. haven't heard it yet. But that's, that's a that's a dream and it's so cool. How did you guys come up with the name for Fetty? Because it's okay can I guess this was Umar bream was guess? Is it short for confetti like a party? No, it's not. Who are close though? Okay.
Matthew Iommi 5:27
All right. Well, what's before I get into kind of where it came from? What's the beauty of the name? Fetty is that everyone asks,
Cory McKane 5:34
there you go. Where are the what are the name categorization?
Matthew Iommi 5:37
Right? It's better than if we had called it. We movers. Yeah, you know, group move exactly. But fatty in the South Pacific term means an extension of one's family. Oh, it's kind of it's kind of the basis that whenever you're two things, whenever you're in a fatty kind of surrounded by your squad, by your group by the people that you care about that care about you. The other side to that is, is we like to say you're an extension an extension of one's family. And when you're in a Fetty very rarely, if ever, do you have a frown on your face? Yeah. Right. Because you're with the group of your friends, colleagues, co workers, whatever it may be, go into wherever you need to. And so it's, it's we've really kind of enjoyed making this service that produces a lot of good emotions, Good times. Good memories. So that's kind of but we've got a lot where, you know, confetti, Fetty, WOFF, whatever. Yeah, that's kind of why I like the name, too. It's just
Cory McKane 6:30
a very unique lot of people don't know. It's, like Fast and Furious shit as family. Very cool. Yeah, I um, do you guys, because I mentioned this a few times in the podcast, but we interviewed Rhys a few weeks ago. And they are a drone company. And it's spelled ri Z se. So I had a company before called perfect spelled p e r f ICT like fit. And so have you guys run into trouble, like SEO wise or app wise with having two eyes instead of two? T's?
Matthew Iommi 6:59
No, no, if anything, it's helped SEO just because it's more unique. So it's kind of pushed it that way where we have gotten especially early on is a lot of people would spell it Fe TTI. That's what I'm
Cory McKane 7:10
saying. Yeah. So
Matthew Iommi 7:11
that's been, that's been something but I'm kind of just just put, which I imagine lift had the same
Cory McKane 7:17
thing. Yeah, first Oh, yeah. They definitely do. So people
Matthew Iommi 7:21
just kind of get used to it. And if anything, it can make it stronger. Because exactly, no, it's so unique that it sticks in the mind who
Cory McKane 7:28
exactly it is that like decides to go decides bad. It's like, it sticks in the mind. You can get SEO, you can even like dibs in on SEO. But the SEO is harder because like it's a misspelled word. So it's like it's got definitely pros and cons. In the long run pros for sure. So we know that I'm just gonna delete this. This is a long, it's a long ask question. I'm gonna start I'm like, How long is this question? She knew everybody. Okay, there we go. Cool. I was like, What is this fucking question mean? So early on, like, because this is where I came from, too. So like, we have competitors called like trainer eyes and true coach like that. And like for like a year, they probably didn't know who we were. And I know, they know who we are now. Because like, I can see our users leaving their platform and then reporting to them that they left their platform for we stripe. So do you. I mean, there's no way it's not. But like, when was the point where you realize that Uber and Lyft probably know who you are now? Or have you not hit that point?
Matthew Iommi 8:28
I think so. For example, the first market we ever launched in was at in College Station, Texas a&m, where I went to school.
Cory McKane 8:36
How long ago was that? That was
Matthew Iommi 8:39
end of 2019 beginning of 2020.
Cory McKane 8:41
Wait, you guys have been around? Or did you? Did you like as you tell you tell me? Yeah.
Matthew Iommi 8:45
So yeah. Well, I'll tell you remind me to come back to this point. I'll tell you quick, the origin story. Yeah. So I was a senior at Texas a&m University. I had three classes left to complete my degree, senior year kind of at that point, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a pretty relaxed year for most people. And, and I figured that, you know, since I've got this free time, let's, let's start a side business, build something as good cash flow. And then kind of whenever I go, because I was at that point, I was I was planning go into investment banking, nice. And so I said, okay, there was this, these two students who were selling a shuttle bus. And they had started, it was about a year old and they had started a small little student transportation company, old outdated charter model, you know, that store. And, and I saw that they weren't automating anything. They were still driving it themselves. They hadn't digitalized anything, no payment system, anything of that sort. So, so I called my friend Justin, who's my co founder and CTO and I told him Look, there's this interesting, small little business that these two kids are selling Are you interested to go in it with me and we'll grow it up, automated kind of having habit generating cash. So, so we made the decision to buy it from them. purchased it and and from there we grew it kind of, you know, made a website booking system, automated everything, to the point where once it was grown, we really were now in the industry of group transportation. And that's kind of when our mind started rolling. Okay, how do we scale this? Right? How do we make the user experience more pleasurable? How do we make the business model more desirable, right and more efficient. And, and from there, he kind of grew into what eventually became Fetty, we created an app created on demand capabilities created a PSP model, which for anyone who doesn't know that he doesn't own any of its vehicles. What we do is we have to know
Cory McKane 10:56
Okay, good fact. Yeah, well, we
Matthew Iommi 10:59
we, this business is a combination of conventional ride share with Scooter, Scooter mobility with Amazon delivery models. So for example, with conventional rideshare, we have an on demand app that allows users to book these vehicles on demand or pre scheduled in terms of how you check in, you pay using a QR QR code similar to lions and birds on those scooters. And our supply models is similar to Amazon's DSP delivery service partner model in which we fit PSPs passenger service providers, okay. And these are entities that own these fleet of vehicles, and rent them out to independent contractors similar to the Uber hertz deal, who then utilize our vehicles to service our users. Gotcha. Okay, so we've created a very light business, and all of these different things stemmed from problems that we encountered running this group transportation company. So for example, with the rideshare aspect, we found that users didn't want to pay five, six hours minimum, you know, hourly, minimum 150 $200 an hour to go from their house or their work to the nightlife or to the lake right, or to a bachelorette party, whatever it may be. They only needed it for 15 minutes. Exactly. Right. And so that right, there was a big obstacle that we wanted to take away. So we created kind of this rideshare aspect to group transportation that kind of resolved and of course, iterations are still coming and improvements are coming. Yeah. On the other side, the check in system, we found that groups because they're so large, and that's kind of a an attractive thing about our businesses, the unit economics are so attractive, because one trip generates three, four times the revenue of one Uber trip, because we can fit more people in. Right. And that's why we we recently, we are now profitable. Yeah. So we've kind of taken the profitable aspect of rideshare, and made it our business, these large groups. But when one pain point that we found is at the beating beginning of things, we said, Okay, we'll make the user pay for everything up front, the Booker, just like how it is in conventional charge transportation. And we found that while with Uber and Lyft, they can get away with charging one person because it's okay, it's 20 bucks. And hopefully my friends pay me back. Yeah, right.
Cory McKane 13:20
Which they never say never. Exactly all I mean, so much money.
Matthew Iommi 13:28
And in with with Eddie, it's even more exactly exaggerated, because now all of a sudden, you've got 200 $300 trips, and for one person to upfront pay that it creates the accessibility for that service. You know, it reduces that a lot. Exactly. So what we implemented was a QR checking system that users whenever they come in and onto the vehicle, they'll scan a QR code that seamlessly splits the payment amongst a group. So now instead of one person paying 200 $300, right, each personality has to pay $5 for themselves. Yeah, similar to how they would do with it with a scooter. And so we really found that that solution made it more accessible to a lot of people. Yeah, and didn't reserve this service just for special events. And then on the other side, the the supply model, right, when we first started, we own the vehicles. Yeah, right. And we had to deal with me, I was gonna say you're not a car rental company. Exactly, exactly. And that that kind of that was taken away our focus from building this platform as efficiently and to the best quality as we could having to deal with both sides and things. So we had to figure out a way to kind of distribute that to other parties and kind of automate it. And so that's where the PSP model comes in, where now these entities can essentially create cashflow businesses by themselves using our platform. And so kind of all these things that have come together to be what Fetty is now it's not like we woke up one day and said, Okay, this is how it's gonna work. Yeah, right. We started in the group transportation industry where it was outdated and we just kind of used our Innovative intuition. And and, frankly, I don't know if we would have been able to do this if we were 5560 years old, right? Because we kind of had that fresh look on things of how things are being done and how they should be done. And so we kind of incorporated that mindset into all these different obstacles and issues that we were using that eventually came to this kind of efficient group. rideshare solution. Very cool. Now, with that being said, you asked, When do you think Uber noticed? When we first launched in College Station, I probably say about a year in because it's such a college town, right. Texas a&m University is essentially the whole ecosystem. Yeah, of College Station, hence the name College Station, right. We've, we've serviced and we've taken care. So of so many a&m students, we've essentially kind of taken over that city, where I'm very, fairly confident that that that territory manager for
Cory McKane 15:57
Uber or Lyft, they've noticed they
Matthew Iommi 15:59
noticed that in gross bookings. Gotcha. So that's what I think they first noticed. Now, when it comes to Austin, Austin is so much bigger. Yeah, right. And like you said, we're still new to Austin. So I think we've put a little debt, but I think it's going to take some time for them to, to really notice. They recently came out with a feature called Uber charter. And essentially, what they've done is they've recognized that the group transportation industry is significant. And there's a desire to become the leader and, and a name brand and group transportation. The only thing is that what we've created, is, is, is significantly different than current rideshare models, and difficult, it's a natural moat, around the type of business that we've created. So what Uber charter was forced to do to kind of get into this industry is they're essentially a broker. So you can go into the Uber app, you put in your information, and they'll connect you to a charter transportation company.
Cory McKane 16:58
So they're literally not even doing exactly, exactly. So
Matthew Iommi 17:01
it's not on demand, they'll reach out, you'll hear back in a few days, it's on an hourly basis. Well, if you want to go from point A to
Cory McKane 17:07
point B, that's honestly like, like, kind of tacky. I feel like, because Uber is such an on demand, I feel like that's like just like a gross thing for them to put into their bid. Like why would you even add that
Matthew Iommi 17:17
there's a couple, you know, a lot of people are saying Daraa did it just to boost the stock price, you know, and make the appearance that things are being done. But like, I don't blame him. Uber is a big company, they've got a lot of, you know, issues they're dealing with at the moment. And for them to kind of start this whole other business and model makes it difficult for them. Yeah. Same reason why? You know, Venmo is a vertical of PayPal right at Pay Pal wanted to, they could have kind of figured it out, but they can't have all that focus all those reasons, dedicated to that same reason why Robin Hood is a vertical of TD Ameritrade, right? It's kind of creating these products that are specific towards a certain niche. And that's kind of how you know those, those virtualizations happen.
Cory McKane 17:59
Very cool. Well, I'll say this. I am, I would have never gotten where you guys went. But when I was in college, I drove a party bus for my buddy three times for like that. Because he owned it. I didn't have any money or else I would have bought my own but I wanted to buy a party bus and do it for my because I had a college town to like, Eastern Washington University. There's like 12,000 people when the students are there, and there's like 1000 When the students aren't like, it's literally college town. So I want this funny you guys did that. Um, and then the second thing was, oh, do I just forgot my question is what happens when you host the happy hour? And then the next day you do a podcast. VoiceBase great, happy
Matthew Iommi 18:36
hour, by the way, I
Cory McKane 18:37
appreciate every shoot, man. But no, that's incredible. Do I didn't know that you guys, that was my question. What did you guys do during COVID? Was it kind of like a pause for you? Or what?
Matthew Iommi 18:46
Look, I mean, in any startup? Yeah, there's highs and lows. Yeah. And being in group transportation during COVID was obviously a low.
Cory McKane 18:56
Yeah. Well, are you big enough for governments to be like, Hey, what's this fatty thing doing? Or like, what is that?
Matthew Iommi 19:03
No, but whenever when COVID happened, we were only in College Station. So when schools right, that's I mean, damn near 80 90% of our, our user base that kind of just stuck at home and then evaporated. So So yeah, definitely. We were trying to figure out what was going on. And I think it proves to the resilience of our team. We have a killer team. And kind of, you know, we were able to come out of it. And what's really cool is the way we're able to come out of it is we got a significant contract with the Texas a&m university system. So this is a group. This is a system in which they're above the 11 Texas a&m institutions. Gotcha. Okay. And what we did is we created a side product called edu scan, Fetty scan. And what this product was it incorporated our QR code scanning technology, and allow these institutions to put up QR codes on there. Under doors, on their vehicles, on their whatever, whatever on their laboratories, whatever it may be. And users, kids, whenever school started, they had to scan in to this QR code whenever they entered a classroom or entered any any building, so that if one person tested positive for COVID, they could go into the back end, see all the people who are checked into that room? And notify them say, okay, these are the people who may have been in contact with the code person, they need to go get tested. Interesting. And and so that's kind of that's kind of how we were able to come out of
Cory McKane 20:36
that. Was it? Was that just College Station? Or who has worked with? Yes, I
Matthew Iommi 20:39
mean, we, so we worked with the system. So it was with Texas a&m in College Station in Corpus Christi, in, in essentially, essentially all of them Galveston, and so that contract, but I mean, it's just the ingenuity, right? To, to not say, Okay, I give up, let me go find a job. You know, let's let's, we have to let the team go. It's no matter what figuring out a way because, you know, in any successful startup story, business story, there's going to be those those lows that are really significant. So I mean, to kind of be in this game, you have to have a really high tolerance and, and believe that no matter what, there's a way out,
Cory McKane 21:19
so cool. Usually, usually those stories go along with like, you're doing this and then you pivot, and then this thing goes like this. It's cool that you guys were able to pivot and then go back to the original thing, right? And I'm sure like in those two years, some things of your scanning model improved through the technology that you're able to put into Fetti. Yeah, like,
Matthew Iommi 21:39
and that was a really important thing that I wanted to tell the team and I wanted to tell our shareholders that look, this is something for us to, to survive. Yeah. Right. This isn't the business that we believe in. Gotcha, right. And it would have been very easy to say, Okay, let's forget about this transportation thing. And let's focus and go in on on this COVID thing, because at the time, you would have thought you would have thought anything related to COVID was the future. Yeah, for sure. And you find out that really, it was it was what a two year span, right, two, three years, man. Yeah. And so you know, we had a lot of investors pushing us saying, hey, you know, we really liked this product, I think you should go you know, devote all your resources to it, do it all your time. And I really made the first step the the firm stance and saying, No, this is a temporary solution. Right now, group transportation, transportation, the second largest household expenditure, it's a big problem to big market, this is how we can solve this issue. This is what this company is about. So it was really important you bring up a good a good point that it was could have been very easy for us to
Cory McKane 22:41
share there. Yeah, for sure. Very cool. And with, with the process that you were mentioning, when it comes to scanning, so how does that work? I mean, I've done it physically, but I can't remember because I was drinking each time. So. So let's say there's 10 of us, right? And I go up and I scan it first, let's say the rides $100. There's 10 of us $100 basis symbol. So technically, I would be charged $100 The next person scans the isn't that 5050. Now so
Matthew Iommi 23:11
so what it'll do is it'll everyone will check in, once everyone's checked in, the driver will process the payment. Now, that algorithm will determine what the price per person should be based on the amount of people that are checked in. Gotcha. Right. So it's not a pre checking thing. It's a post checking thing. Gotcha. Okay. So and that kind of makes it a lot easier so that we don't have to say, Okay, if you're gonna book A Fetty, we need to know right now how many people are coming? Right? Because a lot of people don't. If they're with a group, maybe it's six, maybe it's seven, Dojo five. So we kind of have that flexibility, which is a big part of it.
Cory McKane 23:50
So yeah, Okay, gotcha. Very cool. And do you? Do you see, like, Uber or Lyft? Like, offer you guys an acquisition at some point,
Matthew Iommi 23:58
like, I mean, Uber charters already with with Uber charter, they've already made the notion that they want to get into this industry. So it's, it's assumed that they would want to make an offer, whether it's Uber or Lyft, making an offer or whether it's Uber or Lyft, trying to start their own type of group ride share aspect, and then the other making an acquisition to kind of get in the game.
Cory McKane 24:19
That's what you really want. Right? That's where you get
Matthew Iommi 24:22
to third party where, where someone who's not in the rideshare space wants to get their feet wet.
Cory McKane 24:28
So someone like lime that just does whatever they like lime or the big
Matthew Iommi 24:31
one A big one is Ford. Oh, gotcha. Ford is one they try to do there.
Cory McKane 24:37
What kind of vans do you guys use? 15 Passenger for transit. Hey, oh, do exactly Hey, if you work at Ford, you start to spread the word out.
Matthew Iommi 24:46
But yeah, Ford's a good one there was. There was an acquisition they made a few years back called chariot. And cherry was actually a Y Combinator company. They purchased them right after YC for about 65 million. Okay, they were very early on in San Francisco. And what they did is they utilize these 15 Passenger transit vans, but for employee commuting, employee commuting, so so not not on demand not for consumer really focus, it was mostly for people commuting. And they were purchased by Ford. And what Ford realized shortly after, and it's shut down in 2019 is that there's not enough utilizations throughout the day throughout the week for just employees commuting, because you've got you've got, you know, this two hour span in the morning, two hours span in the evening where all your all the vehicles are being utilized. And then they're just sitting idle. Yeah, that's ridiculous. So kind of what we've done is we've kind of come through the back end and built this foundation of on demand group transportation, and complemented it with corporate b2b employees shuttling whether it's shuttling commuting or off site corporate events.
Cory McKane 25:53
That makes way more sense. I mean, like, basically them buying their business. It's like, you can only do it these hours. And you can only do it in major cities. Yeah. And that's your whole
Matthew Iommi 26:01
getting this Yeah. And getting those deals with with company. Yeah. And
Cory McKane 26:05
that bowl shakes. Yeah. What are your What are your offensive those guys? What a not a good business? To invest in anyways, that the for that evaluation? Yeah. Do you? Would you want to have an extra? Or do you want to see this become like a worldwide phenomenon? Like, what is your like, where's your stance up?
Matthew Iommi 26:23
Like, I have the vision that that Fetty vehicles will be the main mode of transportation in every urban city, right? It starts with group transportation group travel with special events, or just night out with friends. And it also plays in with employee transportation, whether it be off site corporate events, commuting for employers, or whatnot, which can also go into kind of a band pool option where people can be grouped up together, going to like place destination. So what I see for Fetty is not just taking care of group transportation, which it is right now, but in the future, taking care of almost all transportation. Yeah, so to answer that question is, it's going to be whatever I think is best to achieve that vision. Right? If I think not, not having that exit, going public staying private, whatever it may be, it's going to be towards achieving that vision, which which I believe our team can do. And with those questions, you know, as well, it's kind of tell me what what's going to happen in two 510
Cory McKane 27:23
years? Exactly. Yeah. You never know. Exactly. You
Matthew Iommi 27:25
never know. So any answer I give you is all bullshit.
Cory McKane 27:29
It's all bullshit.
Matthew Iommi 27:29
You never know. And so that's kind of that's kind of how I answer those.
Cory McKane 27:33
Gotcha. And the do you guys see yourselves? going up or down? capacity was like, do you see yourself having buses? Do you see yours? Or vice versa? Do you see yourself having like a car like an Uber?
Matthew Iommi 27:44
It's a good question. Um, it's a good question. And right now, you know, with these 15 Passenger transit vans, they're so ubiquitous, because they can handle groups as little as six to as high as 14, right 15. And one of the main things that we're trying to do is remove congestion and unnecessary vehicles off of the road. Now, if we need to create kind of an option that kind of grabs that last five 10% By using sedans, yeah, we may, but the primary focus is group transportation, right? 97 hours. On average for each American is wasted per year in traffic. 97 hours of your life that's staring at at red lights in front of you not moving that could have been spent with coworkers building something could have been spent on on building family on lease drive, right? With friends, with your children, whatever it may be. And that that problem of congestion is only getting worse. Yeah, right. People like to say, oh, California has has had horrible traffic. It's not just California. It's coming to every urban city
Cory McKane 28:54
or Santa and Austin, man. It's good. though. I first moved here a year and a half ago, I was like, this isn't that bad? And I'm like, dude, cheese.
Matthew Iommi 29:00
Pie. No. And you know, a lot of these a lot of these vehicles have one person, one person in them, right? It's the amount of space that is wasted is unbelievable. Right? And and kind of what I like to say to people, whenever we're in the office, I say, look down and a lot of people a lot of people like to complain. Oh, these scooters are littering the City sidewalks. Right. Have you heard that before? Well, I
Cory McKane 29:23
lived in Venice, when limes. Berg came out. Yeah, yeah, they're, they're getting kicked over. Yeah.
Matthew Iommi 29:29
And I looked down I say, Look, that's a fine argument. But look on the sidewalk. All these cars that are parked there eight hours a day. It's not being utilized at all. Yeah. And you're not going to tell me that's not
Cory McKane 29:42
it literally 20 times the size of a scooter. Exactly. And so
Matthew Iommi 29:45
kind of in our vision of Fetty we see us removing those vehicles and saying look, you're not utilizing them. Why add depreciation on that vehicle? Why pay for these gas prices? Right? Why sit in traffic not being able to work or do anything else? Yeah, just tax So we can take care of that we can remove these, we can make cities more accessible for all and just improve quality of life. And so that's kind of what the main goal of Fetti is to eventually achieve.
Cory McKane 30:10
Very cool. And I want to touch on hiring now. So a few points on that. The first thing is I'm gonna pull my phone out and pull up my contacts. So you guys have I have Francisco Hector Ike off Main. And Renee on here. Hector has picked me up three times in a Fetty. I've met off man, I think twice and I think Francisco twice. So they clearly have stuck around. So how do you guys how do you guys handle the hiring process? How do you handle like, staffing? How do you handle like training? Like what what is that process? Like for you guys? For the drivers specifically?
Matthew Iommi 30:44
Yeah. So so our drivers, they're independent contractors, okay, this is essentially their business. Right? They rent this vehicle from a PSP. Right, gotcha. Okay. And they keep at their house, they take care of maintenance, it's their vehicle. Exactly. It's like whenever if you're a rideshare driver, and you want to go through the her through her gotcha, right, you can rent this vehicle, but it's your business. And so that's the beauty of and you say, you brought up a point where they've been around for a while shadow Hector? Yeah, they've been around for a while. For, you know, a couple reasons. Obviously, you can't dance around the fact that they're making they're making good money. Right. And that's kind of the attractiveness of the the unit economics of fatty is that our Dre Our drivers are able to generate substantial amount of revenue for their business, because of the unit economics because you're able to fit more people into a vehicle whereas Uber and Lyft drivers whenever you do the math are significantly lower, because you can only take $20 per trip. Gotcha. Right. And so whenever you you take into account gas depreciation, Uber or Lyft. Take, you're going home with a lot less Yeah, right? Not to mention the personal depreciate depreciation on your own vehicle. Right. And so that's been a really attractive thing. And we've had low churn on the driver side, fortunately. Because, frankly, they get to drive they get to make money. It's a lot. It's a better atmosphere when you're dealing with groups. It's less boring. Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure you're always talking to drivers.
Cory McKane 32:15
I'm always in shock. And it's like bullshit. Like, I'm like, Yeah, I was talking to Justin, Matthew.
Matthew Iommi 32:21
And, and then also, it's a lot safer.
Cory McKane 32:24
Because you feel you're like in a bigger, you're in
Matthew Iommi 32:27
a bigger vehicle. But you're also with a group that most of the time holds each other accountable. Right? There's not going to be you know, one sketch person in the back of your car who you don't know what's going on. And then you've got to keep an eye on while you're driving. Yeah, on the other side of that, that we haven't touched on, which is really cool about the model is that each person who checks into the vehicle has the opportunity to tip at the end of the ride. Oh, very cool. Let's write it. So versus Uber and Lyft. We're only the Booker has the opportunity to tip him getting health tips. Now all of a sudden, his drivers have 1011 12 1314 people who have If each person only did 50 cents $1 Yeah, it adds up. Wow. Right. And so so we've made sure you know, everything from our dispatching system to the tip infrastructure, to kind of, you know, how trips are assigned everything like that. It's Ben with the driver in mind, because obviously, those are the ones that are the drivers are the ones that are kind of the backbone of this company
Cory McKane 33:26
actually follow Lika she basically made me but No, she wasn't, she was hilarious. I follow a queen Fetty on Instagram. She's so funny. She's great. This this lady that like drive for Fetty. And she posts everyone she drives to like, take a group photo. And then she'll like, like, by posted message me be like, Oh my God, this was so funny. It's hilarious.
Matthew Iommi 33:47
Now now we have it, we have a great team. Everyone ever, it's just a big family. Everyone holds each other accountable. It's just a good, it's a good atmosphere. It's a good company. And, and hopefully we just keep growing and No, no, it's on us. You know, they're they're doing very hard work. And it's on us to make sure that they've got work for them to do, right. Yeah, sure. We've got users for them to transport and everything like that. So everyone holds each other accountable.
Cory McKane 34:12
Very cool. And what um, what what's your guy's business model? Like, if you don't want to share percentages, that's totally fine. But like, are you just making a percentage of like, each ride booked? Or like, overall? I mean, I guess I guess that's the only option.
Matthew Iommi 34:23
Yeah. Yeah. So it's basically like a platform license licensing fee, where we take a percentage of the revenue on each trip.
Cory McKane 34:31
Gotcha. Okay, gotcha. And obviously, like, the, it's enough so that you guys are obviously profitable, but then it's also enough for them that they're like, very happy doing their job. Yeah.
Matthew Iommi 34:39
Gotcha. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's kind of Justin and I, whenever we started, we didn't have a lot of money. Right. We were coming, you know, shortly after there was COVID. So kind of VC funding wasn't very high for group transportation during COVID. So what that did it force us to really build a lean company, right? We haven't over hired in fact act it's we've made it very difficult to get a job at Fetty we really look for killers. And, and we've ensured that kind of, we've cost kind of where we need to without sacrificing the integrity of the company and its success. And from that we've been able to, you know, as you mentioned, create a profitable company, which is very hard to do for rideshare very hard, very hard
Cory McKane 35:21
for just startups just start Yeah, exactly.
Matthew Iommi 35:26
How much Uber and oh, I'm sure yeah, um, and so with that being said, this kind of leanness to the to the company, has really made us stronger, right. And it's really allowed us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do, which includes being able to give a lot of the revenue to drivers very cool, right, and kind of kind of make sure that they're taken care of because of course, if they're taken care of, then the company can grow.
Cory McKane 35:51
Exactly. Yeah, I do love that. That tip model. It's genius. What so you guys are currently in College Station and in Austin, right College
Matthew Iommi 35:59
Station Austin in Lubbock.
Cory McKane 36:00
Where's Lubbock? I've heard this 1000
Matthew Iommi 36:02
Lubbock, Texas, North Texas, home of Texas Tech University. Okay. Oh, gotcha. 1000 students over there. We started with the college towns Austin, obviously a big metro area and the college towns are just really quick to be profitable in each market.
Cory McKane 36:18
Oh, yeah. What was that dude is like, Yo, what? Just the whole school knows of that.
Matthew Iommi 36:22
Exactly. And so that's kind of been a, you know, a good a good kind of aspect of the business been now, you know, recently we were funded, we got accepted into Y Combinator. And, and so now we're attacking these bigger markets and kind of making kind of the push into the nation.
Cory McKane 36:39
So okay, so I was going to ask is like, we'll ignore the college towns right now. Because I think Austin is like, obviously a much bigger market. It's like it's a big city and it's big in tech right now. So what what steps are you take? Because like, right now, not only are you in Austin, but like you have this like, local feel. Everyone's like, oh, the founders live here, like, oh, there's Matthew and Justin, everything. And then you have the, you have like a good hold on who the drivers are. And like all that stuff. So like, how do you keep that? Like, how do you basically not turn into Uber? Where, where it's just like a shit show? And you're not profitable? And it's like, there's billions of people like, how do you? How do you maintain the Fetty vibes, as you scale is like city by city? Or how do you do it?
Matthew Iommi 37:18
Yeah, no, it's city by city. But you know, more than just going to each city. It's keeping the culture of how you know how it started and how it is, right? To the to this day, even though we've gotten funding and I could go, I can turn around and spend a whole bunch of money just anywhere, why where I want to go, I want to, it's having that, you know, that discipline to hold back and really, really say, Okay, we'll use this, this capital to efficiently go to market with the strategies that have been proven, right, we're not just putting a huge budget in digital advertisement and
Cory McKane 37:53
Facebook ads. Yeah, exactly. We've all we've all done that early on,
Matthew Iommi 37:57
and just seeing what happens now it's sticking to the fundamental fundamentals of the company, and ensuring that we're growing quickly, but also efficiently. Yeah. Right. Because one thing with being profitable is that you hold your destiny in your hands now, you're not at the at the mercy of capital markets. Yeah, right. Ensuring like, Okay, I need to I need to take these actions in my company to ensure I can raise more, even if it may not be the best for your company, you're doing all these different stuff, with a mindset of this will attract investors, which will eventually lead to a down Exactly, yeah. Right. And so it's making sure that we're growing efficiently. And with that being said, one cool thing about the company is that other than a few months ago, when we started implementing new marketing initiatives and strategies, we spent $0 on advertising and marketing. Right, everything and that $0 led to over over half a million passengers transported
Cory McKane 38:54
when what what time period, was it? So that's
Matthew Iommi 38:57
that sense. The sense. So September 2021, is when we are launched in Austin. Okay, so from then between all three cities, about 550,000,
Cory McKane 39:06
and I'm 12,000 of those. And,
Matthew Iommi 39:11
and, and so, you know, to get to that place, without any advertising and marketing, you have to provide a good service. Yeah. And you have to, you have to ensure that it's a problem that actually needs solving, which which we know it is, and what's really unique about this business that I explained to a lot of people is that whenever you convert one customer with Vette you're converting 910 11 Exactly, who are now exposed to the service, right. And so that week over week, exponential growth, just allows the product to grow virally, which is a big benefit to us. And, like I said, a big reason why we're able to be profitable.
Cory McKane 39:48
Well, that's actually my next question that you just saw pulled up to me. You guys have this free ride thing, which I think is fucking genius because it like I don't want to say true Extra, but it really just gets everyone like this before, like, maybe four or five of us could have the app. And then like we could do the booking and figure it out. But when you have when you offer a free ride, everyone gets the app. It's like everyone's gonna get the app. Yeah,
Matthew Iommi 40:14
well, we call it that it's a free account upgrade. Right, your account got upgraded, right? Yeah. And so what we did whenever we start off in a market, is we upgrade kind of these these groups, whether it be a fraternity sorority, organization, a company, right, you know, influencers, whatever it may be, with a free account upgrade that lets them ride for free. Now, here's, here's the part is that it lets them ride for free. If they're riding with someone who doesn't have the account upgrade, and they scan in, they still have to pay exactly right. So it's not like we're giving the whole ride free. Yeah. Now what that does with the person who's an influencer, or trendsetter, let's say are part of this group that tends to go out whatever, maybe they'll say, Okay, I'm with a group of seven, group of weather with 10 or six. Well, I've got this free account upgrade. Let's take this. Let's try it. Yeah, everyone tries it. We didn't lose 100% of the revenue on the trade, because it's only free for that person. And now all of a sudden, with that conversion, we've got 14 new customers.
Cory McKane 41:13
Gotcha. That might have been what it was. Yeah, I think I think like, I think what happened was, I think like, 10 of us in the group had the free upgrade. Yeah. And so we got the free, right. And so it ended up it would maybe it was like 70% or 60%, or something like that. But it was still like it was still cool to see like how that impacted the whole group,
Matthew Iommi 41:29
which, which has allowed it and that's kind of that's kind of one of the it's it's almost similar to kind of Tinder and Bumbles go to market where they would sponsor sororities and fraternities host parties for them, you'd have to download the app to get exact qualities. It's kind of taking a lot of different things. But the same way, how Tinder and Bumble were started by young adults, college students. Yeah, I really, I really don't think this service could have been, well, I don't think this service could have been started by anyone. It's very hard to start. But let alone by an older person who'd kind of doesn't have that insight of how young adults and groups tend to think exactly. And so, for example, a 60 year old executive would have said, Okay, throw all this money, throw millions of dollars into billboards, throw millions of dollars into Google ads, and kind of conventional ways where the ROI might not be as high as kind of these efficient strategies, which we needed to come up with. Because we didn't have the capital. Exactly right. We had to figure out efficient ways to grow this business, because we just didn't have a full
Cory McKane 42:29
you don't have 2 million to put on ads. Exactly, exactly.
Matthew Iommi 42:31
Which has has allowed us to evolve into this profitable company efficiently and company. That's, that's, you know, in a position to grow. Right? So just everything kind of fell into place.
Cory McKane 42:44
I love that man. When you were in College Station, what was that? When you first decided to get the vans, what was that process? Like? Like, why are they I mean, it's great. They're black, and they look sleek. And you have the giant logo on the side? What What was the process of picking a black van? Why 15? Like, what was that process call
Matthew Iommi 43:01
station when we first started we had because because we were putting all our own money in we were going across the country buying whatever we could,
Cory McKane 43:08
oh, you're buying you're just buying vans on like Craigslist,
Matthew Iommi 43:11
exactly. And it wouldn't even be these nice vans that we have now. It would be kind of these 30 passenger shuttles,
Cory McKane 43:19
nice shuttles. Nice. Okay.
Matthew Iommi 43:22
So I was I remember I was traveling to Houston because some dealer had one, or at a 15 Passenger low roof them.
Cory McKane 43:29
Oh, nice, nice, nice, nice.
Matthew Iommi 43:32
Going to wherever I could to find one and put in these deals, these financing deals to add to our supplies, grow demand and grow the business and so cool. And, and so you know, at that time, we were finding anything we can now fast forward to Austin and it's kind of everything's more mature. The Black looks sleek, it looks really sleek. We've got we've got some great vehicles in the fleet. We've got some whitening. Gotcha. So you know, we don't discriminate in terms of that. We just make sure obviously,
Cory McKane 44:00
I'm just saying do I think I'm just gonna be blunt. Like, I feel like the black van is kind of a staple of yours. Yeah, I feel like if I saw a white study ban, I might have seen a gray one. I've never seen a white one. But like when I see a I'm telling you when I see a bullet I don't care what color it is, if I see a black one, it's a Fetty van in my mind. Like I'm just letting you know from like a user perspective, like, like because we saw black vans go and someone's like, well, it's a funny van that drove by. That's from from outside looking in. Yeah, I feel like it has to be black. Just to say it. Well, that's cool, though. So what is the day to day like for you as a CEO? Like are you just are actually how about this question? Do you um, do you ever book A Fetty for yourself? And just like maybe you don't know the driver personally and see what the experience is like definitely like it like Undercover Boss like a secret secret shopper. Yeah, I've
Matthew Iommi 44:48
done that and, and just make sure that the quality I mean, it's important for you know, whatever, whatever company you're in, to keep on trying to serve as in fine iterations. And so there's been plenty of Time is where I'll go, I'll see something wrong. And then we'll we'll communicate to the driver. Hey, whenever you're checking people in, follow this process, you know, we had someone report that you didn't do this or this and kind of just for training purposes, kind of make it more efficient. But yeah, we have done that. And and I think it's a great, great way to improve things.
Cory McKane 45:19
Absolutely. So yeah, so what does it what does it day to day look like for you? Like, just as a CEO for for a fatty?
Matthew Iommi 45:24
Yeah, I mean, look, we're in a startup. So No day is the same. Yeah. Which I enjoy beautiful, which I enjoy
Cory McKane 45:30
every day is different for me. And I'm like, I would hate if every day I do the same thing. Yeah,
Matthew Iommi 45:34
yeah. I mean, some days, there's fires that need to be put out other days, you know, whether it's, it's communicating with our investors, right, whether it's marketing, PR, working with our engineering team, kind of figuring out go to market strategies, trying different marketing initiatives, it's kind of you've got to wear a lot of different hats. Yeah, in this. What's what's fortunate, and I'm really fortunate is that our team is killer. You know, I've mentioned that a couple times. Now. It's definitely not a one or two man show. Everyone firmly believes in the vision of fatty what we can achieve. All the good that we're doing, right, we've removed hundreds of 1000s of vehicles already. Just because of the amount of trips we've transported. We're creating good memories, we're stopping people from driving and drinking. Right. So we're doing a lot of good and that's kind of the mission that we believe in, and everyone, when they come together, there's, I don't think anything we can do. So it's really just ensuring that the company keeps me moving, doing what I need to do as well as everyone else doing what they need to do.
Cory McKane 46:33
Very cool. And when it comes to like, like legalities, like do you guys have? Is it not? It's not illegal, but like, how does it work legally wise to like start this kind of a business? And is that different state for state? Like, can you just be like, I'm also going to do fairly, obviously, we'd be successful, but like, can I just go out there and start doing a van rental service and an app? Like, look, if
Matthew Iommi 46:56
you would ask me that 12 years ago, it'd be a very different answer, versus now when Uber and Lyft have kind of paved the way. Yeah, right. And so what they've done and they've spent billions of dollars, you're like, Thanks, guys. Yeah, exactly. They spent billions of dollars kind of revolutionising what transportation looks like, which has kind of led the path for us. Now doesn't go to say, just like with any company, there's going to be, there's going to be things that we need to to approach. state by state or when we go international. Yeah. Right. Which, which will come to that. But But fortunately, it's the kind of in terms of regulations and policy wise, a lot of it's been already kind of paved,
Cory McKane 47:37
very cool. And when it comes for you, guys, when you when you guys are out there pitching, what will how much have you guys raised so far? And then what are you actually raised so far? Are you raising now? And then what is the kind of like the pitch that you give to investors? Like you're going to chain transportation or changing group? Or like, what is the pitch?
Matthew Iommi 47:54
Yeah, well, I won't say the total amount that we've raised. And, and in terms of kind of what we say to investors is, fortunately, as I said, we're not at the mercy of capital markets. So taking any any money and just taking what I what we call in the industry a dumb money, right? This is no value add money, it's just capital. Yeah, we're not in a position where we need to do that. Right. So it's looking for those strategic investors that can really provide value add, whether it be now or in the future,
Cory McKane 48:26
is that more like an angel, like a VC or like kind of combination of both
Matthew Iommi 48:29
combination of both? You know, we've had some great angels that that have, you know, provide a lot of value add. And, you know, for example, Y Combinator has done phenomenal. In terms of helping us and positioning, are you are you with them right now? Or? Yeah, we're with them. We were in the summer of 2022. Batch. And so the demo day, I think, by the time this airs Demo Day will have happened. So, so that's, that's the, the amount of, you know, effort they've they've given to us, is significant. They put us in contact, I've spoken with the peninsula in contact with the founders of Airbnb, right, founder of Coinbase. Because all these Y Combinator was the investor not only in Fetty, but in Instacart. Right, DoorDash, which are, which are deliveries Coinbase, Stripe,
Cory McKane 49:17
Dropbox, their contact book is endless.
Matthew Iommi 49:21
Exactly, exactly. So they've been a lot of help, and they're great to work with. And so it's finding those strategic investors because if that was just, for example, they invested 500,000. And that 500,000 was coming from just one person who was going to give us the money and just sit back, we wouldn't have taken it exactly. We don't need to we don't need to dilute dilute everyone. We don't need to add people to our cap table who essentially we don't need Dutch, which I think is a lot of people, you know, should understand that that whenever you see in the headlines, oh, this company raised this much amount of money. All I see is that oh this company's founders lost this much amount of back Actually, you know, and so a lot of people like to associate the amount raised with success. When I think people should be, you know, we should acknowledge that it's a big commitment to take, you know, large amounts of capital from people, and you've essentially now owed them, the, you know, you now owe to them that you need to do everything in regards to giving them a positive ROI, for what their fund needs, when it may not be necessarily what's best for the company long term. Yeah. So just a lot of different pros and cons. But in terms of how we go to the investors, we tell them, Look, we don't need your money. You know, this is what the company does tell us how you could help. Right? And if there's a good fit, then we can discuss further.
Cory McKane 50:42
Very cool Are you guys raising right now?
Matthew Iommi 50:44
Not right now. But will this will air after Demo Day, so we are going to start raising middle of September. To help us push into the nationwide expansion. We're looking at a couple of different markets, which include Nashville.
Cory McKane 50:57
Okay, that's a very logical next step for Austin Nashville.
Matthew Iommi 51:00
Yeah, they've got a big group scene, they've got Vanderbilt, Belmont Broadway, it's a growing city. Phoenix is another attractive one for us, as well as just larger markets, like LA, San Francisco, a lot of good ones. But essentially, it's just keep on growing, keep on, you know, providing the service to customers around the world. And keep on aiming to achieve that vision that I mentioned, where every urban city is utilizing Fetty primarily for all their modes of transportation.
Cory McKane 51:28
That's awesome. And I am not gonna say anything, but like, This podcast is only been live for the month of August, and we've already had one of our episodes have to VCs reach out to invest. So let's just say it Yeah, we don't get we don't get in the same direction. Want to find that for the other one? But no, I, we're not. We don't have tons of views yet. But the views we have are pretty quality people I will say
Matthew Iommi 51:53
you've done a spectacular job of kind of making your mark making your awesome scene. Because when did you move here? Like a year and a half ago, a year and a half ago. And now everyone in the startup scene knows your name.
Cory McKane 52:06
I'm doing my best to say everyone in the startup scene like pre series A knows. I'm trying to wear you Series C founders. So let's talk where are you? They're hiding in the cracks of Austin. We appreciate it, man. We're just trying to network and grow my you know, that has been great. Yeah, you guys are always welcome at all my events and everything. So yeah. So what I was going to ask about in regards to the fundraise, so you're gonna have all this money ideally, and like keep growing. At any point, does it make sense to own the fleet of vehicles?
Matthew Iommi 52:38
Good question. And something that we have thought about? It's just it's very capital intensive.
Cory McKane 52:46
It's a big headache. Is it worth the headache? Like price? Well, yeah,
Matthew Iommi 52:51
right now it's not Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like I say, you know, you asked me in 510 15 years exactly if things change. So is it out of the question now, right now, we do see ourselves primarily sticking to the fact that we're a technology platform. Yeah, that partners with these fleet owners, and gives them the ability to utilize them to maximize the utilization of their 15 Passenger transit man,
Cory McKane 53:14
they're probably they're probably pumped. Yeah. They're like, Thank God, we were going out of business, the growth
Matthew Iommi 53:20
that we've given to our PSPs I mean, these are solid cashflow businesses, and they're making, you know, providing these vehicles to our franchises to our drivers. And we've got a lot of PSPs just putting in orders for new ones just keep on growing their fleets. So cool. And so we're really, you know, we're not only giving opportunities, you know, job opportunities to our kind of full time Fetty team, but also to the PSPS, who are entrepreneurs creating their own businesses, as well as the drivers who are also creating their own businesses. So it's kind of a really nice network where we're providing a lot of opportunities to a lot of people. And that's kind of the goal with a lot of companies and with us, it's kind of, you know, positively impacting the economy and making sure that a lot of people have these opportunities, and a lot of people are happy with
Cory McKane 54:05
them. Absolutely. And I hope we I definitely enjoy the experience. I hope we have some videos that you guys have. She has videos of like the experience happening, and I would love to see early photos of your guys first bands if you have those. Yeah, I'm up on it. Let me know if you have you can find that. Yeah, yeah,
Matthew Iommi 54:20
no, I can find them. And when we first launched, I'll send a picture when we first launched in Austin. What we did is we partnered with a rental company called caps. And we would just rent out their vehicles, probably like 567 of them when we first started and just utilize those had drivers
Cory McKane 54:41
didn't say caps on it or what No, it
Matthew Iommi 54:43
didn't say caps we would buy. We would buy stickers and just throw on Fetty on them. And so I've got I've got a picture that I'll find where I'm in the parking lot of caps. Kind of it might have been the first day of the Austin law. Yeah. So we can plug that in. So amazing. And then me Maybe I'll try and find some early on pictures where we were using those shuttle buses in college stations. So
Cory McKane 55:04
if you have a picture of you as a baby with like a van toy, that'd be cool.
Like, it was three years old.
So it's amazing. So last question here. Where's this? Forget audio still and we're good. Where is? Where's transport? Sorry? Where's Fetty? going next? Like, what's your guy's next move? Never let him know your next move. Maybe?
Matthew Iommi 55:30
I don't know. No, no, I mean, look, the next move is essentially keep on going towards a vision of every urban city. And so what that looks like, is growing our presence in Austin. We still I mean, there's still so much growth left to do in Austin. Oh, yeah,
Cory McKane 55:43
you guys will you guys will keep like more people will find out right, we've just
Matthew Iommi 55:46
touched on. As I mentioned, we're just now getting everything has been word of mouth and organic growth. Now we're putting capital into different marketing initiatives to determine the customer acquisition cost for these initiatives, what the ROI looks like how much capital we should put into them, so that whenever we go into these other cities, we already have the blueprint. Yeah, exactly. And so already, we've got a good playbook that we got from College Station, Lubbock and Austin of kind of how to enter that go to market strategy, primarily starting with these hubs of 20 to 30,000 customers, college university hubs,
Cory McKane 56:17
like hubs, like kind of surrounding the exactly the kind of tackle.
Matthew Iommi 56:22
Exactly. So we attack these hubs very efficiently with that free account upgrade that you mentioned. And now we're kind of implementing these different strategies to know how to attack the kind of the broader market, which is, for example, US groups like us, you go out, and everything of that sort, whether it's going to the lay co working, co working events, off site, corporate events. And, and with that blueprint, now we can go into these new cities. And look, this is what we did here. Some things are gonna have to be tweaked for certain cities logistically how they're set up, but this is kind of the blueprint, and this is how we scale so cool. I think that's important because, you know, we're not just taking a whole bunch of capital, and just letting it out. Yeah, sticking to our foundation and knowing this is the capital we have, this is how we use it, this is what it'll generate. And from that, which we haven't even discussed, we're able to be profitable in a market within three to three and a half months. Right, just with that current blueprint that we have very cool and so it's just repeating that and keep on growing so cool,
Cory McKane 57:20
dude, thank you, man. So now it's appreciated. Yeah. Yeah, so fun. That's why we strive guys. There we go. I was driving
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