In today's episode Michael and Erin hit it off with Taly Matiteyahu, an extremely inspiring second-time founder who left her law career to pursue something more fulfilling. After a revelatory experience at a blackout restaurant, Taly decided she had to bring assumption-free connection to the masses through her revolutionary dating app, Blink. As a non-technical founder Taly has successfully built her business from the ground up (all while working full-time btw) and is here today to share how she did it.

https://www.theblinkdate.com/

Transcript :

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, app, dating, dating app, person, folks, find, bit, delays, communication, blink, struggle, long, company, bumble, invested, lawyer, monetize, hard, build

Hi, everyone. Welcome to call me crazy. I'm Aaron Master, Pietro joined with Michael Benatar. And this is call me crazy, where we interview inspiring entrepreneurs like today's guest, Tali Mata Yahoo, who is a lawyer turned dating app founder who's balancing a day job and self funding and building a really cool company, Tali, we're really excited to hear about what you've built, and have you on the show today. Welcome. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. So tell us tell us about the journey to this new app. And I'm excited to talk about that. But I want to hear how you got to that point. Yeah, so I've actually wanted to build this app for many years or build this concept. It was born in 2012, after I ate it a blackout restaurant and got to know people by dining in the dark not seeing them. Also, it's like pitch black, right? You're just black can't see can't see your hand in front of your face. Literally nothing. Your I was just, where's that? How was the food chain? Like was it more intense when you're eating? The food was not notable. But what is it was notable about the food was it you don't realize how many times you like when you can see, you can see whether or not there's food on your fork, you put it in your mouth, you put you put out an empty fork in your mouth a lot when you can't see, because you're not paying attention, you don't know what you're standing on the plate, that sounds dangerous. So you definitely the dining experience was like eye opening, you know, obviously not eye opening, the opposite, metaphorically eye opening. And a sense that, you know, you realize how much you take advantage as a sighted person, you know, you can see what you're eating, you can see how much food is on your board. See if there's good on your fork, you know, where your cup is, you know, where your silverware is. So it was definitely a an incredible experiences that a center for the Deaf and the Blind. And the idea was to help you know, folks understand what is it like to not be a gold in a certain way. And so it was truly amazing. And the experience was communal. And they let us know, you know, if you want to share your experience with people at your table, you can if you don't want to you don't have to. But something sparked a conversation between us and we just started talking and it was, you know, it was just crazy how quickly we were able to open up to each other. And we didn't have any assumptions about who the other person was, because we couldn't see them. We weren't worried about what we look like. And it was just an incredible dinner. And I saw the couple afterwards. And I realized I would have assumed we had nothing in common just based on what you look like, what you're wearing, what your style is, you know, and other facets like people make make those assumptions based on race, ethnicity, age, all of these different things that it's really keeping us from connecting. And so since then, I was like I must, I must like create the site, this this system where people can meet in the dark, and I feel like now the comparable example is Love is blind on Netflix.

03:18

Yeah, so I've had this idea for a long time that I saw that the love is blind on Netflix. And I was like, Okay, well, they made it happen. Obviously, for a reality TV show my idea. My hope was to do like live events in the dark, sort of similar to the dining experience, but then COVID hit and I was like, Okay, well, that's not really scalable. Anyway, so how can I make this happen? in this modern age, and so it came to me doing an audio od only blind speed dating app. I love the idea of audio only blind speeding data. And Was this your first company idea? Or had you thought about building code? Because it seems like you were very crisp and clear that you wanted to bring this to the world after you experienced the blind dining? Is it your first idea, your first time entrepreneur? I guess it's so it's I guess it's not my first so I also created a dog treat bag in 2015 to 2017. And yeah, as you know, I'm a dog dog mom. I've got two pups, one of them is very anxious and high strung and so I had kept making these little tree bags where I'm on my own. I was like, Well, why don't I just try, you know, making these and selling me. So that was my first venture not, you know, a tech company, not an app. So it's a tangible product, which is very different experience. Totally and with the dating app now. It's called blink day calm right the blink day calm. Yeah. What What do you see as like the results after the dates because I think a lot of people watch Love is blind. There was a very intense connection right away. It seems like it seems like you can really dive deep when you don't see that person. And it's almost in a way like everything's going a little more old school. Because now we're like drifting away from like, Alright, let's get away from like seeing people even though we have these great screens in our face. You know, clubhouse is really popular right now.

05:00

How are those connections? Like post app? Have you followed up with anybody using the app? Now, so we're just in our, we're about to launch our beta. So we haven't had we have though, in the meantime, because we wanted to kind of test out the concept and expose people to the idea of getting to know someone in this audio only world. And we've done this a podcast called dating a blank, and we've paired people for their 10 minute audio dates. And we have a couple episodes out, and we have some more coming out. And we do plan to follow up with the couples who matched on that to see how it went from there. But we're giving them a little bit of time. Before we do that. Can you walk us through like just quickly how the app works? Is it like, yeah, mobile app? And then what does that first date look like? Can it only be 10 minutes? And then do you get to see their face after or like, find out their name, I guess, eventually, then you can just go Google them.

05:48

Yeah, so yeah.

05:51

So we want to prevent that, because we want people again, to kind of get past those assumptions that they would make based off an Instagram profile. Because to be honest, Instagram versus reality is a real thing. You're only presenting a facade to the world.

06:03

And so what the way the dating app works is you put in very basic parameters, when you sign up your age, your sexuality, your gender, your age, preference, your geographic proximity, you know, of folks that you're interested in, and we match based on those we're not doing anything about like profession, or education level, or ethnicity or race like, to us, none of that, you know, matters when you actually have a connection with someone. And so people put that information in when they sign up, and then they let us know when they're available. And based on their availability, we match them with folks that met match their criteria, they have their 10 minute date is only 10 minutes. And one of the reasons for that is is well, statistically, people make a decision on traditional dating apps within four seconds. So Wow, a lot longer than you get on a normal dating course.

06:52

fee of 10 minutes for your day. You know, we might play with that time folks think it's too short or too long. But through our podcast, we you know, we've surveyed our participants, and a lot of them think it's the perfect amount of time because you get a good sense of whether there's conversational chemistry within 10 minutes. And so after the date, you get sort of like when you get out of an Uber, you get a little you know, pop up on your phone saying evaluate your ride, give it a rating, your driver rating, you're doing something similar for your date, we have a little field for notes, if you want to jot something down, but you let us know, you know, you definitely want to talk to this person, again, you might want to talk to them, or you definitely don't want to talk to them again. And in addition to that, because we know love is in blind, we do what we call glances where we show folks, nameless photos, so there's no googling and trying to connect the dots between people. They're nameless photos with very basic parameters, I did forget to mention that during the signup, we asked people's smoking, drug habits, lifestyle type things that might not, you know, make make folks not compatible. So that'll show up with the photo. And folks will do the same kind of evaluation of you know, definitely interested might be interested if we have a connection and not so interested. And if you match on both of those things, then you have a match, and you're able to chat in the app until you're ready to take it offline. And did you have a lot of experience with the other dating apps, I actually did not in the context of dating, but I did in the context of like Bumble BFF, like trying to find social connections. And I personally found it really overwhelming even for that. So I can't even imagine the dating, kind of trying to use it to find a partner.

08:24

And maybe it's just me because I have a terrible memory when I match with someone and start messaging with them. And three days go by, I would have to then go back to their profile when I reopen the message and try to remember who it was that they were and what we were talking about. And then kind of pick up the thread of the conversation. And when you have, you know, 510 conversations ongoing. It's really hard to do that. So I really struggled with that. Personally. We We both met on a dating app. Four years ago. The league. Oh, awesome. Yeah. So we met on a dating app. And I think I mean, I don't know we're both in LA so dating in LA is all of us are all of us are in LA dating in LA is a lot weirder than a lot of people think it's a very weird city. Weird, interesting people all over the place. So I'm sure we both went on a lot of dates. And dating through the apps was I don't know I guess it's hard because you have you commit to going to meet these people all the time and we never that's that's a big commitment. Yeah.

09:25

Beside Yeah, you don't want to meet but it is interesting because we never even decided to have like a phone call or anything before it was just like this cold way and and with your app, it makes so much sense. Like let's have a phone call. Let's see like how this could actually be or what our conversation would be so it's not awkward. When you show up and I know there's a lot of texting, you're going off the app and texting. But I never felt like I was getting to know somebody even more through the text is just like let me just meet you. Are you a weirdo? Are you not weird? I would just go straight to the date to usually and I was like really open to it but I know a lot of people hated it.

10:00

They didn't want to get ready for a day. It was like no other day. It was like work, but I just looked at it like, Okay, I'm going out to dinner, get a drink, like how bad could it be? And like, luckily, I didn't have any terrible, terrible dates, like, obviously some most were bad. And then Luckily, I met Mike.

10:13

But yeah, I think getting a little bit of, you know, emotional connection ahead of time might save you time going across town to meet them in person. Was there any scientific like evidence behind a lot of the the date this dating app? Because I feel like there was something there. That's, like, a little bit more special than just the text in the you're seeing the photos and all those triggers that are like, Oh, you know, well, not good. Swipe left, swipe right.

10:39

Yeah, there's a, there's a psychology behind people becoming more attractive to you, as you get to know them and have deeper connections, which is why, you know, you might meet someone and be friends with them for a couple years before you realize I have a romantic interest within them, or you know, less than a couple of years more than a couple of years. It's because that's like that, that attraction grows. And so. And on the flip side, when you are really, really attracted to someone, you actually tend to overlook things that might be a red flag or character misalignment, or value misalignment. And so, there's a lot to be said, for making a connection. First, seeing if you have those alignments before you kind of jump into everything else, which is kind of how traditional dating apps work. Now, you know, swipe, swipe, swipe, you have some messages. conversational chemistry via text, I think is also not as representative of chemistry in real life, not to say that audio is you know, exactly the same as in real life. But it's a lot easier to see if you have that, that banter that level of kind of connection, because, you know, folks don't have hours to contemplate how they're going to respond to a message. So it's just a little bit more stimulative of real life to have an audio conversation rather than text conversation. And so think the other thing just to mention, in this COVID world, as people are taking things a little bit slower in terms of meeting in real life, it's actually created what is being called like a slow love movement. And people are getting to know folks more before meeting in person. And that actually means that when they do meet in person, they have a higher level of investment and the person that they're meeting because they're not just a random person that they swiped on chatted with a little bit on an app. And now we're meeting in person, there's somebody that they've already gotten to know a little bit, and it's making those dates more successful. And that isn't to say, Aaron, I actually really love the idea of like, you know what, I'm going to get ready and go for this date, because I think dating should be fun, and we shouldn't put so much pressure on it. So I still think folks should take that mentality and just go on dates, because you can learn something about other people about yourself, even if it's not going to be a romantic connection, they might be a really great person for you to lose money. But in terms of just kind of making it a more efficient process, spending 10 minutes upfront, before you kind of dive into everything else can weed out a lot of bad apples and save you a lot of time. Absolutely no, this is an approachable time, like you could do anything for 10 minutes, whenever, when I was listening to that it was making me think of house hunting, because house hunting became the same way recently, where you got to make sure you really like it like you got to schedule time, maybe review it a little bit maybe drive by, it sounds so similar.

13:07

Actually, Matt, actually matches the photos. Yeah.

13:12

So fun. Um, I'd love to get into a little bit more behind the scenes of how you as a non technical founder, like built this app, because I know a lot of I have a friend who built

13:22

a wedding planning app. And she's non technical. And it takes a lot of like management and like finding the right resources. So tell us a little bit about how you fit that in with your job and where you started and where you're at now with the with it about to launch. So it's really hard, I think there are three options. When you're a non technical person who wants to build something, you can either learn how to build something, which is also really hard. And you know, there are boot camps and resources online. And some people managed to figure that out. But I did not have the bandwidth to do that. The next option is paying someone like in house or trying to you know, hire someone to be part of your team or find a co founder who technical I think that's really hard too, because most of the time folks who kind of become founding partners with one technical one non technical, they've worked together in the past. So they already have an existing relationship, they share the same passion for the idea. If you have an idea, and you're trying to find somebody to be your partner, and you don't have anyone that you work with that has that passion, it's really hard to just find a random stranger who's a technical person who's like, Yes, I will do this work for a minimal amount of money or for equity. And so and you don't know the person very well. So it's hard to get to that point. And the third option is outsourcing it. And that is the option I ultimately went with, because it was the only one that really I could do. And from there, you can, you know, look in the United States or whatever it is that you're based, or you could look offshore and in the United States costs way, way more to the point where it wouldn't have been affordable for me. And so what I ended up doing is finding a dev shop with a project manager who's based in Los Angeles, has teams offshore. And so he he works with those teams directly. He's done projects with him.

15:00

Over time, he has those relationships, but he's based in LA. So it's easier for us to kind of communicate in our timezone and be able to kind of,

15:08

you know, have somebody who understands what we need to do, and then he communicates it to the team offshore. It does have some ups and downs, and I'm problems. I'm happy to dive into those. But yeah, that's what we ended up doing. So with the the communication, because I feel like that's the hardest part. Because with us, we have, you know, teams kind of all over. But what I've noticed the most is the communication and trying to get it as clear as possible to that person. And that always less back and forth. Yeah, just because it doesn't seem and edits and revision. Yeah, it just seems hard sometimes to actually get it all the way through and figure out okay, this is this is what I was really trying to say, but they're not there in person. And like Aaron and I obviously we live together date, you know, everything. So it's easy to communicate. But I do notice that struggle with people overseas or even in in LA that I'm just not communicating with on a daily basis. Has that slowed it down a little bit? Or have you figured out a great way that we need that steal from you to communicate, because I cannot do it? Well. So the challenge that I was referencing was the communication challenge. And I think actually, and I love that we have a project manager in LA that makes it possible for us to communicate in our timezone and our language, but it's actually created this like game of telephone. And that's delayed communication, it's kind of things get sometimes lost. And our development is significant delay significantly delayed from what we initially kind of planned for. And recently, we sort of just talked to him, we said, Look, this is something's not working here, we need to be able to talk to the team directly. And so we actually added the project manager that they have on the ground, they're not the actual developers, but we now have conversations directly with the project manager there. And it has really, really changed the kind of quality of the deliverables, the communication, how much information we're getting. And I think the the other side, the flip side is he actually sees that we're real people. We're not just people that his boss talks to, and he sees what our passions are, and he gets more invested in it. And so having that direct line of communication has made a huge difference. And I think if you are, you know, planning to, you know, outsource to a dev shop that's offshore, trying to have that additional layer of communication, if you can, I think there's some resistance sometimes because they're like, oh, no talk to the person in the US. But building that relationship with the person who's actually working on your app is really important and valuable. Yeah, because it becomes like telephones like, oh, let me tell you this. And then you tell that person you tell that person and then yeah, just remove time in between all of those communications, like it adds up over Oh, for sure. Especially when you're trying to launch something. And are you currently just a web app? Or are you going to launch on iOS and Android are not going to be a web app? We're just going to be Android and iOS? Okay. No foreseeable future. Okay, cool. What's the timeframe for that? Usually, you know, how long ago did you start developing like, till so we started development in June, who was supposed to take three months? As you can see, we are well past that now. And some of those delays are, you know, due to what's going on in the world COVID teams offshore, you know, access to Wi Fi isn't as consistent as it might be here, people getting sick. And so there all sorts of reasons that, you know, one might expect delays. But we're, we're, we're a little bit past that now. And we're really hoping to kind of wrap things up soon. We're actually in bug testing now. So we're in good shape, and well, with with all the apps because there's a ton of dating apps. I like I really do like your idea because it's it's so specific. And it's very, like almost so trendy right now, because clubhouses, popping off everybody's clubhouse. clubhouse is not monetized yet. How do you plan a way to monetize the app.

18:40

So just like any dating app, we'll have like a free tier and a premium tier. And the premium tier will allow folks to, let's say, filter for folks who don't smoke, I, for example, wouldn't necessarily on match with somebody smoke. So being able to set those filters. So we'll have a premium model with additional features. We'll also potentially, you know, consider advertising and how that can fit into the experience without ruining the user experience. I think that's something that other apps do in various forums. So we'll we'll explore that. We also down the line once COVID has settled down, would love to do live events still. So that could be a source of revenue for us. And then we are doing our podcast and you know, to the extent that we get advertisers on there, we'd be really excited. But either way, we're loving doing our podcast. So that's been a great opportunity to what was your thought process to you know, what point do you want to monetize it? Because I think there's a, I guess, not a struggle, but you know, pricing is always such a hard thing. We we developed the product and we were struggling, okay, what's the price? This is what, you know, standard pricing is but do we go a little higher, a little lower? How well did you have any struggle figuring out okay, we are going to monetize it, or did you want to go the free route for a little bit just to gain the user traction, and then see how it went and then maybe charge them what's what's kind of the plan there. I think

20:00

It's a struggle. I agree. I think in the dating space, thankfully, there are a ton of data points in terms of how different apps do it. And I don't necessarily know if it I'd be able to dig into the timeline for when they launched a premium tier versus their free tier. But something I never actually really thought of doing. But maybe I'll try digging into it more.

20:18

I don't. Right now, I think we're hoping that our next set of features will be able to allow us to monetize, but we haven't decided, like, do we want to do this yet? Or do we want to kind of let folks enjoy the experience at this free level for a little longer, before we add this extra layer, it all depends on kind of the attraction and what we need to continue to build. And so if we are able to, you know, have a revenue stream from someplace else that supports the continuation of the app, then we can certainly keep it free for longer. It's always an interesting idea, too, because Amazon went at it, it's like we're gonna be a loss leader, we're gonna try to gain as much traction as possible, be as cheap as possible give you free shipping, you know, do everything we can to attract the users.

21:01

Yeah, get them addicted, get them hooked. And that is with like, right now clubhouse, I don't know how they're, they're valued at like, a billion or 20 billion, whatever they're valued at right now. There's only 20 million users on the app, and they're valued well over a billion dollars. How, like, for me thinking about it? Yeah, I would be stressed out all the time, because I don't know how I would go about doing that and figuring out the exact way of because it can also be like a premium app, where you do pay right away and you get into it like a procreate. Like, you know, if you want to draw on your app, like this is the one you want to use, because has all the features you pay for it, and then you get it. But we paid for the league, and it was a waitlist to get in it made it feel like more desirable app like oh, I better like I'm lucky to be on this one. Like, I'll pay whatever it takes. If I can get a tiebreaker, right. That's kinda how clubs started a little bit like you had to get an invite. But now anyone? Yeah, well, it's like, it's still an invite only. But for you, are you going to cry? Like, crowdfund? Are you going to raise any capital to maybe fund it a little bit? Or what are your plans there? I mean, you don't have to, like, tell us everything. I'm just curious. Maybe.

22:06

We're thinking about it. So we're hoping sometime this year to either take a small business loan, and the benefit there is that you don't have the answer to investors or go the investor route, whether it's trying to do kind of an angel round or a seed round. And so we're exploring our options and trying to figure out, you know, what will situate us for the best scenario down the line, and we're, we're not sure quite yet, we're kind of weighing the pros and cons of each. And, you know, both of them are going to be a process. And we want to be able to demonstrate kind of success through the beta. And so we're kind of going, I think, see how the beta goes. One of the challenges with our beta and a dating app, though, is really getting the users and in such a great, such a crowded space, it's a challenge, because how do you rise above the noise. And then in the dating space, specifically, we actually cannot advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, until the app is launched. Because the they all have restrictions against eating apps, because they want to prevent lewd content and appropriate, you know, interactions and so on. So they need to be able to approve it and review it. And so we haven't been able to do any paid marketing. And so we're in this place of like, Well, you know, we haven't been able to advertise all of our growth has been organic, our waitlist is entirely organic. You know, how do we want to approach that this beta period, once we have an app? Do we want to, you know, really throw money at paid marketing so that we can increase the user base on a dating app, you really need that two sided marketplace to be successful. And so we're in this place of trying to figure all of that out so that we can prove out the concept and then get funding in one form or another? Yeah, we actually just, we're in our first round of raising capital for our company, dope dog. And we did it on a crowd investing platform. So that's kind of nice. It's a it's a public safe note or crowd safe note. And with that, ask what platform I'm just super curious. It's called Republic. I think it's probably got SEO or IO. I think it's SEO Republic that SEO. And we're currently in that we're about the end in like 25 days or something. But we liked it because it felt like we were getting customers and people that were truly interested and want to be a part of this, instead of us like trying to find investors and we had plenty like I would say, over a hundreds of calls with investors about getting people invested into us. But for us, we were so small that everybody wanted to invest more, you know, and that would dilute our equity. So for us, it didn't make sense to go with say somebody wanted to invest a million dollars that that we can't do that because we don't want to give up all that equity. And they made it easy as a first time raise for us being able to kind of help us draft the terms and you know, walk through it a little bit. I think it was a great first round option, at least for us. Yeah, especially just to kind of you out there. Now we were also three and a half years in to dope dog but this is when we decided

25:00

We kind of want to do this. And I'm sure, you know, putting your your dating app up there, I think would be a hit for sure. But it's it always is, it's so up to you how you want to do it. And that's the struggle. It's like, what's the best choice? And we didn't even know if this was going to work. We were scared. We're like, I don't? Is anybody gonna invest? And luckily, people did. But it's scary. And I think it's Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say it's a good alternative marketing.

25:26

Avenue, because like yourself, we can't run paid ads. So we can but that Yeah, but yes, but yeah, we're like in a regulated industry. So getting creative and thinking outside the box and finding, you know, more ways to reach more people. Absolutely. And I was just giggling, because what you were saying about, you know, you don't know necessarily what's the best route, I feel like, it's sort of like student loans, where you're just like, I just need money, I don't really need to think about what it means down the line, I'm not gonna think about what I have to do when I need to repay it. And all of a sudden, you graduate four years later, and you're like, Oh, crap, now I understand what all of that money really means, and how it's going to look for me for the next, you know, 1030 years and paying this off. And I think it's the same thing with a business. at certain point, you're just like, I just need money to scale this concept. And you're not necessarily thinking about, if I take it in x form from x person with this these terms, what does that mean, for me down the line, because you don't necessarily, you know, as a first time founder, at least, I don't necessarily understand the ins and outs of everything, or how I should be structuring everything. And so you learn the hard way. You shouldn't shouldn't have done. And so it's something that, you know, I've made mistakes in my in my time, you know, leading blink, but I'm trying to be more mindful, especially around funding, because it's stressful, and I don't want to, you know, turn around in 10 years and be like, that was a huge mistake to go that route. I think the thing that helped us the most was we went through an accelerator, and I think it ended right when COVID hit so we did it early, or late 2019. It's early 2020 of last of last year. And I thought that helped us understand a lot and also get in front of a lot of people to pitch, which was our hardest. I think the hardest part for us was to pitch the company and sell it and understand how to do that. And for me, I mean, I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs and people starting businesses are listening, but going through it sound it sounded silly at first, because I didn't understand what it was like, Okay, we got an idea. We're already selling it, how's this gonna help it? But I think understanding those basics that helps the most when sometimes you already think you're past that, because I was thinking about it with like, I went to film school, I think a lot of people that didn't go to film school, don't understand the technical aspect of creating a film. But when you watch film, you think you know, film, but you really don't. And I think that's the same way with business. You made a business, you might not know really how this business works. Yeah, how you got there. And then when you understand, it's like, oh, maybe I really have something here because people actually like it. And now I can just accelerate that fire a little bit. I'm just ranting. I don't know. I bet that was just my thought on it. I've just it's so like, you're in such an interesting spot. I'm excited for you. I think the app is the blink is is going to be great. Because it's very, like it's so trendy right now. And I think it's gonna be a hit. So I'm excited when it launches. Yeah, I wish we were single. So we could go on and date.

28:15

Like a friend version down the line? Yeah, we actually we do have plans not necessarily to kind of mirror via Bumble BFF. But we do have plans and desires to expand beyond the dating vertical, because we think this concept of getting past looks based assumptions. And getting to know people applies in every aspect of life. So yep, yeah, even in hiring, what you think about the Bumble BFF? Because I think at some point, it was like pitch to you to almost like, get on it as like a business owner or find people in your town, but I never felt like me meeting another dude on there was like, is that really gonna happen? Like, does he actually want to be my friend? Or is he one day, I've heard people meet other people through Bumble BFF. Like I've spoken to people who've had success, I think in those scenarios, basically, every time it was somebody who moved to a new city, and really made a commitment to meeting new people, but I remember in my experience, I did meet with some of the people that I connected with on Bumble BFF. And nothing came of any of those relationships. And I think, like I was living in New York, I lived in New York for 10 years, I just kind of wanted to meet new people outside of my little, you know, school bubbles and work bubble. And I think I just maybe wasn't as invested as I needed to be in order to really like, and I didn't have the time for me getting 16 people being like, hey, let's get something let's get something to eat this week. It's like, No, I have time for one person. Because I had everything else around me, you know, my life already set up. Whereas if you move to any city and you're looking for new friends, or you're really invested in it for some other reason, you know, in the dating context, you know, you want to find a partner, then you're you're, you know, approach to it is going to be a little bit different. So I think it can be successful, but it requires a lot of time and commitment and the beauty of blink again, you could do it from your couch. It's 10 minutes long, and we hope to in the dating context to tackle that but obviously be

30:00

On one day, I love it. I think it's a great idea. Do you want to ask the question, babe? Yeah, so we always like to ask our guests what their call me crazy moment was, maybe you're in it, maybe you have one but it's kind of like when you veered off and did something and kind of, you know threw everyone for a loop. I mean leaving legal practice I would say is the moment that I was like Call me crazy, but I'm, you know, a year and a half into being a lawyer and hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt, and I'm done with it. And

30:29

I didn't know exactly what my life would look like after leaving law, I plan to be a lawyer since I don't even know High School, maybe even before and, you know, I invested so much time so much money into it, and within months realized I didn't want it. And so I was worried about what other people would think I was worried about my parents, worried about colleagues, my old classmates, and I just realized, none of it was worth it. It wasn't worth the money. It wasn't worth you know what people thought of me, I was too young to spend the rest of my life unhappy. And so it's like, call me crazy. But I'm just going to quit and find something that brings me more joy. And in that journey, I also realized, you know, it would be fine if what I did next I didn't enjoy either, because I'm still young. And I could still pivot again. And I can learn from every experience and keep moving forward. And we don't have to be married to the thing that we're doing at any given time we can we can keep growing from it. And it might be hard because people don't necessarily give you the benefit of the doubt when you're trying a new career path. But it's possible and you just need to find the right chances. How long did it take you to actually quit? Like, was there a six month period where you're like, I gotta get out of here. I'm done. I lasted a year and a half, I quit within a year and a half. So

31:41

I think it was pretty quick. But at the time it felt like

31:45

well, it's a win. You were in there for a year and a half. Was it your wait one month, way before you were about to quit, like, you know, whatever, 14 months in or something? We're like, Okay, I got it. I gotta get out of here. I think I'm done. I think I'm gonna go find my next venture. What was that like point? Because it wasn't the first day. It was like, over the course of that year and a half, you're like, Look, I've been in it for you know, you went to school for law school. And I didn't enjoy law school, either you think that would have been a red flag. But they kept saying it's not representative of real practice. But real practice, I would say is worse. And I think I think so I started the firm job, I think it was like October because they usually you know, you graduate and then you have a few months off. They started in October, I think by December I was like I'm this is not for me. And I need to figure out, you know, an alternative. And there was a lot of soul searching in between in terms of like figuring out what that next step would look like, I was living in Manhattan. So I didn't have the luxury of saying I'm gonna quit my job and you know, be unemployed until I find the next thing. And so I was really lucky. It took me I think about a year to find something. And I think part of that time was defining what it was that I wanted to do. And then part of the time was, you know, actually interviewing and finding something. So again, it felt like a really long time. But looking back, it wasn't, it wasn't as bad as it could have been in terms of getting out. And there's so many people still in a job they don't want years later. And hearing stories like yours is really inspiring, because I totally understand and sometimes it's tough to, you know, rip the band aid off a lot of the long and, you know, a lot of people don't want to take that risk either to just jump off and you know, do something else. Because you've invested so much time in that risk is a scary point of I'm going to go do this and you know you're working Where are you working now you don't have to say what you're doing. But you're working a full time job and starting, I am working I'm doing I'm a product manager by day it'll legal tech company and doing blink by night so and what I was doing before being a product manager was legal operations. So it's like applying legal tech and different spaces, making teams more efficient working cross functionally. And I was still using my law degree. I think it was actually it really served me well when I was applying because it gave me a lot of credibility.

33:55

But thankfully was not practicing was not drafting agreements without negotiating anything, which was, you know, so much better for me. I feel like lawyers are the one career where you always hear like, Oh, yeah, I was a lawyer or I was a doctor. And I left to go do something like totally different. Because it I don't know what it is like you guys go through all this schooling and you're like, this is this is done. I'm done with this. I'm gonna go do something better. But you always hear them because they're always so successful. Because you guys went through all this schooling, you could do anything? Yeah. It's funny. You say I think that's true. But I think a lot of employers are like, well, you're a lawyer. Why would you be applying for this marketing thing? Or you're a lawyer? Why would you be applying at this company to do something like nothing to do with law? Sorry, you might hear a little little squeak Enos from pups right now. I'm sure you understand. I see your little puppy

34:41

walking around back there. They have a lot to contribute to it sounds like a lot of thoughts on maybe their chat after this. Maybe.

34:50

But yeah, I lost my train of thought a little bit. Oh, so I think a lot of people kind of have these expectations when you have XYZ degree like, why would you be doing this? You're not qualified for that even though you're saying

35:00

If you're overqualified, and under qualified simultaneously, and so I think the challenge is finding the right person to give you a chance. And some people will think outside the box. And some people won't like just a little anecdote, when I was looking for a product manager role I remember, you know, it's kind of hard to get into product management folks, it's a sort of thing like, Oh, you can't be a product manager, unless you've already been a product manager, which is crazy. Obviously, everyone can consulting. And I talked to somebody just like an informational conversation, he was a VP of product at a legal tech company, and I sent him my resume said he would look at it and give me some comments. It took him a really long time to get to it, I guess he forgot. And he emailed me a month after I sent it to me, he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't have a chance to look at it. Until now, you will never get a job with this resume as a product manager. But in that one month time, I actually did get a job as a product manager with that resume. And so it was just this, like, I'm reading his email, like pointing at all these things in it. And he was like this, the the format of it the wording and the things that you have in here, you're never gonna get a job with this. And I'm just like, Well, clearly, that's not the case. Because I did. And it was just,

36:07

it was just this moment of realization, like some people think inside the box, and they want a certain thing. And if you're not that certain thing, they're going to say no, and some people are creative thinkers, and they're willing to give someone a chance if they see the passion or the skill set, or whatever it is in that person. And so it's hard, and it's grueling, when you want to switch careers, but it's about finding the place that will let you do it. Yeah. And sometimes having being new to a field, you have the better outlook because you're not already in it or just jaded about it.

36:39

You know, you're coming in with fresh eyes. So that's a bonus. Also having law background, which clearly I don't, I'm doing the whole operating agreement for your business, like being able to like review contracts, right? maybe write your own or whatever, that would be amazing. Because we're, you know, struggling with that, you know, having to like ask really what seemed like dumb questions, because we don't have a background. ask all the questions. I've still I've made mistakes to trust me. And, you know, drafting of legal agreements, ask all the questions. No question is stupid. Don't just sign things really read through them? Because it will matter later. Yeah, we're sure. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, the blink date, calm, and then the app will be out soon. Or is it out now for beta testing? When can people it will be out soon? We want to finish our bug testing. So we're hoping within the next month or so, I won't give a hard date because I don't want to. We had enough delays. I've learned my lesson. But within the next month or so is our goal. Cool. Cool. We're excited to try it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Sally. Thank you again for having me. Yeah. See ya.