The Exchanges

Q And which are the largest name in this industry? Like in terms of, let's say if you think about hotel industry, you think about Marriott, you think about Hilton, you think about a few other names.

A So, I mean, by, by size, you know, like you will have, you'll have the Brookdales of the world and you will have the Ericsson's of the home. So there's that, but it's a very, very long tail, you know, so obviously the, the, the Brookdales and those would be like seven, 800 facilities or homes, but I would say it is a very long tail industry. So it's not like, it's definitely not like how hotel industry of like, Hey, Marriott or Hilton, two or three have, have like consolidated that. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. I think there is value in standardizing and adding in, but there's also value in, you know, like being much more, it's a very high touch service industry.

AI assessment note: “you'll have the Brookdales of the world and you will have the Ericsson's”

Q Buddy exists right now, right? But without Buddy, how are these sales folks doing their work?

A So I would say the way pre-buddy, how salespeople did their work was a lot of, like, task creation, right? So they'll try to create reminders. So think of it as whenever a new lead will come in. So the first couple of weeks, obviously, you'll interact with them, you'll find out, but after that, you would set up a reminder for yourself that, hey, I need to call this person after three months. So as a result, what ends up happening a lot is then a salesperson usually has hundred to 200 overdue tasks, and as I'm telling you, the low numbers, but they're just creating a lot of tasks in the future To be able to remember to call this person in, and they're moving that around. That's kind of how I would say this use case of cold leads has been happened.

AI assessment note: “pre-buddy, how salespeople did their work was a lot of, like, task creation”

Q As a founder, how did you choose among the various problems that you could solve to only focus on this problem, and among the use cases that you could solve to focus on the sales use case first?

A Sure. I think, uh, I mean, as you know, this is that I think for me, firstly, I'm a much more of interest of picking industry where, you know, so I think industry comes first to pick then the problem, right? Because I think every industry, unless you invest the time, spend the time in the industry, you don't find the case. You might have whatever opinions that this industry needs this, right? So I would say, obviously we pick the industry and we think senior living as at the intersection of, uh, hospitality, healthcare, Uh, and real estate, right, is, was a good intersection and industry, uh, worth investing time in. Uh, on the use case, I'll say, uh, obviously we had some going in theories of, you know, like, these would be use cases we understand, and sales and marketing specifically, I think when it comes to enterprise sales and marketing problems, we, I obviously experienced that at Buddy Art myself, right, and going through that whole growth of, you know, doubling, literally doubling your revenue every quarter, and doing all of that stuff, you get very deep into what kind of sales and marketing tools are there, and And that kind of got me convinced on the thought of, like, even before the industry, that this problem is truly a problem which needs to be solved for an organization, and you can't solve it for an industry or, you know, for everybody. That's why, you know, like…

AI assessment note: “industry comes first to pick then the problem... On the use case, I'll say”

Q Are people creating their own software stack in senior care living using tools like Cloud? Have you seen that happening, or is it just a hype cycle that we are part of?

A I mean, let me break this into two parts, right? So I think there is a lot of hype I feel in it, right? What I mean by that is, so when you are building, like what people are really talking about today is like, hey, Claude could just build a CRM or could build a monday.com, right? I'm like, yeah, sure. Why I say yes, sure is because when a CRM vendor or somebody builds, right, they're building for best practices that adopt across the industry, right? So they are looking at not just what your needs are today, right? They already have customers who are a hundred times bigger than you. And smaller and middle. So they're kind of trying to solve that best practices for all of that, right? Like even Salesforce, which is like, you know, such a mature software, right? They themselves are building best practices for like, Hey, how do we keep data security? Right? And then you will become this, then you do. So they're doing all of that good stuff. Right? So I think that's the part that I don't think a Claude comes in, even if it does, right? Imagine if you're a user and you're like, Hey, Claude, go build me a CRM. Claude's like, sure, I'll build you a CRM, but by the way, it'll cost you a million dollars because I have to take care of all the thousands of edge cases. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to spend a million. I thought this is supposed to be cheap. I'll jus…

AI assessment note: “So I think there is a lot of hype I feel in it, right?”

Q One, one other thing, you know, I have been really curious about is in your first journey, right? Uh, uh, you, you raised a ton of capital, right? And I think two thirds of it, as you mentioned earlier, was only in secondaries money exchanging hands, right? In this journey, you have been very deliberate about, uh, what brought about that change?

A Uh, I think, uh, So, you know, like there is this thing, which is, I think I, I learned it the same way as every founder who'll go through it, hopefully first time will learn, right? Is that we have this feeling of money solves all, you know, like money solves all problems, right? It is definitely an important indigrient in solving, right? So don't take me wrong in like, you know, like I raise right now, we burn a lot of money, we do all of that stuff, right? But it doesn't solve all problems. That's a super important thing to go through, right? And the more and more money You raise, right? The problems that you have to solve with them become increasingly. So, so I have just been more intentional. I would say it's the same thing with everything. Just be intentional on what you're using that money for and how much of that money you need. So that's how I've been thinking about it. And that's how we've been living about it as to do. And I think you don't have the luxury the first time you do it. And every founder I think should have that in that you just do it. And I would say both ends, by the way, I think one, uh, we are super, super conscious about like, What money we really need, and what are problems that money can solve, and we will invest money in that, and there's a ton of things as an entrepreneur that money unfortunately cannot solve, right? It's just hard work and learn…

AI assessment note: “we have this feeling of money solves all... But it doesn't solve all problems.”

Q care living homes, and a senior care living home is a very emotional decision for a parent or a grandparent to move in. I guess it's a long three to four year gestation period where multiple people are involved from the family in decision making, So how does family make these decisions to move to a senior living home? And what role does Buddy play in this entire life cycle?

A Senior living for a lot of people, including me for a couple of years ago, you knew the industry, right? But what is senior living? Senior living at the end of the day is age-restricted living, right? But it's usually in the US, it's 55 years plus age, which is where people move in. There is independent living, assisted living, memory care, those are all the fragments, right? Now, as you said, one thing I love about the industry is the fact that You know, we're all headed there, right? So it's like, we might be a couple of years away, decades away. It depends, but it's a very, it's something that we will all experience, right? And some of us are experiencing, you know, with our parents, with our grandparents. So it's a, it is, as you said, it's an emotional industry, but it's also industry, which is emotionally connected to ourselves. You can connect with why is this such a tough journey, right? Whereas if you think about other enterprise businesses that you're in, right? Sometimes you can like, you know, you might not connect with it as to, you know, somebody is buying software or somebody is buying this thing. You are not, So in this case, I love that about the industry that it's very connected to who we are, and we are going to go through this cycle in ourselves. So specifically on your question, it's, it's emotional at, at a lot of different levels, right? So let's kind of …

AI assessment note: “So specifically on your question, it's, it's emotional at, at a lot of different levels”