The Exchanges

Q is a green cover. If you're looking it up on Amazon, the entrepreneurs essential. So you can look up and we'll certainly link to that in the show notes and promote this and we send it out. But, but that that's great. Um, give us the, give us the on bizarre voice. Just give us some of the snippets real quick. So like what year did you launch the business?

A So Bizarre Voice, um, I launched it with Brant Barden in 2005. And to put that in a historical context, there were only three retailers who had customer reviews at the time, um, in the entire United States. And, um, we Um, launched, I think two years before the iPhone, Facebook was closed to the public. There was no such thing as Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok. Um, so there's this entire social wave that was about to come and that really accelerated the business at Bizarre Voice because Facebook came along and said to all the brands and all the retailers, you need to be social. You need to be social. You need to be social. And of course they had invented the world's best ad targeting engine up until Um, when Apple changed their roles and, and really broke that, that, uh, that engine pretty profoundly. Um, but you know, here we were in the right time, right place. And I always say that entrepreneurship is a combination of a lot of grit and a lot of luck. And anybody that says there's no luck in it, they're absolutely wrong. There's a tremendous amount of luck needed to become a successful entrepreneur.

AI assessment note: “I launched it with Brant Barden in 2005.”

Q Okay, so you basically, also, that takes a lot of discipline. I mean, this thing, it's growing, it's thirty million AR, you go, man, I'm just feeling so compelled by this bizarre voice thing. Did you have trusted lieutenants at Cormetrics, maybe co-founders, then that sort of gave you extra, you know, comfort to leave?

A Yeah, actually, I left with Brant Barden, who became my co-founder, and it was, it was a little bit of an awkward scenario because Brant, um, approached me at CoreMetrics and said, hey, I'm going to go start another company at some point, and I'm wondering if you'd be on my board of directors. And Brant was absolutely amazing on our client services team. He led, um, really one of the most difficult parts of the SaaS model, which is to Make sure that you're doing a great job of servicing your customers. I always say you have to constantly be re-earning their trust, um, as a SaaS company because it's a recurring revenue business. So you've got to stress that last S software as a service and really make sure you're providing great service. So anyways, I was, I was, I was fascinated with how, um, great Brent was at his job. And when he first said this to me, I thought, well, gee, I don't want to lose him. But then I thought I'm a real hypocrite if I don't meet with him about this. And then when I met with him, he said, Hey, would you like to brainstorm with me too? I could really use a brainstorming partner. And we brainstormed and we came up with bizarre voice. And then I realized, or I really felt deep in my bones that the market timing for that was so compelling and that it was such a big vision and it could be a bigger company than core metrics that I thought to myself, I've go…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, actually, I left with Brant Barden, who became my co-founder”

Q Let's, let's get into that, Brett. Data. you, you launched, I believe, in what, 20, 2015?

A Yeah, we launched in, uh, well, we founded in 2015, and we launched, uh, data dot world. It's data dot world, by the way. Um, always pronounce the dot. Um, but we launched, uh, on July 11th of 20 16 on Slurpee day, which we didn't really expect it was gonna be on seven 11. Um, but, uh, that turns out that was Slurpee day. Um, but, you know, that was a, that was a great launch, and we've now become the world's largest collaborative data community Um, for open data sets. And then we have a for-profit division of the company, which is focused on the data catalog industry. And we've been a great disruptor there in a very similar way, by the way, to core metrics. If you go all the way back to 99, um, cause we're, we're competing here primarily against Alation and Calibra, which are both primarily on-prem. Um, most of the revenue comes from on-prem and they come out with a couple of releases a year. We come out with over a thousand product releases a year, literally release software two to three times a day. That's the pace of innovation, um, here at Data.

AI assessment note: “we founded in 2015, and we launched, uh, data dot world... on July 11th of 20 16”

Q And so how big was the pool at IPO?

A Yeah, we had a big one. And, and the thing that I love about that is that How big though, Brett, was it? I think it was like twenty-ish percent given to employees. And, um, and the thing that's amazing about that is that, um, it led to over 60 companies started by former Bizarre Voice people. Like that's how big of an exit it was and how much wealth it created. And I'm a capitalist and that ripple effect, um, capital, you know, capitalist impact is very real in terms of what happens with nonprofits, what happens with people starting their own businesses. The type of know-how they get to create great cultures. Um, you know, as I mentioned, Bizarre Voice was the top-rated company. Data. World is rated in the top three companies to work for in Austin.

AI assessment note: “I think it was like twenty-ish percent given to employees.”

Q tough equity conversation. And they always end up just saying, 50, 50, which I go, man, was it really lazy? They just didn't want to have the tough conversations. So they said, 50, 50. How did you guys do that? Did you and Brett just split it fifty-fifty, or how did you have that conversation? You and Brant, sorry. Did you just split it, or how did you do that?

A Yeah, so we, um, that was the toughest conversation we ever had, actually, um, because there's a lot of romance and starting a company together, and, you know, I, I truly love Brant today. He's one of my best friends, um, but I would not do a fifty-fifty deal. I, I knew what kind of value I had to the business, and I served on the board of directors of shop.org, Um, I had, you know, a tremendous network, um, out there and I had tremendous know-how. I mean, Coremetrics was my fourth business and it was a successful business. And so I, um, I negotiated with them. I won't tell you where we ended up, but we did not end up at fifty-fifty, but I ended up with, um, a much bigger equity stake. But at the end of the day, Brent did incredibly well financially, and it was also a dream come true for him. And one thing I'm particularly proud of is by the time Bizarre Voice went public, like two things. One is we had only raised twenty three million, and we had over a hundred million run rate with thirteen million left in the bank. Y Combinator said it was one of the top five most capital efficient SaaS businesses of all time.

AI assessment note: “we did not end up at fifty-fifty, but I ended up with, um, a much bigger equity stake.”

Q So take us back to Bizarre Voice first. People always go, man, you know, oh, Brad, he started his first company, it does well, he IPOs it, but you've got, you know, do you have any stories before that where things crash and burn?

A Well, Bizarre Voice was actually my fifth company. It was definitely the best outcome to date, but I think Dated Outworld is much more ambitious, and it's incredibly exciting the path we're on with this company. Um, but Bizarre Voice really popularized customer reviews all over the world. It really brought that voice of the customer into websites, Walmart, and the Home Depot, and Best Buy, and many others all over the world used it. As of today, it's an over 20,000, or over 20,000 customers, rather, And over 40 international languages, and it's run by a really good friend of mine, um, Keith Nealon, and it's, it's an amazingly scaled company at this point. Um, but yeah, that was an incredible journey. We were actually rated the number one company to work for in Austin when we were small, then medium, then large. A lot of the insights in my book come from Bizarre Voice, and we've applied them to Data. By the way, all proceeds, uh, to the Entrepreneurs Essentials go to supporting female entrepreneurs, so I don't make a dime on this. And I also gave away the book for free online at theentrepreneursessentials.com.

AI assessment note: “Well, Bizarre Voice was actually my fifth company. It was definitely the best outcome”