The Exchanges

Q on board. We don't have revenue or anything like that. The only traction that I can show a potential investor is that I've got a list of CEOs ready to, to try the platform. That's the only traction I can get. That's why I'm busting my balls right now to build up this list to show them. So what was the hardest skill you had to learn to run cheat?

A Seriously navigating through managing technology. Um, you know, one of the other biggest flops of my ten-year journey was, um, we had a developer in London, and our revenue stream was based on a recurring subscription model. So, uh, after the New York Times, we got all these purchases from all over America. We weren't even set up for other countries, and then we had to set up a shopping cart to ship all over the world. Anyway, so after one month of people having these cards, we were supposed to hit their credit card with a nine 95 fee. That developer in London had that button ticked off that didn't save everyone's credit card. So we lost every single person's credit card from that push from the New York Times, which based on our average monthly user, that turned out to be about 30,000 dollar opportunity that we lost.

AI assessment note: “Seriously navigating through managing technology.”

Q Who was the nicest shark, and who was the toughest shark?

A Well, I think Mark Cuban, who is actually who I had my eye on, he was the one that got my idea more than anybody, and then I said something stupid, like, uh, I said I think I could change the population with my idea, meaning so many people were gonna get on my site, and they were all gonna Get married and have kids. And he just called me delusional and he was immediately out. So that was like a, a knife in my stomach. And then Kevin O'Leary went into telling me one of those stories about the rabid dog behind the barn and telling me I need to shoot it and go back and get my job, quit my hobby. But then in the end it was Barbara Corcoran was the one left. And I was like, okay, Barbara, you invest in people. And she said, well, you're the right entrepreneur with the wrong idea. And I wish you luck. She was the nicest, but yeah, I got shot down by all five of them, and I remember standing there thinking, I can't just walk off with this rejection, so I pointed at each of them, and I said, trust you will all see me again, and then I turned around and walked off, but they cut that on the show, so you don't get to see me. Walking off so boldly.

AI assessment note: “She was the nicest, but yeah, I got shot down by all five”

Q Yeah, I can't imagine they would allow something like that. Just like I was interviewing someone the other day, and we got into a deep conversation about government and blockchain and regulation for big tech, and in the end, I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to air that segment. Now, what happens after you leave Shark Tank? You go back home, what do you do?

A Yeah, so it took four months until I knew how they were going to chop up my episode. You know, you can fail on that show and still not look like a complete idiot, but they chopped it up and made me look like a complete idiot, and I, it's like everything smart I said was chopped on the cutting room floor, because I said some pretty amazing things in that 45 minutes I was out there, so they cut it down into eight minutes. Yeah, so I didn't know what it was going to end up being, and I ended up having a party. I invited 600 people in New York City, so we had a viewing party, and everybody's like, well, I know you got a deal if you are having this party, and I was like, no, I'm celebrating national exposure, and I didn't know what was going to happen after my show aired, but I remember waking up the next morning thinking, what happened in LA? Because it was, you know, three hours later, I was in bed when they aired it on the West Coast, And then the next day, I had an inbox filled with over 3000 emails, and I'd say 2800 of those were people telling me, whatever you do, don't give up. The sharks were out of their mind for not investing. You're ahead of your time. I mean, just all this sort of praise and cheers, and you know, I wasn't going to give up, but it did help me stand back up and decide how to keep moving, and within a month, my partner and I had sat down Thinking of how we …

AI assessment note: “within a month, my partner and I had sat down Thinking of how we were going to reinvent”

Q was obviously beneficial to myself later on in life. But I feel like a lot of people look at a job for someone else as just a way to pay the bills. And they're not looking at it as a stepping stone in the next part of their life or their journey. What was the hardest thing about starting Cheeked for you? Again, with this transition from physical to digital?

A I'd say having no earthly idea what it took to build a business was a major learning curve for me. I mean, uh, I was successful in, in my design career and then just out of the gate, I'm like, oh, I'm going to bring this website to life. So Not knowing how to manage anyone with technology. Didn't have a tech founder on board. So outsource this to places all over the world. Um, not having really any investment. It was another problem. Um, so just trying to do everything on a lean level left for a lot of mistakes. Um, yeah, but I had to get some business partners on board that actually did know what they were doing. You know, getting a patent, a trademark, all that stuff that I had no idea about. So, I don't know. I just made a lot of mistakes out of the gate that cost me a lot of money.

AI assessment note: “having no earthly idea what it took to build a business was a major learning curve”

Q how to develop coding tests so that we could quantify the level that this person is at, whether, you know, if they say I'm a senior level developer, He can tell you, no, he's actually a junior, or he's, he's a mid-level, he could be a senior, but so he, he's really great at a lot of those kinds of things. So what did the first two years look like?

A I mean, it was really exciting, and I would say that being a creative person and having my architecture background sort of came in handy when I decided to go to market, because I did so many crazy creative things just to get the word out about this, and I remember I sent a, a lone cheeked card, one of those cards I invented, and a black padded envelope to one of the editors of the New York Times. Three months later, we're on the cover of the style section of the New York Times, and it said moveovermatch.com. This is the next generation of online dating. I mean, three months in, our website went down, and I didn't even really know what that meant. I didn't know that there could be so many people hitting this website of mine, That it would take it down. So we called whoever our provider was and got more bandwidth, and that article went viral all over the world. I had people flying from Germany, from Canada, to, from Sweden, to film me talking about this new concept in the world of online dating. At this point, I'm still thinking I'm going to be a billionaire. This is amazing.

AI assessment note: “it was really exciting, and I would say that being a creative person”

Q I'm really sorry to hear that you've had to deal with these lawsuits. Is there a lesson that you found from this experience with the lawsuit that people can learn from?

A I mean, you would think the fact that I own a patent on this idea that somehow that would have protected me. And I've asked my lawyer a million times over, what could I have done differently? And I did everything right. I did the trademark, the patent, the copywriting, everything to protect my idea. But in fact, all of that that I did, it went the opposite way. I think it ended up hurting me because this man is trying to get on my patent, which I don't even think is worth anything at this point. I don't even know if it's still legit. I regret having it. My lawyer has said, the only thing you did was going on that show. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the fact that this Person is watching a rerun of my Shark Tank episode. If he didn't see that show, I would never be in this lawsuit. I know the truth, and lesson learned, I haven't figured that out yet. I'm looking for the silver lining in this every single day.

AI assessment note: “lesson learned, I haven't figured that out yet.”