Cory McKane 0:00
And good to go. There we go. So, I want to welcome our first British guests on the podcast. So we're gonna believe his interview 13 or 12. And first, Brett, so one welcome Matthew Doyle, Matthews, you want to introduce yourself really quick?
Matthew Doyle 0:17
Yeah, well bet sooner rather than later to get your first breath. I'm Matt Doyle. I'm the CEO and founder of a company called array. And it's no code interlac building. So it's like Microsoft Power Apps. But for everybody
Cory McKane 0:29
else. Very cool. That's actually one of my questions was, is it built array? Or is it array? Because I'm sure you get that a lot.
Matthew Doyle 0:35
Yeah, well, we actually rebranded and if you know that we never used to be called, we weren't always called array, we were called Launch cloud. At first, we only launched cloud.com. That's a good name, I think it was, but I think about the word cloud aged a bit like I'm sure, crypto terms well, and so we rebranded We never wanted, the big component of what we do has like, forms technology in it for like, operations. So we never wanted to be like, cool, cool. forms.com. Because we never wanted to be we were always going to be more than what that exactly. And so when we did rebrand, we looked into buying a red.com from somebody, but they wouldn't sell it they wanted to lease it like crazy money. So some
Cory McKane 1:13
thing a domain i What are the terms on that? Like how many years?
Matthew Doyle 1:17
I just want a ton of money? Like I think they were like nine grand a month to lease it or something. So we would have paid a decent amount of money for it. But some other sort of like FinTech companies using it at the moment. Then paper
Cory McKane 1:30
I couldn't imagine ever leasing temporarily. Domain. That's ridiculous. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Especially if you're like two years in and you still have any point they get his pull domain access, like,
Matthew Doyle 1:40
yeah, like, we approached him a few times and said, Come on, guys. You must be joking. What's your number? What's your number? Yeah, and but yeah, you don't want to build domain authority and stuff like that, like a big big part of what we we do marketing wise, is SEO and
Cory McKane 1:54
SEO, we had to, I couldn't imagine building a SEO brand off of a leased domain. Now,
Matthew Doyle 1:59
with the bad. We had quite good dependability. We've launched.com. So we were already having to start again. So we wanted to make sure that we were what we were going to do it on. So you know, build was
Cory McKane 2:12
worked. Yeah. Well, I mean, I did the same thing. Literally this year we went from we strive app.com to we stripe.com. And it just, it took about six to eight months until I started to see like some actual like Google, you know, traction coming in is switching my I'm still using like for emails after we've switched. Like it's super annoying to do that process.
Matthew Doyle 2:30
There was there was another one I looked at, but it just has like some really good domains pretty good. And then I realized what it sounded like it was go array.com says like, go
Cory McKane 2:37
away, but with like a
Matthew Doyle 2:43
Alright, right? Well,
Cory McKane 2:44
that's hilarious. Okay, that's what did you choose your company name based on the availability of the domain, or were you already set on a ref?
Matthew Doyle 2:55
No, we wanted to when we wanted to rebrand to a rave, we want to make sure that it's still at the same kind of name as like a bit more general name, like Oracle, or whatever it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily say what it is. It's kind of a name that we can, you can remember. And we want to come up with a name that was kind of fairly straightforward. We work with a lot of blue collar industries and stuff. So we didn't want to kind of do something too playful things. When we were discussing kind of what our array is, and what it was going to be, because we started years ago, and where we're going now is not you know, it's constantly evolving, going so we wanted a name that kind of said all of those things. And so when I was discussing what array really is at the core, which is a way of building dynamic databases in my data array, an array of uses we land on a array
Cory McKane 3:42
very cool. That's kind of similar how Atlanta we strive I we were named we had a stupid name is called perfect PR fic T was like a fit capitalized, terrible SEO thing,
Matthew Doyle 3:51
when you come up, like spin a normal word in a weird way. That's
Cory McKane 3:55
the worst way to do it. In my opinion, I think I think it's terrible SEO like it. Well, it's it's easy to get the SEO, but no one's going to be spelled wrong every time. But for us, like I noticed the word stripe was in our pitch decks constantly. And I was like, I kind of like that more. And I like we move generically, because we're going to do a lot of things in the future. I didn't want to be stuck on just fit like, what did we do health? What are we doing nutrition? Like, so? That's cool. You guys went that way? Yeah. You can you dive into a deeper level on what you guys do. So like, you know, you do like, like giant cloud infrastructure for you know, like the Walmarts of the world. And that kind of stuffs like, what do you guys specifically do?
Matthew Doyle 4:28
So what are the industries you work? You know, yeah, Walmart is one of our clients with all the South African locations. Right now.
Cory McKane 4:34
You're in the South African, Walmart's all of them.
Matthew Doyle 4:37
Yeah, we did about, I'd say about 200 million answers with them last year. So millions. So you know, as it forms as a bit of what we do. Yeah. And imagine each question in the form is an answer. Yeah. That's quite a lot.
Cory McKane 4:53
What does that mean? What you're doing like You're like the customer support or like the answer was already created, or you're creating the answer.
Matthew Doyle 5:00
Yeah, that's what I've explained. So we work in the risk operations sort of functions within a business. It doesn't matter what industry or vertical it is. That's what we tend to work in. And there was an industry we used to, we used to service more than which you asked me about, and if there could be like, a bit more of that other industry. But we're helping them digitize what would have been paper and pen or what would have been used, commonly use Excel for data collection that we're going to those types of things. And we were built in there for enterprise. So what that means what does that mean? It sounds like bubble wrap, right. But what it means is scalability, because you do need to be to scale to these massive numbers. And then when I said to automate answers, that doesn't include the PDF documents, we're creating dynamically emails that are triggering workloads that are triggering, it's a massive load of data. The people like that we are we have a massive security compliance. So we've got some new enterprise out of the box, go cryptid, you know, data in transit and at rest, multi factor authentication. So all the security, because that's a big thing, obviously, for enterprises, and they don't want, we don't try and sell to the IT department, we try and sell to the operations department. So we delight, let them know that it's all good that you know, they're gonna be safe. So security is another enterprise requirement, along with our usual permissions and ADFS, all these other things that competitors or maybe not even competitors, but people who are using other types of products to solve these problems.
Cory McKane 6:18
Gotcha. So they're going from like, they're doing all their like employee onboarding, or they're doing like, you know, some sort of like staffing paperwork and that kind of stuff. And it's all like on pen and paper, or what we do
Matthew Doyle 6:28
do some employee on board, but like the risk operations, audit compliance, so food safety checks, if people slip and fall, yeah, how does that get recorded? Stock in some cases, we did a lot of stuff. We started exploding in COVID. We did long homefree checks. So stuff like showing in if ever symptomatic, and things like that. So that's not the stuff we didn't like people at Walmart, but we also work in energy. So we did wind farms, environmental studies, like so they're using it to drag and drop data into a form. We're working just some stuff with Unilever, which impact studies. So they send this out to 1000s of other versions, that company we're working in insurance to right now we've got a lot of people using a ray in Florida right now. Recording. Gotcha. So they use our system to drag and drop and make an app. Basically, we make an iOS, Android. And they can build a data collection app, which can be deployed into the field. And hundreds of people collating the storm damage that's happened, that goes to what happens is normally that would have taken about a month, like per house. And so they go and collect the data they've noted down on pen and paper, or they do it in Excel, or maybe other systems that take pictures, and then they'd have to go back to the hotel room over the next few weeks, and collect these into reports, which then go to the appropriate the company that's looking at these properties, these inspection companies, they check it once they're happy with that they think it's the underwriter and the underwriter in this case is Lloyds TSB in the UK, they underwrite, there'll be underwriting a lot of the storm damage that's happening now. So there's about three days that now takes 24 hours in array. So because they have all in one app, they press a button. And even if there's no service, our apps work completely offline, as soon as they have signaled it hits the server, and it spins up all the underwriting documents automatically. And we have conditional logic and mathematical equations in the form that actually calculate the value
Cory McKane 8:13
as well. That's crazy. So
Matthew Doyle 8:17
there's an app builder. But we don't like to say that because we're not trying to be figma. Or we're not trying to be Webflow. Like, we're building like nice little websites, we're internal application building. So we often bump into legacy tools like Oracle and ICP, and we just launched them, or we bump into Power Apps, if you've heard of that. Before it was it was an empower apps by Microsoft, Microsoft have one at one program called Power Apps, they have a platform called Power platform. And that is Power Apps, Microsoft bi, some workflow tooling and some live chat tool. We're not trying to do everything those tools do, try and do like 70% of them, but make it actually genuinely easy to use. Gotcha. So they're what's called a low code application. So you have to know a bit of development and code to maintain them. But we, we had no code, meaning it's all drag and drop, and we work with not with the IT team, but the operations team. Gotcha. Okay, they know what's up, they know what you want to achieve. And we just given the time to do that. And we might have had an assistant developer before Well, we call them blue collar coders, because the industry is
Cory McKane 9:23
nice. Okay. So you're going into these Walmart's and taking like all of these years of paperwork and everything and just making them like, Okay, now it's in an app, and you can just drag and drop, and you're done. You're good to go.
Matthew Doyle 9:32
Yeah. And then they do all themselves. The whole systems are self serve unit, we start we tend to land and expand for an organization. So we start with a small amount, they could just purchase it on their credit card, try out solve that one problem, and it expands and they use it in lots of other areas,
Cory McKane 9:47
which you guys business model is like on a per answer basis, or like how much, you know, like, calculation of how much your servers cost to maintain or like, well, how does that work?
Matthew Doyle 9:56
We out of the box, it's per user per month. And then each user Is someone filling in the data collecting data? Or it could be someone building stuff for a gentleman analyzing and reporting? In the insurance industry as we sometimes work per claim, okay, because it's the multiple things have to happen to come to a claim.
Cory McKane 10:14
So on a per user basis, does that mean like in the Florida situation, everyone filling it out to get their house claimed on the insurance form? Or is it the people that are setting up the app like we were, who are the users? And that says,
Matthew Doyle 10:27
yeah, they're called appraisal companies, or inspection companies that are going to inspect the damage, they usually specialist in that area. So the homeowner doesn't know what tool they're using. Gotcha. Okay.
Cory McKane 10:38
But so but so you're charging on how many inspectors there are? How many homeowners? So yeah,
Matthew Doyle 10:44
so though, it just makes it we normally charge per user, like most people buy that. But like, because these people spin workers up for a very specific time of the year, and then they spin them down that business model, somebody doesn't really work for these people. I chose a per pay claim pay per claim. And they'll probably do 20 30,000 claims in the next few weeks.
Cory McKane 11:05
Oh, very cool. And then Okay, so that's good revenue for you guys. Yes. Okay. Very cool. So when you guys first got started, like what Who were you who was like your first big client you guys worked with,
Matthew Doyle 11:16
said that he got to that point I was making like, we didn't start in this space. We started in Field Marketing, that was an area that I had expertise in. What Field Marketing is, is if you have, it can mean a few things. But if brand activation field markets you've ever gotten people to give you free samples, there's something in the street basketball marketing. And there's also kind of marketing where they go into a store and check the stock levels and stuff like that as well, and the POS and the layout. So our first our first client was a company called Lea binaire. may not have heard, may have heard of it. If you're in the marketing industry, you probably would have heard of Leo Burnett, actually mentioned in madmen. They're one of the world's biggest like ad agencies like Saatchi and Saatchi and things like this. And so we worked with them guys. And we worked with Bosch, the the electronics company Bosch, coffee machines, so they copy machines, and we were there data collection about customer feedback and, and sales made and things like that from the lead store locations. And we did a few things that we did cola we did in tendo. But the problem with that industry is it's very fickle. So you can be the best thing ever. Like we did Coca Cola for like two or three years ago got a call, we're not promoting Coke Zero anymore.
Cory McKane 12:27
And that's it. Did you were you were on the Coke Zero account specifically or just like,
Matthew Doyle 12:30
yeah, we weren't Coke Zero. Think you might done Fanta as well. We have fans for APD. You do? So yeah, so we did those. But then we still, we still work in the field marketing tree a little bit. We work with Philip Morris tobacco on their vaping products. And we do a lot with that. We actually transact all the payments, and we track all the staff and all their sales and all their whereabouts and the stock. And that's a big one for us. And we're just starting to roll that into the rest of Europe with those guys. We have like custom dashboards and stuff with them as they're building the dashboarding and array, or the data collection tools or works offline, it'll, it's pretty cool. But we don't typically go into the field marketing, if they come along. We help them and we were there to help them. But we typically work in like risk operations compliance for that.
Cory McKane 13:15
Is it hard to say focus for you guys? I feel like up to like you guys, your tool can do so many things. And you guys can do so many industries, like is it hard to like, feel like we're only doing this like, oh, yeah, like that was
Matthew Doyle 13:25
the biggest blessing and curse? Like I think it is hard for stops and for people. Because like yours maybe somewhat more, it seems more straightforward, right? Because but it's not as it because we were inventing something that doesn't really exist. There's so many areas that it could be into any race even worse for that because it's literally Oh, who use paper who uses paper and pen? They don't like so many people. Yeah, exactly. So we had to find out the people who were the right kind of user personas for us. And we never wanted to turn it down. But the more we focused on this kind of space, the more success we've had. And we've been working more enterprise companies. We had to nail down how you could close an enterprise deal without a massive long sales cycle. And it was expensive salespeople. So we've been working on that. And we've been narrowing down these verticals and we're very specific about these verticals. And we even see where this sort of look at that there's so many apps for different things nowadays. Exactly. It's easy like oh well you're like this No, no, we're like this you're like this and there's like an employee find the same thing yourself in your world is that like it's easy to be compared because there's an app for everything. So it's even more important to be more specific as to what you do and the problem you really solve.
Cory McKane 14:37
You're absolutely and so when you're when you're going into a Walmart to land them like because you're mentioning that you're trying to like you know reproduce and you know accelerate your enterprise closing situation so like, what are you doing to land a Walmart? Are you just kind of like hey, does this like try it out? Or like what is like, is it like a 10 month process? Like what is the process like to Lana Walmart?
Matthew Doyle 14:58
Yeah, I mean, when you think We were trying to like nail down in our seat for our pre seed round was can we learn and expand on an organization and when we start small and scale up. So that's what we were proved out, we have proven that to be the case where we can come up with a small credit card payment, like 40 bucks, three bucks a month. Because these enterprises do have discretionary budgets. Do you have credit cards? But then when you get to a certain threshold? Yeah, it gets pretty serious. Yeah, like, we just went through a three month long security audit. And they asked us for two weeks. So intentionally, yeah, they hire a hacker to come and hack you. So like, it gets pretty, pretty spicy, because I kind
Cory McKane 15:36
of scary like your drill while you're at home. Like, I wonder if they're, you know, hacking us right now. Like,
Matthew Doyle 15:40
you know, obviously, we knew what they were doing it, but there's not really much you can do like, be we've got the stuff in place. So you haven't Yeah, me, my CTO, Asuna
Cory McKane 15:47
like anti like in a movie, you're not hacking them back? Like, like, far it's from those
Matthew Doyle 15:51
and I didn't vincible? No, no, I mean, because they would know that you did. And that's not the that's not the point, I had called that the penetration test. But it's like, the biggest work was what policy X additional policy writing that you have to have, we have, we have a guy on staff that does all of our cybersecurity policies. And unlike things like that, he's got a master's degree in like computer science, security and stuff. So very cool, that sort of stuff comes up. But once you have certain things in place, then obviously lends itself to other people. Biggest thing about enterprises, you want to get a an RFP, or you want to get a proposal in place a test a test in place, somehow, the pilot program we're looking for is a pilot pilot in place, then you can just book it, then you do all the rubbish of like supplier onboarding, the pain, and then even if you're getting 10 bucks, it's actually easier to hire you in the future because you're a supplier. So, yeah, that's what that's how we approach it. And we get a lot of people who come to the website because of SEO and stuff, and I just want to help them and be useful and then they'll hopefully scale up. Right now we're involved in a program funded by the Walton family. Walmart, very cool. And those guys accepted us and we've been so I've been spending a lot of time in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Cory McKane 17:06
You keep calling me on the way back from Arkansas. Like you have your board works well, your your last call turned out well, because you reminded me of a buddy that I needed to follow up with and now Him and I are gonna partner so like that's that was a good call. One thing I want to touch on really quick is like just the UK in general like it in the startup scene, and we'll start off hot with your, like, the reason that Richard Branson came and spoke at Capitol factory, which I should have gone to, I thought I was gonna see him that night at his party, but he wasn't there, whatever. Anyways. So you're like on stage talking with Richard Branson doing like, you know, like, a, like a panel with him. So how do you know Richard Branson is a just because you're both from, you know, the UK? Like, how does what is it?
Matthew Doyle 17:48
Like? What does that mean him in the queen of France?
Cory McKane 17:49
Yeah, I was gonna say, Well, not anymore.
Matthew Doyle 17:54
I don't know. Do you? Probably guys, this was obviously people who were talking to you now. I don't know. I'm about to say but have I told you the full story before the Richmond so I mean, this is about how
Cory McKane 18:02
I, I feel that he like was like that. Like he kind of knew
Matthew Doyle 18:06
that before. So I first met Richard. I was about 24. Sisters, and while ago, I'm like, 36.
Cory McKane 18:19
I was gonna guess 36 That's where it takes me next
Matthew Doyle 18:21
week. Thank you. And so yeah, what what it was I really wanted to quit my full time job. I'd been a UX designer and graphic designer. That's, that's what I taught at school. Like it never really kind of get enough momentum to do that full time. I've been working on finance, finance in the background, and but sort of build up a bit of income outside of my day to day job, and I'll do crappy jobs so that I can do design in the evening and not be too exhausted. So he's got some cool jobs I used to represent Erickson remember that? It was it was a thing. So the cell phone company, the marketing for them, and things like that. I do these crappy jobs. And I was, I was, so it's been doing it was going to design an evening. And one of the things I tried to do sort of stuff as my subsidize income was work for marketing agencies. And because that's what I've done for Sony and other things. And I was doing I was working for one marketing agency. And they were launching Richard Branson's book business trip back, which was like, I don't know when that was, you don't you can probably Google that and find out when that book was launched. But we were looking it would been launched at the rooftop gardens in Kensington, which was a nightclub he used to own in Kensington like a very exclusive club. So this marketing agents are working I was working with so would you mind going there and helping launch the book? Yes, immediately. Yes. Yeah. Isn't the kicker. You could have uniform or whatever that we had to wear was a bowler hat and like a suit and a bow tie because it was business Yeah, but stripped bare so we weren't wearing any trousers. We were just wearing boxer shorts. The suit up? Yes, a suit of boxer shorts and unlike socks kind of pulled up with a smart shoes. And so Richard was just more of a journalist to them. So just journalists taking pictures of him. posting with the book and stuff and posing the
Cory McKane 20:01
bar was the word of the journalist. And now for two or just you just you guys that were just
Matthew Doyle 20:05
asked the agency. And somewhere there was a picture of me and Richard and I've got an trousers on. But I remember following up with a photographer at the time, and he never got back to me. So, somewhere. But what happened at the end of the night is it was a big pile of books. I said, if you want, you can have one of these books. And then Richard will sign it enriches, Oh, how's it how's it going? He's signing these books. And he says, Who should I make it to? Mass, which I've been trying to jump and do this business, but I'm just so nervous about just going Paul said, he said, Oh, well, mate, you just got to go for it. Yeah. And he wrote my bookmark, go for it and signed it. And then years went by, and I did quit my job, pretty much a week or two after that. I did freelance design for quite a few years. But then I wanted to build something that was bigger than myself. And that's where I started to, like, look into building a RE, in the UK, Virgin StartUp just got spun up in the UK, which was Richard taking some money out of one of the railway lines that he owned, and funding early stage startups. So it was like a low interest loan wasn't based on your credit file, it was based on your business idea. And he met it that way. So what they did is, I thought, This is amazing. I want to get involved with this however I can, because it's going to be a really cool thing to be involved in Korea. Like the very, very earliest meetings that virtual startups are organized that he had like three or four staff running the company, I would go to them wherever they were in the country and just just try and get involved. I'm out. I love them. And I got Brittany with the team and they said oh, you should come to see Richard speak here and there. I went to see him in Newcastle and I went to somewhere else as well. I remember seeing him in Newcastle. It's quite away from where I live, but it was just really cool to see Richard Branson's finger for you're from London, right? I'm from London, so Newcastle's, like a plane to an hour or so plane. So I ended up getting more and more involved with Virgin StartUp and I became what's called a Virgin StartUp ambassador. And they invited me to Rich's house for lunch. So I went and had lunch of Richard's house in Oxford, when six bits was recorded. You know, God Save the Queen. There's a Collins recorded there. And the Rolling Stones are a good, they're really cool stately home. If you've ever read his books, he mentioned him in there. And so he got to meet Sam and Holly, who is son and daughter. And they're both maybe just me. And they've got we just had kids. We both had sort of just a kid. Nice. And anyway, got to be Richard and we had some lunch together. We walked around his Lake, he's like it's late. And he's like, Yeah, it's like, and so I thought, My goodness, how can I be memorable to him? Yeah, without being really cheesy here. Remember your first like traveler, but I said to him, last time we met, like, I wasn't wearing trousers. These are, what he loves, that he loves. That's how God said, Yeah. And we talked around the lake. And then subsequently, I remember a few more times, just, it was a fast read 100, which is a Telegraph newspaper does about 100, fastest growing privately held companies. And he would always sponsor that and come to that. So some of those things are just like, I was never like really then being introduced. I was just kind of in brief. But then what happened a few months ago was the vision startup team messaged me and said, Hey, we're gonna be doing a flight to Austin or Virgin Atlantic? Would you mind helping them out? Without what to do? They're sure. They called me and said, Hey, Matt. We're going to be doing this. We wanted to we need some help, like, kind of get to know the lay of the land. Also, would you mind speaking with Richard? Well, first of all me. Yes. Yeah. And then also your help you. Let me let it I think we should do Capital Factory because like, that was before we were portfolio company. I was like, Man, that's where like the community is like, we need to bring him to the community and bring people in and do that. And then yeah, the bit you remember is we went upstairs, he saw me did you upstairs in Capital Factory? And we were sitting in this room or waiting for Richard and they were just briefing us and it's all original walks in and they get home Richard this is this is Bob and Sally and this is Maggie. So I know Matt now the other kids on the go, how are your guy? How's your grandkids and we were chatting to house business what's going on with it? And we were chatting and the guys were mad Richard we did sort this out from you which I'd sit like naughty boys. It would be quiet. But it was cool. And he said apparently afterwards I wasn't now I heard that. He said like what do you tell me Matt was here and I was like, We didn't tell you Richard I love to purchase stuff guys always like to see where they're up to and stuff.
Cory McKane 24:33
It's such a cool like, I love what I need. Like it's kind of like an egotistical way I guess. When I walk into a room and like someone like kind of a status knows who I am. But I've never had like a billionaire be like
Matthew Doyle 24:44
Cory whatever, you know, to me because like I've seen him he's always had so much time for people. I've always seen some public speakers and people have asked him cringe questions, but he's always given them time and always try to answer understand what they're asking and he won that he One of the good ones I think he did. Okay. Sure. I think people do see that in him. But yeah, the fact that he remembered me was amazing. I really, really appreciate that. It was cool.
Cory McKane 25:11
That's very cool. Like speaking of like UK and everything, like what's the difference between like the US startup scene in the UK startup seeing like, is like, how are the founders different? Is the community different? Like I guess we can compare like London to Austin, I guess like what is what is the difference in you know, yeah, well, like London is much bigger. So maybe like one in LA I don't know what USA is you have experience with but
Matthew Doyle 25:33
I'm, so I'm expensive. Lots of weird cities in America as well and weird cities in England. Like, the thing about America is what I think there is the big bubbles in New York and San Francisco. And, and they're fine. But like, you know, everyone's a little bit more clicky Clicky. There, and it everyone sort of piling over each other to sort of get something done. But I've had a lot of splits with people like us, like Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and places like that these kind of, and there's a lot of investors like a lot of our investors do tend to invest outside of the valley and outside of New York, they want to buy these companies starting in these four areas, and Austin and San Antonio, places like their small little places like Tulsa, and Oklahoma City and Arkansas, they've got really, really passionate people in there who like love where they live, and they want to better the place, and then they're spending a lot of time there has been amazing, because a lot of them are so keen to help each other out. That's really lovely to see. And Austin has that same thing. There's a lot of like, less ego, and more about, Hey, how can we help each other out? Like, that's just what I like doing? That's why I was like, Hey, dude, you should connect with this guy. And because I get a kick out of that, exactly. But how London is is a funny one. So yeah, I know a bit about the Manchester scene. I don't know, Manchester in the UK, tends to be media companies. A lot of the media companies moved up there. Got Bristol, which is another major city in the UK has a lot of tech companies coming out of it. And it's like a lot more affordable to spin up. But London is like there's a lot there's a lot going on. A lot going on. So people like Virgin start by running events there. And there's obviously I was involved in a lot of stuff there like doing talk speaking. And so I do a lot of speaking at technology events and to do lots of talking there different technology events. I guess people are good people, man, there's a lot of people I think working less on those obviously people working on Tech and a variety things. But I think people are tend to be working on a few more kind of ethical things, you know, like and startups that sort of save the planet.
Cory McKane 27:33
It's like a, like a stronger percentage out there than in like Austin or something like that.
Matthew Doyle 27:37
That was my perception. You know, I was the when I was doing some of virgin I would do two talks amongst the Virgin one a marketing strategy. And when I'm pitching and presenting, and it'd be a three hour long seminar that we do. And we take someone through so we had on tape typically had about 20 to 25 people in a room at a time. And we would go around and hear all the ideas and just workshop feature the curriculum. Actually.
Cory McKane 28:01
I love that actually. That's cool. Yeah, I wish we had this here. Yeah, well, we spent up
Matthew Doyle 28:04
here all the all the content and but it's I got to see a lot of companies and there was a lot of virgin attract a lot of food and beverage companies. Just because the way that was fun, it was easy for them to fund those types of companies could You could easily see profit and loss. Gotcha. I've said I'm making this many cans. I'm selling this many cans. But yeah, there's there's a real variety in London. And it's a real buzz. People hang out at Google campus, which is like Google has an offset. And they open up the downstairs for anyone just to go and work from and stuff.
Cory McKane 28:36
Oh, wow. I wish they did that here. But it was pretty cool.
Matthew Doyle 28:38
That'd be so cool. Really good coffee shop down there. Wow.
Cory McKane 28:40
That'd be cool. Yeah, I mean, this is the second time now I've lived next to a Google Campus and I've never been inside of it. So you guys doing here? How would you compare a? Like a? Like it was let's take my happy hours. For example, there's like there's like 80 100 of us just like drinking hanging out. How would you compare that to like a London happy hour? Like what are you guys are you guys doing those big meetups and just like shaking hands, or what?
Matthew Doyle 29:03
There's all different elements, I used to get a lot of Startup Grind ones. Here, I've been to one stop grind in here, but it was a bit more low key. That might not be the case for every single one that happens if my friend was speaking at one I went to that it's been more low key and a bit more it was in a capital patient just like a little side room. There's nothing you gotta have to know to be there. But in in London, Startup Grind is pretty prolific and founders that come and talk and usually has a bit of drink and stuff available when you do it. Right. You do it right. You do some destination stuff and some good top shelf but alcohol and there's some wine and but there's also a bit of pedigree I'm finding in Austin because it's so big. Yeah. And Alex it's a bit tricky. Sometimes the you know, the investors or whatever or not, they're the best ones. I've had a bit a bit of things like what's it called Web Summit. So into Web Summit in Dublin Wildling it when it used to be here we had a web server Hold it up and then. And then they moved from Dublin to Lisbon. I went to Lisbon one and there's lots of little parties and cool people there.
Cory McKane 30:06
Yeah, I think I think there's a Web Summit in like Germany or something or Spain coming up that I got invited to, but I was like, I can't really afford there. My goal later next year, but yeah, yeah, very cool. So, how big is the team right now? Have you ever watched stuff? Read 10? People 10 People coworker? Do you find that easier to manage? Or like are is everyone in person remotely? What's the kind of setup,
Matthew Doyle 30:27
we have a bit of a blend. And so we have some people here in Austin, Oklahoma, we've got some Arctic teams, mostly mostly in the UK. So we're kind of distributed around so some of us are in the office, but because I've been traveling a lot, it's all been it's all been remote. I enjoy the collaboration in the office. And I always say I I've always worked at home those that since I was 923. Working in coffee shops, it's to me it's not cool anymore. It's like it's boring. Job. Yeah. Because the coffee shop is not the best place to work. And the house isn't that often for inspiration and stuff like that and and removing distractions. So as soon as we started hiring, I wanted to bring people into a space that we can all enjoy together for
Cory McKane 31:08
you. Because I know your space is pretty big. Like for the the team you have based in Austin, do you feel like you're under utilizing it? Or do you feel like it's used? Because I know you have? Well, I guess a lot of your spaces like backyards like do you feel like it's a good size office? Or what do you think?
Matthew Doyle 31:21
Yeah, we're definitely under utilizing at the moment, just the way things are. But yeah, there was a reason for that office, which was we I always like I always liked we works as well, a little bit we'll call it space to work in until I sort of worked in one. And I wasn't super inspired by them. Like I think there's a lot of industrials make a good a good space as well. They've got a few. But we worked in the domain one here for about a year. And it was just so expensive. Expensive. Like I think I say, Oh, how much is this? This office at the back here? That seems like more of the space. We want them? It's like 1520 grand a month or like, what's Yeah, as like, oh my goodness, like, put in more than that. And
Cory McKane 32:01
I think this whole property here is like 10 or 12k. Yeah, we have like a second apartment complex.
Matthew Doyle 32:07
Yeah, well, our office is like, like less than a six person office in we work. That's crazy. So we renovated it. But I think actually did the math I did was like for the first year with the renovations is the equivalent getting a six person office in we were married after that it's cheaper. And we wanted to make a space that we could hold events and that people to hold events, their unit. We did a few up to a few of those. Yeah, we've done a few events there. And we wanted to make it a space to be able to come to work and
Cory McKane 32:37
it was a so far north I'd go sometimes, but like I hate driving on my up like 30 minutes of business. Oh, for sure. Yeah, that's what I have to come here to do the podcast. We need to put a photo studio. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Matthew Doyle 32:50
We got the space, we can do that.
Cory McKane 32:51
Exactly. So how did how did COVID affect you guys? There's like, I mean, you're not like, I mean, if I'm guessing you're not like a direct COVID Hit like when it comes to that board? Or did it affect you guys like what
Matthew Doyle 33:04
it was? It was? I think it affects everybody? Yeah, I think in some way or another. So we were raising our funding in COVID.
Cory McKane 33:15
Like, early, or
Matthew Doyle 33:17
something like that, like so we yeah, we got the first we'd had a few meetings with our first VC. And then lockdowns are starting to happen. I think we got like wired the money in lockdown the first part of the month, and I raised all the rest of money. 1.3 million in lockdown. Gotcha. And then when we came out of lockdown, we tried to pick up anyone who had been laid off and try and give them a job. So that was quite cool. There was a lot of people available. Were a bit just customer wise, we had a few hotel chains that couldn't afford to pay. And no one was really taking any phone calls or buying anything. Because it's like,
Cory McKane 33:54
especially like yeah, like the Walmarts of the world, like strapping down figuring out how they're gonna like, Yeah, well,
Matthew Doyle 33:58
actually, that's what we blew up. What was it? COVID? Because we use for the COVID pre checks. So that's right, that's right. Everybody else was like, when people were in discussions at the time, like, we don't know what's happening, we don't know where we're going weighs up, which was down. So just like get back in touch with us in a few months, guys. So we did struggle with that like to sort of like start gaining momentum early doors. But now I think, you know, the way the world's gonna go is we're gonna go into a deeper recession, I think and we're a tool that, you know, is for compliance. So there's like, you know, people buy things because it makes them more money, it saves them money or compliance reasons, wandering up by anything. So we actually do compliance, but we actually help you save mass fast money. If you take one of those insurance companies. 30 days, 24 hours, every one of our customers is about one of those stories. So the two things we do is we reduce that time to do something which is massive time saving machine cost saving, but we also try and get people promotions and companies because often come people who go and implement it around their company, they often get promoted because I don't If they're able to implement change, so I think as we go into a deeper recession, and people looking to save money and stuff work, we can be one of the vectors, you know, we can cost a lot to become profitable. And that's where we want to be. We want to be a strong, resilient company that makes it through these tough times.
Cory McKane 35:14
Gotcha. Very cool. How did you end up in Austin? Actually, I've never asked you that, like, why are you in Austin out of all the cities in the US from the UK?
Matthew Doyle 35:23
Yeah. So when we were starting to move over, was like, over four years ago, and it wasn't really kind of like, clear that Austin would be, you know, a good place to be for companies or whatever. But we, so we were looking when we were doing all our visa applications and stuff, we were looking where we'd be, we'd be good. We knew that I felt anyway, that San Francisco wasn't going to be a place for us, because I felt the cost of living is through the roof. I think it's very kind of like, you know, I don't think there's diversity all that much. But I don't care about 40 No, I don't care much. I've been doing that on and off for years, and seen it decline. And it was a real shame, like, and it's quite good. It's quite Clicky. And I've got some good friends there. And you're gonna be competing for wages against, you know, people, so. So we want to look for like states that maybe didn't have, you know, massive state income tax and stuff like that. So we're looking at places like Florida, we're looking at places like, like Texas, we look to places like Oklahoma, because a lot of it comes from places like Oklahoma and Arkansas. And maybe we'll hex there. Well, tax incentives, you want to move there, they're going to take care of you and they're going to help you set up however you want. I've got friends that have got decent, beautiful offices and beautiful funding and tax breaks by going those places. We went somewhere where it was a good university to hire people. This is the business reason why we want to get find good people. And we could have a lower cost of living so the wages went insane. And because of that, and somewhere we could raise our family and have good outdoor lifestyle but still have variety and choice. So we moved over and we sold all our belongings and moved to see the park actually originally and start building it. And since then, obviously, Elon Musk has copied me Joe Rogan's copied me. They were like, man, should we move over? I was like, Yeah, join us. So they've all joined us now. But it wasn't obvious at the time that that's where it should be. And it's also centrally located in the country is again blades in different places. Just lots of like logistical reasons. family reasons. Yeah. That's why we chose to come
Cory McKane 37:18
in. Yeah, I my dad's actually from Houston. But I didn't I didn't know ut was in Austin. I didn't know I knew Austin was a capital from like grade school quizzes. But I never like I didn't know anything about Austin until about three or four years ago when you moved here. People started talking.
Matthew Doyle 37:33
Yeah, I was looking like, at the time, you know, where the Yeti places on South. Congress anyway. They used to be a Tech Stars there. So that was Texas. Tech Stars here, this app, we're putting another presence because Apple had announced a second doubling down to Austin at the time. Well, I pulled up thinking there's something good there. And then Google were expanding their presence. So it wasn't there was the hallmarks of something. And we're like, Well, that looks good. And it looks like they're looking at the companies it looks like there's good people there. People who come out of university don't leave they want to stay because a lot of places people call it you know, graduate from university and then move home or move somewhere else for better work. Last is a good place to stay. It's a good place to raise a family there's also a good place to party and have fun as well. It's it's pretty wicked like that.
Cory McKane 38:23
It is a really cool like kind of best of both worlds. I mean, I mentioned on this podcast a lot how much I hate the humidity in the summer, but I'm sure you're used to live with London liquid
Matthew Doyle 38:33
human is London a human at all. It's like constant rain in your voice. i
Cory McKane 38:37
Sorry, I knew it rained a lot but I could afford summers were like stupid hot. Well, the thing
Matthew Doyle 38:41
is, is we don't have air conditioning. So if you get heat, you're screwed. There's no way to cool down at night because
Cory McKane 38:47
it just hot in the summer as I swear I've heard London summers are really hot. But yeah, they
Matthew Doyle 38:51
can be really, really hot. And there's no relief from it. That's the thing. Yeah, it does get really humid here, right, but it's I like swimming. I like outdoor swimming. And I like Wild Wild swimming. And I love all the natural springs and stuff. But it's cooling down now, isn't it like Yes, man,
Cory McKane 39:08
I'm gonna get weak.
Matthew Doyle 39:09
Oh my goodness, I've been loving it. And I love like get up in the morning and having my coffee because I'm still in the hill country. And I've seen these running. It's actually cool in the morning.
Cory McKane 39:19
Like, a cold like 60 to 70 Mornings my favorite like I just gotta like, hey, on the porch like handy, but a little bit of work done. Yeah, I love that. You're doing a lot of traveling for work. We kind of mentioned like Arkansas, Oklahoma, everything like that. Like why are you driving all these distances? Like what do you feel like you need to be in person to do these these? Like, like, what are you doing is more?
Matthew Doyle 39:41
Well, I've always done a lot of traveling because like, we've got some investors in Oklahoma, because I said we have investors that are outside of the normal kind of hubs. I think you need to try and get outside the office and you need to meet people where people get very lazy when it comes to meeting people and putting on pants Ain't going out a little bit.
Cory McKane 40:01
Do you feel like that that you know, 18 hours cumulative drivers work your time those like,
Matthew Doyle 40:06
the program we're in right now is is funded by the Walton family and we're all there in Arkansas today. Because Walmart's like founded in Bentonville, Arkansas. And it's basically Walmart,
Cory McKane 40:18
I feel like I, like I heard that sometime. Okay, good to know,
Matthew Doyle 40:22
it's a Walmart museum that it's got Sam Waltons original truck, a bit of a, you know, he kept things cheap and stuff and whatnot. But so we're there because this program is running. And they prefer if you're there, and there's a few other startups that are involved in. But that's how business is done in those areas. We meet people we've had so many, I can't say all the names right now, because we're in like, early stages with some of these brands and some of these big companies. But I can think about the companies that are like because Walmart's there exactly. Because they're there. There's literally everybody within kind of retail operations and logistics right there in Bentonville. And you can turn around and then be someone here who were who's head of it at Walmart, whatever, right? And you could go meet with these people and talk with them. And you know, you shouldn't I never turned into a conversation like, What can I get from this person, but you can help each other out. And they'll be happy to make introductions and stuff. And so, you know, was it seven degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever you can get to like the person you need. Sometimes people go, hey, I want someone in this company. And then I get a meter of sound like, so that might even be the right person, or they might be big enough. There's so much you can learn from that. And in a startup environment, you can continue to hone product market fit, addressable market user persona, by speaking to these people in such an honest, transparent way. It's been really enjoyable. So that's why I've been there been my colleagues down there today, checked into his hotel today's he's going to hold down the fort this week. I'm gonna be there next week, pitching a bit there. And then there's one more week. Again, it's sort of including like a startup weekend or something where we got stuck in Austin this week, I think, and we
Cory McKane 42:01
do. A lot of we're like the venture weeks this week. And then Austin Startup Week is the 14th 17th of November, so Okay, about a month from now.
Matthew Doyle 42:10
So I'll be here for that. Yeah, so there's something like that in August, like big tech event, and we're pinching that, things of that. So, again, you just don't know who you're gonna meet. And there's a lot of really good people, that you can just get things done. I think I've always like, before I moved, I was traveling to San Francisco meet people and all my contacts at like investment firms like Sequoia or people at Dropbox, because a few years ago, Dropbox would take a little sniff at us. And so we were meeting a lot of people there and stuff like that, and you just get to meet cool people.
Cory McKane 42:36
Yeah, no, I mean, I think there's a really good intersection between like, is it worth driving somewhere meeting in person or a zoom call? And I think you're I mean, you're clearly in the right. I mean, like, meeting like, for me, it's for fitness. Like whenever I fly to one of these conferences, I'll close, like the biggest deal of my life every time like it's like just shaking hands with these people. And especially that second time around when you see them for the second time, like the Richard Branson story, it's like he had met you the first time or the second time, he might not have known who you were. And now you're like, buddy, buddy with him when he's in Austin. So that's definitely worth it. I do think a lot of founders make the mistake of driving very far distances. Like for normal things that can be done on a phone call. I find myself constantly like driving somewhere, I'm like, I should not be driving to this place. So it's
Matthew Doyle 43:20
like data you don't want to thirsty early at 32. Early, like put yourself in that town for a week. Exactly. With a few meetings that you have. With me, maybe you know, some of you want to follow up meeting so to chill and first initial discovery calls exactly then have been go for a coffee or something with somebody or, you know, try and coincide it with a networking event. Or something like that.
Cory McKane 43:48
Yeah, I mean, it's a first or second meeting and like, yeah, I try and go to as many this SAS related things that I can like those in person connection. Well, there's a lot of Sorry, sorry, sorry, not the tech. Yeah. Not that not that just fitness in general. Yeah. Which actually, I guess ends up being a lot of tech and then I have I've been a very few SAS events but um, I want to fly out to like you typically there in Europe, I think but I want to go to there's a big sad, it's called like, Sastre, I think or something like that. I don't even know. But I'm gonna I'm gonna go
Matthew Doyle 44:19
perhaps in Barcelona as well. Yeah. I was gonna ask you a question. Do you? Do you find that in the fitness industry, there's a lot of like people just in there like, kind of pyramid sales of like nutrition and stuff like that ultra low noise, that kind of noise for
Cory McKane 44:34
sure. There's so many which is why I'm glad we switched to enterprise like similar vote where you guys are in. It's easier for us to close. It takes longer. Of course, it's easier for us to close and there's way less pyramid schemes independent people like thinking they know what they're talking about. It's like it's an enterprise company. They either say yes or they don't it's usually a quick conversation. It's usually like a quick intro and then we're on to the next so similar what you guys were doing like it's like, I'm very happy to be out of the gimmicky fit This world and be moving into like working with like adults basically like
Matthew Doyle 45:03
yeah, that's not I learned quite early on because like I said, when I quit that full time gig and was building websites for people, we started building a product that was based on WordPress where it could spin up like ready made templates. That sounds pretty obvious now, but it was 1012 years ago, that wasn't super obvious. So we built these like little Wordpress templates, and we were selling them to trade association kind of people. One of our books focusing was bounce houses, and bouncy castles, England. They were not the best kind of customers, like so like this is their like, they have a normal job usually, but then they do this on the weekends. And they have like such a high demands for a bounce house website. Oh, my goodness, we thought it'd be easy. But it was a like a one to many type thing. It was my first experience about learning how to sort of package something as like a software as a service type product. And then we were getting quite a bit of monthly income from it for a while. But like, you know, going for those smaller people, there's so much more headache that can come in smaller businesses. I decided when I started a RE, I wanted to move into sort of like more of an enterprise space more. I knew I wanted to do b2b As a product, because I feel like if you do a b2b product, and you actually genuinely add value, then it's just they buy it
Cory McKane 46:13
exact with blue. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It's like, we're working with these independent coaches, I feel like a lot of the times they don't understand all of the things that they're getting. So they're not as willing to like, move forward. And then every gym we talked to is like, how much does this cost? And they're like, Okay, cool. Let's do it. And it's like this.
Matthew Doyle 46:29
Yeah, we you can come in on arrays website, we have a free account. And by all means, but if anyone wants to do that, please do that. That's there. For people who just staked 10 submissions a month anyone's. Right. That's what it's there for. But it only allows us to do is like absolutely an endless trial if you want. If that's what you want, then great, have fun. But we try and get people into the pro plans when the relevant features kind of need quorum needed. And what I mean by that is that if you're not seriously needing this, that you shouldn't buy it. The people we've had in the past that just kind of nice isn't quite quality, I could use it here if they're probably going to churn. But the people that we actually the right user personas that we get that may start small, but scale up, they never churn, we have like zero churn on that on actual customers, because it's genuinely mission critical. And it genuinely solves the problem where the smaller companies like that can come and go so purpose to try and target them. So that's tax on our website, somebody will sign up and love it forever. But the chances are, it's just a waiting for someone to start getting hooked to what we do, and introduced them to the more advanced features and functionality that we offer up in the Pro Plan. Because we used to have it where everyone kind of at the Pro Plan, but with limited slightly limited kind of like functionality or submissions or something. But the problem is it was too much for people who weren't ready to fully commit. So we made you go to a free plan on our start on essential, they're like much simpler UI is really simple. To get you help you make you have success using that one functionality, and then grow from there.
Cory McKane 47:57
Very cool. I actually like that I'm trying to think of how that would apply to my business. I'll work on that idea. But I want to talk about it, because our free trial is just like, open it has everything, which is cool, but which is also kind of like 14 days, 14 days, but then are your first users free forever, though. So it's like, we have a lot of coaches that are on that one plan is they only have one client. So yeah, we can get into that. What's What's the day to day like for you? Like what's a typical like, you know, whenever you without you wake up, when you go to bed, what do you do and throughout the day?
Matthew Doyle 48:27
Well, it you have to try and be disciplined as a founder, but like, I That's the hardest thing in the world, right. And so, sometimes, you know, I've had seasons in my life where I'm kicking back with things. And other times I've not like, I can remember some good times where I felt particularly, you know, on the ball, but then, you know, we, when we were in our apartment, I was going to the gym all the time, and then COVID here and they charge him down, and then we move to buy a house. And so I wish I had a bit more exercising. So I can sort of tell you about what I do now and where I'm sort of working towards on that sort of routine and stuff like that. But I probably get up about even we by 5am or 6am. So 6am is like normal, which is like get up, have a coffee, try again, a good day, I'll do some meditation and actually have an ice bath that I'll jump into. That's a good day. That doesn't happen every day. But I try and breathe every day. And I get my kid ready and I take it to school. I'm here I'm not I still do the same thing. When I'm in a hotel or something like that. The 5am is like I've started doing some more sort of like early morning workout routine with some some groups is up and they sent us stuff five, that's why fives in there. And then I'll try it. You know, I usually up calls at like 9am like that. So I usually do some calls. I try to catch all my UK team. Because by that point, it's getting to like
Cory McKane 49:43
my teams in Ukraine. So like a bunch of I don't get to them by like 10 or you they're there. It's like It's like 7pm
Matthew Doyle 49:49
vc disruption and have a Ukrainian team.
Cory McKane 49:52
Well, there's they're I mean, we're still they're still doing good. Thankfully they're living their lives up there Western Ukraine. It was super are sad to be, you know, super sad to be a part of that, right. And when it started, basically like, they're, they're mostly back to normal lives from what I understand. I mean, they're working every day, they're like, you know, going out that kind of stuff. But obviously, like not an ideal, you know, scenario.
Matthew Doyle 50:13
Yeah, this is a company I consulted for. And they have a Russian developer, and he got out of the country. And he went back into sorts of affairs out, and now that can scribing people. So for the military, I know, we'll see what happens. But um, so anyway, my days are casual, my UK team, and then I try and kind of like, you know, catch up with emails or write a list of things to do or try and sort of be sort of goal orientated on what we're doing. Yes, work until. Till sick. Again, from away. I work till nine o'clock. But I've got kids and stuff. So like, I try and get done by five or so try and you're saying get in it before they get too hungry, and you're trying to park or go play in the yard or something like that, and then dinner, and then try and get to bed by tender? Yeah.
Cory McKane 51:04
Do you feel pressure as a founder? Because I feel like at a certain stage, a lot of founders could get out of this. But like, do you feel like you're, you know, obviously guys are still growing? And you know, you're doing a lot of revenue, but like, you're you want to do more? Of course. So it's like, do you feel pressure to like, work longer hours, like work till midnight, some nights? Or like, are you at a point now where you're like, like, work nine to five that I'm happy, like,
Matthew Doyle 51:25
for me, like, I worked weekends for years. Yeah, especially ones working from home, you kind of keep going and going, but like, things change. So the couple of things that changed was one of having kids like you want if you want to have kids, then hopefully you want to spend time with them. And second of all, like I think you're very useful. If you keep going and going and going, you just kind of work every single day average, you're no good. Like I'm pretty burnt out at the moment because I was away last week. And I would work I did the 6am 5am things I went to like to 5am things when I was away and then I'll work till nine o'clock and then I'll sleep and repeat and then I drove by eight nine hours and that's what I've got my voice sounds a bit groggy and so because I literally have it does tend to have a kind of biological effect on you where you literally just get rundown so you kind of need the weekends to I find I could do with the weekends just to like let your brain settle let your kind of memories and thoughts kind of settle and readjust and think about things and talk to your partner or whatever about about nice things about what you want to do. And they go the week and I have to because my life I have my business life I have my best life but you know, we're applying for different types of visas and we're doing this and doing that and so there's also personal business needs to get done. Yeah, of course you're trying to do that and talk about x is
Cory McKane 52:47
not the worst but you bust your ass all day if your company and then you get like a dental bill or like you're like oh my car needs to get fixed. You're like I just worked for like 20 hours and now have to figure out what oh, yeah, of course I have to have like real life things to focus on. adulting is all just Exactly exactly.
Matthew Doyle 53:04
Yeah, you have Yeah, annoys me I get really annoyed and like oh, now I have to be on the phone with this bullcrap thing about his credit card Yeah, I had a I got a pretty big medical better if you know lifestyle stuff and we'll watch well yeah, that's what set me back a bit were
Cory McKane 53:20
I was looking at that the entire podcast and I wanted to know what it was but I was like, I didn't know if it was like a purge thing.
Matthew Doyle 53:27
Ya know? They had to retrieve my tendon from my farm like so it's my kids birthday and I had this knife actually is in my pocket up and I was sort of leveraging a cable tie and I thought it's fine and I slipped on I went into my farm yard went teaching by just taking me to a&e Accident Emergency.
Cory McKane 53:52
Emergency er Yeah. So
Matthew Doyle 53:55
they had to stitch it and then he went depress my thumb and my tendon snapped. He said you need to go to surgery next few days or lose function so oh my god I had the surgery was worse so I had to thread it back. So there's massive medical bills and being found is like we don't have typical health insurance. We get creative with it. I do have insurance but we try not to burden the company with too much. So I pay for all that myself and that sucks. And I was it was really put me down for a while because you couldn't do anything because exercise can be good Thomas shoelaces aren't But
Cory McKane 54:34
sir. I know Canada, our picture Canada's UK have like, whatever is called universal health insurance.
Matthew Doyle 54:41
It's called the NHS National Health Service. And so yeah, it's it's free.
Cory McKane 54:45
That's it so that's that's annoying to be here for that shit.
Matthew Doyle 54:49
Yeah, but yeah, but you know, I appreciate getting good service and like proper plastic surgeons, and proper follow ups and stuff like that and even the American helps, it's probably like, like for like, the service you get is probably the best in the world. So like, yeah, like, you know, this is it's not meant to be political and then we're like, you know, there's a lot of money. So yeah, like there's maybe charges that are getting put in and you need to keep an eye on that. And people need to figure out how we can pay for health care. But it's a higher service. Yeah,
Cory McKane 55:18
but your coffee, you're competent. It's gonna get like it's gonna get done. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So as a like, Are you a solo founder? I don't know if that's, you
Matthew Doyle 55:27
know, I am and I'm not like, yeah, like, you know, yeah, yes. But my wife has always been really involved in day one. Oh, cool. Does she work at the company too? Yeah, she's a little pay roaches less a little bit less at the moment. In the early days, she was like QA in the app and working with the app team and stuff. And now she's more like just she does payroll. She works about bookkeepers and accountants Demeter and things lined up right. She works with our marketing team to make sure we use like things like chart mobile tracking MRR ARR this week is really good. I can show you some stuff because we synchronize our bookkeeping software along with our stripe and things like that. Yeah. And she makes sure that stays in line because there's still things you get knocked out quite easily. If you have like a one off invoice that creeps in,
Cory McKane 56:09
I just start using chart mogul I find it to be what's what's the water
Matthew Doyle 56:12
ice. Yeah
Cory McKane 56:42
that's pretty good. Let me share that. Because I handle it. Even the brands thing. It's like free to other doors when you just can't stop it. Sit next to me. And it's just like what I'm doing today. Just give me advice. So you're, you're kind of a solo powder. So let's say that you were,
Matthew Doyle 57:17
my wife's been involved in the beginning. And we had a client of mine who funded it very early. So those ecommerce sites and those those UX clients I had in the very early days, one of those guys believed in me, and believed in the idea and helped us fund it. Gotcha. bootstrap it. So I never got paid. But we paid for our CTO. And he, and we just got building
Cory McKane 57:44
cool, nice, man. If you if you like, let's say you are a solo founder, like, because you you are like you have people that have supported you. But what, um, what would be like the things that you wouldn't be good at, if you were like, just like, as you are, like, right now what like, what categories of being a startup founder, like? Are you not good at? Are you less good? I guess.
Matthew Doyle 58:06
I'm good at a little bit. And I, you know, I've had to learn over the years. You know, I'm more competent in more areas. And I have been, but definitely like, you know, I'm not, you know, drawn to financials and stuff like that. Got Shoka, product orientated founder, Sam Lowe products. Designer. Yeah. So, the numbers didn't come naturally to me. And no one was ever, you know, teaching me what those were and stuff like that. So I had to figure those things out, figure out how to raise money, and all that kind of stuff. So I don't necessarily work out things through just bad numbers. But I look at it by talking to people and talking to customers, things like that.
Cory McKane 58:46
When you guys are fundraising, like what what are you pitching to these investors? Are you saying like, we're going to transform how companies handle documentation or like, what is the what is like the end game like billion dollar dream for you guys when you're when you're pitching?
Matthew Doyle 58:59
Well, yeah, that's the that's the thing you got to nail down and maybe what your vision is, and the investors needs to align correctly.
Cory McKane 59:07
You're good to go. You were doing centrally. Totally good. All right. So my question again, yeah, already my question. Yeah. So when you're pitching to these investors, like what are you pitching? Like, you're the future of documentation for enterprise? Like, what are you you're gonna be a billion dollar company, like, what is the pitch that you're presenting to raise all the money you guys have raised?
Matthew Doyle 59:34
Yeah, I think it's important to make sure that the investor knows that you're laser focused on what you're solving today. Because I know you know what Airbnb to do today and what Uber does today. They have to have a solid kind of starting business with one discipline and then they can expand out. So we make sure people understand the value we're adding today and how we're helping them today with with forms and automation and document creation. So it seems that removing these manual tasks, it's where we're going now more is it this app building kind of ecosystem, making sure they fully understand what we're doing and how we're competing flow right now, we wouldn't say we we compete toe to toe with power apps, but we're not far off. And
Cory McKane 1:00:16
we're just around the corner, finish what you're trying to become a Power Apps. It's that kind of action. Yeah, but
Matthew Doyle 1:00:21
Power Apps is how we're very different. When those competitor analysis board is like, one of the enterprise, we are enterprise. But powerup is like you need to get the code. And it's very complex. And some companies without naming names have got themselves in a bit of trouble from using those applications. Because too many people can see what they're doing and stuff, basically, they're not. There's ways to make mistakes and stuff in there. We're trying to do that in a no code way. So that operations people can build these internal applications. Because for too long, it's things like Oracle, and SAP and Microsoft have been around in those spaces, offering people perception of stability, zero flexibility, zero kind of control over those with massive implementation periods. So we're trying to like flatten that time for implementation, give the power into the hands of people who know what they're doing. And so what we're proposing is that we're making tools that do that for them. Gotcha. So the big plan is this big ecosystem to basically kill a fillable, PDF and kill these legacy tools. But today, we have to be very disciplined in who we help today, what we help them what we do today and show demonstrate that our product is changing and evolving to move in St. Very, very, very powerful.
Cory McKane 1:01:33
Lower man. Well, I think I said one last question, how can the audience of the why we started podcasts helped you like, is there someone that should introduce you to like, how can they get involved? Should they sign up for an account? Like what are you looking for? Well, so everyone carry to carry through.
Matthew Doyle 1:01:52
Okay, topic one. So I guess like, you know, if you guys are an enterprise company, or know people who are in those kind of areas that we work within, in big retail, quick serve or insurance, please reach out we'd love we'd love to help you. If you just like free forms technology, please, you know, sign up and help yourself to the free account. If you're a nonprofit or something like that, and you'd like a bit more help with the pricing or billing, please reach out we'd love to sort of support you and help you in those areas. If there's any interns out there, people who love product, love people, and would love to get some exposure working with a company like ours. Hopefully, you're in the Austin area. Come out hanging out with us in Austin. We'd love you to come aboard and come and help with us and work with us. Or if you just want to like you know, talk stop and come to these events and come say hi,
Cory McKane 1:02:37
there we go. Build radar calm. I'll put a little link right here. There you go. It was a pleasure. And that's why we strive. Sweet do
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
