Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Medical tourism is a $100B industry

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Medical tourism is a $100B industry · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

0:00
The hair transplant industry is hiding a dirty secret from you.
0:04
40% of the clinics in Turkey, the most popular destination on
0:07
earth for this procedure, are straight up black market
0:10
operations. Not licensed, not regulated.
0:13
Somebody who's not a doctor is putting their hands on your
0:16
scalp and in your scalp, and people are making this decision
0:20
by asking strangers in a WhatsApp group.
0:23
And if that creeps you out, good.
0:24
Yikes. It should.
0:26
But what if someone built a marketplace that flew to every
0:29
clinic, vetted every doctor, and handed you a white glove
0:32
experience for 15% on top of a price that's still 90% cheaper
0:36
than in the States? That's not disruption, that's a
0:38
rescue mission. So are you building something
0:40
safe because it scales or are you building something necessary
0:44
because nothing else exists? Welcome to AI for founders.
0:47
I'm Ryan Estes and this interview is for founders who
0:50
want to see how to spot a broken, fragmented, community
0:52
driven market and turn it into a trusted global platform.
0:56
My guest today is Francesco Hayes, Co founder of Luxera, and
1:00
he's going to show you how to crack a dual sided marketplace,
1:03
qualify supply in an industry where bad supply can literally
1:06
hurt people, and use live stream surgery as a go to market
1:10
strategy. In a plug for the newsletter.
1:12
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2:04
Francesco, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining
2:06
me. Yeah, thanks.
2:10
It's a pleasure to be here with you.
2:11
I. Didn't talk to you.
2:12
I don't know if I've spoken to anybody in luxury beauty, so
2:15
this will be my first time, so let's just jump right in here.
2:19
Your company is luxera.com. That's Luxera with 2X SLUXXERA.
2:26
Tell me about it. Yeah.
2:30
So we're we're a medical tourism company where we help connect
2:35
people with clinics around the world.
2:37
Right now we're focused on cosmetic based procedures.
2:41
So like hair transplants, neck lifts, but, you know, eventually
2:45
the plan is to get into more serious routes such as like
2:47
dental, eventually IVF. We're focused really on helping
2:54
provide quality clinics for people because right now the
2:58
market's very fractionalized for individuals to find these
3:02
clinics. A lot of people don't really
3:04
know how to go about it. But yeah, you know, it's, it's a
3:09
growing industry and what we do is we make sure that all that
3:15
information is just on one site versus you going on Reddit or
3:18
joining. What what a lot of people do is
3:19
they join WhatsApp groups or Facebook groups to make these
3:23
life altering decisions. 100% So basically pain.
3:27
Point is I am concerned about my hairline.
3:31
I want hair transplants and everything I've heard online is
3:35
that Turkey's the place to go or Mexico that basically you can
3:39
get a great deal financially, plus you get like kind of five
3:43
star service when you kind of travel for these kind of
3:46
cosmetic procedures outside of the States.
3:49
So what you're providing is like, hey, let us qualify the
3:53
best places and make it a easy onboarding process for you.
3:57
Is that a good summation? Yeah, essentially because right
4:02
now, like it, it can be very messy.
4:04
Like, you know, everyone's aware of Turkey right now, especially
4:07
with hair transplants. People are travelling from all
4:09
over the world to go get them because you can get them done
4:11
for like 2500 to $5000, which like compared here in the
4:15
States, you're looking to spend at least $50,000 after they add
4:22
on all the things that they normally hide from you, such as
4:24
like anesthesia, anesthetic anesthesia and a bunch of other
4:28
stuff. But the issue is that 4040% of
4:34
those clinics in Turkey are black market clinics.
4:37
And not many people are aware of what to look for or what to,
4:42
what to find to kind of help differentiate what's a black
4:45
market clinic versus like an actual clinic.
4:48
And there are other different things that are that are kind of
4:50
different that might throw people for a loop.
4:52
Like a lot of the clinics over there in Turkey, like there's
4:55
some exceptional doctors there, but a lot of times they're
5:00
they're not going to be these quick ones that people you see
5:02
people often go into. Those are normally what we like
5:04
to call in the industry as hair mills, which are like these 24/7
5:08
clinics that are getting people in and turning them out really
5:11
quickly. And a lot of times, it's not
5:14
even a Doctor Who's performing the surgery on you.
5:18
Thanks. So talk to me about the
5:20
qualification. How do you find the clinics?
5:25
Yeah. So I mean we have a board what
5:28
like our one of our founders is a doctor, Doctor Mose Mokakis is
5:34
over here in London. He runs a clinic here.
5:36
He's dealt with, you know, actors from Marvel and he's been
5:41
on BBCA couple times. He's a well respectable in this
5:43
field. We also work closely with
5:46
different surgical groups such like ISHRSFUE, Europe, different
5:51
organizations that do a lot of the validation for these doctors
5:56
because you can't be a part of them unless you reach certain
5:59
qualifications. It's very much a peer peer
6:02
review kind of validation system, which is kind of how the
6:06
US runs their doctor's approval system too.
6:09
And so we work very closely with them.
6:11
And through that we've been able to come up with a process where
6:15
we work closely with those doctors and they honestly, they
6:18
send us these recommendations. So we're working with doctors
6:21
who are pretty much already working with others.
6:24
They, they, they send us these recommendations.
6:27
We'll fly out ourselves a lot of the times to go to these
6:29
locations. Like literally just last week we
6:34
were in Tossalaniki, Greece and we were checking out a clinic
6:39
there. And just to like make sure that
6:44
absolutely like outside of them being an actual doctor and
6:47
checking and verifying their process, but also making sure
6:50
that's like a nice area, it's safe and that, you know,
6:54
verifying that they're doing their part, you know, to making
6:57
sure that people travelling there are being taken care of.
7:00
It's a little bit of a tedious process.
7:03
That's kind of what makes this industry hard to kind of get
7:05
into, especially if you're not cutting any shortcuts.
7:08
But it's, it's needed. Like there are people who, like
7:12
I said before, who are making these life altering decisions
7:15
and, you know, you want to mitigate as much risk as
7:19
possible. And sometimes that that can be a
7:21
bit 100. Percent.
7:23
No, I totally get it. I mean, black market Turkish
7:26
doctor sounds like somebody with a cool hat and like he's eating
7:29
a sandwich and you're like, oh man, what did I come halfway
7:32
across the world? This is scary.
7:34
You don't want to be in that position, right?
7:35
You need a concierge. Someone's going to be like, no,
7:38
we got boots on the ground. We know where you're going is
7:41
good. So give me kind of an overview.
7:42
What what are some of the destinations you mentioned
7:45
Greece. Yeah.
7:48
So right now we're focused on Greece.
7:51
Turkey's a great market like we will sometimes recommend people
7:55
to Turkey, but not on our website right now.
7:58
We work closely with Greece. Part of that being that Greece
8:02
is actually one of the top destinations for cosmetic based
8:06
surgeries. It's just it doesn't have that
8:09
market that that loud market that Turkey does, because Turkey
8:12
kind of Turkey kind of set the foundation for medical tourism
8:18
where they kind of they were kind of The Pioneers for it in
8:22
the sense of how to market for it, what, how to set certain
8:27
expectations. And but that doesn't mean that
8:30
they were like the best to begin with.
8:32
It just knew that they knew how to market it and get it going.
8:35
And so with us, like we work with clinics in Athens, We have
8:39
some places over in Rhodes and tell us that Nikki Greece and we
8:46
work very closely with a handful of clinics right now.
8:48
We're startup. So we're we've been in business
8:52
for about a year now and we only on board a handful of clinics.
8:56
So right now if you sign up, you'll be recommended like 2 out
9:02
of our five clinics. And part of that is because
9:06
they're already weft like we want to make sure that like
9:11
you're not stuck with like analysis paralysis per SE with
9:13
all these clinics and you're just given what results best fit
9:18
based upon your assessment. You know, you'll go on the
9:20
website, you fill out a form and talk to a chat, different stuff
9:22
like that. And yeah, so that's kind of
9:27
where we're. At and then what's the business
9:29
model? I mean, this is a marketplace
9:31
somewhat. How are you guys getting paid?
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10:30
Now back to the show. Yeah, Yeah.
10:32
So essentially like it's free for the clinics to come on board
10:37
because you know, it's I mean this is the part of a lot
10:41
founder. So they kind of understand the
10:42
whole chicken and egg situation when it comes to dealing with
10:44
the marketplace with dealing with dual sided.
10:47
So you have like we have like our our, our patient side and
10:51
then we have our, our, our event, our clinic side.
10:54
And so, and you kind of have to keep both balance relatively
10:59
well. You know, one moment you'll have
11:01
like too much demand and you're like, OK, now we need to work on
11:03
getting more clinics. But in the, in the beginning,
11:07
we, you know what our process is, is we made it free for the
11:12
clinics to get on board. So clinics, they don't have to
11:15
pay anything. They just get on board.
11:17
They use our systems, our booking system, you know, our
11:21
payment processing system, everything's kind of all in one
11:24
shot for them because we're trying to help streamline this
11:27
because right now a lot of this is just run through WhatsApp for
11:30
a lot of these clinics, which isn't sustainable.
11:33
And yet they make it work at scale, which is kind of
11:36
impressive for these people who are just running like 2000
11:40
procedures a year kind of thing. And so, but obviously that could
11:45
be better if they had a system in place that would make it
11:48
easier for them. And that's kind of where look
11:49
Sarah comes in. How we make our funds is we
11:51
charge a fee to the patient. So this varies based upon
11:58
things. Right now, we're starting out at
12:01
like 15% on top for the patient. So based upon your procedure,
12:05
that 15% would be thrown on top. Very transparent.
12:08
It's very much like an itemized invoice, very clear on kind of
12:11
what you're getting and what's being charged.
12:14
And part of that reason that that's being added on the
12:17
patient side is because we're taking care of a lot for the
12:20
patient, right? We're finding these clinics,
12:22
we're making sure that like they're taken care of throughout
12:26
their entire journey. You know this almost like this
12:30
concierge white glove service for them, getting rid of all
12:34
that risk. So you said 15% on top of the
12:37
cost of the service from the provider?
12:42
Yeah. So if I so, yeah.
12:44
So like, yeah, so if I get quoted like, you know, $2000 for
12:51
a procedure and this clinic for some reason has like a 10% fee
12:56
because we dynamically apply it based upon the clinic, you know,
13:00
you'll pay an extra $200 on top of that.
13:06
Oh for 30000. Wait, wait, is it 15% or 10?
13:10
Oh yeah. Well, 15%, but it can vary from
13:11
10:15. I was saying 10% in that
13:13
example. Not to get very easier, man.
13:18
No, Yeah, you're good, You're good.
13:19
Yeah. I mean, we have this model to
13:21
where it's very, you know, it's surge pricing is the name of the
13:24
model that we're playing to eventually do, especially like
13:28
during different times of the year, for example, like, you
13:30
know, during the winter, you know, people don't want to get a
13:34
hair transplant during the summer.
13:36
They often times want to get that during the winter when they
13:38
can stay inside, heal and a lot of a lot of other procedures
13:43
will do that. So that's kind.
13:44
Of the plan there. So you're, you're building kind
13:45
of ACRM system for these clinics overseas and I'm assuming
13:50
there's probably a percentage of merchant service processing and
13:54
then a 10 to 15% Commission on top for basically delivering
13:58
them clients. That seems like a very
14:00
reasonable rate, as if I'm, if I'm the clinician, I'd be like,
14:03
dude, this is great, sign me up. And a great value from the
14:06
customer side where you're like, yeah, totally.
14:08
I'd, I'd pay a 15% just to make sure that I'm not ending up in a
14:12
back alley bathtub, you know? Yeah, exactly.
14:17
And obviously if something goes wrong, like, you know, you have
14:20
someone there for you, you know, not everyone's used to
14:23
travelling outside the country. And we kind of, and you know,
14:26
one because like one of our biggest goals really is to
14:30
become a knowledge base. You can be a marketplace and
14:32
that's great, but what really helps establish that trust is
14:36
being a knowledge base, especially for an industry where
14:39
there really isn't one right now.
14:41
And so one way of us like establishing that trust is just
14:46
being like, hey, we're there for you the entire way.
14:48
Very stereotypical kind of customer service and.
14:51
Why'd you decide on hair transplants as the first
14:53
treatment options? Yeah, that's a question we get a
14:58
lot because there's a lot out there, right?
14:59
There's a lot of different treatments that people can get,
15:03
but it, it honestly just felt like the right time.
15:06
So it came down the timing. A lot of people are travelling
15:08
right now to get hair transplants.
15:10
And then two, it's one of the safest procedures you can have
15:12
done. There's a very low like rate of
15:18
death compared to other procedures.
15:20
It's not like getting like a BBL where you know your chance of
15:24
dying is, is relatively high, especially if you're travelling
15:27
and getting on a plane. There's there's way more that
15:29
can go into it and obviously from start up standpoint, we
15:32
want to make sure we're going, we're starting off on the safe
15:33
route, learning as much as we can with this process and then
15:37
taking it and applying it to more serious.
15:39
Procedures, now that makes sense because the other procedures
15:43
that you think of BBLS, you're thinking breast augmentation,
15:46
you're thinking liposuction, all those are, are fairly invasive
15:50
where as with hair transplants, it's, you know, kind of topical.
15:56
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, you, the, you have
15:59
the option to be put under if you want to, but a lot of these
16:02
procedures are done awake. They they numb your, they numb
16:04
the top of your head and and they perform the surgery and you
16:09
kind of just like lie there and you're talking and it's very,
16:12
very relaxed. Not a very invasive surgery.
16:16
Cool. What about what about kind of
16:18
what's the other medical tourism?
16:20
It's like stem cells and things like that that are hard to get.
16:23
Is there is there a big demand for that?
16:28
I mean with stem cells, I think eventually there is one of the
16:31
ones that we're actually looking at that we think there will be
16:33
more of a higher demand is honestly IVF.
16:39
IVF right now in the states can run you $70,000 pretty, pretty
16:46
high. Some insurances cover it,
16:48
something depending on the state that you live in, like whether
16:50
it's Utah or California, some employers will even cover it for
16:54
you depending on where you work. But even then, they're still
16:57
deductibles. There's been a bunch of other
16:59
things and the success rate isn't like 100%.
17:03
So often times people will be going back a second time or a
17:08
third time. I think the success rate varies
17:11
by age. So but like if you're like in
17:14
your 20s and you're getting IVF, you're looking at like a 60 to
17:18
70% success rate. And then that slowly starts to
17:22
drop as you get older. And so you're looking to spend
17:26
like if it goes wrong the first time, that's another 60,000 out
17:30
of pocket. And insurance often doesn't
17:32
cover the second or third time depending obviously bearing on
17:35
services, insurances, but most won't.
17:39
And so with, you know, fertility rates and a bunch of other
17:42
things being a huge concern nowadays, we're seeing that as a
17:47
huge, you know, potential for the future is we'd actually just
17:53
met with a, one of the largest hospital units throughout in
17:56
Greece and we met with their, with their, I guess their IVF
18:03
section of the hospital And you know, to get a procedure done
18:08
there, it's around $5000. It's huge.
18:13
Which is like absurd. Yeah, Now I the top like
18:18
anyone's listening who's kind of like into this, you know, top
18:21
place that people often go to is Spain for IVFIVF is one of the
18:25
top places or Spain is one of the top places to go for IVF and
18:29
you're looking around for similar prices there.
18:31
But Greece is another spot. I think they rank 3rd as one of
18:36
the top location that people would travel to.
18:39
But one thing that like people have to be careful about also,
18:42
and this is where lexer would come in, is that a lot of these
18:45
stats can be easily skewed in the sense of just like, you
18:49
know, it's a success rate based upon, is it just like a mixture
18:53
of ages? Is it is the success rate based
18:58
upon, oh, this is like a whether it's a donor or a non donor, all
19:03
these things come into play, but you won't find them on any
19:07
public stat, at least at least not that we've been able to
19:11
find. And when we talked with
19:13
hospitals, that's been one of their biggest concerns with
19:15
communicating that to patients. Well, I would speculate that the
19:19
reason why Spain's so popular is because people go there to get
19:22
those Spanish donors. You know what I'm saying?
19:26
I know, give my wife the the option.
19:28
She'd be like, oh, what about him?
19:32
He plays lottery. Yeah, he's pretty handsome.
19:35
Get that nice nice tan. Cool.
19:39
Amazing. OK, So you guys are about a year
19:42
old. How did you finance the project?
19:47
Through through private connections.
19:49
So this Nick my Co founder, this isn't his first venture.
19:53
He's a second time founder and I've worked on other startup
19:58
projects when I ran my agency. And so we were able to meet with
20:02
different friends, family and pass connections and be able to
20:05
we managed to raise about half a mil in private funding.
20:10
Any plans for a true seed or how's runway?
20:15
Yeah, yeah. So we just ran our first
20:18
transaction just this a couple weeks ago.
20:22
And so Congrats. Man first customer.
20:25
We are incredible. Yeah, Yeah, I know.
20:29
And it was, it was actually really good.
20:31
Like we learned a lot. Obviously when you go through
20:33
that process, you know, you have a bunch because like up until
20:35
that point, it's it's really just assumptions.
20:38
I mean, you can do as much, you know, testing and gathering data
20:46
as much as you can, but it really doesn't compare to when
20:50
you're actually running the product through with someone
20:53
that's just an actual customer and not like a friend or family.
20:58
And it was kind of cool because we we learned that our
21:01
assumptions played out positive, like incorrectly positively.
21:05
Like we ended up making more. We end up learning that like
21:08
this is often we ended up learning that like, you know,
21:12
hair transplants have a recurring value to where like if
21:17
you have certain Norwoods, you're going to have to come
21:20
back a second time and obviously learn some other stuff like
21:23
regarding products like, OK, we need to fix that.
21:25
We need to do that things that we, you know, we're intuitive
21:28
for us, but like for the clinic, not necessarily or for the
21:32
patient, not necessarily. And you don't really see it
21:34
until like you're watching your face and.
21:37
Incredible. So so you've got proof of
21:39
concept with one customer, which is amazing.
21:42
Now how are you thinking about goading to market?
21:44
Aside from podcast interviews, what does Go to market look like
21:47
for you? Yeah, yeah.
21:51
So right now we're we're really focused on on content with like
21:55
TikTok and social media. So we have a videographer who's
21:59
very talented and we've been just pumping out as much content
22:05
as we can and that's been bringing in a lot of leads from
22:08
there. Yeah, I think our next biggest
22:10
point is honestly this live stream.
22:13
If we're live streaming a surgery, a neck lift, our Co
22:18
founder Nick is having the procedure done.
22:19
It'll be March 27th. We'll be releasing launch page
22:25
where people can join, join the group and register for it here
22:28
soon. And that'll kind of be how we're
22:31
going to go about it. We're we're really focused.
22:33
Like there's a saying where I can't remember who I was talking
22:37
to who said it, but they were pretty much just like marketing
22:39
is dead. And like, what really drives go
22:42
to market is having these communities, especially in a
22:46
space at least at least like for medical tourism, where it's
22:50
already very community driven. Like there are WhatsApp groups,
22:53
Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of, of people and
22:57
they're active and, and they're run by either doctors or clinics
23:03
and people are just giving each other suggestions in there.
23:07
Now, the problem with them is that like you have, you have
23:11
people who are like paid for referrals.
23:13
So they'll be like, oh, I went to this doctor.
23:14
It was great. Like this is how it turned out,
23:18
which, you know, should never be your judgement on whether you go
23:22
to a place based upon someone else's outcome.
23:24
Like there should be way more involvement.
23:29
But yeah, that's kind of like our strategy right now.
23:31
And it's, and it seems to be working like I mean like with
23:34
these videos or gotten a couple 100,000 videos with a couple
23:37
100,000 views, which has led to a good influx of leads that
23:41
we're slowly reaching out to and taken through the product.
23:46
But. How do you get to those groups?
23:49
Is there a tactical technique to get to those communities?
23:55
Yeah, so. I mean, Facebook groups, you
23:57
kind of just look them up, right?
23:59
When it comes to the WhatsApp groups, though, often times when
24:02
you're searching for a clinic, a lot of times they'll have their
24:07
own group. Or if you're looking at a
24:10
doctor, a lot of time these doctors will have their own
24:12
WhatsApp groups and, and by like searching through, you know, you
24:18
just find them through their website or maybe you've run
24:20
across them on like social media and you just join the group that
24:23
way. They're all like open free
24:24
groups. It's nothing paid.
24:28
So you just kind of you just have to 1 by 1 go, go get them.
24:34
Yeah, yeah, that's kind of how people, that's kind of how
24:37
people are doing it. So that's why, you know, we're
24:39
looking to start our own group, which is what this whole live
24:42
stream, you know, this group will be focusing on the live
24:44
stream, but we're working with a community manager who's going to
24:47
be helping a set up, set up these groups, you know, figure
24:51
out how we go about it because, you know, varies based upon a
24:55
lot of things. So like one of them is just
24:56
like, are we going to do this by language?
24:58
Are we going to do this by country?
25:00
You know, but the first phase you just got to start with one,
25:04
get people in there and then you start splitting things off and
25:07
managing those communities. And you know, the assumption I'm
25:09
making is your customers are 4050 sixty year old guys
25:14
predominantly when you're thinking about content and
25:17
platforms, you know, how how are you kind of doing that math?
25:21
You know, if I'm thinking about TikTok, although I'm on TikTok,
25:25
you know what I'm saying? But like I'm there looking for
25:27
sports and I'm looking for, you know, 90 sports highlights and
25:30
stuff like that. So how are you kind of starting
25:33
to to to decide like which platform with what message?
25:40
Yeah, I think, I mean honestly from at the beginning
25:45
standpoint, you kind of just it's really easy to kind of
25:48
publish on. So just just go across all of
25:50
them. Especially so just just kind of
25:53
you can really like, it really then just comes down to how
25:56
you're going about the format and that maybe that's bad.
25:59
But I mean, I think at least from my view nowadays, there's
26:03
no reason why you shouldn't be able to publish on any of them.
26:05
Especially like, you know, Facebook has its own form of
26:07
Reels, Instagram has its own form of Reels, TikTok has some
26:09
form of Reels. They all have their own form of
26:12
the same format. It then just comes down to
26:14
producing it there, publishing it in those different areas.
26:18
But honestly, yeah, I mean, like most of our demographic is
26:20
actually in their 30s. And and so you know, what we
26:26
found is they're relatively, they're relatively active on
26:29
TikTok, oddly enough. They would get some through
26:33
Facebook, but TikTok is has a wider demograph than what we
26:38
were anticipating. That seems to be the one that's
26:39
pulling the well. TikTok algorithm is just
26:42
amazing, you know, publishing on TikTok, one video gets 27 views,
26:46
the other one gets 250,000. I mean it.
26:49
And when you get that pop, it is just such a great feeling.
26:52
Do you have any kind of insights on kind of what's led to those,
26:56
those videos that have done maybe you know, hundreds of
26:58
thousands of views like what it was or the reason why maybe it
27:02
it popped with the algorithm? Yeah, I mean, I hate saying it
27:08
because a lot of these are really stereotypical things.
27:11
Like, I mean, consistencies came like it's it's the most annoying
27:17
thing to hear, I think. But that's because it it's true
27:22
and it takes work. It's not like some secret kind
27:26
of thing. The next thing really comes down
27:28
to, you know, just figuring out what the trends.
27:31
Like we found like on one of our videos, Well, the first one that
27:33
popped off, we used AI to generate different forms of
27:36
content, different cuts. Like there was like a scene in
27:39
there where Nick he we had like AAI version of him talking as it
27:47
was cut and showing different work done to him.
27:50
And that that kind of popped off.
27:53
The second one that integrated AI popped off.
27:56
You know, there's different things that seem to do it, but
28:02
yeah, it's the biggest thing I can really just tell people is
28:06
really king. And just making sure that your
28:09
format is on point and repeatable per SE.
28:13
It. Is that there's really no
28:15
secret, right? I mean, I haven't talked to
28:18
anyone who's involved with, like, actual TikTok marketing
28:21
where they've been like, oh, there's a secret sauce.
28:23
Exactly. You do the best you can.
28:24
You learn as you go And yeah, you know, one thing that's been
28:27
helpful for me is just post stuff that you don't think is
28:29
going to be good because what the hell do you know?
28:32
You know, it's like, I'll spend an hour on a video, be like, all
28:35
right, you know, let's go hit publish, you know, like 0200
28:39
views, huh? And then something that's just
28:41
like, just put it out there 25,000.
28:45
It's like why? Why is my punished?
28:49
There's like, yeah, it's, it's kind of it's, it's an annoying
28:54
thing. And because these companies are
28:56
constantly changing stuff, right?
28:58
They're constantly, you know, re evaluating and improving their
29:01
algorithm and, and, you know, one day it might work and one
29:04
day it might not. They're like different things
29:08
that I think can be very beneficial.
29:10
Like, you know, such as like you know, like I know like for
29:14
YouTube, like I guess a little tidbit here for YouTube, the
29:18
best way to launch a channel is with like a handful of videos
29:22
already released versus just starting off with one and then
29:25
waiting a week and wasting another one.
29:27
You just released like 3 to 5. I have some form of content for
29:30
people to watch and then you go on that schedule and that's
29:34
shown a huge hit for anyone who's starting to like sub
29:36
channel management or whatever it might be.
29:42
Amazing. OK, we're entering the quantum
29:45
round. Are you ready for this?
29:46
Yeah. Sure.
29:49
I want to give you the Founder Challenge question by
29:51
kitcaster.com and let's see this this here it is.
29:56
What's the sketchiest growth hack you've ever used?
30:02
The sketchiest growth hack, dude.
30:15
And that's a tough, that's a tough one because I feel like, I
30:19
mean, we work with, we do some sketchy stuff just by like
30:22
trying to work with these clinics.
30:24
But I mean, I'd probably say the sketchiest, I don't know if this
30:31
applies to growth hack, but I guess it does because it's kind
30:35
of how we first got in with some of these clinics was like, we
30:38
just kind of went in and post office just like people who
30:42
needed work done at these clinics just to infiltrate and
30:48
see what they were like. Like we weren't posing like as
30:50
if we were interviewing them. We were just like, yeah, like I
30:53
need a beer transplant, that's why I'm here kind of thing.
30:57
And they would like take us in and they show us everything.
30:59
It actually works out really well because Nick is balding, so
31:03
it was super easy to get him in. But yeah, I don't know.
31:07
That's probably the sketches part.
31:09
And then once they learned like why we were there, we always got
31:11
sent over to some other guy that would just like interview us.
31:14
He's just like, why are you here?
31:16
What do you want? Can we help you kind?
31:18
Of their analysis. That's cool.
31:21
Yeah. And, and not too sketchy.
31:23
I I don't take you as a sketchy guy.
31:25
That's actually pretty smart. You got to you got to get in
31:27
there and, and check people out it when they're not expecting
31:30
you. That's secret shopping.
31:33
I love it. Yeah.
31:35
I, I feel like it. Yeah, I got to be a little
31:37
careful there, especially since we're not trying to be a sketchy
31:39
business. Healthcare is really hard to be
31:41
sketchy with. I mean, there's a lot of
31:43
compliances and things in place to help prevent that.
31:47
You know, that's kind of what we're trying to fight, fight
31:49
against you. 100% what? What kind of like compliance are
31:52
you running up against HIPAA stuff Like what is the challenge
31:56
with compliance for you? I mean, the biggest, the biggest
32:00
thing for us is GDPR, right? Mostly just starting off GDPR,
32:06
you know, we have stuff in place for HIPAA compliance such as
32:09
like different audit logs, encryptions, basic things.
32:13
But honestly, being that we're a global marketplace, even though
32:17
we're just focusing on grace right now and it's, it's just
32:19
GDPR and make making sure that people have access to what they
32:24
should have access to, making sure that it's encrypted when
32:26
it's at rest, you know, things are logged, probably very
32:30
standard boring things that often people forget about when
32:33
they're creating these apps. But being a marketplace actually
32:36
makes it relatively easy in all honesty, because there's a lot
32:40
of things that protect marketplaces.
32:44
Are so are the, is there kind of guard rails in the app or I
32:49
should ask like this? You know, you're obviously
32:51
bullish on people getting cosmetic surgeries and I believe
32:54
that everybody should get whatever they want.
32:56
Are there certain people that you'd actually turn away and be
32:59
like, Nah man, I don't think this is right for you?
33:04
Yeah. So that's actually something
33:05
that we work. I mean, that's actually one of
33:09
the things that we look for when we're looking at clinics.
33:13
So we work with some of the top doctors in the world like
33:16
Kesadakis and oh gosh, I'm spacing his name.
33:23
But some of the doc top hair transplant surgeons that have
33:26
like wait lists of like 812 months, some some of them are
33:29
even years. And Oh my gosh, I I totally
33:38
spaced your question. Who should not get the procedure
33:41
or how do you like if I can't? Hear.
33:45
And I was like, I want my hairline to go just above my
33:48
eyebrows right here. This is what I want.
33:50
I want to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:53
So like, I mean, by working with these doctors, like these
33:55
doctors are already making a lot of money and when we come in and
34:01
we work with them, like a lot of these people are really in love
34:05
with their crowd. It's an art to them.
34:07
Like they're truly passionate about it.
34:10
They're they're literally sculpting.
34:13
And so like, for example, we had a patient that was running
34:19
through and they were just like they were talking, they were
34:23
kind of concerned about their hairline not being far enough
34:25
down. And the doctor was just straight
34:28
up like, we could do that, but like, it'll do this and that.
34:32
And honestly, like, I don't think I'd recommend you
34:35
continuing if that's where you want to go.
34:37
So literally they were there and he was about to turn down and
34:40
just call everything off if that's what he wanted.
34:44
And those are the kind of doctors that we work with.
34:46
Like these are the kind of people that we want on our
34:49
platform. If you go to a hair mill, if you
34:51
go to someone who doesn't like don't, you know, they'll just
34:55
say yes because in the end they just see you as a dollar versus
34:59
someone who sees you more as like a painting, which is what
35:02
the kind of clinics that we're wanting to deal with and working
35:05
very closely well. Amazing.
35:07
If you were to go back to college and enroll as a freshman
35:11
right now, what would you study? David, that's such a tough
35:16
question, especially with AI now because I'm a computer science
35:20
guy. I'm a, you know, I'm the CTO of
35:22
this company. So I always get that question
35:27
and I was literally just back at the college that I went to to
35:31
speak with their head of their program for the computer science
35:36
program. And I don't know, I probably,
35:42
I'd probably still go the computer science route.
35:45
A lot of people might actually be like, oh, why, like AI is
35:49
going to replace software developers.
35:53
But I'm very much a believer that, you know, it's only going
36:02
to increase AI is only going to increase the need.
36:06
I think it's going like, I think it's going to slim off like
36:09
those who don't really know what they're doing.
36:12
But for those who do, it's, they're going to be that more,
36:14
much more valuable. You know, the thing that I say
36:20
is just like, you know, computer science is more than just
36:24
writing code. There's system designs, there's
36:30
there's scoping out projects, there's way more advanced things
36:34
that are involved than just coding.
36:38
And AI is going to be the the tool for that.
36:42
So because, you know, in the end, like, nobody's really safe
36:45
with AI unless you want to argue about the blue collar space.
36:50
But yeah, because I mean, if you're arguing like, oh, AI is
36:54
taking software jobs, like, OK, AI is taking like business
36:56
assistant roles, like why do I need them to work on that Excel
37:00
sheet when I can just ask it to do it?
37:02
But you don't hear anyone talking about that.
37:04
Yeah, describe your text that you're using to build the
37:06
product. Yeah.
37:10
So right now it's it's nothing special, nothing fun.
37:14
It's just running on which I hate to say I mean like back
37:19
yeah anyways, it's it's just running on next GS right and you
37:22
know, we got Mongo running as a database.
37:24
Your very stereotypical set up. The most exciting thing maybe
37:28
comes down to the packages that we're using within it like you
37:31
know, like tan stack if anyone's familiar with those and some
37:38
other stuff. Payload CMS is a is a huge CMS.
37:43
It's relatively new. It's and it's very powerful too.
37:50
Yeah. And so we've just been using
37:51
that. I can't say it's as exciting as
37:53
like some other projects that I've worked on.
37:55
We got to use some more fun stuff.
37:57
But like, you know, that's it's it's it's start up, it's MVP.
38:00
Like you're, if you're not meant to be looking sexy like it's
38:04
meant to be like, OK, what's going to work?
38:06
What's going to be the easiest for on boarding and what's going
38:09
to set you up to either migrate or scale?
38:12
Love it. You know, it's not just like,
38:14
oh, this is shiny. I love it You know this audience
38:17
loves ideas, business ideas, new tool ideas What are some some
38:22
other business ideas or or tools you'd like to see brought
38:25
forward right now I. Don't know.
38:29
I think I mean there's, there's a lot of cool tools being
38:35
released. I feel like not today.
38:37
So many things are being made now thanks to AI.
38:43
You know, I think it'd be cool to see more implementations on
38:45
the skill sides. So like, you know, Claude has
38:48
skills that can be used to help improve their LLM open clause.
38:54
A huge one. I think when someone can solve
38:58
the prompt injection problem, that'll be huge and very
39:04
exciting. I think that'll solve a lot of
39:06
the hiccups and security problems that come with AI.
39:11
So if anyone's working on any of those, shoot, that's a big feat.
39:16
That's probably where I'd recommend because no one, no
39:18
one's, no one's solving it. And people are scared to talk
39:21
about it because it makes their that makes like open claw
39:25
obsolete and makes a bunch of different things like unsafe to
39:28
use in a real enterprise system. OK, how about media?
39:33
Any favorite shows, movies, albums, books, Anything you're
39:37
really excited about right now you'd recommend?
39:41
Not dude, I don't know, but I just went and saw Interstellar
39:44
at the BFI IMAX theatre. Like a true IMAX experience.
39:52
And like I don't know if if you're into film, but like, I
39:57
don't know, I can't even say that I'm really into film, but
39:59
like my buddy is and I totally get it.
40:01
I like when I saw like they had an actual projectionist.
40:06
And you could see like the gritty film.
40:07
I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I get it now.
40:09
It's like that meme. We're just like, I get it.
40:12
And you just see how beautiful it is.
40:14
Oh my goodness. I left there so inspired.
40:16
I was just like, I was like, holy shit.
40:18
Like there's just like this whole other space, like and just
40:22
like art form. And just like that truly can
40:24
only be experienced there. People say like film, People say
40:27
like movies, like the theater industry is dead.
40:29
And I'm just like, dude, after that, like, that's so hard to
40:34
beat. Like, nothing compares to that.
40:38
I don't know. Are you a big movie guy?
40:39
I used to be, but it seems like movies suck now.
40:42
You know, I mean, I, I, I feel like I came like the golden era
40:47
of movies because it's like, that's what you did is like on
40:50
Friday nights you went and rented a movie and came back and
40:52
watched a couple movies and there was all this cool like
40:55
independent film and you know, movies were really original.
40:59
But now it's just like, I, I see what's kind of being offered.
41:02
I'm like but I do love Interstellar though.
41:06
Dude, yeah, it's it's almost kind of sad.
41:09
Like I see this. I think a lot of industries
41:13
right now are very safe and because of that, there's not a
41:21
lot of new and excitement going on.
41:23
I think I mean, outside of AI, like, you know, there's not much
41:27
like to Simon, like I went to DICE, which is a conference for
41:33
game develop, game game companies, and I met with some
41:37
of the people over with NVIDIA and some of the other companies
41:40
there. And like one of the things that
41:42
we were talking about was just like, you know, this industry is
41:48
dying. Like like no one like looking
41:50
around. It's just like there's like no
41:54
creativity. It's the same thing, you know,
41:56
in the video game industry. It's it's all it's always about
41:58
life service. It's always about life service
42:00
because it's safe. Like you just it's safe to get
42:02
investors do it, even though the past couple releases have been
42:05
huge flops. And it's the same thing with
42:07
films. Like, you see, these films are
42:09
trying to play it safe because no one, it's the whole saying
42:12
it's like you won't, like no one will get mad at you first for
42:15
doing something like like no one's going to get mad at you
42:22
for doing something that's seen as safe when it fails per SE.
42:28
They're just like, oh, it happens.
42:29
But if you do something that's like experimental, there's like,
42:32
oh, you shouldn't have done that.
42:33
That was dumb blah blah blah. Yeah, you know, and I mean, it's
42:39
it's frustrating because you know, now what they do with
42:41
movies for Netflix or Amazon or whatever is they're like
42:45
dialogue is reiterating the plot like every 20 minutes because
42:49
they know everyone's on their phone and kind of barely
42:51
watching the show so that they weren't like tell you what's
42:53
going on. But it feels like you're kind of
42:56
finalizing the audience, you know.
42:58
So it's, I guess I, I do want to kind of like trash the cinema
43:05
because we're in a slow point with movies.
43:07
But for TV shows, TV is better than it's ever been.
43:12
And it's amazing. You know, it seems like since
43:14
Sopranos that that pendulum is kind of swung towards TV 'cause
43:17
you can take so much more time to develop a story, which is
43:20
really cool and, and I appreciate that.
43:22
But I I do miss like a a tight great movie.
43:26
You know, we we're just not seeing that anymore.
43:30
And you know, I I'm to blame too.
43:31
I mean, I don't sit down and watch movies, you know, but but
43:35
sit me down with. It's it's tough.
43:38
Sit me down with Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock
43:41
and I'm glued to the the screen. You know what I mean?
43:44
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think shows like work
43:48
out so well. It's it's it's true.
43:50
Like, I don't know, I feel like this also goes into the whole,
43:56
you know, AI notion. It's it's, it's tough to keep
44:00
people's attention. And I think that's a problem
44:04
that even like a lot of founders are going to experience with
44:07
whatever they're building. It's tough to people, people's
44:09
attention nowadays. And it's only going to get, you
44:14
know, I imagine it's only going to get worse with, with just how
44:18
instantaneous we're expecting things.
44:20
And especially now with AI being able to pump things out so
44:23
quick, Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's effect.
44:27
I mean, it can be Danish, you got it.
44:29
You got to be very careful. You got to, because it can, it
44:33
can, I mean, just from like a developer standpoint, like, you
44:38
know, use AI, but make sure that you're still understanding what
44:45
it's doing or you're going to lose that skill And, and you
44:50
just become it's, it comes up with mind numbing in all
44:52
honesty. And then I feel like terrible,
44:54
like as if I just doomschooled all day.
44:57
You know, it's interesting because you mentioned
44:59
Interstellar and Christopher Nolan is still a guy that that
45:02
he only makes movies for the for cinema and he creates those
45:07
completely overwhelming experiences where like you're
45:09
like, yes, I will go see that movie.
45:11
And he's got one. He's got, what's it called?
45:13
The Odyssey is coming out in July.
45:15
Which dude, I can't wait for that.
45:18
I love Christopher Nolan, man. See, yeah.
45:23
And it's sick. And this.
45:24
Yeah. And that's kind of what's
45:25
happening, right? Like maybe that's what we're
45:29
seeing within the the whole AI space is now that like, because
45:33
like with film, like you only hear of a few greats and it's
45:37
those who are super passionate and know their stuff, right?
45:42
And I imagine that's kind of where things are heading, you
45:46
know, for, you know, with, with developers, with AI or whatever
45:50
AI role that a whatever role AI is replacing.
45:56
But he can't compete with that passion.
45:57
And just like what he's doing, it's just like insane.
46:02
Have any chance I want to stick on Interstellar for a second
46:05
before we get out? Yeah, let's do it.
46:08
Dude, the Tesseract, so basically he was able to use the
46:12
Tesseract to transmit information to his daughter
46:16
through space-time so she could save humanity.
46:22
Did you feel like it was kind of cold?
46:25
Like the the actual tesseract itself?
46:27
Like cold? I mean like devoid of like a
46:32
feeling of any feeling. It was like really psychedelic
46:36
and and but it didn't seem like it was.
46:39
I guess what I was looking for is like some kind of hint of
46:41
like superior intellect and information, you know, It felt
46:48
like, it felt kindred to like our dimension, but it also felt
46:52
kind of like mechanical and like empty.
46:57
Yeah, I mean, it's funny to bring that up because I was
47:00
literally like I was kind of thinking about that whole
47:03
dimensional area because how how do you express that?
47:07
Like how do you expressed A5 dimensional space to a
47:13
three-dimensional being or two-dimensional being or
47:16
whatever and allow it to still be able to interact?
47:21
Like I think, I don't know, I think I think it was well done.
47:27
I think I see what you're saying.
47:28
A very like like psychedelic in a sense, but I feel like that's
47:33
kind of fitting for what's trying to be approached here.
47:36
But I think the unknown and coldness is what almost
47:40
expresses the whole superiority. It's like so like it's it's it's
47:48
you're like incapable pool to quite understand such don't want
47:50
to be there because you can't understand it because you don't
47:54
belong. That's not your dimension, and I
47:58
think that's kind of where they were trying to go.
48:00
Maybe that's throwing them too much of a bone.
48:03
Maybe it's just like a personal taste thing because you know,
48:06
it's like you can from a lower dimension you can only see the
48:09
shadow of the higher dimension. So like 3 dimensional you can.
48:13
You just see A2 dimensional shadow for example.
48:16
So if we're 4 dimensional beings, height, width, breadth,
48:20
depth and then time, then we can only see, you know, the shadow
48:24
of it. So like when he enters, he's in
48:26
that tesseract. Like that's kind of like the
48:28
physical reality is the shadow that he's in.
48:32
But I guess I don't know, I I wanted there to be some like
48:35
beam of light or some kind of angels in there or something
48:39
cool. You know what I mean?
48:42
I actually really like I actually really liked how their
48:46
approach was on the whole day. This like other being out there.
48:50
I thought it was very, I mean. But they didn't really allude to
48:55
it. And I couldn't tell if there was
48:57
like another presence or if it was like, dude, like in the
49:02
Tesseract interacting with himself and his daughter.
49:05
Like, was it him? Or was there like, was there
49:08
some kind of other entity that was there that was kind of
49:11
guiding the whole thing? I think there was definitely
49:12
like somebody put it there, you know, or something, you know,
49:17
but they didn't. Well, yeah, could they take it
49:19
away? Right.
49:21
I mean, I think the whole point of the reason why that room was
49:24
created, from what I remember, was like it was created for him
49:28
to be able to interact with through gravity, which is how he
49:32
was able to communicate with this daughter.
49:34
But like, yeah, it was really interesting.
49:37
I thought it was really cool and really inspiring to in, in a
49:40
sense of just like, I don't know, my, my, honestly, my, this
49:45
might be a little, I guess steering away from what we're
49:49
talking about, but like I have this conflict in my mind
49:54
sometimes it just like what's, what's the, what's the right way
49:57
to live, right? What, what brings like
50:00
happiness, what brings joy? Very like, I guess what's your
50:05
philosophy of life kind of thing.
50:07
And on one part of me, it's just like, you know, just like
50:11
growing old, raising a family, living on some land, you know,
50:16
walking out on some grass and just being able to enjoy what's
50:19
there. And then the other part is like
50:21
what Interstellar I think puts forward where it's just like,
50:24
OK, we're put on this Earth here because we as humans, we're like
50:28
explorers. We are, we're sent here to
50:31
discover what there is. And both are super like
50:34
inspiring and I think can work. But after I left that movie, I
50:37
was just like, shoot, dude. Like, am I looking at this the
50:40
wrong way? Like, should I be like this
50:42
explorer who's like challenging what, what needs to be done and
50:46
just like pushing the limits or like, am I not fulfilling my
50:51
life unless I'm doing that kind of thing?
50:53
And I think a lot of founders would agree with that because,
50:55
you know, we as founders, we're trying to push and create things
50:58
and do stuff. But I'd be lying if I did, if I
51:02
did, if I didn't say that. I, I see the, the, the
51:04
attraction to the other philosophy where it's just like,
51:07
you know, doing your part. And I mean, I'm here in London
51:10
right now and the lifestyle here is very different where people
51:13
just wake up, they have their coffee, they they smoke cig in
51:17
midway through the day, they go home, maybe go to the pub, but.
51:22
And sounds pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I mean, to the right
51:27
person, right? It's very different and they're
51:29
happy, right. And so it's funny, but.
51:33
Francesco, thank you for taking me down that rabbit hole.
51:36
I'm stoked to think about Interstellar all day now.
51:40
Everybody go to luxera.com and sign up to see this live neck
51:46
lift. I'm going to tell my wife about
51:47
it. She loves looking at that stuff.
51:49
Her whole feet is like all picking and like disgusting
51:52
things. She loves that.
51:53
Not that I'm saying this disgusting, I'm just saying like
51:55
if you're into that thing, this is the place to do it.
51:58
Also, if you're considering, you know, hair replacement, hair
52:01
transplant, beer transplant, eyebrow transplant, scalp micro
52:06
pigmentation, go to look Sarah. Tell them that podcast sent you.
52:11
It sounds like you're in very, very good hands.
52:14
Francesco, what's the best place for people to connect with you
52:17
personally online? Probably through, probably
52:22
through LinkedIn or or Twitter. That's probably the best way
52:27
that they can do my my Twitter handle is just Francesco Hayes
52:31
under score, and then my LinkedIn is just Francesco Dash.
52:35
And we'll put all the links in the show notes below.
52:37
Wherever you're listening to this, please connect with them.
52:39
Thank you so much for joining me.
52:40
It's been a pleasure. Yeah, yeah.
52:44
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.