Latest / Two Point Perspective / Who Finds the Horse Now?

Transcript

Who Finds the Horse Now? · Two Point Perspective

• 0:00
  It used to be that when you were looking for a horse to buy, one of the first things you needed was somebody who knew where the horses were.
• 0:07
  Usually that was your trainer.
• 0:09
  Your trainer knew somebody, that person knew somebody else.
• 0:13
  Somebody had a horse that might never even be advertised.
• 0:18
  And that network still exists, but it's no longer the only way into the market.
• 0:24
  Now I can sit at home, I can search hundreds of horses myself, I can watch videos, compare them, save the ones I like, and send that list to my trainer.
• 0:34
  I still need the exact same professional help deciding which horse should I buy.
• 0:42
  But do I still need the professional to find the horse?
• 0:47
  That's a very different question.
• 0:49
  And that's what we're talking about today.
• 0:52
  This is two point perspective.
• 0:54
  Two riders with different viewpoints from different.
• 0:57
  Generations talking about the same sport.
• 1:01
  We've always talked about horse shopping before, but this time we're looking at something that's changing the way all of us do it.
• 1:08
  So Maddie Saunders from Elite Equine Marketplace is here with us.
• 1:13
  And Maddie, thanks for joining us.
• 1:15
  Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:17
  I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:19
  So you made a really deliberate decision with Elite, meaning I don't have to be a professional to search.
• 1:27
  So why was it important to you that somebody like me could get on there and look for a horse for myself?
• 1:34
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:35
  So the three of us being adult amateur riders, right.
• 1:38
  This is something that I feel pretty strongly about.
• 1:41
  I deliberately wanted Elite Equine to be an open discovery platform.
• 1:46
  So searching is free and you don't have to be a professional to access the tools.
• 1:52
  And the reason being too, I think having a trainer help you is so, so important.
• 1:57
  That will never go away.
• 1:58
  I highly recommend not just, you know, up and buying a horse or an import from a Facebook ad.
• 2:05
  You know, get your trainer involved always.
• 2:08
  I learned that the hard way before too.
• 2:11
  But you have to also think about a trainer with, say, 20 or 30 or more clients.
• 2:17
  You know, they exist out there.
• 2:19
  They're riding all day, they're teaching, they're managing a bar and they're traveling to shows, they're dealing with the vets and barriers and staff and also potentially shopping for multiple clients at the time, same, same time.
• 2:32
  So realistically, they're not going to have hours every single day to search every corner of the Internet or through their network for every single client.
• 2:43
  So technology can really do some of that leg work and particularly as an adult.
• 2:48
  Amy, myself, I'm in my 30s, I'm about to be 31.
• 2:52
  It's crazy.
• 2:53
  I'm like, I still think that I'm 25, but I know my riding by now, and I know what makes me comfortable, you know, what makes me nervous.
• 3:01
  But style, of course, I tend to like.
• 3:04
  And generally what I'm looking for, you know, more woe than go.
• 3:10
  But that doesn't mean I'm gonna go and buy a horse without my trainer.
• 3:13
  It means that I wanted to make elite equine.
• 3:16
  I wanted it to be able to be a platform that you can participate in discovery.
• 3:21
  You can find horses that look interesting, you can save them, you can compare them and actually do that side by side.
• 3:29
  So you can see, you know, all their qualifications, their price and all of that, and then send that screenshot to your trainer with the links and then your trainer can say, yeah, that looks interesting.
• 3:40
  I think it's worth setting up a trial or, you know, absolutely not.
• 3:44
  Let, you know, let me make some phone calls.
• 3:46
  Either way, I wanted to make it very open.
• 3:48
  Discovery and access to information is.
• 3:51
  Is definitely not the same thing as replacing professional expertise.
• 3:55
  But if anything, I do think that giving amateurs better tools allows everyone involved to use their time more efficiently.
• 4:03
  And so are you actually seeing that happen?
• 4:06
  Are amateurs finding horses and sending them to their trainers?
• 4:09
  Yeah, yeah, that's.
• 4:12
  That's actually mostly the scenario here.
• 4:16
  It oftentimes too, because the amateurs have the access to it.
• 4:20
  It's not cut off.
• 4:22
  Trainers are seeing this as a tool that helps sort of bond them together in a way.
• 4:28
  Right.
• 4:29
  So I would say people are using it the way that I expected, which is great.
• 4:33
  And more amateurs, I would say, than not, are on this platform and sending the listings to their trainers.
• 4:40
  I think in some ways, Elizabeth, the experience that you've had in the past where it's like, okay, I found this horse for you.
• 4:46
  I know you're gonna like it.
• 4:47
  Go ahead and try it out.
• 4:49
  Okay.
• 4:49
  Write the check.
• 4:50
  Great.
• 4:50
  I think some people wanna horse shop that way, and then I think they're in speaking just from an amateur perspective.
• 4:57
  And I think you probably would have preferred this and which is how you did it this past time, but being involved and being hands on in the process of buying the horse, you know, I think there's probably both
• 5:10
  sides of that.
• 5:11
  But I think what's so cool about this is it allows, like you're saying, like, the bonding that can go on, being a part of the process, having opinions on it and learning.
• 5:20
  You see a video of a horse that you think you like, and then your trainer's like, oh, no way.
• 5:24
  But it's an opportunity for them to teach you why.
• 5:26
  Yeah.
• 5:26
  Too.
• 5:27
  Which I think is kind of cool.
• 5:28
  I think for me it was more like as I get, I don't want to say the word, but older, more mature, I get pickier, more mature, more mature.
• 5:39
  Most.
• 5:39
  Most mature.
• 5:40
  So I get more wise, I get pickier.
• 5:43
  And I mean, there's certain things that I need to try because if I don't like it, I've learned over time that if I'm not comfortable, I don't want to kick myself to death.
• 5:56
  I don't want to, you know.
• 5:57
  Yeah.
• 5:58
  Certain things are just like a yes or a no.
• 6:01
  And those I don't know that you see them from a video.
• 6:04
  You probably have to sit on the horse to find out.
• 6:07
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:09
  This sort of platform also gives trainers the ability to see where there's horse trials.
• 6:16
  So say that this trainer is at try on and there's multiple different horse sales going on there.
• 6:24
  They can actually go and explore on the map and say, this horse might work, be worth trying for you.
• 6:30
  So it's both.
• 6:31
  Or you as an amateur can say, hey, like this horse is over at, you know, barn X over here.
• 6:38
  Should we try it?
• 6:39
  So it just helps save time for trainers and it helps really narrow the universe, but it doesn't take away from the professional judgment.
• 6:50
  Right.
• 6:50
  So the professional judgment at the end of the day in most cases is still going to determine that match.
• 6:56
  Well, yeah, because like you said, a trainer with 20 or 30 clients and that sending them all these horses they find.
• 7:05
  I mean, I'm just wondering, does it really save them time or does it give them more to sort through?
• 7:10
  Oh, just as like automatically sending a link here or Facebook there or whatever.
• 7:15
  Yeah, right, exactly.
• 7:16
  I feel like that the app helps like solidify that process.
• 7:19
  If, you know, we're scrolling.
• 7:21
  It's instead of doing it from just some random, like you're saying random thing on Facebook, it's a condensed version of that.
• 7:28
  And then it gives them access to how to set up a trial or see where they're going to be after the fact, which is kind of nice.
• 7:35
  Versus I don't know, this person.
• 7:37
  I guess now I have to introduce myself.
• 7:39
  Hang on.
• 7:40
  You know, like, I'm assuming there's a favorites list and you can organized so that you can send your favorites to your trainer and you don't have to send them just one off one at a time.
• 7:52
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:53
  Yep.
• 7:54
  You can save favorites.
• 7:55
  You can actually save search criteria too.
• 7:58
  Nice.
• 7:59
  So if you're looking for a junior hunter that qualified for Devon last year.
• 8:03
  You've got a really big budget, then you can insert your budget, you can insert those qualifications.
• 8:09
  If you're looking for something like a, a green horse or an import or whatever, there's all these different filters or if you want to search by location and if you don't see anything that pops up automatically that matches
• 8:21
  that search criteria, you can save it and then opt in to getting alerts on that.
• 8:26
  But there's also a way to favorite.
• 8:29
  You can, you know, share automatically.
• 8:31
  It makes it really easy.
• 8:32
  Everything's under one listing.
• 8:33
  You can implement if you're a seller, you can put unlimited videos, which is pretty cool.
• 8:37
  You can upload direct.
• 8:39
  You can also compare side by side.
• 8:41
  So I think that tool is really helpful.
• 8:43
  And for trainers too, if you're like, okay, you know, there's these five horses.
• 8:48
  Which one would make the most sense to go and see and take the time out of my day to go and maybe travel and try.
• 8:54
  Have you gotten feedback from trainers about the tool?
• 8:59
  I mean, do they feel like they're overwhelmed or are they happy to have it?
• 9:03
  They're happy to have it.
• 9:04
  I will say the majority of the trainers that are using the platform are really listing they're selling their horses.
• 9:10
  There's a lot of high volume sales barns on there and they love it from a seller perspective because you can manage all of your inventory in one dashboard.
• 9:19
  It's like I said, unlimited media, but it's also unlimited listings.
• 9:23
  I will say I'm seeing the majority of trainers are on there to list, but they're also on there to search for their clients.
• 9:31
  And it's a real mix of both.
• 9:32
  But I will say that the searchers are.
• 9:35
  We've got some juniors on there, we've got amateur.
• 9:38
  I'm curious because soon after, obviously as I've been, you know, Facebook hears everything you say.
• 9:45
  So all of a sudden the catch ride came up the other day, which is just limited to professionals.
• 9:53
  Like I don't even think that as an amateur we couldn't search right.
• 9:57
  And I did some research on them as well and I think catchride and there's definitely other platforms emerging right now too that make this conversation timely.
• 10:06
  And again, I don't look at it like, you know, elite equine versus Catride.
• 10:10
  If anything, I definitely think seeing multiple technology models really validates the larger point that the industry is ready for modernization.
• 10:21
  But yes, what is interesting is their approach.
• 10:25
  They, they choose a professional only model.
• 10:29
  So what's, what's cool about Elite is that In a world where like, okay, obviously we have Facebook, we have Instagram, we have things like that.
• 10:40
  And people of course are going to put their ads on, on those platforms.
• 10:45
  But for trainers even not just for the amateur who's perusing, sometimes you have to be friends with those people.
• 10:55
  So if your network is limited, you never, you're never going to see them.
• 10:59
  Or if you're not a member of particular sales groups or area groups where you can post sales content, are you going to see them?
• 11:06
  So I think what's so cool about your app is that and technology is the fact that one, it's not just horses, but also it puts it all in one place.
• 11:16
  So really like, yes, you can of course, like you're saying it's not going to replace the necessity of a trainer or their contacts, but it's also going to open it up to people that they might never come across
• 11:27
  to begin with.
• 11:28
  And I think that there's a lot of value in that.
• 11:30
  And I think that there's value in it for amateurs to be able or juniors who are just, I mean, I remember as a junior I would look at sales ads too.
• 11:37
  I mean, yeah, you, of course, you want to see what's out there.
• 11:39
  I think that there's a lot of value in the ability to see high volume sales barns and things like that.
• 11:45
  And trainers using it for the sale point.
• 11:47
  Yeah, One of the push, pushbacks that I had gotten before was sometimes when I had been looking at ads and shown them, you know, to a trainer would be sort of like, well, I don't really know that person
• 12:02
  and I don't really feel comfortable because if I don't know them, then I don't really know much about their program and what could be underlying.
• 12:11
  Whereas if I buy or if I connect myself with my network and the people that I know, then I'm not going to have that problem because they're going to have to see me.
• 12:22
  I'm not sure that's true, but they're going to have to run into me at a horse show and that would feel very different if they had sold me a piece of garbage just because I didn't know them.
• 12:33
  Yeah, well, I think what's interesting about that is I would argue, just to play devil's advocate, that that's part of the trainer's job is to kind of be uncomfortable and like vet out these people that might be selling
• 12:43
  a horse that they don't necessarily know.
• 12:45
  I think it limits you tremendously to be like, oh, I don't know this person, I can't buy a horse for them.
• 12:50
  However, I do think on the flip side, you have to do your due diligence.
• 12:54
  You don't want to just like buy a horse willy nilly, not doing any, you know, background research on somebody you're not aware of or even maybe the horse.
• 13:01
  But it is interesting when there's pushback of.
• 13:04
  I, you know, I don't know that.
• 13:05
  But I also think that, that maybe was that an older, is that an older mindset?
• 13:09
  Is that changing like you're saying?
• 13:10
  It sort of begs the question or makes the point that this industry is ready to catch up with the technology and that, okay, reach out to them and see.
• 13:20
  One of the things that I really liked was the fact that you seem to have a level of clients or a level of people that are listing versus what you see on Facebook always or whatever.
• 13:38
  And I don't know how you've done that, but maybe it's similar to what Catch Ride is doing.
• 13:45
  I don't know if you're making any kind of judgments like that.
• 13:49
  Well, our name is Elite Equine, so the higher end of the industry, I will say.
• 13:56
  And to get to your point about just trusting other trainers, making sure that these sellers are validated, we're all about transparency.
• 14:07
  And I wanted to make sure that you could leave comments on not only the listings themselves, but give 5 star reviews also for the sellers.
• 14:18
  Like a rating system, right?
• 14:19
  Exactly.
• 14:20
  So you get full transparency.
• 14:22
  As a seller, you can opt not to get comments on, on the horses and whatnot, but as a seller, if you're selling a service, you want those comments, you want pictures, you want the five star reviews so that
• 14:38
  you can promote, hey, I'm, I'm trustworthy in the industry.
• 14:41
  And here's social proof as well.
• 14:44
  So the five star reviews and the comments and the images that you can put on there are really good for transparency if you don't know this person or your trainer doesn't know the person in the network too.
• 14:57
  And the question that I had is I'm, I'm actually curious what both of you think as adult amateurs as well, especially knowing at least you, Elizabeth, and maybe you two.
• 15:07
  Reynolds stepped away from the sport at different points and came back.
• 15:12
  Do you feel like the way that you participate in something like horse shopping or even what you expect to be able to research and access yourself has changed?
• 15:23
  Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying is like, you know, in the past I feel like there's been, here's the horse, try It.
• 15:32
  And now that I have come back to riding, have had a few experiences with horses, it has unfortunately some bad, many good, but it has totally changed my attitude about what is acceptable for me.
• 15:51
  And I know that all that's hard to put into your criteria.
• 15:55
  I've learned a lot since I've been back.
• 15:57
  I've probably been back to riding only for about 15 years after about a 30 some odd year break.
• 16:04
  So needless to say, the world is very different.
• 16:07
  I grew up riding thoroughbreds off the track, and now all of a sudden it's all these, you know, warm bloods.
• 16:13
  And a friend of mine, actually in the 90s, May, who rode with me as a kid, made quite a bit of money importing and she was one of the first kind of importers and made it a business to
• 16:25
  make some money and of course doesn't do that anymore.
• 16:28
  Now everybody's, you know, on it.
• 16:30
  Yeah, it's definitely different.
• 16:32
  And like I said, for me, it's been interesting to kind of use the model of Airbnb or Zillow.
• 16:41
  You know, you go and you get to search and you know what you like.
• 16:44
  The house I live in currently, I found, you know, my realtor didn't think she should show it to me because she thought it was too far.
• 16:54
  And I'm like, too far from what?
• 16:56
  I love it.
• 16:57
  And of course, that's what we bought.
• 16:58
  So for me to kind of have that opportunity now, I don't know about somebody who's just starting out.
• 17:06
  They probably need a lot of guidance.
• 17:08
  And it's more than just, let's go look at the pretty horse.
• 17:11
  But knowing now more exactly what I want, do I want a good mover?
• 17:17
  How great does it have to jump?
• 17:19
  What's the picture look like?
• 17:20
  I can see that from a video too, so.
• 17:23
  Right.
• 17:24
  You know, it doesn't mean I have to be an expert.
• 17:28
  It just, you know, I just have more information and I know more how to say what is important to me.
• 17:36
  Yeah, and rentals too.
• 17:38
  I.
• 17:39
  I think you've probably watched some of this happen in insurance too, kind of tying it back.
• 17:45
  You do.
• 17:46
  And I'd love to kind of ask you, in a similar vein, has technology changed what horse owners expect to be able to research or do themselves without necessarily making the relationship with their agent any less important?
• 18:01
  I would say so.
• 18:02
  So actually a timely conversation.
• 18:04
  As you were saying, we just, Markel just released the ability to get quotes like very quickly by just putting in some information and it's spitting out now, granted, that's like all contingent on underwriter review and things like that.
• 18:21
  But some people just want to get a baseline for an idea of how much it's going to cost them.
• 18:27
  But that option just became available because people don't want to pick up the phone and call you.
• 18:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:34
  Which is weird, but they don't.
• 18:37
  They just want to be able to plug it in and it be digital.
• 18:40
  But even, I mean, when I was horse shopping for my most current horse, we imported him, but he was bought off of a video.
• 18:48
  Yeah.
• 18:48
  So I, I had been searching and I had sat on a ton of different things and just wasn't, wasn't clicking with the horses that I had tried, but I didn't, I didn't find the video myself.
• 19:00
  These were contacts that Chris had over in Europe.
• 19:04
  They sent me a bunch of videos which I found to be really cool because they were coming to me.
• 19:09
  You know, they felt like the people were vetted enough that these could be options.
• 19:13
  Was it extremely risky to do it that way having not sat on the horse?
• 19:17
  Yeah, but, you know, that's just showing how technology.
• 19:20
  You don't have to necessarily get on a plane and go over there.
• 19:23
  You have to be willing to say, I'm okay with the risk if the horse doesn't work out.
• 19:28
  But at the same time, technology has made it so you don't have to travel over there and spend that extra money.
• 19:34
  You can put it towards the cost of the horse or the import of them.
• 19:37
  That's why we don't try to gatekeep in any way.
• 19:39
  And we let it be for amateurs, we let it be for professionals and trainers and even juniors to discover.
• 19:46
  Right.
• 19:47
  And it's trying to, exactly like you mentioned, to make discoveries bigger and smarter while preserving professional expertise that obviously makes the transaction work.
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:59
  It's all about matchmaking.
• 20:00
  Right.
• 20:01
  The location and the travel, the communication, the data and the distribution of many different parts of this industry all in one place.
• 20:12
  So it's, it's truly an ecosystem and in buyer and seller network.
• 20:16
  And I really wanted to make it a very unique matchmaking sort of overall experience for both seller and buyer.
• 20:25
  Let's talk about the, what you've done in terms of technology and how you look at going to try a horse.
• 20:34
  So I know you just got, you touched on it, but tell us a little bit more about how that works.
• 20:41
  Yeah.
• 20:41
  So as a seller, what you can do is, like I mentioned, it's unlimited listings, it's unlimited media.
• 20:48
  You can update those listings at any time.
• 20:51
  You can do that on your, On Your laptop, on your phone, on the app.
• 20:55
  It's super simple.
• 20:57
  And what's unique is you can update your travel schedule.
• 21:01
  So think about Airbnb, right?
• 21:03
  You can search for rentals near you.
• 21:05
  You can do that same thing for horses as a buyer, and you can update that at any time.
• 21:10
  Because people travel to horse shows, obviously, you might be at in Michigan for two weeks and then in Kentucky for two weeks, right?
• 21:16
  So you can update that at any time.
• 21:18
  And listeners want to be updating as constantly as they can.
• 21:22
  You can update it like you could a listing for Airbnb with the availability and then the travel.
• 21:29
  So on the map, as a buyer, if I'm looking at it, I can see, okay, this blue dot is where the home base of that trainer or horse seller is.
• 21:39
  But there's a red dot here that shows, you know, this horse is available to be tried on these dates.
• 21:46
  So on a map, you can clarify, okay, this horse might be based out of here, but they're going to be at this show that I'm actually at, too.
• 21:54
  So I could try.
• 21:56
  Try it while I'm in Kentucky.
• 21:58
  So cool.
• 21:58
  It is.
• 21:59
  Because I just saw the old school version of.
• 22:03
  Of this in Tryon.
• 22:05
  I ha.
• 22:07
  It's so funny.
• 22:08
  I happen to see.
• 22:09
  We've talked about it before, but it's just crazy.
• 22:12
  There was walking around the barns in Tryon, People have started putting out these sandwich boards.
• 22:20
  Have you seen this?
• 22:21
  In front of their tack room with what's for sale.
• 22:24
  Yeah, I actually saw that.
• 22:26
  I think we had caught up.
• 22:27
  Like, I.
• 22:27
  I think we had just missed each other at Try On.
• 22:29
  I think you were there the week before, week after.
• 22:32
  I can't remember.
• 22:32
  I think it was a week after.
• 22:34
  And it was.
• 22:35
  I saw the same exact thing when I was the Try On.
• 22:38
  Well, the hilarious thing about all that.
• 22:40
  I don't know if you know the rest of this story, but I have been telling my trainer that I kept wanting to go to Europe and I see these people posting all their pictures of Belgium and going and
• 22:52
  sitting on horses and trying them.
• 22:53
  And I kept saying when I was looking, let's go do that.
• 22:56
  I think that'd be so much fun.
• 22:57
  I've never.
• 22:58
  Yeah.
• 22:58
  She said she's like, we don't even.
• 23:00
  Have to buy one.
• 23:00
  Let's just go.
• 23:03
  Let's just go.
• 23:04
  And.
• 23:05
  And so.
• 23:06
  So, because a friend of mine that I grew up riding with, she's my age and she still rides.
• 23:11
  She actually was a vet and she's from Atlanta, too.
• 23:14
  And it.
• 23:16
  I follow her on Facebook Obviously.
• 23:18
  And I see her going to Europe all the time, and every fall she goes and they post all these great pictures at restaurants, and here's Isadore and, you know, whoever.
• 23:27
  And I'm telling my trainer about this girl, and I'm saying, we could do that.
• 23:32
  So we go to try on and.
• 23:34
  And I walked past the barns and it was my friend's trainer with the sandwich board.
• 23:42
  So I go back to the barn and tell my trainer, by the way, remember the person I told you about, about in Europe?
• 23:50
  They're here and they got this sandwich board out in front.
• 23:53
  And she's like, yeah, we're trying one of those horses tomorrow.
• 23:56
  I'm like, which one?
• 23:57
  She said, the hunter.
• 23:57
  I said, really?
• 23:58
  Is it Chestnut?
• 23:59
  And she said, yes.
• 24:00
  I said, that's my friend's horse and he now lives back in at home, and he's in the stall next to mine.
• 24:06
  Isn't that hilarious?
• 24:09
  Crazy world.
• 24:10
  I mean, sorry, we bypassed the technology,.
• 24:15
  But that's the whole point.
• 24:17
  Exactly.
• 24:18
  I mean, we want it to be as natural as possible, but as long as the discovery is there, you know, and technology just can help amplify it and boost that.
• 24:29
  Right.
• 24:29
  Make those connections faster.
• 24:32
  You said something in what you sent us that made a distinction that I hadn't really thought about and that, you know, we talk about.
• 24:41
  Having to search seven different Facebook groups is not tradition.
• 24:45
  Right.
• 24:46
  It's not traditional.
• 24:47
  So I'm just curious, you know, how you kept going from there.
• 24:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:55
  The Facebook thing, that was truly one of the reasons why I created elitequine is I have been a buyer, a leaser, a seller.
• 25:04
  I've been looking for circuit show leases.
• 25:07
  Right.
• 25:08
  And where have I first gone?
• 25:10
  Typically Facebook.
• 25:12
  And it.
• 25:12
  It's searching for a diamond in the rock.
• 25:14
  It's no advanced filters to search for my riding style, my budget.
• 25:19
  Exactly what I'm looking for.
• 25:21
  Unless I post an ISO, square peg, round hole, you know, like, they're like, trying to make it fit my criteria, but it's just absolutely not.
• 25:30
  So I wanted something.
• 25:33
  I wanted to create something just based out of frustration.
• 25:36
  Right.
• 25:36
  That wasn't fragmented.
• 25:38
  Yeah.
• 25:38
  I would look at Facebook groups, even Instagram, different individual classified websites, and of course, word of mouth.
• 25:46
  And I would spend hours, I mean, truly hours, and I.
• 25:50
  I could find anything that was like a complete, you know, diamond in the rough.
• 25:55
  So for me, I actually have a background in the technology space, so I spent about a decade working for tech companies.
• 26:04
  And I lived in two different worlds, really.
• 26:08
  I was in the fast paced World of technology.
• 26:12
  And then you know, in, in the riding world, which is using.
• 26:16
  Using checks to pay your entries.
• 26:18
  Yeah, exactly.
• 26:20
  Okay, so I'm here, I'm looking, you know, looking for a house, you know, Zillow, Zillow's there.
• 26:26
  And it lets you get incredibly specific and alerts you to when something that matches your criteria comes onto the market.
• 26:34
  Really ultimately that's what I wanted to create is something for the equestrian industry that could make equestrian discovery just as intelligent.
• 26:43
  Yep.
• 26:44
  Yeah.
• 26:45
  Because just knowing, not knowing that a horse is available because you didn't have happen to be in the right Facebook group, that kind of sucks.
• 26:52
  You know, so.
• 26:53
  Well, I do, I do want to also ask.
• 26:56
  I know we've spent a lot of time talking about sellers and buyers for horses, but.
• 27:01
  And you touched a little bit on this, but the app also does a lot more.
• 27:05
  Right.
• 27:05
  I mean in terms of it's not just limited to buyers and sellers of horses.
• 27:10
  I didn't want it to be another place to just post horses.
• 27:14
  I wanted to create an infrastructure around this discovery and connection.
• 27:19
  So it's not just for horses.
• 27:21
  Now that is really our sweet spot because a lot of the high volume sales barns are going to have multiple horses, but they also want a place like I've bought so many saddles off of ebay and I've always
• 27:36
  felt like it was really, really sketchy.
• 27:40
  I, I wanted to also have a silo for tech and farm equipment.
• 27:46
  There's a lot of service providers out there.
• 27:48
  Think about how many niche services we give for our spoiled hunter horses.
• 27:54
  I really do view this as a full ecosystem rather than simply a listing site or a horse sales.
• 28:01
  I would have to laugh because I didn't stop you, but when you're talking about selling saddles, don't you know that every single time you buy a new horse you have to have a new saddle because your old one
• 28:11
  doesn't fit.
• 28:12
  So that should be its own department.
• 28:16
  But what do you absolutely not want technology to change about buying horses?
• 28:22
  That's a really good question.
• 28:24
  I think technology is very, very good at obviously organizing enormous amounts of data and info and helping people really identify what's relevant.
• 28:37
  So I think it's great for, like I mentioned before, filtering and discovery and organization and connection.
• 28:45
  But what it can't do is AI.
• 28:48
  Right?
• 28:49
  Like AI can't use real judgment and like really understand all the nuances in relationships.
• 28:58
  So you know, I think the goal, I want technology to help automate processes but not automate away expertise get from a judgment from a Trainer.
• 29:11
  Right.
• 29:11
  I don't want this to become fully AI.
• 29:14
  You know, it's an AI picture of a horse.
• 29:17
  It's not even the real picture of the horse.
• 29:19
  Right.
• 29:20
  I would not read that out immediately if I saw a listing that was AI or like AI jumping now.
• 29:26
  I don't know.
• 29:28
  I would.
• 29:28
  Yeah, would not want to see it that way.
• 29:31
  And I really do want this to be a platform that just helps boost these traditional relationships, makes connections faster, and can help help really with that first initial discovery process and then let the professionals take it from there.
• 29:50
  If you create a criteria and you have filters on things that you actually, you know, want, does there come a point when technology knows enough about what I've me personally have looked at or what I've saved that it
• 30:06
  will find a horse for me that I might not have thought of for myself?
• 30:11
  Yeah.
• 30:11
  So at this point in time, it's all going to be based off of the save search criteria that it'll alert you on.
• 30:18
  So if it has those check boxes, it'll send it to you.
• 30:21
  We don't proactively send.
• 30:23
  This works.
• 30:23
  Might interest you because we don't want to overstep any boundaries.
• 30:27
  We could move to that level in the future.
• 30:29
  I mean, you think about when you are, you know, saying something and your phone picks it up and then you get an for it, which is creepy.
• 30:37
  I.
• 30:37
  I think so I don't want to get to that unless people really want me to.
• 30:42
  But that's going to be a pretty hefty investment on my end too.
• 30:45
  So, you know, I'm not going to be listening to your search criteria or anything like that.
• 30:51
  And then, you know, having AI send it to you automatically.
• 30:55
  So it's really right now based off of just your exact search criteria.
• 30:59
  And if that listing pops up and it has those keywords and it has those checked boxes so that it's exactly what you are looking for.
• 31:09
  So I would say after everything we've talked about, the actual process of buying a horse still sounds familiar.
• 31:15
  You find the one you like, people, your trainer and the other trainer talk, you exchange some more information, you go try it, your trainer's involved, you do a PPE and you make a decision.
• 31:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 31:28
  So technology hasn't suddenly turned buying in a horse into an online transaction, so to speak.
• 31:37
  I think it's what's changing is how we're finding the horses are getting there in the first place.
• 31:42
  Right?
• 31:42
  Yeah.
• 31:43
  And I think it's beneficial.
• 31:44
  You know, I don't think it's something that people should be necessarily afraid of.
• 31:48
  I think it's just like how we operate through the world today.
• 31:53
  Technology is a tool and you're obviously going to to use your connections and your network.
• 32:01
  Even if you're using technology, it just helps widen the, the scope, I think.
• 32:07
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:08
  And I think relationships and reputation and professional expertise and trust are always going to be a huge and the most important thing in this industry.
• 32:20
  And I would say I created this platform and one of our slogans is technology inspired by tradition.
• 32:28
  So I think it's always important to identify what's so special about this industry, like I just mentioned, and protect it while using technology to remove the unnecessary friction surrounding it.
• 32:41
  So goal isn't to ultimately change anything about, about the horse world and what makes this, this traditional sort of horse world special.
• 32:51
  It's to make the parts around those relationships easier and smarter and more connected.
• 32:58
  Sure.
• 32:59
  So I'm going to put you on the spot with one last question.
• 33:02
  So I find a horse on a lead, I send it to my trainer.
• 33:07
  My trainer makes the calls, gets the information, we go try it, she helps evaluate it, we do the ppe and ultimately I buy the horse.
• 33:16
  Who found the horse?
• 33:17
  You.
• 33:18
  Kind of interesting.
• 33:19
  Yeah, yeah.
• 33:20
  You found the horse.
• 33:21
  If you ultimately created that search, then it was you.
• 33:27
  However, I don't think it would take away from any commissions or anything like that, you know, because the trainer is still going to help you through the buying process.
• 33:33
  Most cases.
• 33:34
  Right.
• 33:35
  So that doesn't necessarily change the transactional piece.
• 33:38
  Yeah, we don't take commission, so it's not like we're involved in that process at all.
• 33:44
  Sure.
• 33:45
  It's just a discovery platform to make those connections.
• 33:49
  If I'm doing all this work as.
• 33:51
  The amateur and I'm finding all these sources and I'm sending them and all of this, am I still paying a commission?
• 33:56
  And I think that the trainer is going to help you through that whole process.
• 33:59
  They're going to be contacting the seller, they're going to be setting up or helping you set up PPEs and things like that, putting their eyes on it.
• 34:07
  So obviously their time is valuable and it's needed.
• 34:10
  But I know that there have been questions like, okay, if somebody approaches me about a horse that's for sale or if I'm the one that found it.
• 34:17
  So what's, what's the agreement?
• 34:20
  And I think that there's been a lot of chatter about that online recently, in general, just because of technology sort of pouring into the industry, which I think is interesting.
• 34:30
  And I think ultimately what becomes the most important thing about that is that there's a lot of clarity between the client and the trainer about what that looks like.
• 34:40
  If, you know, like if you're going into the horse buying process, what does that look like?
• 34:44
  Do you take a little less if I'm the one that finds it, but you're still doing 75 to 80% of the work that you normally would, or is it a flat fee and that there's no questions to be
• 34:54
  had about that?
• 34:54
  It's just an interesting question because I can see how technology changes everything and potentially that's an area that it might change too.
• 35:05
  But I think that obviously if that was going to be something that changed, you'd have to have it a sit down, again, conversation, communication.
• 35:14
  And that doesn't go away.
• 35:15
  Well, I think it just goes to show like how, like you were saying, how important communication is regardless of if technology is in play or not.
• 35:22
  But I think our industry gets a little bit stuck in that this is the way it is and this is how it's always been.
• 35:29
  So that's the way it's going to be.
• 35:30
  And so the conversations ultimately just don't end up happening and people are surprised and the answer they're met with is that's the way it's always been done.
• 35:39
  Before I founded this platform a couple years ago, it was actually in the beta version, so it wasn't functional yet.
• 35:48
  But I was on a horse search and I.
• 35:51
  My trainer has so many clients and we were down in WEC and she, you know, doesn't have, like I mentioned, like the time to just commit.
• 35:59
  She's searching for other clients, she's doing, wearing all the different hats.
• 36:02
  So I found my horse.
• 36:05
  Oh well.
• 36:06
  And I sent her the link and everything and of course she helped me with the rest of the process.
• 36:10
  But before we did have a sit down conversation about expectations around commission.
• 36:15
  So I think that that's always going to be important and agreed upon beforehand.
• 36:20
  So even though I found the horse, we still had already discussed this and my sister did the same thing.
• 36:24
  She had found this horse and my trainer approved and was like this, this looks like it's worth trying.
• 36:29
  And the whole process, same thing.
• 36:31
  So communication is always super important in this industry.
• 36:36
  Maddie Saunders from Elite Equine Marketplace, thank you so much for joining us.
• 36:41
  Yeah, thank you so much.
• 36:43
  I'm so happy to be here and I hope to see y' all soon at horse shows.
• 36:46
  What are y', all, where are y' all heading to next?
• 36:49
  I'm just trying to get on one until next week.
• 36:53
  Let's ride.