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How We Built BKeeperAI: AI-Powered Expense Tracking for Real Estate Agents & Solopreneurs · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: The find-at side of business is what most people sort of trick their teeth and they just bear their way through it.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: The fact of the matter is it's the heartbeat of what keeps your company going and so if we can simplify that for people and do it in a way that's very natural and conversational via text then it's much easier to get adoption and interest and do have that consistency.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everyone, welcome to the No Like Trust for Real Estate Podcast where I help you craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your unique strengths.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Christine George, an agent who worked with me grow their business on average by 40% for aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am joined by my two co-founders of Be Keeper AI.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eric Hansberger, who is our CTO and Laura O'Connor, who is our visionary and CEO.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Be Keeper AI is an AI powered human verified expense tracking platform.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today we're going to talk all about how the idea came to be and how it's helping solo printers across the country save money.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, today is a really special show.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about beekeeper here today.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Most sort of startup conversations are usually around something that has already been built in out there and successful in all the trials and tribulations that the founders have gone through.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh, but today is a little bit different today.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm with my co-founders from Bekeeper AI Laura O'Connor and Eric Hansberger and we are in the midst of launching our product.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to talk about how we've gotten to this point and some of the,
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: The struggles and the challenges we've had as well as some of the challenges as well as some of the successes.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, so Laura, let's start with you.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would love for you to tell our listeners what bekeeper AI is and but more importantly, where did the idea actually come from?
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, simplest terms.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is a way for solopreneurs, field-based workers to better manage their expenses.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: what I kept hearing and I'm sure that you've heard this as well, given that your solopreneurs and have worked in that space around tax time is that people were spending hours and days and long weekends trying to gather all of their receipts and try to remember what the expense was for so they could get it over to their CPA.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some people just don't ever receive.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: box of receipts off and say have at it and so there's a lot of challenges wrapped up in all that.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: One, people aren't maximizing their deductions to their own tax or CPA professionals try and sort it all out for them.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a massive headache and if they're spending weeks trying to sort
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: rounding up or servicing existing clients, then, you know, it's last time, it's last money, it's lost deductions.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's a big problem, and it's the piece that I think gives most solopreneurs, real estate agents, other field-based, like construction personnel, people like that, hives, when they start thinking about it.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we wanted to create something that was
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was not intentional.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not that funny, but now I'll use it every time I can.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's that was it.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then that shell is just trying to solve the problem that isn't being solved well today.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if we can make it even a little bit enjoyable and make it feel like they have a real human support, which is something that's lacking today, then even better, right?
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's our major differentiator, right, is the human support, which we'll get into.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like when you came to me, at least, and I'm sure with Eric too, the idea really was around texting without a platform.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: That I feel like it was your visionary idea.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk about that?
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I guess anybody who's watching this, I encourage them to like pull up their phone and just start flipping through how many apps they have on there, that in addition to how many different passwords we're all trying to remember.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, um, it's a shift back to what is simple and easy, right?
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have a best friend or somebody you're trying to coordinate with for a dinner party on the weekend, you don't go to an app to do that.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what is the easiest way to stay connected for those things that are really important?
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And...
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're in business to make money, right?
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you have to spend money to make money.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to manage your expenses.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The finance side of business is what most people sort of brick their teeth.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they just bear their way through it.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the fact of the matter is it's the heartbeat of what keeps your company going.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so if we can simplify that for people and do it in a way that's very natural and conversational via text, then it's much easier to get.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: adoption and interest and do have that consistency.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our competitors have, you know, significant 70% drop off rates.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's because they don't have that personalization people get stuck on something or they forget or all the sudden it just becomes like, oh, it's been three months.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why bother?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we wanted to change that.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Eric, Eric is our CTO, when Laura brought this idea to you because I was not on the room.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where it happened.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: What was your honest gut reaction?
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It happened over a phone call, actually, I think.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here I remember who was his voice, but we actually, like, saw each other, but we just learned to describe the idea of no app, text-based interaction, doing expense management.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: sending images over maybe even audio files right different things I thought I have an idea how that will work I thought it was kind of my first reaction I was like I don't know like maybe sounds interesting I love a good interesting problem set So that's when I went into the small POC right I was like I've you know I can't His technology I can't say it won't work until I've actually tried to take a look at it so I do a little POC and started to
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I text myself, right?
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was kind of a weird thing, texting with yourself.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then can I send images to myself?
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then what happens when that image comes through and like pretty quickly became apparent that, yeah, you could do it.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that was over the course of what, like, six, eight weeks that DOC and Laura, just trying to kind of validate it.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: At least at that base level, like, is it even possible?
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my first reaction was, I don't know.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So then I do better usually do.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't wait and try that.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so once you realize, once you validate it, and you realize it could happen, what happened then?
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I drew a war and not special in here.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, try this, try that, try this text this number.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what does it get back to your right?
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I was like, I don't know, I was super interested in it.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I pretty quickly turned into a whole set of like, interesting problems.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, these are text messages.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you do about this?
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you do about that, right?
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think the three of us kind of converge until either after.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's really defined.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what do people want to go do?
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at what point you said this was never on my being go card, what did you mean about that when you said that?
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, those, so that's a little bit more about the AI development output, right?
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we talk about human back to the AI, and that is how the product works, but how the product is built was also with AI and coding to AI and whatnot.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I had never, that was not my being a car to learn, right?
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm like, I don't know, like, I think in a whole AI works.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's been a complete journey in terms of how do you build something using agents to build it?
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: that how do they have them handle the whole problem site like that became very very interesting that continues like for me today kind of in all aspects of my work.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the other way I would answer the not available card too was like working with text messages wasn't necessarily I'm a big part of you there right for the year like that wasn't something that I expected to have to tackle was all the different problems that's like come with how do you handle text messages that can do whatever they want whenever they want right they they follow in the rules at all.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah so what's nice to you about that
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, it kind of reminded me of way back to when Netflix started and streaming services and the fact that there's a protocol called UDP right and you just trust that it shows up.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: No idea which way it's going to take all its gimmick of there, you just have to trust them and it does show up, you got to figure out how to deal with it.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a very interesting view of technologists.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a super interesting problem set to have, it's like taking messages whenever they show up and then dealing with them and making it consistent after the fact that is super interesting.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is for both of you.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's a decision that we debated seriously that maybe our listeners here on the no-like trust pod would be surprised about?
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the tone, right?
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, how there's two of them go side of things where it's like very cheeky and very playful, very cartoonish.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, do we lean that way or is like finance and expenses and things that will go to your CPA require a more formal or professional tone.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, having our pilot group weigh in on that, I think was helpful, but we spend a lot more time than I think people would expect just working through what that tone would look like out of the gate.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I actually, I hadn't thought about that until you just said it.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we, at one point, we're going to give them each character personalities and get people to choose, which character, I don't think we ever, we decided not to do that, but there was definitely do you want, like a happy tone, or do you want, like a firm tone, or do you want a goofy tone,
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: somebody who's a little bit more like a sergeant who's going to make you accountable, we, if I remember right, we kind of got different answers across the board when we asked that question.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think the most interesting thing was that.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: we picked a tone that was sort of we felt bridging all of those a little bit but our users interpret it differently.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: One user would look at it and say, to aggressive, it's somebody else would say to play full.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's also a big part of how they're interpreting.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as to say that would be my the tone I think is the one I would land onto and that's still evolving, right?
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: In terms of how we talk about that and we have a different types of tones but yeah, it's very nuanced, right?
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we do not have the
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had this sort of simple mechanic snap text done.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Was that hard to build going back to the building?
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or was that hard to build?
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You snap a picture, text it, and it's done.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know we've been back and forth, like in, I learned new terms through this whole process too, like non-prod versus prod.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know we went back and forth through non-prod, trying to, you know, testing it and making sure that it worked.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Was that creating that whole,
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: process, which from the outside is simple.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Was that fairly complicated?
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The we have in the different environments is all right, because that's just the place to test versus effect our customer base, but like the process of capturing something and then parsing it and then doing activities on it, like categorization, deciding when you have to ask questions about it, really, that is
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's definitely a challenge, and it's a balance, right?
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because the week talk a little bit earlier with our tone conversations.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like for me, I'm like, well, this is an IRS thing.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's got to have this, got to have this, and ask me, thousand questions about your expense, like that's the wrong thing to do, right?
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to ask you like one question about your expense.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's the interval kind of back and forth that I had around like, how do you make it, how do you make it seamless?
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that was like equally as hard as actually lying up the tech to go do this thing to sprite that to do that parsing.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, one thing that I remember when we were back in New York, we Laura brought us through this really interesting exercise to help us determine, you know, what was the most important thing for each of us as it related to the product and the user experience.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we each had a different answer.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, for Eric, it was accuracy, which is no surprise.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you want that, you want your CTO to make sure that there's the product
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, it was ease of you, right?
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is like that staples, it's ease.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for you, Laura, it was human that human component, which we all know that God forbid your Google business profile goes down or you get taken off of meta, because they say that your profile goes against their requirements or their rules.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no talking to anybody.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got to just spend hours and hours and hours figuring it out.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what we wanted to avoid.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Laura, I would love for you to talk through that whole experience because I found that that was an area of tension for us a little bit as a team and how we got to Essentially where we were, which was in our brand manifesto in the hierarchy of needs.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: If all else fails and there's only one thing that we can do right, we decided ultimately that it was having that human support was the most important thing as it related to our user experience.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you take us through that whole exercise that you did and how we want to have it are, you know, the eventual place where we need to be.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this actually connects perfectly to what we've been talking about because clarity in your business isn't just about marketing, it's about what's happening behind the scenes too.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're a solopreneur, you know how this goes.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Receipts everywhere, expenses for gotten, and then tech season shows up, and while it's just not fun, right?
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly why we built BeKeeper AI.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: BeKeeper AI is an AI powered, human verified, conversational, tech space expense assistant designed for solopreneurs.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: No apps to open, no software to learn, no tax season scrambling.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You simply text your expenses as they happen.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bekeeper AI captures them and a real human verifies everything.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So nothing slips through the cracks.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're opening early access right now and I'd love for you to be part of it.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Head to bekeeperAI.com slash waitlist to sign up.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the letter B, keeperaai.com slash waitlist.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll see you there.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: First and foremost, before we ever became founders of something we were all consumers, right?
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think all of us and anybody else that you know has been through this journey over the last decade or so of not being able to get the support that you need and knowing the sometimes that like it might be even a simple,
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: switch that needs to be turned on or a simple change and like how you're using a certain platform home to get it to work for you and their reality is that the catalogs and massive libraries of self-help tutorial videos or the herself guided AI support chatbot, they're just not
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: people are frustrated.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Consumers are frustrated.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be part of that frustration.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that yes, obviously it increases costs to have that oversight.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But again, we're talking about people's finances and their businesses.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so knowing that there is somebody
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: watching over, making sure that things look right, helping re-direct and correct when a user is going a stray from the way that the platform is best meant to be worked with.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just felt like it was something we couldn't compromise on because at the end of the day, if you're doing something to make money,
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then you're going to do whatever is the cheapest and easiest and best way to get the most people if you're doing something because you really genuinely want to solve the problem and you want to have, you know, users who are loyal, you have to build that trust to get that loyalty and you can't do that by.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, as great as AI is, and we use it, I mean, we're not afraid of AI.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a core piece of what we're offering.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We all know that there's hallucinations, and there's problems, and there are things that, you know, it has to continue to learn, and sometimes it will learn the wrong things, unless we want it to be a strict numbers game, like the other competitors out there, where we get 1,000 people knowing that we'll lose 700 of them, and we're okay with that.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had to do something different than what they're doing.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are not alone in this, so I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you to know that major carriers, like AT&T, mobile, and Verizon are adopting RCS or text messaging to facilitate their business messaging and they're pulling back from their apps, but what might surprise you is that major retailers, like IKEA, Tommy Hilfinger, Wooby Parker, they're all also using SMS now for faster and direct customer communications.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think in July, so coming up in a few months, Samsung is transitioning everything to Google messaging as their default for their rich communication services for support and their abandoning their Samsung message app.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think that we're the first of what you will see many companies looking to shift to that as a format for how they do their rich communications services.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do want to emphasize, though, that when we are texting, which is the the base way that we use our product, when you do escalate for support, or when you actually want to have a conversation about your, you know, reporting, you will speak to a human, and that is what.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Laura's essentially talking about that human aspect of this is very much a number one priority with our product.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: A couple of people have challenged us from a scalability perspective, right?
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So a couple of people have said, how are you actually going to be able to scale human support and still be able to make money?
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you speak to that?
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure Erica will want to weigh in on this too, but this is where that partnership between really great process systems AI and humans done well is proof that you can actually scale because you can use AI to help flag things that might be concerned and draw those up to a person's attention.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not afraid of putting it out there to have people reach out as needed because
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: even if it's 15 minutes of time to get somebody on the right track and using the product in the way that it was intended, that's 15 minutes that will then help ensure that you have a customer for the next 12 months.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how people think that they can scale without it.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right?
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: The companies that think that it is an issue, I think, are totally missing the mark on short-term optics versus long-term results.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that's what makes us different.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I would also say we were talking to a potential customer a couple of weeks ago.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: who actually agreed with us and said, yeah, I don't think there's anybody else out there who supports their community, their customers with human capabilities.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think we're onto something there.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I think we actually
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're did a little funny in our brand manifesto when we called ourselves instead of a SaaS product.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We called ourselves an accountability as a software product.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in AA ads.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just for an internal joke anyway.
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do you use for both this for both of you?
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: What does success look like in 12 months?
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: For me, success is people who are less stressed about their taxes that have an accurate, easy experience that have had, that it's made your life better in terms of what it means to focus on their business and not have to think about, like, oh, what about that expense?
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about this, right?
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that we helped them build muscles and they are happy about it and even for myself, when it comes to tax time.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to be happy to be happy too.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I think success looks like for me.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, success in 12 months, that's May 20, 27, right?
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That would be just after tax time.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So success would be our enterprise customers that were developing our partnership agreements with right now, having better engagement with their existing systems and tools because of our platform being a piece of it.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So them seeing that shift and getting inside of the head of these other,
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Founders and companies and showing them that having this sort of rich communication style is super effective.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think obviously we want happy customers, we want lots of customers, we want CPAs reaching out with testimonials because of, you know, their clients who are using this product and it's easier for everybody, right?
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of those things I think are a given based on the business plan and the trajectory that we're on.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But bigger than that, I want to show people that
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: by using AI in a smart way and tapping into like talented fractional level executives like you don't have to be and I am a proud supporter of a startup that are some MAT kids, right?
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like nothing against that.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like there's just been this really long sort of too long idea that somebody has to be you know dropping out of college and you know at some sort of prestige
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know that that's not necessary right like there there's wisdom and talent people at all generations and all levels that they can bring to the table and with AI to help as a partner in that I think that it's okay to build something that you want to run like it's when it's the last time you heard somebody say like I'm building this because I'm excited about it and I want to run it everybody's looking for their exit well like
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why?
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you really like what you're doing and you like your customer and you're proud of what you're doing, then why is there this rush to exit?
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think I've got some some bigger sort of maybe societal level things that I think we could be having an opportunity to impact and change the
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I do.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I should say to that one of your requirements of your co-founders, Laura, which then trickle down to customers is that you want to work with good people who genuinely care about the work that they do and the people that they serve.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that was a requirement.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: That actually going back to my original question.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that was the thing that got me super
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: start something from scratch, build it from nothing with people that I respect and trust.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that was that was what got me really excited to be able to serve people in that way too.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that if we know when we continue to put the human
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: aspect of what we do at the forefront that will continue to fuel us and we'll give us the success that we're hoping for in 12 months.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our target audience just naturally based on Christina and I and our background and the real estate industry are real estate agents.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: and I think other markets that are in need of this are other field-based workers whether they be plumbers or electricians or, you know, these people that are out and field all the time, they're collecting these receipts, they're juggling, they're wearing all the hats.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to me, that's like America, right?
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that is Main Street.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is, is it's a solo corner as the mom and pop shops, like they're the ones that most people don't pay attention to, but
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, what I grew up with in rural Montana was all small mom and pop shops and I know how hard these people were so openers work.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that they're trying to figure out all of the legality and nuances and all of these other things.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it really is about to me having playing a part in part of that fabric of what makes America great,
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: and all those things.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that, yeah, or I get really excited.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's the soul of America, right?
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: The small business owner.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's really beautiful.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eric, do you want to?
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I can do that.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly.
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I can say that type of that.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so one of the things I was, you know, I'm not a lover of conflict when I was thinking through this, I'm like, we should really talk about, you know, some tension points that we've had and we haven't really had a lot of them.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: The most patient, kind, and generous human being that I have ever worked with.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Laura and I just talk, non-stop, and I swear to God, and everything is on Zoom because we're in all parts of the United States, and I have seen Eric start to talk and either I interrupt him or Laura interrupts him, and he just quietly, I just had to do that, so I couldn't interrupt you.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are amazing, Eric, and I'm sure you wanted to go both of us before.
• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, not once and I don't know.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate that.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's very kind.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, you know, like you said, like we came together to do something great and I'm excited about that.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like oftentimes, like this is all good information.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're talking, like it's good ideas, you're passed around and I'm over here thinking about like, all right, like how do I build it?
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I not build that, right?
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's not the thing that we should build right now.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think we work, work all together.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: That triangle you described to of like security,
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: self-assurances in human like that's just a healthy tension triangle.
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not even bad about it.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what makes it a great product that it is and the great team that it is.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love fashion.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't love conflict, but I love tension and I think that you know, I am...
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do because I think that that's where things get better, right?
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like each time, whether it's you know, you Christine or you Eric, who's like, I don't know, or like, have you thought about this?
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, thank goodness, right?
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm working with like thinking, intelligent people who have their own opinions and their own views, like, otherwise you do it, you know.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: pay for somebody and do it on your own, whatever, right?
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that that's really what makes a great partnership and makes a great company is what we have co-founders who are willing and able to voice their own opinion and challenge, you know, thinking.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it's exciting, we just feel like, oh my gosh, yay, we're on the same page, let's go.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I almost like a better one we have that tension because then I feel like, you know, it's one plus one plus one,
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: equal six because we're growing off of each other's knowledge and past experiences and things that have went wrong and so yeah I like that.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I heard you tend to conflict every time.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I never heard of that before.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Attention over conflict.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the first things we did after we launched.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this has been sort of going on.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I think Laura and I have a very deep, wide relationships in the real estate space.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that has been sort of our low hanging fruit in terms of leaning into those relationships to potentially bring in new clients.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to close this with one last question to the both of you.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do you wish someone had told you three months ago before we got into the middle of building all of this that I should have started three months sooner.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always want an extra like 90 days, you know, but these things take time, building something great takes time and some things can't be rushed.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I'm happy with where we're at and where we're headed and I know we've got the right team and we've had excellent pilot people to, you know, give us feedback and I'm feeling pretty confident.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for me, I would love to have known, which is almost an impossible thing to know.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about AI and so obviously I'm headed, but I would love to have known the different ways that you could build in the tool set as a technology that you could use to build because it just keeps changing, it just keeps getting better and knowing where it was headed three months ago to adopt it like immediately instead of three months after when everyone else has already adopted it.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: that would have been brilliant, but that's all right.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we know, and it's going to change to my probably just change just now.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I wish we knew what we don't know in three months.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I wish we had a heads up where AI is going to be three months from now so we could get a head start on it.
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love both of you.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm super excited while Belanche of our business.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: For those of you who are listening, check out BeKeeperAI.com.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead and sign up today.
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: We would love to have you.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We would love to get your feedback on the product.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also are integrating with plaid here in the next month or so.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So by the time you listen to this, we may already be there.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you'll be able to connect your credit cards and or your bank account and see sort of your
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: full view of your expenses.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yes, the letter B, K, E, E, P, E, R, A, I, dot com.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for listening.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you loved this conversation, we would love it if you share it with a friend.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Make sure to visit beekeeperayye.com and sign up for your solo printer expense tracking platform.
• 30:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sign up for the sunbeam at postbeamgradeof.com.
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Make sure to click that subscribe button if you're watching us on YouTube and follow if you're listening on your favorite app.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Christine George and you're listening to know like trust for real estate.