Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 549 - Why This Multi-Million Dollar Event Producer Left Google To Throw Parties? - Julia Vu

Transcript

549 - Why This Multi-Million Dollar Event Producer Left Google To Throw Parties? - Julia Vu · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I have Julia Bow.
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And Julia is responsible for making a really interesting app that actually happened to need right now.
0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the conversation that we build is going to revolve a lot about my event.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just going to ask a lot of questions that pertain to me, but you understand that I'm building this event.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason why this is important is because I think
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We, in the Vietnamese community, we do not have no parties.
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have enough gatherings, we don't have enough mixers.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We have them, but it's far and far between, and I think we should have more of them.
0:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So, thank you for coming on today to talk about how we can party more.
0:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, let's do it.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell me, how did you get into event planning?
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so actually I've been in the event industry for over 11 years.
0:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I was a founder, I was previously, oh, thank you very much.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: As previously producing, multi-million dollar events for teams that were doing, well, let me start again.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, previously,
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I became a founder, I was on Teams producing multi-million dollar events for Jack Morton and Google.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack Morton is like one of the top 10 events in experiential marketing companies in the world.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of how I, you know, well, not just get my foot in the door, but that was my dream job, essentially.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Or give a Jack Morton.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Working for Jack Morton.
1:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it was as best to the best that you could do.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the things you learned on this podcast, okay, Jack Morton.
1:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We take it back even before I got into Jack Moran.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I got my fit in the door with events by doing events for UCR.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So we had campus organizations, how I met my fiance, congratulations.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
1:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We're putting on concerts together, special events.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of how I got started.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We think draws you to events and events planning.
1:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The creativity for sure.
2:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to say that how I even thought of the idea of wanting to go on the events or realizing it was for me as because my favorite movie growing up was Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always wanted to recreate that.
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I grew up, I realized the only way that I could recreate the Chocolate Factory was through events.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, the creativity truly.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So this may be controversial because obviously I was in Evans with big budgets and I think at the end of the day no matter what budget you have bigger small what makes an event good is the people who come you can throw on a van with high budget and the people who come are not quality or don't measure you don't build that interaction with them it won't
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It will have synergy, you know?
3:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait a minute.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you design that from the outset, from the beginning?
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if it's really about the people?
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about the people.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a science behind who you choose to go to a party?
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, when you think about throwing a party, do you have intention behind who shows up and how do you really grade it?
3:24
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you qualify people?
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's all about audience curation, right?
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And you do that, well, obviously, one, if you know the guest and that's fantastic, you know the personality, all that good stuff.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But part of having a big budget is attracting the right people.
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you're going to throw professional event.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to one and die.
3:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you got to put on all these things so that you attract the right people to the event.
3:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Science behind it, you know, AI is, there's a lot of really cool AI tools out there who are building for gas curation.
3:54
[SPEAKER_00]: For us, it's about setting the scene, setting the party, setting the scene, setting the event so that the guests who come are comfortable, excited, interact with each other, and have a good time even if they don't know each other.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me how the app that you've built or the platform that you've built came to life
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it actually started as a shower idea in 2020 and 2020 back when events weren't happening anymore.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't doing events for Jack Morning Google.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I originally started an Instagram platform to just collect all these vendors for myself.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can go back to Google and look super valuable.
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I know all these vendors.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in doing so, I talked to around over 2,000 different event planners and vendors and they were all begging me, ask me, like, we need somewhere to be, we need somewhere to be discovered, like Instagram is so hard to work with the algorithm.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of how the journey really started and so I started learning about tech.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I build community simultaneously and last year I took the leap to go fool in on building a tech startup.
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: have a co-founder now.
5:02
[SPEAKER_00]: We built a team.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: We built our MVP in about four months and in private beta testing and just launched that Sony picture is last year.
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know just so the audience who's not familiar with the term MVP minimal viable product which is I would love to to explain what the MVP set up in your world looks like for this situation.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so MVP is the most basic, most like baby version of your product because you want to just prove that people want this right and so that's what we did we we literally had a version where you could just sign up.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: and look at other people's maybe profiles, you know?
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the beginning when we had our MVP, we had over 100 people sign up right away.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And those people were very close and dear to us because we built this community.
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, they believed it as early when it was just super scrappy.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that we've launched it's, you know, so much better and we're going to build so much more after this.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And how long ago was that?
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: This was exactly a year ago.
6:11
[SPEAKER_00]: We, yeah.
6:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty fast.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not our MVP.
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait, you have, you probably MVP a year ago.
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You had this idea probably years before that.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot of years before that.
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did you get Sony involved?
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so, again, I've been building relationships over the years, the event planner, she happens to be one of our founding 50 members, so basically one of our brand ambassadors for the app, and she had a connection to Sony.
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We ended up pitching Sony, what I do, what she does,
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: These events that I've been building over the years that now doubles as our launch event and they loved it They went all in with us.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They took the leap of faith because we're early and they they're like, let's roll it back again for TEC Whatever the next ones.
7:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's for they have like money financial contributions or yes, so he wants with the event Yeah, so the venue Wolfgang Puckatoring.
7:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very generous.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: What do they get?
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they got all these event planners and vendors discovering this space and booking their space for the future.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so it's booking their space.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
7:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so like our events are super curated to folks who are in the industry who can either book or for, you know, get the word out about Sony picture studio space because they had a brand new venue that will that now.
7:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sorry, I know you invited me to that event.
7:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in the style.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in Europe at the time.
7:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought I'd get back in time for it, but you know, got delayed, it got pushed back.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I'm sitting here asking.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a good thing that it didn't go because now I'm curious about how...
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so much fun.
7:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you see all the pictures?
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I did.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, it blew my mind away because I didn't even imagine it that big.
8:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I never imagined my lunch event this big.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: How many people would?
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: 275 people.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big event.
8:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for capacity.
8:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So...
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you walk me through how...
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: the app works and I don't mean like, you know, the back end of this.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, I mean, what is it's stated use?
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what?
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, because, you know, I told you before, I'm throwing a big event in February for that.
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want you to give me all the information because my event producer perhaps will be listening to this and all these vendors that I work with we can all learn from like how you thought about the infrastructure of this thing so we can all hop on and use it.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, we're really building this for everybody and involved in it event.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say you, you want to throw this amazing vet party, right?
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an event producer that's some tasks like someone you're already like to work with.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you get started?
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: What you would go on Google maybe look for some ideas, maybe on Instagram for some vendors and sort of saving around.
9:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We essentially bring that all into one platform.
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so you'd go on the event community, look for inspiration for that party.
9:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Say, hey, if I'm producer, I really like this, or hey, I found this vendor, I really like this.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Event producer goes on the event community and soon we'll be able to manage all those vendors, book them, organize with them, chat with them all in one place so that you as a client can just really enjoy and pay, click, click, click, just very easy.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a cost money.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's free.
9:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's free to for you to start and discover vendors.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's free for vendors to get started as well.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a pro plan for vendors who really want to grow and join our pro member networks.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's different?
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: What's different is actually like a free plan in the map paid plan.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so for the paid plan you get a lot more visibility.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You build your reputation.
9:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're building this reputation intelligence AI behind everything.
9:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be those folks are the first to access it.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: really this pro member network, all the perks are aligned into getting you more opportunities.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have, for example, this job board.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say you're like, okay, it's last minute.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the day before my set part, my death party, and I don't have a, I really need a fall caterer.
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: just random, right?
10:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go on our job board, be like, hey, is there a fall cater out there available tomorrow?
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And then a vendor who's a fall cater can come, book it, turn their free time into maybe a couple thousand bucks, depending on how big your party is.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine platforms like this, having like drop down menus, give me the date, give me like, yeah, exactly, you're putting your finger down your mouth.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's tire cement, it's gruesome, right?
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: To sit there and like figure out this stuff, it's just like, it's a lot.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you gotta like, location, about to tell me why the event,
10:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Platform that you have come up with is very different from that.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
11:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you mentioned, other platforms, if you're not familiar with it, you can't just search by exactly what you're searching for.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You must search by drop down category.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll say cake and it'll say photographer, whatever, right?
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So first of all, not all vendors fit into those categories.
11:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
11:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Second of all, you don't have time to do that.
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: On our platform, you can just type in the search or even a vibe, like, hey, I don't really know what kind of vendors that I need from my third party, but I want some vendors around $1500, right?
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'll go in, it'll search through.
11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: The AI will detect, like, all the third inspiration.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Look within your budget, give you some recommendations, the vendors in your area, because it's already geolocation-based,
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and yeah, just essentially make it really easy to get this is the first version of our product and it's only going to get better with use and more people coming on adding more photos and more photos.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the better that this can work.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you make money?
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so it's the subscriptions from the vendors, but also the transaction fees.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just got a partnership with Payably, and we launched it at our launch event.
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're the top seven Fintet companies right now, named by Forbes.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They were willing to partner with us, and at least they'd start up.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They never do that because they saw the potential.
12:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But essentially, we said we're setting up like a custom
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Payment solution for the net industry, and so we take transaction fees from every single booking.
12:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what's exciting about sitting here with you is this.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's a really about the event space for me and you.
12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: No, take what it's about.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: When I think about where you're starting and how old you are, and I think about how intelligent
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: thinking and the planning it takes to pull off something like this.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something you do for five years, three years, and then you find the next niche, because it sounds like you're like a real business person, like a business person who can see what the need is.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of my criteria
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: inside of my heart, when I interview Vietnamese or not notable Vietnamese is that I look for the promise of what they become, whether they're a musician or a filmmaker or a business person.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just because they're in the events face right now and this platform doesn't mean in three years from now they're going to be like the next, you know.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: tech entrepreneur and just to see the wiring towards is what is very fascinating to me.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think that you became that fluid in entrepreneurial speak?
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really good question.
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually was thinking about this, because I was like, yeah, where did the heck that I learned this from?
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an event girlie, you know?
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I did go to business school at UCR, but truly I think it stems from
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, my dad, so I was thinking about it and I was like, you know, I went back to Vietnam, um, 2023, 2024.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember the exact year, but I realized like every Vietnamese person has an entrepreneur spirit.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everybody is entrepreneur.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: All the food stands, um, you, you know, you building this podcast, like everybody has that fire and that's all right.
14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it starts with that, right?
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So it starts with that fire and wanting to build something of our own.
14:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it runs in our blood, truly, truly.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then watching from my dad, my dad worked at Nestle.
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He also worked in data and like software and all that stuff.
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So I watched him co-ed growing up.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I listened to him, you know, during meetings.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that good stuff.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And he actually brought me.
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: There was like bring your kid to work.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I went a couple of years.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is truly where my business roots started because at eight years old, they were making me do marketing plans for pretend candy products.
15:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, how cute.
15:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're literally doing our ideas and actually putting it out for.
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's how it started.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really how it started.
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: That is amazing.
15:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Little eight-year-old me, I was doing that.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: They gave us free candy.
15:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd go back to my elementary school me there.
15:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't, you can't get this candy out in the store for $5.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it won't be so to get to my friends.
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it started at a young age for me.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just something that's always been in my blood.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Businesses all up.
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you know, and going into college, I just knew.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to do business when I'm also creative and so learning about event marketing, experiential marketing.
15:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of how it paved and running an event on every single detail.
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very similar to running your own business.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, can people all around the world use this set?
15:57
[SPEAKER_01]: How does this work in terms of expansion?
16:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love that one day.
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we just launched last week.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're still very early.
16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the first stages of our product.
16:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now it's available in Southern California.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're working with different partners because we built this community to 35,000 followers all across the world.
16:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get messages from the UK saying, hey, when is the event?
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But that can be going to be available in the UK.
16:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait, when you say it's not available and it's only in Southern California, what does that mean?
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if anybody from the Bay Area types in,
16:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The event community, yeah, they won't get to it.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll get to it.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: They can see it by in terms of vendors who are signing up.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We're only accepting from something.
16:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so you have to accept on your back end.
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God.
16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like an automatic AI thing that filters and what do they call it?
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Scrape off of guilt and stuff like that.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And this also helps us ensure the quality of our vendors work on the program.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait, I'm lucky that this is a Southern California thing and I can use it for my February event.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, absolutely.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially the Vietnamese vendors.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the folks I'm trying to get on because they do phenomenal work.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We book them all the time, but nobody knows about them unless you know or hear through the great fine.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So they need their digital footprint out there.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be getting a lot more business and run a lot more professionally.
17:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, so Cal right now, but we're actively working on bringing it to other states as well.
17:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But why did, okay, I think so, I think what you mentioned is the approval process is what takes time.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That, yeah, it's, it's a multitude of things.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to basically run it in so-called first, succeed in so-called, and then run the playbook in other cities, with special about so-called votes.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually the perfect place to get started.
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 13% of the industry market in the United States, which is basically like the biggest chunk.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So we love to party here.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: We do love to party here.
17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not like Vietnamese people, we like to party.
17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We like to party, but we don't go, we don't go hard.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't go big yet, and we need to.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe my family goes, make it.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as a community thing, right?
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we only get, you know, a few a year.
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And all right, let's talk about, let's talk about how my event producer
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Step, can you walk me there step by step, how she can use this?
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So eventually what we imagine for our event producers because we're building at our enterprise or like super professional plans right now.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously it starts with you.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: She has multiple clients like you that she needs to run multiple events.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: How does she organize it?
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: How does she organize all the vendors?
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like each event that she plans probably has anywhere from like 10 vendors could be to 30, could be to even more, right?
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It gets so, so cluttered on our platform, what we do is we're creating basically like an operating system so that she can easily manage the vendors per event.
18:53
[SPEAKER_00]: No, who she's talking to per event, right?
18:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this this vendor I'm talking to is for this event and it's it's very hard to get confused.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But anyways, also say it's we're creating an easy management system for her to run all her vendors and to store it manage and track her preferred vendor list.
19:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and can she make payments or book things out of the portal?
19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely.
19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what it's for, is so that we set a professional system for her to get paid by like you, for example.
19:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not through Zell.
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Zell is this whole industry.
19:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They're running through Zell, and it's actually pretty quite dangerous for people to be taking payments over Zell because it's unprotected.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think about Airbnb, for example, you book an Airbnb, you get damages, Airbnb covers it, or protects you.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like that for the event industry.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we want to be is that protection layer between payments, rentals, get broken, all the time.
19:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, we just get trashed all the time.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we are that middleman protection when it comes to payments.
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: When you think about the different vendors, because I mean, I've thrown a lot of parties.
20:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to throw clubs, actually.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to be really involved in, and I had 12 years at the night market.
20:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I think about like all the different categories that you have, like, you have to think about security, insurance, and adding certificates of insurance for people.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You're thinking about food vendors, which is a big thing.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Logistics, you're thinking about warehousing things, perhaps.
20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Managers that manage the events.
20:36
[SPEAKER_01]: venues, you think about all these things, right?
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you get vendors on in the back end of it?
20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you put a call to action out to people?
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how do you get vendors to sign up and how do you know what people need?
20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, years of experience in the industry, but also because we've built this relationship with the community, we've been so grateful that they've been following the brand for quite a long time, so they're eager for something like this, and they've come on organically from our Instagram, and what's fantastic about this community.
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the thesis around our entire product is that the event industry runs on relationships, right?
21:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If we won one event producer on,
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: they go and tell the rest of the vendors.
21:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They bring multiple events onto the platform.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how we compound the users on our platform.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and we already see that working already.
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: The people who are on here, we get probably like 10 furls out of it coming on to.
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really just compounds on its own and it's fantastic, but on our own for us to control the growth right like events obviously is a phenomenal Go to market strategy for any business a 60 z literally just put a couple of posts out like hey host events like this is how you get users.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously that's my god.
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my mom asked me the first few years.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you do these dead parties?
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the only way to legitimize the growth, you know,
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: My platform, right, if I'm having all of these influencers that show up to my party, then people in the community know like, that's, you want to be a guest in the show.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I mean, let's face it, six years ago, relatively unknown in the community.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you do it enough of these parties, and then it kind of legitimizes.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So these event things are so important to do.
22:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So all about relationships, then at the day.
22:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
22:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that as you go along, I think that there's going to be a lot of hurdles and stuff like that, but we, after COVID, seem to be getting together more often, is that tell me about that, because I find that
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: very fascinating that we are not as isolated as we think the trends are actually pointing to the fact that, you know, I just recently learned a friend sent me this clip about learning clubs on Friday nights.
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, fun.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
23:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I was learning learning.
23:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So you go in and like if I'm a professor of art history, specializing in Vietnamese paintings from the 1600s to
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: in 1945.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I can give a three hour lecture at a bar, team up with the bar, and let everybody know and Instagram know that I'm about to give this lecture come and your ticket is 50 bucks to get three drinks and you can spend three hours of me.
23:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Three hour lecture, I think I've been
23:47
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I get what you're saying, I get what you're saying and it's like blowing up.
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, these learning clubs are so like they're huge and I want to do with you.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I can only imagine your app.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: The event community is really going to really.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: help if that organizers like me engage in this more and that's the goal truly right now is the perfect time for us to launch.
24:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so so grateful because in twenty twenty six alone this is true.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You could look this up, 84% of consumer marketers are spending 8 to 11% more on their events.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: More events are being thrown.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see it.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You witnessed it since COVID, everyone is craving events.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And why is that?
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because there's a loneliness epidemic.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because AI is making people low layer.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more AI comes out, the more people don't know what's real anymore.
24:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Social media is not real connections.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The only way for you to do it in real life.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: If you meet in real life,
24:46
[SPEAKER_00]: one thing that I like to say is, I truly believe that events are going to be the last frontier for real human connection.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: AI can't touch what we do.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It can help us build, it can help us plan, but in person experiences they will never go away.
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: My ultimate fantasy is to be able to type in I got 10 grand.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: 400 people showing up.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you do for me?
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I do that?
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's my dream, too.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to do that, too.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting there.
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting there.
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: She had the same dream.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're not there yet.
25:21
[SPEAKER_01]: What about that?
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting there.
25:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting there for sure.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Like right now, if you put 10 grand, it'll tell you, OK, well, like these are the type of book that knows that you can book.
25:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You can book a book for free and go to a park.
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We're red, so little cups.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, heck no.
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can't do that yet.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't vibe code, distance existence yet.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We not quite yet, but we're definitely growing towards that.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And it will come relatively quickly.
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping we can get there within probably a year or two.
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
25:56
[SPEAKER_00]: More and more data that comes to this.
25:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't just like, lay it all out.
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would, so I was talking to, I don't remember her official title, but I know she's like the global head of events or experiences at TikTok.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, you know what'd be phenomenal?
26:13
[SPEAKER_00]: If I just gave you, I just gave the event community our project, like proposal, deck.
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Just pop it in there, right, because it has all the information needed for them at the type of vendors divide, right, professional or fine, or bum make sure of both, has the budget, everything, all the activations that they can imagine, find us all the vendors who can do it.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That would, I would want that, and I said, yes, I, again, I'd want that too, and truly that's what we're building towards.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're just a short time away from all of that.
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But see, that's one of the beautiful things about AI, right?
26:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that getting humanity to that, which will bring us closer as a group of people, make it easier for the event producers, make it easier for the customers that show up to the events, all of that's so important.
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not a easy job to do.
27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if this wasn't easier, it would have been done ages ago.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, like, my idea is not a new idea,
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: What makes it difficult?
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because when you have to earn the trust of the vendors, not just earn the trust, but these vendors are constantly popping up.
27:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Their small businesses, they're off the grid, all that good stuff.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The second part is it's just all the data around it because these vendors are all manual.
27:27
[SPEAKER_00]: you lose all the information with their invoices, you lose all the data on the relationships.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really takes an effort, a multiple different levels to make this happen.
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, now that AI is possible, it makes this whole thing possible, but it is a very difficult thing to do.
27:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You must understand how the event industry works.
27:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of tech bros who tried to do this, but they don't know how they don't know how they're that industry works and it doesn't really go anywhere.
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and that was part of my frustration when I started to, it was like, what are these tech bros building for an industry that don't have no idea even works?
28:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like you said, there's so many different types of vendors.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many different types of needs, right?
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And they think it could just be a very simple solution and that's just not it.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
28:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to use real life example, I know somebody who coordinates these events at a place called rodeo 39 and she is in charge of booking, planning, coordinating all of these events at this market here in Orange County and it has a life stage and it has all these things.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: and Andy and all the team at Rory of their night.
28:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So she puts together these events.
28:46
[SPEAKER_01]: How did she use the event community to really like track and to like roll with this?
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause just multiple events, sometimes five or six months.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did she use this to apply to her business?
28:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, for hers, right?
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Like not only can it find all these vendors and we match the Mason reputation, but she can also build her own reputation as well as an event producer, right?
29:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually, I mean... Oh, even as an, cause she manages the location, so the venue itself.
29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The venue needs to build credibility too.
29:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people don't want to work with certain venues because they're not going to work with, right?
29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: As a client, you need to build your reputation too.
29:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There are definitely bad clients out there.
29:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Vendor's asked me at the time when I send them a referral, hey can I trust this client?
29:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's nothing to tell you if they can trust.
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you build reputation as a stage in Rhode-39?
29:38
[SPEAKER_01]: How does Rhode-39 and Dana build that into
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: a reputation model.
29:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that is what we're building out right now, this reputation intelligence, and what we're doing is we partnered up with this company called Indisable, and we're collecting different signals.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say Dana has thrown events before.
29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's already a pro.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Signal.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: She's thrown successful events before.
30:03
[SPEAKER_00]: How many vendors has she booked?
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Has she paid them all on time?
30:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are different signals.
30:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But how does she,
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It will, so once you plug them to our platform and she runs or runs everything through our platform, it automatically collects it with invisible, it's really, really cool.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because they designed a product where they basically plug into your existing workflow, so like Google, like Gmail, your Instagram DMs, the event community, your text messages.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see everything.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: See everything.
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tracking, oh my god, this control system in AI.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you don't want to live in this dystopian world, but like, you know, you have no choice, you have no choice.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to pay so many and it goes up online.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like on a Yelp review, you're getting flagged.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You're getting pay your people.
30:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get flagged to say that was pay them.
31:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is not even government big brother related.
31:03
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just practical like everyday living, a company is just saying, hey, you don't pay your people, you're going to get flagged.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to get flagged.
31:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to see it in your reputation.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just that how we came up with this actually was Uber.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We were rates both the passenger and the driver that you can see who trust each other, and that's kind of how it all came to be, but this system that you're talking about like integrating.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's already happening.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We just don't really pay attention to it.
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everything is being tracked.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds scary, but it's
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's already happening with so many different products, so yeah.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: This level of like playing in the quality business, like you think that you can get away with it, but like ultimately a hundred years ago, people were tracking you in the way that they experience you.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But now you've got some real, like,
31:57
[SPEAKER_01]: you have some real ways to track who you are on a very digital basis, you know, but if you want to destroy a vendor, they can't, too.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of the crappy part, no.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You just go and bomb these signals to smithereens and then like you're now a bad vendor.
32:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is this is part of why we're trying to build this very thoroughly because there are some bad actors out there and right now you right now you could bomb a vendor with horrible reviews and don't completely hurt their business and we want to prevent that from happening right and so with the multiple signals that we collect you can't you can't bomb someone from getting revoking that's their natural business that they're getting those are the true signals of how this business is operating.
32:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And so people with bad reviews can't touch those signals, essentially.
32:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, exactly where you're talking about, it happens, unfortunately.
32:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to protect those vendors from getting bomb by nasty competitors.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's, I mean, the reason why I called it the event community is because it should be community over competition.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's plenty of business in the event industry to go around.
33:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you're bad actor, shame on you.
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell me about the event that you just had at Sony?
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I can only imagine that you're pretty on this event.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But why do you need, why did Sony need to have you do something like in reala?
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you need to showcase that physically?
33:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so first of all, a lot of people don't know so many functions as a menu or multiple venues spaces.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Studio.
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a giant studio, right?
33:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't think about that.
33:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But we never think of it when it's not first to come to my heart.
33:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an event space.
33:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And it actually could be an event space for a wedding for butt mits fuzz, not just corporate events, fashion shows, like they're more than capable to do that.
33:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But people just don't know.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not top of mine.
33:53
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why it has to come in real life
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: the space, you experience it, you feel the vibe of it, you see the energy, you see the capabilities of everything that they can do.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: They're customer service, all that good stuff.
34:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just hard to translate online.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, our job at the event community needs to translate that as best as possible online.
34:12
[SPEAKER_00]: They get nothing ever beats in person.
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And what did you have to do?
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, now I want to really know, what did you have to do with the coordinating and, you know, puppet string control?
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But even using the app that you have that you still like that you just launched it.
34:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was more than ever.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, man, I wish this our app was where we want it to be.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I imagine it, you know, years from now where we want it to be.
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're launching it now.
34:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And most definitely helped us.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We were sourcing our vendors through it.
34:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We had our job board.
34:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We put out, hey, any vendors want to sponsor this event.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We got the applications on our actual platform.
34:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that saved us a ton of time.
34:52
[SPEAKER_00]: more people were doing that, but in terms of puppeteering, I mean, as you know, planning events are probably, we get top 10 stressful jobs in the world.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine that on top of things CEO doing all the product on top of it.
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: fun raising, you know, it was definitely a lot, but I'm very thankful for my team, before I don't think I, if I didn't have a team I wouldn't be able to do this, I was literally a solo founder a year ago.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just having my team to really back me and everything was fantastic because there's marketing campaigns involved as well.
35:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I had my event planner who partnered with us.
35:33
[SPEAKER_00]: She was magic.
35:34
[SPEAKER_00]: She did the majority of I'm going to choose the event planner, right?
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really have to just give credit to my team for doing all the things that they need to do and I just kind of, you know, point at everyone to the right direction for our launch.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you want to see this in a year or three?
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to see this across the United States.
35:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to be a household name and just seeing people use the event community whether it's a mom, a dad, a big time event producer, that'd be really awesome.
36:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it brings me more joy to see like the little guys, like just regular Schmuggler folks using the event community.
36:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what's the difference between rolling out in one major metropolitan, like so-called,
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: versus like 30 at a time do you have to do it manually or is it just okay we understand so Cal we understand the module it's very modular here and then do you just basically take that blueprint and just open it for simultaneously all over the country or does it have to go from city to city to city.
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what we're mirroring is how Uber did it.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Uber, Uber launch city by city.
36:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you need to do is you need to build liquidity.
36:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Liquidity means that you need to help both supply and demand first before you get everything going on the product.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You need a test if there's a market there, right?
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, I know that there's events happening everywhere.
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But imagine if you were to go on the event community, let's say, in Nashville, and there's nothing there.
37:07
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not cool.
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
37:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and that's what we're figuring out right now.
37:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the plan was to always build liquidity city by city, but we could also just launch it and let it grow naturally and continuously nurture it as well.
37:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really about capacity, though, as a team.
37:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
37:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We are still a very small team.
37:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We just launch.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We just opened our round.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I amazingly think, like, just so, so grateful.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Opened around and within the last few days of launching, I already got two commitments.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about, I think, 20% committed into our round already within the first week of opening it.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm just going full blast into fundraising because we have this demand.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We just need to grow into it and give people what they want.
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to be funny with this question again, but it kind of reminds of a dating site, right?
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You need the equal amount of guys to grow or whatever, right?
38:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that ratio is that you need because vendors versus like people who are looking for vendors.
38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's like the two sides, right?
38:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the trick is to like, how do you populate both sides and make that grow even obviously I think you need to have more people who need who are planning events than the vendors, right?
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that ratio might be like, I don't know, maybe a hundred to five.
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: right you don't need you don't need that man it's not like men and women were 50 or whatever right and a heterosexual setting but I think in in this setting you need a lot more customers that would order from the vendors right you're right and you populate and balance that yeah
38:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So on the client, so on the vendor side, we feel really good about that.
38:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the community that we've been building.
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I mentioned, it compounds with bringing each business on.
38:53
[SPEAKER_00]: For the client side, that's a little bit trickier.
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're doing is we're looking to partnerships with different consumer-facing brands.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So think like invitation products, all those good invitation apps, right?
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where the people start to plan their event.
39:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't have the vendor capability, and so if we can tap into them and build a partnership with them, like, hey, we can funnel people to you.
39:17
[SPEAKER_00]: You can funnel people to us, and it's a win-win situation for both.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes so much sense.
39:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you, is there anything that I've left off the table?
39:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Mmm.
39:28
[SPEAKER_00]: An invitation to your third party?
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you might have to work it.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm not saying you need to work it to get an invitation.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm literally saying you might have to work the party.
39:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, everybody, you know?
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the best of luck on the future.
39:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for coming on and spending time with me.
39:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm just so excited to really dive deep into the Vietnamese community.
39:56
[SPEAKER_00]: As I was saying with you, I want to go back to my roots, come back to my community.
40:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved out of part and growth, but there's so many English entrepreneurs that me out of part, you know?
40:08
[SPEAKER_00]: In these entrepreneurs, you just see it all the time that we use now, and I just want to be a part of it and get back to whatever I can.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: All in those on the shoutout here.
40:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Jacqueline.
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
40:20
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
40:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's so many random people that are like introducing me and passing, I have to remember everybody.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out to Jacqueline for yeah, make it that introduction.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I thank you so much Jacqueline for your support and Julia, thank you so much.
40:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so so much.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
40:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.