Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have MichaelHamilton, founder and CEO at Peeva, a pet recovery service. Michael, I'm soexcited to chat with you and, and dive into, not only your entrepreneurial journey,but also what Peevas doing and, and really in a, an interesting space that Ithink is undervalued.

As we all have, most majority I'm sure,have pets in some degree, shape, or form, and recovering them and keeping themmaintained, I. It's something that a lot of people don't consider until it'stoo late. So I'm excited to hear about how you're practically helping peoplenot only keep track of their animals, but also keep track of their health andtheir health records.

And just to jump on into it, how many onaverage, I don't know if you have any statistics, how many people lose theirpets and recover their pets in a, in a given time? .  

Michael: Okay. So the, like,that's, that's actually a really good question. Because we did a very thoroughanalysis on this, after I Yeah.

Identified the problem and was gonnareally put a lot of money into it. I wanted to really know the extent of theproblem. So if you are searching. There are different, there are a lot ofcompeting references out there. Yeah. Initially I felt that the stats wereridiculously exaggerated while other times I thought they were under reported.

Yeah. So, we actually conducted what I.Feel is arguably the most comprehensive analysis of the, the topic of the sort.Okay. Yeah. The earlier references that we were going by just seemed really outof date. And those were sources for reliable, like the American Humane forexample. Yeah. Where there are other sources such as the A S P C A that grosslyunderreport their numbers.

So, what we found is the earlier. Statshold true. So if you have a dog or a cat, the likelihood of it winding up lostat some point in its lifetime is one in three. And if that happens the odds areabout 88% against you, that you're never gonna see your pet ever again. So it'san, it's a huge problem. It's a major problem.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And what,I mean, I don't know we can't get into a pet's mind obviously, but what, whatdo you think kind of, it, it, I guess, I guess, impacts the ability for whethera pet to find their way back home or an individual to find a pet out in thereal world? Is it just knowing the information?

Is it how much kind of stimulus is outin the world? What are like some of the common challenges that people facewhen, when losing their pet and trying to recover them?  

Michael: Well, pets are veryloyal dogs especially, right? Yeah. What happens is they simply wander out ofthe yard or out of the house and they simply are scooped up before they canfind their way back.

Now they're either scooped up by like ananimal control unit or somebody driving down the streets and, that makes apsychological or emotional justification that that pet was obviously abandonedor ran away. Pets don't run away. We find that the largest incidences of pettheft are actually like 70 year old ladies who are doing just that.

Just driving down the street. It's notlike, somebody in a trench coat with a giant net going in your backyard andstealing your dog, but it's a huge problem. And the reason they're notrecovered is the lack of standardization issue among multiple microchipcompanies, and that's what we're resolving.

That's why we have been able to scale atthe rate that we have.  

Julian: Yeah, yeah. And tellus a little bit about the journey. Obviously, looking through your backgroundexperience. Being a part of the, the pet kind of industry. I don't, I don'tknow how you would, how do you categorize it, but it wasn't kind of yourinitial focus leading into it what was not only your journey, but but also whatwas the inspiration behind starting a company like Peeva coming from thebackground that you have?  

Michael: Okay. So when I was alittle kid, my dog was stolen and we never got him back. No . Okay. Yeah. Sothen when I got Peeva, my dog and company namesake I registered her microchipright away. Yeah. And then I was sad to learn one day while taking her toemergency care at a vet about 30 miles outside of Buffalo.

Away from her primary vet that they didnot scan her for a microchip. And when I asked why, I was told that I justdon't look like somebody that would steal a dog, like somebody who lives in thecity. Well, I do live in the city, and I just really didn't accept that answer.So I looked more into the problem.

Yeah. And I learned that there is nostandardization. So you have multiple microchip companies, multipledistributors, multiple microchips, multiple frequencies in which they operate.So in short, Not all scanners can read all microchips. Yeah. So that's theproblem that we're resolving. We distribute ISO microchips that can be read byany brand of scanner. And we've also developed scanners that can read any brandof microchips, but that's only one piece of the puzzle. Yeah. The greater issueis the data problem. The field of veterinary care is extremely fragmented.Okay. Yeah, there's multiple Shelter management software applications.

There are multiple EMRs and practiceinformation management systems. So the likelihood of, finding a pet isextremely low. And, if a vet, for example, scans a pet and they can read theid, now they have to visit multiple registries until a match is found. Andthat, yeah, that registry needs to be called, calls are placed on hold for longperiods.

So what we're doing. We're streamliningthat whole process with a universal microchip identification system, centralPet Recovery database, where we literally pair millions of microchipidentification numbers with our own medical records and display it in a systemthat's easy to use. So what that means is any pet care professional in ournetwork can scan any pet that's enrolled with our service to pull up that pet'scomplete medical history, which provides better care.

Yeah. And the rifle pet owner isinstantly notified at the exact second that happens.

Julian: What goes intobuilding technology that that can kind of register or, or communicate withother, registries and, and pieces of hardware? Is it, is it a limitation ofthat technology that you had to recreate or kind of create and, and create newin its entirety?

Or is it an adoption of a kind of anincumbent technology that was underutilized?

Michael: So, by analogy, whyreinvent the wheel, right? Mm-hmm. . So, what Peevas doing, it's more likefixing a flat tire, right? We're taking what could work in making it actuallywork. So, yeah. Scanners that can read any brand microchip, right?

So we, had to obviously spend a lot oftime. Yeah. I don't wanna say. Reverse engineering, but you know, literallycracking the code to read decrypted chips. Yeah. And then on the data side, thefragmented problem with all these different applications, what we're doing iswe're essentially providing like data conversion services, right?

Yeah. So we pull in a record into oursystem and then universally display it by the data field. So, Just, yeah,basically. Why reinvent the wheel? Just make it work.  

Julian: Yeah. What, what inparticular? One thing I'm curious about as, as I have pets myself is the, thekeeping track of the records is interesting for me because, it's so hard tokeep track just like with papers and paperwork, and if you want to move and,and read or, or, or take your, animal to another vet, that's a whole notherprocess.

What, what else outside of just keepingrecords is kind of under. un un under, whether it's it's considered in, in thepet care process is are people, do they not know enough about their pets? Dothey, is there systems out there where, where vets cannot necessarily address,the issues? Like it seems the fragmentation is a huge issue.

And, and how is your platform kind ofsolving that? I know you said it integrates a lot of different systems and, andcommunicates a registry, but also in particular, like what, what what else is,is the advantage of, of working or being a part of the Peeva network?  

Michael: Okay. So like I saidbefore the field of veterinary care, it's just extremely fragmented.

Okay. Yeah. With all these differentapplications the pet care industry overall actually lags behind otherindustries technologically. Yeah. So. Another issue is just the way pethealthcare is versus human healthcare, right? Yeah. Like a veterinaryprofessional or a vet clinic owns the patient when they own the patientrecords.

So this makes things extremely difficultfor another vet office that just wants to obtain these records. Sometimesthey're just simply not forthcoming, right? Yeah. Yeah. So there has to be abenefit to kind of streamline that inform. . Yeah. That's what, that's what wedo.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And inparticular, how do you think about the business model?

You have a, I don't know if it's atwo-sided marketplace, but you have a product overall in a service that has afew different stakeholders. One is a veterinary professional who, who can kindof register or, or look at a registry of information. And then you have owners,people who are have pets and, and want more insight into the information, notonly where their pet is, but.

The previous history behind them. How doyou go about selling a product like that and, and addressing the market thatyou know you are going after?  

Michael: Okay, well first offwe're resolving a problem. And that is, pet owners want their pets back ifthey're ever lost. Yeah. That's the primary problem.

Yeah. But to make that happen, thereneeds to be an ins you, you we need to incentivize pet care professionals toactually scan for microchips. There needs to be, be. A benefit, like I justoutlined all the the problems with it and why it's led to essentially a lack ofscanning for microchips altogether.

Now, the business of all s sizes they,they either want to make money or spend money or, or save money, whichessentially means the same thing at the end of the year. Savings can be, put tothe bottom line is revenue. So by making the transfer of this vital informationquick and. We save that practices a lot of money.

They can eliminate eternal redundancies.They can eliminate unnecessary staff required to, handle things like faxing andsniffing through manila folders. So that's how that, that's the path toimplementation, right? So, , this all of course means absolutely nothing unlessyou have a critical mass of data.

So I think that's the, the milliondollar question that everybody wants to know about Peeva, how did we scale soquickly? Yeah. And , I will say humbly, It, it hasn't been as quick as I wouldlike it to be. I mean, we've been, we've been at this for about six and a halfyears. A lot of that time was spent developing.

Yeah. But criticalness, how do youachieve that? Right. So we took a top down business approach, right? So weinitially worked with a very large. Corporation of free-standing hospitals. Sogetting approval from the top down, from the C level we were able to just kindof, roll out within, many, many different hospitals and with every hospitalthat we onboard we're pulling in all their.

Patient records, right? Yeah. So anybrand of microchip can be enrolled with Peeva truly is a central registrybecause we auto enroll literally with every hospital, thousands of pets thatare already chipped with other brands. Yeah. Yeah. And we offset that obviouslyby incorporating scanning into their daily operating procedure.

Every hospital that we work with, theypart of our stipulations is, they have to scan every pet that comes in theiroffice. Yeah. And if the. PET does not have a microchip. That text basicallyread a long, a line list of bullet points and the benefits of chipping ideallywith Peeva.

Yeah. They chip 'em on site. Theyregister 'em on site. Yeah. That's how we do that. So that, that is on the b2on the B2B side. Mm-hmm. on the B2C side is, word of mouth and, digital ads andjust registering pets online. Yeah. Yeah. But they're central registered.  

Julian: Yeah. It's the topdown approach is fascinating to me because it really hinders on the adoptionand onboarding from, kind of the, the, the employees that are most affected byit, the, the, whether it's a veterinary tech, who's scanning or someone who'slooking up the records.

How do you ensure that the adoption ofyour technology is seamless? Because, we all get approval from a higher up to,use a certain piece of technology, but, Within our workflow, how easy it is touse can kind of make or break the, the successful or the, the efficacy of thattechnology being implemented.

What part of the process or how muchcare and attention do you take into onboarding customers at the individuallevel? For, for, to make this service kind of, that much more effective. .  

Michael: Well, I would arguewith any, I, I would argue with any SAS business you really do have to take atop down approach.

Like, I mean, it's just simply not costeffective to employ a team of sales professionals to literally travel. Walkinto vet clinics and the hospitals, hand off a brochure and then have salesmanagers to kind of monitor their activity in a CRM follow up. And, their, thetypical sales funnel.

I mean, that, that whole process is veryexpensive. Yeah. And it's very time consuming. It's ju it's just, it's just areally, really bad model. So taking the high level approach and trickling downand rolling something out multiple hospitals at a. It basically streamlinesthat whole entire process.

The C level says this is what we'redoing, and then we onboard each hospital. So it is pretty seamless. Yeah. Butit's also the ease of use. Anybody who works outside of tech does not likelearning new software. Yeah. So by design, Peeva is actually, simple to use. Imean, and by design even like the, the look and feel of it, the fonts that weuse, the color scheme, yeah.

It's something that's just veryintuitive and simple to use, so it's just kind of a no-brainer. It's already ontheir desktops. All they're doing is literally, my daughter's four years old.She can navigate her way through Peeva. It's that easy.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. When yougo through the building process, are you taking in user feedback? Are you usingit yourself? How much testing are you doing to make sure that it's such a easyuse and seamless product?  

Michael: Yeah, so we builtPeeva literally. almost four different times. The first iteration was with theUniversity of Buffalo. Right. And then we hired on graduate students thatactually worked on this as part of their thesis.

And then when the rubber met the road,when it was time to actually be pulling in these large data sets, they weremore theoretical. So that we brought in a team of consultants to mm-hmm. kindof help them along. Then the team of consultants basically said, Hey Michael,it would probably be better off if you just rebuilt this thing.

Yeah. Which I did. And working withsoftware dev shops, that was a bad experience. So then I had to fire them, hiresome other consultants to try to make that work. That didn't really work. Andthen I just finally contacted the group that built what is called Healthy LinkNew York. Mm-hmm. I just said, Hey, you did this on the human healthcare side.

What's your prices doing? And we didthat and then we started hiring internally and then making the transition from.What works in the back end in all our tech stack over to our internal team, sothey could basically take it over. But the, the whole entire time, we wereworking with a handful of clinics and just getting their, their feedback yeah,about everything.

I mean, we could truly say built byveterinarians for veterinarians because basically getting. If they're feedback.Yeah. And and on so many levels, everything from like what the pet owner hasaccess to. Yeah. And unfettered access to the veterinary professional. So,yeah. You can't really sell anything unless you get feedback from, from people,right.

Yeah. I mean, you can't have anyobjections, so you just wanna make it the best that it can be based on theirreal life.  

Julian: Yeah. It's, it's, atone point you made really resonated with me cause I hear a lot from founderswho start the development process, work with say a dev shop or something, andthings don't go well and they have to go through a few iterations to find theright partner or consultancy or build an internal team.

Going through that process or, orthinking about it in hindsight and thinking about advice we'd give other founders,what would you advise them to, if they're going through a development process,trying to work with different partners? Is there anything that you thinkwould've expedit. The ability to build either more quickly or find a team thatcould, attack the problem, more quickly and more effectively.

Just thinking in, in retrospect.  

Michael: Well, if you reallywant me to be honest with you I wouldn't advise anybody to ever start acompany. Yeah. Is that right? Unless you really have identified. A solution toa problem. And after you really understand the extent of that problem, I mean,once I identified the problem, I was just obsessed with it and I had to findsome kind of resolution to it.

Yeah. I don't, I, I'm not a softwareengineer. If I if I could turn back the clock, I would've part, I would'veprobably partner. Yeah. With a co-founder that is a software engineer would'veprobably had so much more control over everything and, and wouldn't have madeso many costly mistakes.

Julian: Yeah, yeah, a littlebit. If, if someone does choose to start a company and, and they've kind ofidentified the problem going through the development process, if they're not atechnical founder, what advice would you give them in finding the righttechnical resources to then build your product?

Going, thinking about what yourexperience was working with dev shots, they didn't work out, and then youfinally found internal team and a resource. What advice would you give founderswho are going through that, that building process? .  

Michael: If, if they're not asoftware engineer and they're trying to design a SAS business whatever cityyou're in, whether you're in Buffalo or say Austin, Texas, there's always goingto be like a startup ecosystem, partially because it's kind of trendy.

That's not why I started this . Thereare also different startup grind events. You can kind. Get out there andnetwork that way and meet different people. You, you also have to have, a goodpersonality. Yeah. A personality that can, adapt with all different kinds ofpeople.

You have to get along. Yeah. You alsohave to have a very open mind. We are very open-minded at Ava, like, like ascheesy as it sounds, I, I like to say nobody works for. Yeah. They work withme. Yeah. Everybody, listens first then makes suggestions.

Everybody's open to suggestions beforedeciding the best course of action. Which, which, which is the best way to,it's, it's not like because I said so. Yeah. Or this and the other thing, orand, and also to not, when I first started p e. . So many like angel investors,people like that were like, this is never gonna work out because you'reessentially three separate companies.

Are you a hardware company? Are you amicrochip company? Are you an emr? Mm-hmm. , you have three different businesslines. This is just going to fail. And now they're all basically sucking at mykneecaps. But that's that's, that's a different story. But you know, there,there really has to be.

A need and it just has to be easy. Yeah.I mean, if there isn't a need, then it's just not gonna work, right? Yeah. Now,as far as building products goes it's always good to have like a minimal viableproduct. Now if it's too minimal, obviously it's gonna be disa, it'sdisastrous, right? It's gonna be an inferior product.

But if you just continually wait andwait and wait to kind of roll out something in line with your grand vision,that's what we call. Over analysis paralysis and yeah, things just don't getbuilt. So it's basically get it out fast to as many users as possible.Establish that critical mass. That's how you have value and that's, yeah howyou essentially make money.

And I will say I didn't start thiscompany to get rich or anything like that. I did solve it to solve, started toresolve. A huge problem. Mm-hmm. , but you know, that's where money comes in.Right. You have to charge a fee,  

Julian: so, yeah. Yeah. That'sa benefit. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about, more about Peeva and the tractionthat you have so far.

How many clinics or how many veterinaryoffices use the in register with, with Peeva and also how many animals now doyou have under kind of the umbrella of Peeva? Not only tracking them, but butalso having their records and, and being, having the ability to, to find yourpet if they get lost?  

Michael: So we're in close to300 veterinary clinics right now throughout the US and Canada.

With, like I said before, with everyhospital that we onboard, we pull in that critical mass of data. Yeah. Uh, Petsthat are either. Already chipped with another brand or not. Right. And then wealso have the signups coming in online. So we have, we do have millions ofcustomers. Unfortunately the far majority of them are not paying customers, butwe do have a couple hundred thousand paying customers at this point.

So, I know that's kind of vague, butright now we have over 200,000. Paying customers with our chips and planted inthem who have paid to register as well as people who register their pets withPeeva online is an added layer of protection to their own microchip company.And yeah, that, I hope that answers your question.

Julian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No,it does. What are some of the biggest challenges that Peeva faces today?  

Michael: Oh , there's so many .You, you, you, I mean like internally, like on the bus, just like generaloperations or competitors? Well, yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. I guess, I guessinternally, yeah.  

Michael: Okay. General lack ofawareness, I guess.

I mean, there are so many people. Do notknow that they have to register their pet's microchip. Yeah. There are otherpeople that think a microchip is a G P S device. There are, like I said before,competing sources of information that actually downplay the numbers, so peopledon't really consider it to be a priority.

They've had problem. . And there arealso, pardon my language, a shit ton of unnecessary technologies out there.Yeah. That have been developed marketing sold to pet owners over the course ofthe past 30 years, and nothing has worked. I mean, there are things like. Oneis ridiculous. It's a QR code that goes on a tag, basically so anybody can finda pat.

They can take out their phone, scan theQR code to be taken to a landing page that'll have a telephone number thatsomebody can call with that same smartphone. Now, what the purpose of that iswhen they can just look at the tag. call a phone number directly. I don't know.Yeah, there are, so there are a lot ridiculous things.

There are also like free pet microchipregistry scams, which are essentially just collecting. Verified emails, andonce that data set grows, it becomes more valuable as most consumer purchasesare made online and that's sold off. So people assume that they registeredtheir pet with a legitimate organization and then their pet gets lost in.

there's no phone number to call oranything like that, but they do receive lots of emails for everything fromBarkBox and Chewy to Fleet Tech, medication, et cetera, et cetera, . So yeah, Iwould say it's lack of understanding of how the technology exists and onunderestimate underestimation of the actual problem and just the fact that, ohshit, I have to register my micro.

We call it the mail-in rebate scenario.I mean, the traditional model was somebody would get their pet microchip andthey would literally write down the microchip ID and put it in a brochure andsay, go home and register this, but, Anything can happen, yeah. People will gethome. They can, they'll either lose the paperwork or they'll sit down to do itand they'll be like, oh, where's my card?

And then they just never get around toit. It's like, yeah. So, so we try to streamline that process by registeringevery pet on site. Yeah. Right. When it's right when it's scanned. So generallyIn short, the, the external challenges are just lack of awareness. Fakeregistries and just human error, operating error Yeah. Yeah. Of our endusers.  

Julian: Right, right. I, I hada situation actually with a pet where I, they were microchip from wherever Iadopted them, and I went to go check and it, it then it was like I had to payfor the service at, at, to actually know and, and, and retrieve the data that Iwanted to. So I.

man, that's a little bit frustratingbecause I was, I was a young kid at the time, and so it, it was a little bit moreof a challenging problem. If everything goes well, what's the long term visionfor Peeva?  

Michael: I just kind of, I justwanna keep it going. I mean, I, I, I love what I'm doing. There have been,opportunities along the way to, to sell and I'm just not really interested indoing it.

Yeah. We've resisted the the venturecapital game for a while. Something I would like to talk about that I think youmight find value in is the similarities between startups and indie rock bands.We can put a mental asterisk and go back to that. Yeah. , but you don't wantto, well, yeah.

Let's focus on that for a second. Yeah.Yeah. So I have this theory, I have this theory that startups and indie rockbands are very similar, right? I mean Okay. Most of them aren't really creatinganything new or of any value. And most of them don't make it out of the garage.Right. And, whereas.

A band will send out a demo tape to likeany label that can essentially make them famous. Startups are sending outthings like pitch decks to whatever, like VC or private equity group that'sgonna Right. Kind of just throw 'em a bunch of money and then. Make 'emessentially famous. Now we have learned, or at least VCs, I think have learnedin especially in the past year that, 99% or whatever of these deals have been,total failure.

They're kind of like bad record deals,right? Yeah, yeah. And then, you start this band and then shelved and you havesomebody taking all the equity out of the equation. So it's just a really,really bad business model. Yeah. So going back. Where I see Peeva going and thegrand vision. I kind of just like, being on top of it.

I mean, I started this companyessentially with my own, don't get me wrong. I mean, I have raised funds causeI had to. Yeah, I mean, it's, it, it's necessary and we probably will againrequire a. Fusion to scale at the rate that, you know, in line with my grandvision. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I could tell you about what we want to do, butwe have, we're, it's kind of premature to do that cuz Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Features and functions needto be developed and rolled out over time. I mean, I guess. Remember iPhonethree? Mm-hmm. , like 10 year, whatever that was. . I mean, Steve Jobsdefinitely knew that, there was gonna be a camera and perhaps a movie camera, Avideo camera, yeah, yeah, yeah. In future versions.

But the iPhone three didn't have any ofthat. Right. So, I just really wanna resolve this, this problem. Yeah. Having adog stolen from you sucks, right. So I always think about that, being thislittle kid, just like the anxiety, just like, where's my dog ? Just like, yeah.

Yeah. Why the fuck would somebody stealmy dog from me? Like, yeah, your earliest memories are with this dog, andthey're, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of kids out there just like me,who wanna know where their dog or their cat is. Yeah. So, Not only myself, buteverybody who answers calls for us.

There's just such satisfaction and justfeelings of happiness. It's like a dopamine hit every day when we returnanimals to their rightful owners. That's, that's what I like doing. Yeah.  

Julian: So, and I, I thinkeven on the flip side of that, if I see an animal that is obviously, someoneowns that animal, and I'm a little hesitant as, as an as a citizen to go, to ashelter or a vet because you don't know how that's gonna be resolved or ifyou're taking on the responsibility, then they can't resolve it to find.

Where that, that owner is or where thatdog belongs. And it's a, it's a, you wanna be helpful, but, but it's, it'schallenging to have the right resources to, connect that dog back with theirhome. And it's amazing to bring that animal to the shelter. And then there'sthis whole registry, and now you can resolve that problem so much more quickly.

Michael: The best thing you cando, honestly, if you find. an animal that's not yours. Especially if it's likea dog. It is just, yeah. Leave, leave it alone, right? Yeah. It, it's gonnafind its way back home. Yeah. Okay. Or the pet owner is gonna be looking for itNow I understand. If it's cold out Yeah. Yeah. Right. You, you might want tobring it inside.

If you're going to get it scanned for amicrochip, which you should, you can take it to any vet, they'll scan it for.Don't ever take it to a shelter cuz they'll just kill it. Yeah. Yeah. Ithappens. all the time. Yeah. That's my best advice.  

Julian: Just, yeah. , leavethem alone. Leave the  

Michael: It's not yours.

Yeah. It's not yours. Yeah. I mean, whatwould you do? What would you I I, I mean, if you find that just it's not yours,just Yeah. Leave it alone.  

Julian: Yeah. I think peopleunderestimate that in animal's intelligence to find their way back and, andit's just like taking a walk to the store for them. They just want to get outand explore and then, and then return.

So it's, it's kind of a, it. I, I agreewith that sentiment. Leave them alone. They'll find their way back. I havesome, I have some rapid fire questions for you that, that I, I'm interested tohear answers for, so I'm gonna go ahead and shoot. What's particularly  

Michael: hard about your job?Oh just constantly being on top of, what my developers are doing, constantlybeing distracted every day with just basic questions.

Yeah. Which I'm always open to. and I,it's Murphy's Loft sometimes every day. It's just. , the worst thing couldpossibly happen. .  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Whatyou've been at this for six years. What keeps your motivation? Is it somethingthat you do outside of work to help kind of re-energize or decompress?

Is it, going and, and going throughdifferent cycles of, taking a step back and viewing the business high level andgoing through planning, what in particular keeps you motivated and focused on aproject for so much time? .  

Michael: Well, I like to sleepand if every day I have like a checkoff list of items, right?

Yeah. And if I don't complete everythingon that, on that checkoff list, I basically just can't sleep that night. Yeah.And I'm just laying in bed and just constantly thinking of every like,scenario. Always with a positive income cuz I don't like to attract anythingnegative in the universally.

Yeah. Yeah. , you, you know that that'smy motivation really.  

Julian: Yeah. Is yeah, gettingenough sleep, ,  

Michael: getting enough sleep,and just accomplishing everything on my foot because, cause if I don't, then I,that then I just have to move that over to the the next day and then I havemore shit to do. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. So, , I like to have work lifebalance. I like having, time with my family and not constantly being on thephone. Right. Yeah. So, time management, I guess. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. If you were to,if you were to have more time, obviously time is limited, but if you were tohave more time in one particular area, whether it's work, life, family task inparticular, what in particular kind of would you or is that top of your mind tospend more time?

Michael: I would like to travela little more. Yeah. . But, that's more of a personality issue, I, I mean, oneissue is my dog. I will ne you know, She, she, she will never go to like a dogkennel or like a doggie hotel or something like that.  

Julian: Some bad stories outof those .  

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. SoI, I have friends that will watch my dog and, usually I will just get 'em like,maybe like a gift card to like a hotel for another wife to like maybe have astaycation go out to dinner or something like that, which is expensive, but it.

Being around the same cost as like, a, adog hotel or something. Anyway. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm kind of limited as to whereI can travel for that reason, because I can't take my dog on planes,unfortunately. Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I gotta find like some kind of.Somebody to say that it's like a therapy dog, but Yeah, yeah.

To get, get, get the freight pass.  

Julian: Yeah. If you weren'tExactly, exactly. Yeah. If you weren't working on Peeva, what would you beworking on?  

Michael: I would probably justbe in New York working at like Bloomberg or something. Probably in thefinancial space or the legal. . Yeah. Maybe the legal tech space. I don't know.

I mean, that's what my prior life is in,finance and, and law. So, probably just be doing that. I mean, I had a reallygood job before I started Peeva. I, I had no intention of starting Peeva. I, Ireally didn't, I loved my job, but I just kind of, kind of got sucked into it.I didn't have time to work for another job.

I had to devote all my time into Peeva.So, yeah, it happened by accident.  

Julian: Yeah. Is there any onepiece of advice or, or a couple pieces of advice that you would give to a, anearly founder who's, on, in the beginning stages of building their company?What piece of advice would you give them to either help, expedite their, theirprocess or maybe as a gem of learning that you learned early on that youwould've liked to maybe know earlier on in, in, in the company's journey?

What in particular kind of comes to. ,if, if I was a founder asking you for a piece of advice on, what to do?  

Michael: Really take a hardlook under the hood to see if you're resolving a problem, number one. And ifyou are, the likelihood is somebody has already resolved that problem. Yeah.For example a friend of mine, he's a a partner at a major am law.

law firm, right? Mm-hmm. does litigationand he identified a problem one day when he was on an airplane. He just did notlike bringing three ring binders, these heavy three ring binders on planes. Yeah.So he is just like, oh, this would be really great if I could just have thisall on my iPad. So he spent all this time like, having somebody develop thisapp where you can look at legal documents on.

The iPad. Yeah. At the same time, thereare at least a dozen companies out there that exist that do Exactly just that.Yeah. Yeah. So rather than kind of survey the landscape and just save a lot ofmoney by, using something that already exists, make sure it doesn't alreadyexist, and if it does, Build something better.

Yeah. And if it's going to be betterpeople are going to use it. If it's not gonna be better and it's gonna be likea me too product, then nobody's gonna use it. And you're gonna waste a lot ofmoney and it's gonna be hard to sell. Sell. Yeah. I mean that's why, that's whythe far majority of new businesses in general fail.

Yeah. It's, it's your lack of duediligence on the front. Yeah. That's why that happens. Yeah. So, so that's themost important thing. Identify the problem see if nobody else is doing it. Ifthey are un I may make your solution better. And obviously product market fit.What is the, what is like, like are you gonna get a return not only on yourinvestment or your friends and family's investment, but also your, also yourtime?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I waste. Yeah. Yeah.There's nothing particularly impressive about, starting a company with somekind of mediocre technology and getting, like, say, a series A to collect likea hundred thousand dollars sailor, you have nothing to show for it at the end,after it fails.

Julian: Right, right, right,right. Yeah. There's nothing to show for it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point.Whether it was early in your career or now, what books or people haveinfluenced you the most?  

Michael: Well, Mike Bloombergis my all time favorite ceo. He really is. So many reasons. Mm-hmm. , there'salso, people like Richard Branson who I've always been a fan of, and alsopeople that are not household names, just a guy that I know not evenparticularly well, but who lives in this area.

Yeah. You. He's a restauranter. Yeah. SoI, I think that's cool. Cause I know nothing about that business. Yeah. And Ithink that's kind of ballsy to just go out there and just open up restaurants.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. . Yeah. And then other than that, the cliche answers like mymom and dad teaching me right from wrong and all that.

Julian: Yeah, I love that. I,you always gotta get a shout out to, to those who, who taught you kind of the,the foundational things in life. And I always like to ask this question beforeI, I collect, your, your plugs, which is your LinkedIns and Twitters and wherewe can kind of get involved.

But is there any question that I didn'task you that I should have or that you would've liked to?  

Michael: No, not, notparticularly. I mean, I was able to kind of communicate the extent of theproblem our research that went into it and just the blood, sweat and tears thatgoes in with starting something.

And I'm also like advising people to,yeah, don't,  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I lovethat.  

Michael: It's, it's a lot offrustrating. I mean, it's, it's, but, but I'm glad to do it. Yeah. I mean, itjust, it just takes a while and it, it, yeah. It, it, it's expensive too. Yeah.But it's, it's worth it if you know you're passionate about the problem thatyou're resolving. Yeah. , what's my next startup idea if I have one? I haven'teven really thought about that.

Julian: Yeah. I, I feel likepeople do underestimate the, the, it sounds with all the bells and whistlescool. To run a company or start a company, but the mechanics behind it arereally not only personal and, and, and professional motivation and, and kind ofthis, this obsession with the problem, but.

I think the, the, the tough skin to gothrough the challenges of every day, whether it's tasks or problems orsolutions or building team and culture. There's so much that's involved in thatwhole process that I think is un under underappreciated about the founderjourney that I think hopefully the podcast gets a, gets a good insight into,the, the, the, a commitment that founders.

To, solving a problem. And, and a lot oftimes the timeline to hit certain milestones, they're a little bit, you want tohit them in, in, in a maybe timely fashion, but sometimes there's a lot ofadaptation and, and adjustment that you have to do as a founder throughout thatprocess.

Michael: There, there's,there's the old adage. It's not what, it's who you know. I mean, people reallyneed to understand that's bullshit as well. Yeah. , I mean, your, your dadcould be David g Geffen, but if your band sucks, David Geffen is not gonna makeyou famous.

Right. I mean, so, so I like to sayit's, it's not what you know or who you know. Who you could meet and what youcould learn from them. Yeah. So that goes back to like having an open mind, askquestions. Yeah. See the value in anybody who may contact you to see if theycan help you out. Maybe they don't know.net core or whatever your tech stackis.

Right. But maybe they're can add valuein other ways too, right? So, ask questions, have an open mind, definitelysurvey the landscape and then I guess just do it. But you know, it's not like,despite some of the in the Buffalo area, like there's this 43 northcompetition, their marketing is like going out and starting a company is justso easy.

All you gotta do is just do it. No,that's fucking bullshit. Yeah. , that is completely, that is that. Completelywrong. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there are all these, sources of funding, I guess,for. like, like an SBA back loan, for example. Okay. Well you still have tohave the real estate to offset that.

There's, there's no such thing as freemoney. There's no such thing as just getting out there and doing. Yes, you haveto get out there and do that, but it's not gonna be easy. Yeah, it isn't.  

Julian: Agreed. Yeah. I knowwe're at the end of the episode here and it was such a pleasure chatting withyou and not only learning about Peeva, but kind of how you.

Product market fit, going through thedevelopment process, lining up with the right partners to be able to build and,and honestly, the honest truth about if you're considering starting a company,you know what you should consider and, and before you even take the next step.So I really appreciate the, all the insight and all the conversation that we'vehad.

Last little bit is before we, we end it.What in particular, or excuse me, give us your plugs. How can we get involved?Where can we support, where can we find Peeva? Where can we find you? Give us,the audience ways to get in contact and even maybe use the technologyourselves.  

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Youcan enroll your pet by just going to our website, which is peeva.co. So that'sP E E V A . C O or just Google. Peeva will show up right at the top. It takes.One minute to register any random microchip. And once you're enrolled, you canadd backup contacts, you can locate your vet, upload your pet's picture andeverything else.

It's pretty cool. I love that. And itensures the lifetime protection your pet. We're gonna ensure that the microchipis red. We're gonna ensure that it's scanned and you're gonna be instantlynotified the exact second that that happens.

Julian: Incredible. Michael,it's such a pleasure chatting with you. I hope you enjoyed yourself, and thankyou again for joining the podcast today.

Michael: Yeah, I really likewhat you guys are doing. It's awesome. I'm a new fan,.  

Julian: Awesome. ThanksMichael.  

Michael: Okay buddy.

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