Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today I have Jason Alvarez- Cohen, CEO of Popl a technology company based in Los Angeles that is building the next-generation digital business card platform. Jason, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm really excited to chat with you and, and especially cuz you're in LA as well.

Julian: So I'm sure we'll connect now and, and in the future. But before we dive into all the good stuff,I would love to learn. What were you doing before you started? .  

Jason: Yeah. Well first out Julian, thank you for having me. Very excited to talk about the journey and the company. Yeah, we'll get right into it. So before Popl, I actually graduated from UCLA in 2018 and I was in computer science. That was my major. I knew I was technical and I wanted to be somewhat technical, and software was just really exciting to me. So I went right into that. And after UCLA, I quickly, Was at a startup, a relatively small startup outside of Dallas for three months, whichwas some good experience on the software side.

Jason: And then I went to Boeing for about eight months. And so Boeing, you know, big aerospace company that was an El Segundo. And that was a great experience working with greatpeople. But I realized during Boeing, my Boeing experience that I wanted tocreate my own thing, right? Like I wanted to use the knowledge that I got fromUCLA and I wanted to create my own.

Jason: And build out a teamof, of excited quality people. And so yeah, I basically told myself, I gavemyself a goal within one year at Boeing. I'm going to start my own thing. Andsure enough, eight months later I left for Popl.  

Julian: Amazing man. What wasthe transition? Going from a startup like a startup and then to Boeing, whichis a huge, you know, multinational company. Yeah. And international company aswell. Like what, what was that transition? .

Jason: Yeah, so I reallyenjoyed it because I got both the startup, a little bit of the startup taste,but then I also got that big company taste. Yeah. Boeing has hundreds ofthousand employees, so it is a very other end of the spectrum and good and badthings, Good things.

Jason: You're working withincredibly smart people, but the, you know, there are some downsides in that.You're kind of more of cognitive machine, right. You're, you're one and many.And some of the projects I was working on maybe weren't my favorite. I also hadless control over why I could work on, and I was kind of like, Here's yourtasks. This is what you're gonna do. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, it's to each theirown, but it wasn't exactly for sure. Sure.

Julian: What was it, was thereany like feeling and you mentioned, you know, throughout college you kind ofhad this idea of, of wanting to start your own thing, you. Experiences you seta goal is, you know, for yourself and then you took the leap.

Julian: What was that feelingthat you had festering in you, that were, that led you to start your owncompany and, and start Popl?  

Jason: Yeah, I love talkingabout this cuz I, I remember it so vividly. I would finish courses at UCLA andthen I would just spend hours thinking about something that I can. What hassomething, what is something, an idea that people have not thought of yet.

Jason: And I would just rackmy brain and think about my day, What did I do throughout my day? What can beoptimized? And I was looking, I was searching for an idea. And what's funny isthat it took a little bit of luck for me to stumble upon what is now Popl. Andit actually wasn't one of my brainstorming sessions of, of hours of thinkingabout things.

Jason: So it's, it'sinteresting, you know, you get a little bit of luck and experience by doingthings in the world and things kind of come. .

Julian: Yeah. People talk alot about it, that like brainstorming experience and, and some people journal,some people write down ideas and, you know, ever know and, and all these otherplatforms.

Julian: What was your processlike, and, and how do you think it helped now that you have Popl and arestarting and, and what from that exercise has helped kind of in your, in thisexperience now?  

Jason: Yeah, so I was using,basically I was writing down notes, you know, iOS notes. And I was writing downkind of things that I noticed that could be improved.

Jason: And then I would doresearch like, has this been created yet? And I would kind of do keywordresearch and see if it's out there. And never really kind of stumble onanything that I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go in on this. And so, but I just hada bunch of these notes that was like, here's an idea that I could start, Here'san idea.

Jason: And so that took me. ,You know, what that did do is it put me in a mindset to be curious and I wouldask questions. I would, I would learn about things and I'd be this, Okay, Iwant to, to come across an idea. So it turned into me being curious and thatthen led to me finding problem. And I like to think that like if I wasn't inthat mindset, if I wasn't trying to come up with an idea, I maybe wouldn't havekind of looked at that world in that lens.

Julian: That's a, Yeah, thatcuriosity piece is something I hear time and time again. It's, it's just, it'snot necessarily seeking out Yeah, it's not, It's not like you're seeking outcertain particular information, but it's just the openness and the curiositylike going down the rabbit hole time and time again until maybe patterns formand then something seems so clear in your mind.

Julian: That it's almost, Idon't know, it's almost like a feeling that gravitates towards you where it'slike, it just, it would be silly if I didn't start. And you said you, you talkabout this, a little bit of luck that, you know, brought you into Popl and, andstarting this company. What, what was that experience?

Julian: What, what do you meanby that? Luck, this.  

Jason: Yeah. So I, I was at aevent in the Hollywood Hills and I happened to come across nfc te. , which iswhat Popl uses, right? Yeah. And so I came across the technology and what waskey and what I learned at that moment was that, okay, you can have an NFCdevice that taps an iPhone and I don't have to have any kind of app and I canreceive data, right?

Jason: So you can have NFCdevice that taps a phone and it sends information to that phone, and the phonedoesn't need an app. If everyone needed. In order to use Popl, we would have anetwork effect problem where in order for Popl to be valuable, everyone wouldhave to have it. And that's the hardest part because then you have to geteveryone on it in order for it to be valuable.

Jason: And that's very hardto do because, you know, it's very hard to acquire all these, all these usersand the world's so huge. Yeah. So the fact that you, I learned this and I saw,Wait a second, okay, you can tap someone's phone and share information. Thatwas the spark. Yeah. And that was just me being curious.

Jason: And so then after thatevent, I. You know, a couple days researching and really looking into thistechnology and, and seeing, okay, how can I potentially use this and turn thisinto a company? And so that was the, the impetus. And so I like to say a littlebit of luck cause I was at this event and then a little bit of just beingcurious and research after.

Julian: I love that. What, describethe technology a little bit for, for people who don't know and NFCtechnology.  

Jason: Absolutely. So NFCtechnology is the technology that Apple and Google Pay uses. So everyone knowsApple and Google Pay, you tap to pay. We essentially use that same technology,but instead we use it for sharing information like contacts, social media,websites, etcetera.

Jason: So instead of paying,you are sharing information and we like to call this a digital business card.So when I saw this, my first thought was, Wait a second, you could probably useto share an I. Right. I could tap someone's phone and share my Instagram orshare my phone number. And this was important to me because I was, I'm a bignetworker.

Jason: I like to socializeand so I, I've kind of been looking for a less awkward way to share thisinformation with people I meet and connect like instantly. And so this waslike, okay, you know what? Wow, this is a possible. Technology that I can useright now. These phones are working with this natively right now, and so it waslike a nice spark at that or that moment.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I love Ilove the, the less awkward piece because there is some kind of, you're in aflow of conversation with someone that you're just meeting and, and I thinkpeople don't appreciate that to interrupt that flow is difficult to kind ofmaintain that connection and get to the next step, which is, you know, maybe anew conversation or some other possibility. So that's super, that's fascinatingthat it allow at that point.

Jason: Yeah. More than justthe awkwardness. It's also just the, the organization of context. Yeah. Right.Like you can finish an event and maybe you. Two Instagram followers, threepeople followed you on Twitter. And then I have two texts from random numbers.

Jason: I don't know who theyare. And so it's kind of like, it's an all consolidation into one platform, andthat's really what we're focused on.  

Julian: That's amazing. What,what got into contacts and in general and what contacts are incorporated inPopl and what you're able to.  

Jason: What do you mean bywhat context?  

Julian: Yeah, so you know,there's Instagram, there's Twitter, there's phone number.

Julian: Oh, what's, yeah.What's involved in Yeah. In the information that you're sharing and how do youselect also?  

Jason: Yeah. So we, so I'llstart off by saying that you create your profile that you share with othersthrough our mobile app. Mm-hmm. , right? So you download Popl, you start, youcreate your profile, and then it says, Okay, add information to your.

Jason: And you can addanything from our link store. We have over 50 links now where it could beanything from Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, all these social medias, content,information, phone number, email FaceTime, even if you want. Yeah. WhatsApp, etcetera. And then you can, you can add additional content like embedded videos,marketing documents, pdf.

Jason: Team directories. It'sreally anything like, we have all these different types of link, link options,and then you can add to your profile based on what you wanna share with others.And so yeah, create the account, add these links, and then you go out in theworld and share em with you.  

Julian: What, what's the sharingexperience like? Can you walk me through the, the, the journey? You know, Ihave, I have my capsule account, and I share it with somebody. What do they seeon their end?  

Jason: Yeah, I get a livedemo, So here's my phone, right? So all I have to do is this is one of ourproducts, so wearable, All I have to do is tap the top of my phone, a littlenotification pops up, and then when you tap that, it opens up my profile, whichhas all this information.

Jason: So I have these at thetop. I have a link tree-like style here, but you can make your profile howeveryou want. And then, yeah, so your most important ones go at the top. That'skind of what you wanna focus on. And then we also have this exchange contact button,which will save everything on my profile as a contact in your phone instantly.

Julian: Incredible. So, sowhere it translates into your phone, it, it kind of holds all these links andorganizes them well. I'm always curious with, with founders who are buildingkind of a physical technology. Yeah. Let's check this out.  

Jason: So this is a, this isa B, so this is how an iPhone or an Android will save your contact into theirphone. And so you'll see we, we nicely and automatically package everything upinto this B card. Even my, Yeah. You know, we're on based. And so it's nice ina full, you know, information of data.  

Julian: Yeah. What is thechallenge of, of building in a physical space? So, you know, you have thisinstrument that then relates to technology and, and relays this information.

Julian: You know, typicallythe founders I talk to are more software focused, so it's, you know,downloading software, implementing into the team. But I know that, you know,with different challenges and within the physical space, what are those thatyou face that's just different than building just virtual technology that's onthe cloud and that type of information?

Jason: It's a great question.And yeah. You know, hardware can be considered harder, right?  

Julian: Yeah.  

Jason: You got fulfillment,you got, you got facilities, you gotta manage shipping and all this stuff. Sowhat's nice about our, our products is they're relatively inexpensive, so we'reable to ship relatively cheaply and have them managed in different facilities.

Jason: We have three now andworldwide. So it makes it nice and easy to move items around. Yeah. And yeah,you know, you could consider it as less scalable because it's, you know,software, you could have millions of downloads every minute if you, if you werejust getting enough traffic. Whereas hardware, it's like you have to ship theproducts.

Jason: And you're right, thatdoes take longer. And yeah, sometimes you have shipping delays, et cetera. Butyeah, we've gotten it down to a science. And so I like to think that it's nicethat we have this hardware. What we've seen is that hardware is better adoptedfrom our users because they like to experience better.

Jason: The, the kind ofsoftware solution for us would be the QR code, right? Yeah. So I just have theapp. I open up my QR code, you scan this difference. There is that QR code is.is not passive for the person you're sharing to. So Julian, if I meet you, youhave to pull out your phone and you have to open up your camera and you have toscan my phone.

Jason: Whereas if I'm usingan NFC device, all I have to do is tap your phone. You don't have to doanything on your end. And so that's kind of like a more seamlessexperience.  

Julian: Yeah. That, that,that's incredible. And I can only think about how, how quickly expedite theprocess to get your information, get it to the right person and categorize.

Julian: How much stronger thatconnection connection is. Tell me about the, the process that you went through.I know you went through YC and, and you were able to raise a, you know, prettyawesome round. It was like two, like 2.3 million or something like that. Ican't remember the exact figure, but what was, what was the pitch?

Julian: What was theconversation? I'm always curious about how founders communicate the value oftheir products to investors. Yeah. How was that pitch? How did that looklike?  

Jason: Who's that? Yeah, soit's an exciting time. We did WA Combinator last year. Winter 21 was our, wasour batch, and so we went through that, got some great teachings.

Jason: Our group leader wasMichael Sable, who was an incredible person and very smart, very sharp guy. Andevery time we met with him, it would be like a shakeup. We would meet with himand then there's, there's like all these things that we were not even thinkingabout, weren't even on our radar. And then we'd be like, Wow, that's so smart.

Jason: Thank you for thatadvice. So if you're thinking about flying to yc, I highly recommend Oh yeah.So did that. It was a three month cohort and at the end o yc you have what'scalled demo day. Demo days where you have for us, because we had a lot ofcompanies in our. You have 60 seconds and one slide and you pitch your companyto thousands of investors who are watching the demo day, right?

Jason: And so this wasvirtual, so it's really nice. It allows people to watch from all over theworld. And so we did this and we got a bunch of inbound from the demo day. Andthen yeah, we were able to close our seed round within about two weeks. So itwas a very fast process, . So yeah, thank you y commentator for, forfacilitating that and really for us, the way we kind of framed Popl.

Jason: Was around, just lookat our product, look how much we're selling. We had a lot of traction and here,here's where we're going. And we were able to kind of paint that world whereit's like, Okay, clearly people are loving this. We have all this traction. Wealso at that point had just released Popl Pro, which was our first in-appsubscription, which was growing really fast. So we had that on our end as. Andso both that and then the, the hardware revenue was powerful for us and it waskey for us to close our first arm.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And interms of the, the story and the journey and the mission of, of Popl, what wasthe most compelling part that you think you know, investors really resonated?

Jason: Oh, what, Yeah, so Imean that, that this is going to be how people. Yeah, in the next five years,right? Like in the next five years, Julian, I want to meet you and I want us totap phones and we don't even mention it because it's so normal. like, I tapyour phone, you tap mine, and it's just like, All right, nice to meet you.

Jason: We walk away right nowif you, if I tap your phone now we're talking about Popl cuz then cuz like theperson you're meeting probably doesn't know what it is yet, is like, whoa,that's really cool. Let me learn more about that. Yeah, that's cool. And allright now, but I want it to. The point where it's so normal that people just doit and move on and you know, that's plausible in the next three to five years.

Jason: You know, Lincoln Biois very popular for being on your Instagram, on your social media. What aboutyour Lincoln Bio in person? Right? Like, when I meet you, I wanna be able toshare all of me with you quickly. And so it just kind of makes sense as we moveforward. Yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. How do you caterthe experience? Are there certain platforms that you prioritize or think aremore important in terms of communicating someone's experience or is.Specifically designed for the user to select?

Jason: Yeah, so it's a greatquestion. Most of it's designed for the user, but we do have a recommendedsection, which is kind of like our most shared links, and those are mostlyaround the contact info. That's usually key for people, and everyone has aphone number. So imagine like you, you throw a, you know, I throw a millionpeople into an app. Mm-hmm. , which, which links are gonna be most popular?Well, everyone has phone numbers, so obviously, and emails. So those two arethe most popular. So contact information is what we see most. And then also weare really focused on professionals. So we also encourage LinkedIn theWhatsApps, the Twitters, I guess Callies. Yeah. So those kind of moreprofessional links. .  

Julian: Yeah. What do youhave, have you seen any trends of different ways people are, are, or, or Iguess different preferences that people are sharing information like, you know,I feel. For the last, Yeah, I've been in, I've been in the game for a minute,so the last five, six, maybe even almost 10 years, it's, it's been linked inparticularly in terms of professional sharing. But as you kind of now with theremote work environment, I have a lot of, you know, clients and people that Iwork with outside of the country, like WhatsApp and Telegram have become very,more, more popular in my.

Julian: But is there anythingtrending in a way that people are sharing more of their information or making adeeper connection using different information? Or is it still predominantlylike LinkedIn and those those websites that kind of come to mind offhand?  

Jason: Yeah. So when it, whenit comes to sharing kind of who you are, LinkedIn's most popular in terms ofprofessional because yeah, unlike a, a WhatsApp or a Telegram, that's yournumber and that's a way to contact you, but it doesn't really share who youare, you know?

Jason: Mm-hmm. , it doesn'thave that add. Kind of resume type content. So yeah, LinkedIn definitely themost popular for professional. But you know, LA we're seeing a lot ofInstagram. It's very common for la It's like, I'm not gonna share my LinkedIn.I'm gonna, Hey, what's your Instagram? Also Twitter, you know, Twitter's kindof smaller, but it's, it's there.

Jason: People share it forsure. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, those are kind of the big ones. TikTok as wellas Snapchat. You know, we used to, we started off as a very Gen Z focusedcompany because of our TikTok phase. Mm-hmm. , started the company. By goingviral at TikTok. That's kind of how we launched globally.

Jason: Yeah. And so at thattime we were very focused on the younger generation, Gen Z younger kids. Andthey were really into like, I'm sharing my Snapchat, I'm sharing my TikTok. Andso that was kind of a, an older version of us. Seeing that Sure grow was, wasreally cool.  

Julian: What fascinating to meis I feel like with, with the, with the coming generation, not only Gen Z, butyou know, you've, you've heard it segmented into however many generationsbecause of how quickly technology's changing, but how.

Julian: People are nowactually very much incorporated in their professional life as them as a segmentof their maybe personality or, or kind of a mask of theirs. We think aboutpersona. You know, the word persona comes from the word personas. It's a maskessentially. That was, you know, when people did theater back in the day, theyhad a mask and, and it would essentially resonate a sound.

Julian: And that mask was apersona, right? And so people have different persona. Yeah. Yeah. My, myfounder blessed me with that information. But it's interesting that theprofessional persona of yourself is now becoming much more involved in youroverall life and people are really attaching themselves to the work that theydo.

Julian: Do you see that kindof with the information that they're sharing or, or have you seen that. Kind ofa movement towards, I guess, when you were working with Gen Z clientele more soversus now, or or customers now, or what, what, what are you seeing in themarketplace in terms of like how people are connecting in the ways they'rethey're connecting the information that they're incorporating.

Jason: Yeah. So I mean, whenyou share your Popl link with someone, it's really an extension of you. Sopeople are really, , they're, they're very focused on kind of how it looks andthey wanna make sure that it looks like them. And that's sharing informationthat's to them. So, yeah, you know, that's key. Whether you're a youngergeneration or older, having that kind of look exactly how you want it to is, iskey.

Jason: And, you know, we havecustomization options that we are coming out with for that specifically. Thatbeing said, I do think we lean more towards the LinkedIn as opposed to the.What's an example? Like the link tree. So Link tree. Sure. You can create thistree of links that's kind of like, here's my background image.

Jason: Yeah. And I want mylinks to look like this. And I want my colors to be this. I want my name to bein this color. We have some customization, but we're kind of more on theLinkedIn side. You know, LinkedIn, you can, You have no customization. Yeah.Here's how your profile looks. That's it, right? Yeah. So we kind of areleaning more towards that, but we do have a little bit of customization kind ofin between.

Jason: So it's like a nicespectrum. What? What's the reason behind that? Well, I mean, I think we aretrying to be more professional. Yeah. And then also the, we also have this kindof like mindset that when you connect with someone, the goal isn't to, Oh,that's a really pretty page, right? The goal is for them to connect with you onthose platforms.

Jason: So how can we design apage that is just optimized for that? We want that person to click on what youwant them to click on so they connect with you on that platform. Right. So wecan build something really beautiful and distracting, or we can build somethingthat's like, Here are the links that they wanna share with you.

Jason: Click on these. Yeah,so you can connect. .  

Julian: Yeah. What? And, and,and how are you working? I know right now you're, you're working with a lot ofconsumers and, and you know, you're shipping out the physical technology.Honestly, I was looking at your website and I was like, I think I'm gonna get theone that goes on the back of the iPhone.

Julian: Cause that just seemssuper cool. That's the most problem. And superficial. Yeah. Yeah. But how areyou working with companies? Are, are you starting to think about partnershipsand ways to kind. Collaborate and, and incorporate your technology on, on alarger scale? And if so how are you thinking and strategizing and moving inthat direction?

Jason: Absolutely. Yeah. Sowe, we have PLO teams now. So Popl Teams is our second software product afterPro and Popl teams is for organizations to set up digital business cards fortheir employees, right? So we have companies that will join Popl teams, say, Iwanna set up digital cards for my 30 employee.

Jason: And so then they say,Okay, I join, I create 30 cards. I bulk create the links. So Right. We want,that's the whole point of teams. We don't want them to have to do one by one.That's nightmare. Yeah. And like imagine if you're a team with thousands ofemployees and imagine you wanted to create cards for everyone that would not golike that would take you days to to months.

Jason: So we make it veryeasy and efficient to use templates and create things in bulk, set profilephotos in bulk. So you can set up thousands of cards very. And then you couldjust say, Okay, I'm ready to distribute these to my team. You can assign thevia email, you can send out invites, and so it makes it very easy for a team toget.

Julian: Incredible. Tell me alittle bit more about the traction. You've, you've now said that I think youhave three warehouses you're distributing internationally. You've gone viralalready, which is some of the, one of the hardest things to do for a lot ofcompanies. But when companies do it well, I think it adds such a, so much valuetowards.

Julian: The, the trust and andreliability of a product. But tell me a little bit more about the traction, youknow, how, how many consumers that have your, your product how many companiesare you working with within the Popl teams? What's the growth look like? And,and since you, from concept until now.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely. So Ican't say too much details, but in terms of total users and, and teams, we haveover seven figures. Of those, you know, using Popl. So it's really exciting.And we also are about to surpass 20 million connections. Wow. Which means 20million uses of our product, which is really cool. And a couple months ago wealso just hit a fun little stat where during the 12 hours of daylight for theUS there was a Popl that happens every single second.

Julian: That's pretty cool.Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's a, that's a lot. I mean, yeah. No,that's incredible. Now kind of thinking about taking a step back here, youknow, you've had success, you're seeing the numbers increase exponentially, andthat status is amazing to see how much people are, are utilizing the, thetechnology to make these connections.

Julian: What are some of thebiggest risks that you see or that you face today with, you know, Popl and inthe company and, and what you're doing?  

Jason: Yeah, so the, the biggestkind of hurdle that we're constantly working on is teaching a new concept tothe world. Right now. When you meet people, it's a natural behavior to whetherit's like, I'm gonna hand you my phone and you're gonna type in your number, orI'm going to, you know, what's another example like, I guess this is kind of asmall example, but it's like I hand you my Instagram and I go to the search barand I say, Type in your Instagram.

Jason: Right? And then I handit to you, type it in. So that's kind of the way things go right now, which is,you know, very inefficient and not good with Covid. I know C'S kind of, butyeah, it's, it can be improved, right? And so, and even when they type that in,it's like, okay, you have now one information from them.

Jason: You don't haveanything else you wanna share. So we are constantly overcoming this obstacle ofteaching this new behavior. Don't do that. Instead tap their phone with this.Right. It's like, yeah, no, it's sometimes a little, a little bit hard to teachthe world a new concept and a new behavior. That's one of the hardest things todo.

Jason: Teaching the world ofbehavior whether it's consumers or enterprise customers and employees. It'skind of like you have that, that hurdle to hop over. And so yeah, constantlyworking with that, making it easier to. Better education so that users knowexactly how to share and, and how our products work is, is, is key for our, ourbusiness.

Julian: Yeah. How, how areyou, how are you training a new behavior? With Within, Within your customerbase?  

Jason: Well, it's a lot ofeducation. So in our app we have onboarding tools that say, Here's how youshare, right? This is what you wanna do. You wanna tap this part of theirphone? You want to tap this part of iPhones, this part of Androids, and reallymake it crystal clear with animations and videos, how to share with thesedevices.

Jason: And then also funlittle like encouragements, rewards, I guess competition, right? Ways toincrease usage because people wanna be kind of like at the top of their game.For example, in our app, we just released a world ranking. So out of all of ourusers, you get a certain percentile for how much you're sharing.

Jason: So you can be in thetop 1%, the top 5%, the top 10%, et cetera. And so we have all these customerswho, who they wanna be as high as possible. Cause it shows, shows I'mnetworking, it shows I'm meeting people. And so it's, it's really exciting tosee kind of how those encouragements will, will get people to, you know, usethe product more and actually teach that.

Jason: Yeah.  

Julian: I'm a huge, I such ahuge fan of when companies use kind of just different whether it's competitionor you know, sharing a certain, you know, thing in an amount of time, ways thatthey encourage their users and education and educate them on how to use theirproduct more efficiently. I, I feel like, you know, previously a lot ofcompanies are doing a one size fits all.

Julian: You don't get it, youknow, then, then you're not in the. But more companies are shifting towards amodel that not only encourages their users, but educates them, and then kind ofpromotes this kind of community around sharing and, and building themselves in,in a productive way. So it's, so it's kind of this you know, kind of what's theword?

Julian: Like symbioticrelationship between the product and, and the experience which is, you know,super cool. If everything goes right, what's the long term vision forPopl.  

Jason: Oh, well we want toIPO with the ticker. P O P L  

Julian: p o p I. What was that? Love to hear. Not stop until what happens. Yeah, no, I'd love to hear it.

Julian: Well, awesome, Jason.Well, I always like to ask this question as a selfish research for myself, butalso for my audience to gather some more information and, and get inspired. Butwhat books or people have influenced you the most?  

Jason: Yeah. So in terms of,I'll start with books, How to Win Friends That Influence People.

Jason: Very classic. But agreat read. I've read it twice now, so it's good to kind of read books againand, and make sure you digest the information clearly. So that's a key one.Other two are zero to one Another classic Great book talks about networkeffects, talks about growing a company from the very start, and then finallySandhill Road relevant, if you're talking to a lot of bcs, if you're raisingcapital, Santa Road is kind of all about what you wanna do to frame yourselffor doing a successful fundraise. And then in terms of people, I'd say threepeople. Well it's the first one is Michaels, who I mentioned earlier. Are y ckind of advisor, Been incredible throughout that process.

Jason: The next one is mydad. So my dad Also Michael we call him Mike, though. He's an active advisorand investor in in our company and it's awesome to have, you know, my familyinvolved. And he has from the beginning been extremely helpful for us. He'svery involved with uc, Berkeley's startup scene.

Jason: Mm-hmm. . And so hewas able to say, when I first had the idea with my co-founder, , he was able tobe like, All right, this is what you need to do. You need to incorporate, youneed to get your banking set up. You need to get your legal team set up. Andso, hey, K gave us all these todos and it was like getting advice from someonewho has done this thousands of times.

Jason: Uc, Berkeley. So, soit was like really perfect to have him as my dad. And he was just very helpful,obviously like free work as a family member. And so definitely, you know, andit's still helping us today. I had a call with him earlier today, so still veryinvolved in the company and I, I love that guy.

Jason: That's great part ofmy life. And then I guess, you know, my partners Nick and Jeremy, who workreally hard with me every day and my team, obviously every on the team workshard. But my partners Nick and Jeremy who are there with me since day one, havebeen incredible. And so just wanna gimme a shoutout.

Julian: I love that, man.Well, well thank you so much for sharing not only your experience, but theinfluence that I think your technology has. And, and the, I love the idea ofcompanies that you make a process so efficient and so much more smooth when,when in, you know, you're in situations where they, you want network, youwanna, you wanna complete a task.

Julian: They're, they're justsuch great and intelligent ways to move things forward with, with littlefriction. You know, kudos to you and I love the success. And last little bit. Ialways like to give my guests a chance to send me their plugs. So, what's yourLinkedIn? What's your Twitters, How can we support Popl? Your, your vision andyour idea. Where can we find you?  

Jason: Check this out. Sowe're gonna use Popl, right? So if anyone wants to connect with me, go aheadand scan that. I'll leave this up for like two seconds.  

Julian: Throw this one. Okay.Boom. I got. I love that. Yeah. Nice.  

Jason: Amazing man. Yeah, sothat's how you can connect with me. And then Popl is available on our website,popl.co not.com, popl.co. We're working on that. And we are also available inWalmart. We're available in Staples if you wanna go in person. We're also onAmazon. We're on target.com. Best buy.com. Basically, we make it so that youcan get Popl anywhere. And so yeah, any of those platforms.

Julian: Incredible. Well,Jason, thank you so much for being on the show. I hope you enjoyed yourself andyou know, I'm excited not only to launch this episode, but for people to beable to have a way to connect more quickly, more efficiently, whether they're,you know, going to an event on purpose or find themselves certain, you knowcoincidentally at one and, and connecting with friends and, and other peopleprofessionally.

Julian: But again, thank youso much for being on the show and I hope you enjoyed yourself.  

Jason: Yeah, thanks forhaving Julian. Great conversation, and I'm excited to see where this goes.  

Julian: Right on.

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