RHS 141 - Raghav Tanna on Tarmika and World Domination

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Speaker 5 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 6 Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 Today we have one of my absolute favorite guests and that is Ragoftana, the founder and CEO of Tarmica. Now

Speaker 3 I've known Rags since maybe January or February of 2020. I was introduced to him by Chris Paradiso and

Speaker 3 you know sat down in Chris's office in Stafford Springs and just immediately liked this kid like just could tell that he had the right mix of understanding the you know where the industry had come from and what it meant to be an independent agent with the needs that our industry had and at that point tarmaco was just barely getting off the ground and he was telling me a little bit about what he was doing and i just was completely enamored by the idea by by him, by the way he was attacking it, and by the people that he had surrounded himself with, which, in my opinion, were the right people to have behind you, kind of giving you advice and feedback.

Speaker 3 And most notably,

Speaker 3 in this case, Chris Paradiso. So I want to give a huge shout out to Chris for introducing Ragoff and I and just

Speaker 3 love the way.

Speaker 3 Ragov thinks about the business. I just do.
And I think you're going to love this conversation. Before we get there, want to talk about our sponsors here on the show.
And the first is Tarmica.

Speaker 3 Now, Tarmica, Rags isn't on the show today because Tarmica is a sponsor. Because even if they weren't, I would still have Rags on the show because he's the best.
But Tarmica is a sponsor.

Speaker 3 They have been since the very beginning of my journey here on this iteration of the podcast. And guys, if you don't even checked out and gotten the demo from Tarmica, you're missing something.

Speaker 3 Go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com. Go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com.

Speaker 3 Tarmica is a huge part of what we do at Rogue, a huge part of us scaling our business now that we're in partnership with SIA, and we're going to be pushing Tarmica to the limits of its capabilities.

Speaker 3 And everyone that's part of our ecosystem, whether you're a producer or a network agency, is going to be able to experience what Tarmica and the systems that we've built at Rogue have to offer.

Speaker 3 If you want that same type of capabilities in your office, T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com today. All right, let's get after this episode.

Speaker 6 Let's do some podcasting. All right.

Speaker 6 The best part about this is going to be all the really, really good content. None of you motherfuckers are going to get to hear because I didn't have it on record and I just hit record.

Speaker 6 So now we're going to do all the really boring stuff for you guys.

Speaker 5 Like, I'm ready for it. Hi, Ragoff.

Speaker 6 What's the best best part of Tarmaka? What's your favorite feature?

Speaker 5 I'm not going to answer that.

Speaker 5 I think, honestly, I'm, I mean, I'm

Speaker 5 let's get into the good stuff.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 I want to talk about, so this is my, this is my personal take on the industry.

Speaker 6 And I'm going to, I'm going to run through this a little bit of context and then you, you take it, you break it down because you are one of the smartest dudes that I know in the space.

Speaker 6 And as I said off air, but I will also say this on air, despite being just a pup still, you

Speaker 6 have an understanding of how the industry works that is better than the vast, vast majority of people. So

Speaker 6 2015, 2016, InsureTech hits, disintermediation, agents are going out the door. Everything's going to be automated.
We're toast. It's over.
You know, I was one of the few people,

Speaker 6 one of the few loud voices on the other side saying that that's crazy, you know, innovation that has since changed. We realize that's not the case.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 6 So InsurTech in its first wave certainly did not disintermediate us. And it feels very much like whether this is Gen 2 or Gen 3, it's more about innovation, integration.
That's amazing.

Speaker 6 However, there is one,

Speaker 6 I don't know if we call it a technology or a channel or whatever that does actually.

Speaker 6 I'm not going to say it's going to disintermediate, but I think it have a really drastic and

Speaker 6 really drastic impact on the business as a whole. And that's the embedded insurance.
and the reason for that and and then i'll shut up is that um to me what embedded insurance

Speaker 6 what it presents to the market is it removes the opportunity for businesses to even get down to the level of a local independent agent like the business is already plucked they already you know whether it's through a gusto or a paychecks or a square for business or a or a credit card like American Express or whatever, they sign up for a service.

Speaker 6 And then all of a sudden,

Speaker 6 they're getting offered business insurance integrated right in front of them. And they're off to some digital player before it even gets to the local level.

Speaker 6 That to me presents what I believe is a real significant,

Speaker 6 you know, again, my words aren't coming to me here, but

Speaker 6 a real significant impact on our space, something we need to consider. Is that, do you think that's legitimate? Like, where do you see this going?

Speaker 6 Like, am I completely blowing it out of proportion or am i not taking it serious enough

Speaker 5 i just don't so yes i think that's i think that's a valid point i think that is a threat to local independent agencies but i think the part that we're still we're still so far away from is how many businesses actually want to buy down that path There are so many small businesses in the country today, right?

Speaker 5 But how many of them are actually going to go from start to finish through that digital journey, you'll call it, through a digital agency? And even a credit card company, for example, right?

Speaker 5 If you have that ability to buy insurance right online after entering in all of your data and just passes through an API to us, to one of our carriers and back, and boom, there's your quote.

Speaker 5 You have no questions. You don't need to know anything else that you're ready to buy.

Speaker 5 I find it hard to believe that there's enough of those people out there that make this business model take up 100% of small commercial.

Speaker 5 With that being said, though, there is a high enough percentage where if you're not an agency that's focused on marketing appropriately, growing your business in small commercial, focusing on the right coverages, the right clients, and you're just selling price, price, price, you're the one that's going to struggle the most with this new digital enhancement.

Speaker 5 Embedded insurance is a buzzword. And I wish there was a different word we could use because I think too many people say they can do it.

Speaker 5 It does not.

Speaker 5 completely destroy the independent agency channel and it shouldn't. It makes people work harder and work differently to get small commercial business for their agency.

Speaker 5 I think that's the piece that we need to focus on.

Speaker 6 Yeah, no, I think that's a really good way of positioning it. So, I'm gonna put this back to you.
Uh, this slightly different idea. I put this to um

Speaker 6 um the great and powerful uh Bobby Collies from Coterie.

Speaker 6 And, um, and so if you go back and listen to her episode, you can hear the way she responded. But I want to put the same question to you.
So,

Speaker 6 when I looked, when I look at embedded insurance, and

Speaker 6 what I see is a lot of new startup young businesses, small businesses who are willing to do that fully digital, no questions asked, cool bind issue. Okay.

Speaker 6 And a lot of people, you know, most independent agents will go, well, we don't want that crap anyways. That's garbage.
You never know. A lot of them go out of business, you know, whatever.
Okay.

Speaker 5 And I think all of that is true.

Speaker 6 Where it does, so, so not thinking maybe three or even five years from now, but maybe a slightly longer timeframe. If say a digital brokerage who is handling the business through

Speaker 6 an embedded functionality with a channel partner, you know, say like a square for business, we'll just use them as a talking point, right? Square for business. Okay.
So,

Speaker 6 and just to position this real quick for anyone who maybe doesn't necessarily understand, when we're talking about embedded insurance, we're talking about you're signing up for a square for business account, or you're logging into your square bit for business account, and maybe a widget or a pop-up or something, an offer is presented to you where you're actually seeing, hey, we could write your insurance for this amount, or if interested, click here and we can show it.

Speaker 6 And that number is pulled into the platform. So that we're not taking them to another place.
We're pulling the information in. That's a broad stroke.

Speaker 6 So my thought here is: if that digital agency is scooping up all these young businesses, right?

Speaker 6 Today, what happens is I think those young businesses go to the digital broker and then we start to get sophisticated. They seek out a more traditional agent.

Speaker 6 I think that's the way it's working today. What I said to her was:

Speaker 6 Is there a concern that eventually an agency says, like, Rogue, like, this is what we want to do, is they start to develop a graduation process where, yes, the first layer when you're new, young, small, is a fairly automated, fairly

Speaker 6 more impersonal, more, you know, kind of do-it-yourself model, but they have an entire team that when you do kind of graduate is ready for you.

Speaker 6 And in that way, is there, could there be a cliff coming?

Speaker 6 I guess is what I'm asking, where eventually those new young businesses stop going down as they get bigger and they just stay right where they are because they know it and they trust these people because they held their hand through the first two, three years of their existence.

Speaker 5 So I think that's the ideal insurance workflow, right?

Speaker 5 Is if you're a small young company and you go into an embedded workflow, you're going to buy a policy and we treat that policy as low-hanging fruit. It's a bot policy.
It's a GL policy.

Speaker 5 It's something super simple with no additional coverages. It's kind of bare bones, but it just gets you in the door.

Speaker 5 We have a couple of partners right now on the embedded side that if you're creating a new entity, right?

Speaker 5 We have an entity creation partner. When you're creating a new entity, it says, Do you want insurance? You say, Yes.
What are you really looking for? You're looking for a GL policy for $500.

Speaker 5 Well, that business grows and now you have five employees. Well, now you need workers' comp.

Speaker 5 Is that digital partner that we partner with on on the agency side going to get you a workers' comp policy?

Speaker 5 Because if they don't, then you're going to go elsewhere and go find that workers' comp policy.

Speaker 5 But if you can trust those people, that agency that's behind our embedded solution, because we're not, we're just a tech company.

Speaker 5 Are they going to sell you workers' comp? Are they going to help you decide whether you need cyber? Are they going to help you with professional?

Speaker 5 Are they going to help you with everything else that you need? And if they do that, you're never leaving. They created that digital journey.
They got you in the door. They kept you from their service.

Speaker 5 So it's a combination of two. You have to adopt the digital journey.
You have to keep them with service.

Speaker 5 And I think the reason why you see all these insure tech carriers with a retention rate of 41% and 50% is because they don't do the second part. They do the first part really well.

Speaker 5 And then the second part is brutal.

Speaker 1 Amen.

Speaker 6 This is, this is my big thing. I love, like, I saw a new front get what, 200 million from Goldman Sachs.
I'm like, this is awesome. Do you know how much business is now available in the market?

Speaker 6 Because they're going to fuck that up. You know why they're going to fuck it up?

Speaker 6 Because Goldman Sachs and all the other VCs involved in that business are going to go, your margins are too high to have U.S.-based American licensed professionals servicing that business. So because

Speaker 6 those individuals are too expensive, you need to take that service overseas. Now, this isn't an anti-VA thing because I think VAs have a really important role.

Speaker 6 But if, but if you have an account with any level of sophistication and you don't have someone who is based in the United States who is licensed talking to that person and actually giving a shit about their account, that person is going to leave.

Speaker 6 You know why? Because 32%

Speaker 6 of the new accounts that we get are not people just finding us on Google because they're starting a business.

Speaker 6 They're people whose response, why they're reaching out to us, is because their current agent doesn't get back to them, doesn't do the thing, has never talked to them since they wrote the business.

Speaker 6 Like 32% of the leads we get are because other agencies suck that's

Speaker 6 that's incredible to me

Speaker 5 so i i think you and i have had this disagreement before on uh general premise of founding a company raising money selling the company and i think lemonade was the uh was kind of the figurehead that we we argued about new front's in the same boat right oh yeah yeah

Speaker 5 what is the goal of new front right the goal of new front is most likely to make a lot of money.

Speaker 5 And I don't know the owner of Newfound. I don't know the the CEO of Newfoundland.
I've never talked to them before in my life. But in my opinion, that's the goal.

Speaker 5 Well, if that's the goal, don't you agree that the margins need to change? Don't you agree that they should be going on?

Speaker 6 Okay, two different discussions. If we're talking about maximizing owner and investor value, 100%.

Speaker 6 That's 100%.

Speaker 6 I am different because I don't give a fuck about money. I like money, but it doesn't matter to me.

Speaker 6 I want to have, I want to create the unicorn digital agency where all these other fuckers they can drive their yachts that's great because i'm going to have a nice my boat might be a little smaller my lake house might i might have to airbnb my lake house a couple weekends a year but i'm going to have enough money but i'm also going to have i want to have the gold standard digital agency that not only can do all the front end shit that these guys can do but then has the 80 retention on the back end where i want clients tattooing rogue risk on like under here that really sexy spot like chicks get it like right on their their ribs.

Speaker 6 I love that. When they get the cursive on their ribs, like right here, I want rogue risk tattooed under there with like, if Ryan Hanley was here right now, I, you know, like that kind of thing.

Speaker 5 I'll make you a deal. If anyone in the world ever gets that tattooed on their ribs,

Speaker 5 I don't know. I'll have to buy you something.

Speaker 6 You'll buy me a barrel of Whistle Pig, my own barrel of Whistle Pig whiskey.

Speaker 5 This isn't the sponsorship, but as you can see, it's always on my desk. There's always bourbon on my desk, just in case.

Speaker 6 I have a bottle of Basil Hayden's in the living room premiere stock that I got for my two-year anniversary from my team that I'm waiting for something special to crack because I just can't wait.

Speaker 5 No, so generally I just, if it's on my desk and it's four o'clock and I've had a decent day, I'll take a sip. If I've had a bad day, I'll take a whole glass.
It just depends on what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 But no, the premier digital agency is going to look like this. And this is my opinion.
So it's, I mean, it's subjective, right?

Speaker 6 You said you weren't going to say anything interesting, but this is good. I'm taking notes.

Speaker 5 This is, this is completely subjective. All right.

Speaker 5 You need to embed yourself into places where people already trust the brand. And that is cases like Gusto, like you mentioned.
It's places like Toast. You trust your point of sale system.

Speaker 5 You trust that provider probably more than you should. but you trust them.
So when they say, do you want insurance?

Speaker 5 It doesn't matter who the agency is on the back end, as long as that agency is servicing you properly. If you trust them, you'll buy.
Once you buy, you did nothing.

Speaker 5 Rogue Risk did nothing to get them to buy. Toast did.
Gusto did. Square did.

Speaker 5 Why can't you service them properly? So all that matters now is that you retain them because you didn't have to do anything to sell them. They did it all digitally.

Speaker 5 You have to find a way to focus on retention. You're not spending.
The cost of acquisition for that customer should be relatively low.

Speaker 5 You probably have to pay square a referral fee, pay toast a referral fee, whatever it might be. It's retention.
And how do you retain that customer? It's still customer experience.

Speaker 5 It is still being digital. It is still touch points.
I think you need to make 30, 40 touch points per customer to make sure they feel heard and feel wanted, right?

Speaker 5 You have to do that because you have zero, you have zero touch points when you sell them in a digital world. There's no actual human interaction touch point.

Speaker 5 It's a servicing part that there's touch points. So the ideal digital agency, you don't sell at all.
Your partner sells. The third party point of sale sells.
The finance company sells.

Speaker 5 The credit card company sells. You retain.
And that's all that matters. Yeah.
I don't think you're wrong.

Speaker 6 I think you're 100% right. I mean, this is, this is,

Speaker 6 well, you know that I completely and utterly agree with you.

Speaker 6 I think that this, this is the whole game. And I guess my, my point in, and then look, all the power to Newfound.
I mean, they put an incredible amount of premium on the book.

Speaker 6 So, you know, it's fun to take shots at the guys who've done really well.

Speaker 6 But, but, you know, the truth is, I do think that there is a misconception over what service means and how important important it is to the business.

Speaker 6 And that's where I think when I talk about that, it's not really to knock them as much as it is to say, there is an opportunity in the space because I know for a fact they don't do a very good job of servicing because I've written, we've written accounts away from Newfound.

Speaker 6 And the reason across the board is can't get a hold of them, can't service what I'm doing, haven't heard from those kind of things. But that's not to take a shot at them.

Speaker 6 I promise I'm not trying to take a shot at them.

Speaker 6 It's that I I think there is a hybrid model where you can use,

Speaker 6 call it a filtering system. I like to think of it like, have you ever seen the show, um, uh, uh, the gold digging show? What, what's the name of the show? Um, they mine for gold up in Alaska.

Speaker 5 Gold diggers. Gold diggers? Gold.

Speaker 5 This might have been before I was born.

Speaker 6 No, it's still on now. It's been like 17 seasons, you son of a bitch.
So whatever it's called, the gold digging show,

Speaker 6 for whatever reason, I enjoy watching these

Speaker 6 Yahoos dig for gold. I don't know what it is.
I just enjoy it at the end of the night, whatever. So

Speaker 6 they have something,

Speaker 6 they have a

Speaker 6 wash plant, they call it, right? And that wash plant,

Speaker 6 how all of them work, they're all different, but essentially how they work is they throw a whole shit ton of stuff into the top. And they got these spray engines and they spray it.

Speaker 6 and then they got all the big rocks fall through the holes and the little or the the little rocks fall through the holes. The big ones get filtered out.

Speaker 6 Then they spray it again and more stuff gets filtered out and they spray it again and more till you get to the last stage where the fine pieces of gold get stuck in a mat.

Speaker 6 And that's how they get the gold.

Speaker 6 But my point is, when I think about the service model that a digital agency has to have, and obviously we're talking about different, this is gold mining and digital, but is that.

Speaker 6 There is a triage mechanism. There is first layer automation, second layer self-service, third layer virtual assistants, non-licensed employees.

Speaker 6 Fourth layer, you get to what I believe you should have, which is American licensed, someone who can be like, I'm in Jacksonville today, you know, whatever. I think that that still matters.

Speaker 6 But if we can layer and triage that system, and if you can have the tumblers in place to make sure that you're not, you're spending only as much on service as that particular account and case needs, right?

Speaker 6 If you think about it that way. then that to me is how you're able to keep your costs as low as they can possibly be on the service side while still maintaining the highest level of customer service.

Speaker 5 But how do you find that? How do you find that out, right? How do you know what they want? How do you know what type of communication that customer wants?

Speaker 6 So I think you ask them, you ask them, you provide them with options and you watch and you have to analyze what's actually happening.

Speaker 5 But that's, again, that brings in this other layer of more data, more technology, more analytics.

Speaker 6 Bro, that's, isn't that what AI does? Like, let's just throw AI out there.

Speaker 5 I don't know what AI does.

Speaker 6 I think it's fake, but you just smather some AI on it and it solves all these problems.

Speaker 5 So generally, what I've heard on all other podcasts, so I think I know how to talk on a successful podcast. You're supposed to say all the buzzwords.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 So if we say AI, if we say embedded insurance enough, if we say data analytics.

Speaker 5 I think this podcast will skyrocket.

Speaker 6 You count goes. Yeah.

Speaker 5 We just got to keep repeating. No, honestly, though, if we ask the customer, I think this is what digital agencies don't do is they don't ask.
Yeah. How do you want to talk to me?

Speaker 5 Do you want to call me? Do you want to email me? Do you want to text me? Do you want it to be a robot? Do you want it to be a chat bot? Like, who knows?

Speaker 5 If you don't know the answer to that, your retention won't be 80%. That's for sure.

Speaker 6 And it's the onboarding survey. It's an, it's a simple onboarding survey.

Speaker 6 And I don't like, I don't want to talk tools, but I will say, I had a really interesting conversation that actually just released the same day that we're recording this with Andrew Darlington.

Speaker 6 And Andrew's been on Salesforce for 10 years. And I recently made the switch to HubSpot.
And my, and my, my, what I was talking to him about was the system doesn't make the process, right?

Speaker 6 You have the process and then you build the system around the process. That being said,

Speaker 6 when you have the right systems, they can help you. they can help you adapt and actually expand your processes in a really positive way if you're able to not chase them too far.

Speaker 6 And one of the things that we've been able to do at at Rogue is implement something that a lot of local agents do.

Speaker 6 A lot of local agents, as part of their onboarding, when they sign an account, will ask,

Speaker 6 how do you want to be communicated with? Text, email, phone. Like it's pretty straightforward.
And many of you listening are probably like, duh, yeah, of course I asked that question.

Speaker 5 Many of you don't, but many of you do.

Speaker 6 And like HubSpot is a very simple thing.

Speaker 6 Account closed.

Speaker 6 Two days later or one day later or whatever, you know, I can't remember what we said it to.

Speaker 6 They get a simple survey that's like three questions. And one of them is, how do you want to be contacted?

Speaker 6 And we tell our salespeople, you tell them that email is coming and you say, look, it's really important. It's three questions.

Speaker 6 And the reason it's important and we want you to answer those questions is because that's how we're going to communicate with you. And like, we're just getting off the ground.

Speaker 6 So I have no numbers to back it up. But like that kind of stuff, when you have the right systems in place, becomes actually pretty easy to do.

Speaker 5 But take it a step further, right? It's not just that that's how you're going to communicate with them. It makes you better.
And that's what you want to tell them is is it makes us better for you.

Speaker 5 Yeah. We, we know that you didn't talk to any of us when you signed this, but now that you're talking to us to buying this policy, we're going to be there for you.
How would you like to communicate?

Speaker 5 How would you like this to happen? And if you actually follow through with that, retention stays above 80%.

Speaker 5 I've been on the agency side, right? Like I know that side, I know that world better than I know

Speaker 5 this side.

Speaker 5 I mean, tarnica is not really second nature. The agency side was second nature.
I understood that because my dad, I grew up in his agency for years, right?

Speaker 5 You gotta know what they want, and if you don't know what they want, it's not gonna work. And I think that's the combination of embedded, digital, and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. And in exchange for that, I need your help.

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Speaker 3 The things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews.
They check out all this information before they come on.

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Speaker 3 And I hope you enjoy it. listening as much as I do creating the show for you.
All right, I'm out of here. Peace.
Let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 The other thing too, and this is for, I think, just not different or separate, but just part of the same conversation is one of the things that we've really tried to work on, haven't always done well, but are trying to get better at, is setting expectations with people, right?

Speaker 6 A lot of frustration, a lot of people switching. We find a lot of people who switch to us because we.
We do do a very good job of tracking why people come to us. And

Speaker 6 a lot of it has to do with just, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know who to contact.
I didn't know. I didn't know.

Speaker 6 And it's like, from that, you know, I've taken and we've started to do like, just tell them what's happening next. Just, that's all you got to do.

Speaker 6 Before you get off this call, just if it's nothing is happening next, we're done. It's concluded.
Let them know that, right? Like, if there's something else that has to happen, say in three days.

Speaker 6 you're going to get an email from the carrier. Here's what I need you to do.

Speaker 6 I'm going to follow up, but I just want you to know that's what's next. People just want to know what to expect.

Speaker 6 And when they look out in the ether and they have no idea what's going on, they get, they get antsy and they make change.

Speaker 5 That's sales 101, though. That's not just selling insurance.
It's just selling. Tell them what to ask them questions, ask them probing questions, find out what they're looking for.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And tell them what's next.

Speaker 6 You're assuming this is a sales business, though.

Speaker 5 It is.

Speaker 5 If you're in a business, and I know you said earlier, you don't care about money, but if you're in business not to make money, then you should not be running a business. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, I'd like to reframe that. I know I'm not in a business not to make money, but

Speaker 6 I would have a very, I personally, and this is probably a failing of mine as a CEO for sure.

Speaker 6 I would never want

Speaker 6 an enormous paycheck. and someone to say, yeah, but look at how shitty that thing is that you have.
Or yeah, but you you cut all these fucking corners over here. And when you know, I would know.

Speaker 6 It's not that I even care that they're saying that.

Speaker 6 It's I would know that I cut corners just to make money instead of delivering the best possible thing that I could and make as much as I could delivering that best possible thing.

Speaker 6 Does that make sense what I'm saying to you?

Speaker 5 I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with you at all, but I will add.
You play golf, right? I do play golf, yes.

Speaker 5 Does anyone ever know how your ball got on the green two feet from from the hole or do they just know it's there

Speaker 6 if you birdie a hole if they see your scorecard did anyone ask you how you birdied the hole here but this is this is my point let's say i so the lowest i've ever shot on a on a legit 18 hole course is 82.

Speaker 6 let's say i shoot an 81 and i foot wedged one under a tree I shot an 81 and everyone's like, yo, that's fucking amazing. Your best score ever.
That's great.

Speaker 6 But I know I foot wedged it out from under the tree to get a better line.

Speaker 5 Now we're talking about cheating and lying. That's two different things.

Speaker 5 I mean, a legitimate round of golf where you put your entire effort in. It wasn't perfect.
The way you got there wasn't the way you wanted to. Every once in a while,

Speaker 5 you had to take some risks or you failed or broke. Whatever.
Yeah, that stuff was.

Speaker 5 But you played a real round.

Speaker 6 What if, all right, so let me try to. I'm taking this golf analogy.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 6 What I'm saying is, I think there's a course over here.

Speaker 6 It's, it's, it's a golfer's course. Very, very challenging.

Speaker 6 If I were to shoot, my best score on that course is a 90, right? There's another course over here, also an 18-hole course, also a private course, good shape. My best score is an 82.

Speaker 6 If I shoot an 82 here,

Speaker 6 that's great. If I shoot an 82 over there, I'm a fucking baller.

Speaker 6 I'm not a baller shooting 82 over here. Now, 82 is an 82, right? I can tell you my best score ever is an 82.
But if I want, if I want to get my 81, I ain't getting it over there.

Speaker 6 I'm getting it over here by playing the easier thing, you know, wide open, kind of flat. Greens aren't really that undulating, although they are fast.

Speaker 6 You know, this, this course over here, I can drive the ball 280 down the middle and I still got a freaking three wood to the green on most holes.

Speaker 5 Like again, though, right? Over there, say that's the masters, right? Over here, you're talking about the waste management.

Speaker 5 How much more money do you make from winning the masters and the waste management? So it's, it's still different because it could be harder.

Speaker 5 You could have to work harder to get to that point where you shoot an 82 on the harder course. But if you do it, people know that that was the harder path.
So again,

Speaker 6 I want the master's win. I'll take the waste management win for sure.

Speaker 5 Take every win.

Speaker 6 But I want the masters win.

Speaker 5 Take every win along the way.

Speaker 5 Only thing is I hear too many agents say, oh, I want to help people. I want to make them feel better.
I want to do this. You're running a fucking business.
You want to make money.

Speaker 5 You helping them is a byproduct of you making money yes i well i agree with that i agree with that i think that's it that doesn't that's why the new front right the point of new front is to make money and i know you're not chitting on them but the point of new front is to make money the point of lemonade was for dan shreiber to make money well guess what he did it i know he's also a douche though

Speaker 5 i don't i've never met him i just know that he made money and that's what i care about because he ran a business his goal was to make money it had to be to make money and i respect people that set out they make money they do it the right way which is they ran their business they grew their business and you guys can't see me i'm doing i'm doing rags is right in air quotes the right way the right the right the right way to me is that he didn't go to

Speaker 5 he didn't win the lottery right like it's not i want people to make money by working hard

Speaker 6 Well, there's no doubt that they worked hard.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 6 That's why I don't want to take, I don't take anything away from what Lemonade did. I guess what I'm saying, I don't want to take anything away from these companies that have grown super big, right?

Speaker 6 Because I haven't done it. So I would be an asshole to try to criticize them.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, though,

Speaker 6 it would bother me. It would bother me.
I don't know why. And again, this is me being a podcast.

Speaker 6 Now I'm kind of feel like I'm being a podcaster, which I fucking hate, hate being a podcaster, but like, it would really fucking bother me if I did all that work that he did and launched that thing.

Speaker 6 And yeah, he made a shit ton of money. That's great.
And it's never made a dollar. Their policies are a dumpster fire.

Speaker 6 They're, they're, they're, every investor who invested after the, after the IPO has lost money.

Speaker 5 Like, awesome.

Speaker 6 Like you made a shit ton of money and that's great. And you worked super hard to get there and you deserve every penny, but that would suck if that's your fucking like.

Speaker 5 Bother me too. I want to build a successful business long term.
I want to make sure that everything's working properly. I don't want want my stock.

Speaker 5 If I went public, I wouldn't want my stock price to plummet. That's not what I'm saying.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 You also have to be, if you're going to invest in something, you should know better. You should look at those numbers and say, okay, it doesn't make sense long term.

Speaker 5 See, I blame the investors for that. I don't blame him.
He did a great job. He built a good company.
He went public. The stock price went to 180.
I'm sure he sold it at 180.

Speaker 5 Come on. I hope he did what he was supposed to do.
And I think. The number one, you're a capitalist.
I'm a capitalist. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I'm the point of running a business business no matter what is to make money. The reason we got into embedded insurance, we have this entire agency tool that's doing great and we love it.

Speaker 5 The reason we got into the embedded insurance, A, because we could, and B, because it makes more money. Yeah.

Speaker 5 It's something that people aren't doing properly. No matter who says they're doing it the right way, they aren't actually embedding insurance into anything.
They are creating a lead file.

Speaker 5 That's very different. Yeah.
You need to be able to buy on the glass.

Speaker 5 You need to be able to complete your entire flow on the glass and you need it to run through someone that can handle digital capabilities that's it yeah i well i think i think well you make a lot of good points there i

Speaker 6 i guess what where i go where where my brain was going was the legacy part is i would hate if i would hate to do all that stuff and then have to and then and then but your legacy is

Speaker 6 you're really good at making money not so good at building a business that people that actually you know, people give a shit about.

Speaker 5 I completely agree.

Speaker 5 I guess

Speaker 6 that's the dichotomy that I, that I have there.

Speaker 6 But here, here's the other side of it. Those dudes have done things.
You know, I mean, you're going to be there someday. This thing's going to sell for a billion dollars in a few years.

Speaker 6 So you're on your path. But for me, you know, I never, I didn't build a company that went public yet.
So like, I think for anyone to take shots beyond,

Speaker 6 I think the very trivial legacy conversation would be would be being insincere because if anyone could sign up for Daniel Schreiber's ride,

Speaker 6 you know, the ride that he took, they would fucking sign up in a heartbeat.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's my point, though. This is, this goes way past insurance, though.
There's all these people, there's like little keyboard warriors on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

Speaker 5 And they're like, you know, I'm not getting into this stuff, but they're shitting on companies worth billions of dollars for making decisions that are going to drive business to them.

Speaker 5 There's this whole Disney thing going on right now, right? What Disney did was smart because they didn't piss any, they did exactly what they're supposed to. They stayed politically correct.

Speaker 5 They tried to stay politically correct. Guess what?

Speaker 5 If they didn't do that, all the people that go to Disney, a majority of people that go to Disney, would have stopped going to Disney because it would have pissed them off.

Speaker 5 They made a business decision. They had nothing to do with the politics around it.
They don't give a shit. They wanted to make a business decision that made them more money.

Speaker 5 That's every decision that's ever made. The NFL does it all the time.

Speaker 5 You kick someone in the head, head, you don't suspend them because if you suspend that person, you're going to lose money.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 6 Like, and this is what capitalism is so great is you have, so you have Disney do their crazy shit, which people are yelling at him about. Right.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 again, and I'm with you politically, I kind of disagree with what they did, but it's my view of America is they get to do whatever the fuck they want. So that's fine.

Speaker 6 What I love is then you get, because capitalism is amazing and this is the greatest country in the world, the Daily Wire, who's this, who, the conservative fucking, you know, whatever.

Speaker 6 I mean, I like Ben Shapiro, but, you know,

Speaker 6 what is the Daily Wire compared to Disney? Now they're like positioning themselves as like a competitor. And I'm just like, that's just amazing.

Speaker 6 Like it is amazing that we live in a country where this absolute behemoth that's been around for what, 75 years, 80 years can make a decision. And then this little.

Speaker 6 this little company over here can like put position themselves as if they even have a chance like it's just amazing. I just love it.

Speaker 5 That's what it's, it's, it's the greatest thing in the world. But with capitalism, you got to remember people are meant to make money.
So they'll,

Speaker 5 not everyone has the same morale or the ethics that you're talking about. Sometimes you just want to make money.
And it doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 I wish, I do think, and I've said this before, and it's probably why no V, none of the 54 VCs that I met with me actually invested in me. But,

Speaker 6 you know, you know, I think they could probably sniff the like, he won't knife his his own son to, to get this thing across the finish line vibe for me. But,

Speaker 6 you know, that, that, that was the thing is that like, I, I, I just, like, I have this vision for what is possible and it's building,

Speaker 6 it's building what I think is possible more than just, dude, if I wanted to build just a business that was worth a shit ton of money, it's not, it's really, it's really not that hard.

Speaker 6 Like any of you out there who are listening to this that are struggling with lead acquisition, it's the easiest part of the fucking business.

Speaker 6 The fact that you can't put business on the books is insane because putting business on the books is not hard.

Speaker 6 Putting the right business on the books that's going to stick with people who are actually going to make you money over the long term, that's very difficult to do, at least today.

Speaker 6 And that's the game that I'm trying to play. But like the acquisition game, it's the easiest game out there.
There's no easier game than the acquisition game. Embedded, SEO, buy leads.

Speaker 6 There's a million cold email. There's a million fucking ways to acquire business.
And it just boggles my mind that people have such a hard time getting business in the door, like at a broad scale.

Speaker 6 I just never wanted to be

Speaker 6 probably wrongly from a personal wealth perspective. I just never wanted to be.

Speaker 6 I wanted to have, I want to get to that, but I also want to retain it 80%. That's that's what I want.

Speaker 5 You're trying to build a legacy and it's very different than what a lot of people are trying to build. And I will say at some point, I will sell tarnic 100%.
I've never been shy about saying that.

Speaker 5 Yeah. That I'm not doing this for 20 years.
I'm not doing this to change the world. I'm doing this because I think it was a useful tool for agencies.
I think we helped, but I also want to make money.

Speaker 5 And I am not,

Speaker 5 I want it to be done the right way, though. When we do sell, I want people to say that we built something that actually helped them.
I want to make money on it, but I want that first part too.

Speaker 5 I don't, I don't, I won't, I won't settle for anything less.

Speaker 6 I think the good news for you is, man, like it already is helping people. I mean, you know, what you guys have done,

Speaker 6 not just to the tool itself is tremendous. It has been since day one.
Obviously, I've been one of your biggest advocates for two plus years now.

Speaker 6 I think as highly of you as anybody in the industry. And I think that that's amazing.
I think the other thing you guys have done is even though I know it's not finalized yet.

Speaker 6 I think you already have built a legacy in the space because

Speaker 6 at least from my perspective, and I try to take a broad view of this, there's tarmica and then there's everybody else. And there are a lot of other players, right?

Speaker 6 But in terms of functionality, features, quality of work,

Speaker 6 the conversations that have happened because of, because you guys exist, even if the people were trashing you or saying, you know, whatever, right? Like the conversations that have.

Speaker 6 that you've forced to happen, maybe not as controversially as Lemonade, but certainly I think as broad spectrum as someone like them

Speaker 6 has already had a lasting effect on the industry. And I think you should be very proud of that, even though I know the journey isn't over.

Speaker 5 I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 There's still a lot more to do, in my opinion, but I do appreciate that. And I think we've had good advocates behind us, you being one of them.
We have a lot of agencies that helped us early on.

Speaker 5 And now I hope we're doing the same for them. But it's

Speaker 5 we did it differently. That's all.
We tried to do it differently. I think that's important.
We tried to do things in a way that no one else was doing it. And

Speaker 6 we were switzerland and i know you hate that and you're supposed to pick a side but we're switzerland for a long time and we stayed neutral and now it's like okay we did something now we don't have to be switzerland anymore we can we can go the route we always want to go yeah and i don't think there's anything wrong with being switzerland as long as you are i think where the problem is is when people try to be or or pretend to be or present themselves as that thing when really everyone knows they're skewed in one direction or the other.

Speaker 6 I think that's that's a lot of where animosity comes from there i think with you guys you were building a tool you were never you never tried to be anything other than this very useful functional tool that was very difficult to build and i think that um i think i think it played out man i'm i'm super happy for you and you know in terms of being open about selling the company or whatever i mean dude i sold rogue i mean by the time this comes out it will be public knowledge so you know i'm

Speaker 5 yeah i didn't know we were talking about this on this but i yeah that's that's one of the biggest things i mean that's a huge congrats to you because what you built worked right you built a model that was scalable that people wanted to use in the future um and that's what you got acquired yeah and i think we're not shy in saying this it wasn't like you were doing this for 20 years and you grew your book to 50 million and that's why you were purchased you were purchased because of what you built.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Not the size of what you built, but just the actual concept and the complexity around how that functions.
That's why you were bought. And I think that matters.

Speaker 5 I think it's an important note to make.

Speaker 6 Thanks, man.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 6 dude, I know you don't do a lot of podcasts. I appreciate you sharing your vantage points.
I think as much as you downplayed what you were going to actually say, you delivered the value.

Speaker 6 Then you delivered the value.

Speaker 5 My plan was to sit in silence and drink bourbon the whole time because it's almost four o'clock, right? I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 6 If we ever do this again, let's just do that. We'll just watch each other drink bourbon for an hour and then we'll hit stop.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And we'll talk about the different tasting notes that we taste, and the drunker we get, the better the notes will be.

Speaker 6 I like that. And crypto, maybe?

Speaker 5 Can we talk about crypto too? Yeah, I don't know much about crypto, but I do know that we should talk about it. All right, I like it.
Yeah,

Speaker 5 be good. Thanks for having me.

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