[00:00:28] Jay: Hi, everyone, welcome to the First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by Drew Sechrist. He is the CEO and co-founder of one of my new favorite platforms, Connect the Dots.

Drew, hello.

[00:00:41] Drew: Hi, Jay, and that makes me very happy to hear that we're one of your new favorite platforms

[00:00:46] Jay: I mean, and I don't say that to anybody because I don't mean it when I say it to anybody other than you right now. it's a, ah, it's-- I'm a relationship guy, and as a relationship guy, you can feel like you're doing sales wrong very easily, right?

Like, you can be like, "I'm just not doing the same stuff that the annoying guy who's banging your door down and getting sales is doing, so maybe I'm doing it the wrong way." I'm not gonna, you know, say that this platform, like, validates that approach, but I will say, like, it solves a piece of the puzzle that I've always wondered why

LinkedIn doesn't do natively. Or like, what are... There's so many pieces where it's just like you have this network, and you guys pull from other things than just LinkedIn, which is great. but it just seems like a problem that should've been solved somehow within these ecosystems, and you guys pulled it all together, and you start to answer some questions that like I mean, this is like... We talked about Crossbeam, right? Crossbeam's,the, business equivalent of this, and we didn't have one for personal connections.

So the same partnership kinda exercises we tried to run on Crossbeam, and I love Bob Moore, and that's a great product for a very specific kind of, you know, bigger company than us. Yours is much more approachable for small business and for even mid-market, for whatever. But, like, it, the value is there for me, because I don't have 50 sales reps that need to see what status somebody else's sales reps on some other team are, like Crossbeam, which is great for that level of visibility. I just need to know, hey, who the hell knows the guy that I wanna talk to? That's

[00:02:10] Drew: it, 'cause that's my strategy. So I love the platform. So now that I've talked the entire time, welcome to the show. Thank you

[00:02:17] Jay: Where did you grow up, and did it have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:02:21] Drew: Not far from you, man. I grew up just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

[00:02:24] Jay: All right

[00:02:25] Drew: Little town called Lewisberry. And before you say, "Oh, I know Lewisberry," no, you know Lewisburg,

'cause that's bigger. Lewisberry is tiny. It's a little postage stamp. And, but yeah, when... I grew up there, I went to Red Land High School.

and, we had a... When I was there, we had a, a state championship baseball team, so we were kind of a big deal back then. I didn't play on that team. but that's how you might know about Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. Yeah, I grew up there and then how did that affect my entrepreneurial journey?

I, you know, I think like... So my dad's an entrepreneur. he's a lawyer. so I... You know, if you classify that as an entrepreneur. He hung out his own shingle and, ran his own law firm for many years, in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. And, so I saw that, you know, I saw that end of the spectrum. And then I also...

I don't know. When I was in college, I got exposed to Silicon Valley. I went to school in North Carolina, so I wasn't anywhere close to Silicon Valley, but I knew... I became aware of what Silicon Valley was and started to get excited about all the technology that was coming out of there, changing all of our lives.

And, it just looked so exciting to me, you know? I... And I was drawn to it. So I don't know. Growing up in Lewisberry just made me wanna get out to Silicon Valley where the action was, I guess. maybe that's the biggest impact that it had on me. And then when I got to Silicon Valley, I was super excited to be there and, you know, still am.

I live part-time in San Francisco and still love the energy in this town, and love to see all the crazy new stuff that, you know, it's coming out so fast now. It's like, It's really fun to be here

[00:03:53] Jay: Do you ever catch yourself or find yourself thinking, saying, doing anything that you saw your dad doing as an entrepreneur growing up?

[00:04:01] Drew: Yeah. I mean, he and I are both workaholics. you know, he would wake up really early in the morning. he'd go to the office. He'd probably go to the office and then come back for like, you know, breakfast or see the kids and whatever, and then we'd go off to school and then go back to the office, and then we was...

He was there late at night. So I got my work ethic from my dad for sure. and I got my, you know, wake up early and get stuff done as early as possible, you know, approach to life from him as well. so yeah, I mean, I picked up those things. I picked up a lot, you know, also his frugality. I'm a pretty frugal guy.

My dad's so frugal that there are other words that are probably better suited, you know, 

like cheap, like 

[00:04:36] Jay: Sure. Yeah, don't say it on here. He may

listen to this show, then,

[00:04:40] Drew: He might

[00:04:40] Jay: somebody will tell him he made a cameo or a appearance on the show.

 Is there anything that you feel like you've tried to do differently than him?

[00:04:52] Drew: Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot. It, so, you know, I, you know, he thought about moving out to California when he was a kid, too. Or not kid, I guess after college. He and my mom met in Elizabethtown College in central Pennsylvania, also not far from you.

And they thought about moving out to California, and they decided against it.

They decided to stay in Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. They had a lot of their family there, and they liked the change of seasons and so they stayed in Pennsylvania. I, you know, the thing I did differently was, like, I kind of realized that there was... I'd be in the, I'd be in the game more if I moved out to California, if I moved out to San Francisco.

and so I did that. you know, like, I think that's probably, like, one of the biggest decisions I ever made was moving out to Silicon Valley and being in the middle of it. And then I did that, and I could say because of good planning on my part or dumb luck or a combination of both, I ended up at Salesforce as a really early employee.

and that turned out to be a, you know, massive success, so I got to... Didn't just get to Silicon Valley, I actually got, you know, got a seat at the table in, you know, one of the most interesting companies that redefined enterprise selling. And then I got to, you know, build an incredible network based on that.

and you know, so those are the things I did differently. I think, you know, if I look back at the kind of specific decision points that took my life on a different trajectory, one is just the decision to move to San Francisco and, you know, be part of Silicon Valley. I think that's a huge one.

[00:06:18] Jay: Yeah. I mean, it's a, it

was a risky move. It was a, 

it

was. not, you know, guaranteed that you would end up running a really cool company and, like, learn a bunch of shit and being part of... Do you know what number employee you were at Salesforce?

[00:06:32] Drew: I do, yeah. That was number 36.

[00:06:34] Jay: Wow.

Okay. You said early, I thought you were gonna hit me with a triple digit number and I had to pretend to be impressed, but 36 is actually really impressive for that number.

That's

a really actually impressive number. Okay. all right. Well, let's fast-forward, you know, I'm sure there's a bunch of interesting stuff. What I am interested specifically today is, where did Connect the Dots come from? How did you start it?

[00:06:55] Drew: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:55] Jay: You know, who was the first customer?

Give me the, you know,

give me the elevator pitch, and then tell me how you got in the door to somebody for somebody to

try out 

[00:07:02] Drew: So, the whole idea came from those early days at Salesforce. because we were such a small company, we were all in one room, literally just one room. And, so everybody from, you know, Marc Benioff on down to me, 'cause I was probably about the lowest man on the totem pole at that point, were in the same place.

And because of that, and also because we were a Silicon Valley company where everybody had equity in the company, I was so excited because I wanted to be in Silicon Valley, but I was also so excited 'cause I wanted a piece of the action. I wanted equity in a hot startup that was gonna go public.

Guess what? I got it, you know? It all worked out great. But, you know, that made me work incredibly hard, so you know, worked my ass off for 10 years at Salesforce. It also made everyone completely aligned. So, everybody in the company wanted me to succeed. It was awesome. It was such a great environment to be in because I was surrounded by all these really smart, talented, ambitious people who all wanted me to succeed.

We were on the same team and, you know, just like the Red Land High School, you know, state championship baseball team. Every, you know, if anybody got a home run, you know, everybody won, right, 

[00:08:04] Jay: Right. 

[00:08:05] Drew: Same thing at Salesforce. If I closed a big deal, everybody was like, "Yes, we're one step closer to that IPO," 

And so, that, you know, that made a huge impression on me. I, you know, growing up on the East Coast, most people didn't have stock options. It wasn't something you even thought of, right? You just got a paycheck at your job.

[00:08:22] Jay: At the coal mine. at the, 

[00:08:23] Drew: at the core of my... That's right.

[00:08:24] Jay: some industrial warehouse, yeah

[00:08:26] Drew: That's right. You got a paycheck and you got a lung disease.

You know, that's what you got from your job.

And then San Francisco, you know, we got stock options and we got completely aligned and it was this big magnet that attracted, you know, really talented people. And, and so that was one thing, you know, seeing that everybody was aligned, had these aligned incentives, made me realize that I could ask anybody for any favor at all if it helps the company, right?

And they would do it,

 'cause it was in their, enlightened best, you know, self-interest. And so I started asking a lot because I was from the East Coast. I literally didn't know anybody west of the Mississippi when I moved out there. And but now, you know, Marc Benioff, he would, you know, he would do me favors because it was in his best interest, right?

So I would... I realized, like we're trying to crack into Apple, which was not as big as it is now back then, but still a big company, and I didn't know how to get in there. They were... You know, they weren't replying to my phone calls and my, you know, emails. And I asked Marc, "Do you know anybody there?"

And he knew somebody, you know, a pretty senior exec. And I said, "Will you send him an email if I write it for you?" Like I, you know, I thought about what the value proposition is for Apple. He's like, "Yeah, absolutely. Send it over." So that began a thing that we started calling connect the dots. So I would write the email just like Marc would write it, and back then in 1999, you know, Marc was using a BlackBerry and everything was lowercase and no punctuation.

So I'd just write it exactly like that so he wouldn't have to... You know, so it didn't look obvious it was from somebody else. It would look like it was from him. He'd copy it, paste it, send it out. We'd get, you know... He'd get a reply from the exec at Apple or whatever company, and then he and I would drive down and go have a meeting.

And that's how we got in the door. And then I and Marc would kind of fade away, and then I would run the rest of the sales process. We kept doing that over and over again. We called that connect the dots. And I didn't just do it with Marc. I used it with our, you know, board members and the other executives who came into the company and our customers whenever they...

when they loved us and they were willing to make introductions for us, I'd do the same thing. Just like, "Here, I'm gonna draft you what you send to that person." And that was amazing. The thing that would just always kinda stuck in my brain was like, ugh, if I could only get into everybody's brain and see 

who they really know, who are all the people that they really know, a-

[00:10:35] Jay: Yep 

[00:10:36] Drew: and then do that across our entire company because our entire company was aligned, right?

You know, we all had stock options, and so everybody wanted to help out. But, you know, it wasn't... I didn't know who to ask for what. Like, the reason I knew to ask Marc for those intros is 'cause he literally was just sitting next to me in the office,

and I'd be like trying to break into this account.

Do you have anybody there? And he's like, "Yeah, I do have somebody there." So, that's where the idea came from. And, I think you... there's a... I think you had a two-part question, Jay, 

[00:11:02] Jay: I, so I but I have another question about some of that stuff. So, where, is the alignment really as simple as the right incentives?

[00:11:10] Drew: Yeah.

[00:11:11] Jay: I

mean, that was it. I mean, that was really it, right? I mean, like we're

talking about like what would everybody would be willing to do. You guys weren't like so- curing cancer.

You were selling enterprise CRM software, so it

wasn't like you guys had like a mission to you know, do something altruistic. Like you I mean, and I don't mean that, there was anything wrong with that. I'm just

genuinely like it's... If it was that simple, it was like you guys, it was you felt like you had some piece of a rocket ship, and they're like, "Hey, if you wanna ride it, you can have a piece of it, but you gotta do this shit."

And so everybody's kinda in on it together. I got stock options here in 2000 whatever, 10, for some startup, and it was like not that. it's more akin to kind of what it is now. It's like it, it's just, it's a lottery ticket. You just have you know, I never got to experience the days where like people were really genuinely like excited about, you know, a tech company stock option that may go IPO.

Like that's a really cool kind of like almost like a piece

of history, right? 'Cause like you were part of like something that was like, 

[00:12:08] Drew: it's not history though. That's happening all around me right now. Like, my neighbor works at Mercor, I don't know if you know those guys, but they're like the

fastest company zero to $100 million. And, you know, she's got options in that company and, you know, Who knows what's gonna happen with that company, but that company could be insanely valuable very fast.

So like, that is actually one of the things, Jay, like when I've noticed this, this is like growing up in the East Coast, stock options, kind of a mythical unknown type of thing, probably not valuable, you know? Or you read about it in some sort of

stories that don't seem real. And, you know, our company ispartially based in Serbia, in Belgrade, so I'm back and forth there a lot, and we've had a lot of team members who I think probably feel that same way too.

Now we have some that are just like, they get it. They're like, they know that this can be massive if we get this thing right.

But I think a lot of people in Serbia are just like, it's almost like a mythical being that's like, okay, fine, there's a paper that says I own, some, you know, shares of this company, but I don't expect that's gonna be worth anything more than just the paper that it's printed on.

and the thing that was different in Silicon Valley when I got there in '99, and, you know, it was... You could feel it in the air. There was electricity.

Because it wasn't theoretical. You were surrounded by people who were driving Ferraris and, 

like, had massive crazy houses and, you know, like it was real.

It was like all around you. And I... And to be candid, like I'm not actually super attracted to the Ferraris and the massive houses. That's not really my thing. But I am absolutely attracted to the success. There's no question. I love, like, people doing things and actually having a real large impact, and I saw that all around me, and it was not hypothetical.

Like the people I was working with, you know, Mark was already a really rich guy at that point from Oracle stock making him a lot of money and a bunch of other investments that he'd made, but he wasn't the only one. We had a bunch of other people in the company and our board members, they were, you know, they had done very well in their,

 in it with equity.

And so it was not hypothetical. It was very real, and everybody was showing up here to, you know, be part of that very real thing

[00:14:16] Jay: Yeah. No, I love that, and it's just an interesting... Because it's, I mean, I still talk to people all the time, every day, that work somewhere. They're just like, yeah,they are tethered by, you know, the mythical whatever, like

maybe this certain... They do there is that...it's a weird connection on the East Coast, and I think there's a whole East, West Coast, kind of mentality kind of conversation that we could have that could pro- 'cause it's just that it is very interesting, and like I had never been to San Diego until last November, and I had a picture of, you know, what that was, and it was just it just felt... So there's a difference in soul, I think,

like in, you know, on different coasts, and I think it means different things in how people work and how fast they think and, But anyway, yes,I love the, I love that you kind of felt that difference and got to experience that because most people don't. Most people get it, and it's just like, "I should stay here because maybe this piece of paper turns into something," and like whatever. So, all right. So the second part to the original question was, who was the first customer? You guys went out and you had

this idea, and you're like,

all right, so, you go build this platform.

[00:15:19] Drew: Yeah.

[00:15:20] Jay: now what?

[00:15:21] Drew: Yeah. so

[00:15:22] Jay: did you raise money for this, by the way? How did you get

this kicked off? Like, how did you get it started?

[00:15:26] Drew: Yeah, we raised money. We've raised, several rounds. We've raised about 27 million at this point. And, we, and we did it through... We had a seed investor that I knew through Salesforce. So he was at Salesforce when I was there, and then he started a, he went to Emergence and then started his own fund.

And so that was our seed investor. And then RA was led by, Norwest Venture Partners. Also, somebody else who had been an executive at Salesforce and now is a partner at Norwest. So there, there is a really good connect-the-dots story here about just these relationships via our network and how they open up doors for you.

so our first, our first customer, I don't think I've ever spoken this to, you know, outside, like publicly, was a company called Skyflow. And, they are no longer a customer. They churned. now I hope we get them back at some point 'cause they, I think... And I keep a journal. pretty much every day I write down, you know, kind of highlights of what happened that day.

And it just popped up a little while ago, and I think it was like three years ago that we sold that deal. And so I got a... My journal is an electronic journal, so it, like, you know, popped up and said, "Hey, three years ago you wrote this." And like, we closed this deal, and it was a small deal. It was like, you know, it was like 5,000 bucks or something like that.

But we didn't know we had a product that we could sell yet at all. You know, we had a product that we had been giving away to companies, and so we had a bunch of companies that were using it for free.

We were kind of like begging them, "Use this and give us feedback on it." And this was the first one that saw enough value and was like, "Yeah, okay, that scratches the itch that we've got, and I don't see anybody else doing anything like this," so they paid us.

And, you know, we both learned the hard way. Apologies to the Skyflow team because it was like, you know, we definitely learned all of the things that were wrong. Well, not all of them, but lots of the things that were wrong with the product,

 during that period of time. But, but that was also a, that was also a, a relationship, because I knew the CEO of the company from Salesforce, and I had, you know, been talking to lots of...

You know, I'd canvassed a lot of people that I knew from my Salesforce network. And he hired a new head of sales who was

trying to, you know, Jay, like I think you were saying before the, the call, you know, you're really like a relationship seller.

And, and he was-- He had hired a new CRO that was a relationship seller, really wanted to leverage the entire network of the company,

and they, you know, they didn't have any good way to do it.

Everything looked manual. And so they were like, "Well, let's take a, you know, a bet, a relatively small bet on Connect the Dots," and that was our first deal

[00:17:50] Jay: Hell yeah, dude. And how do they look as a customer or persona compared to who you guys are going after today? Or is it the same type of company?

[00:18:03] Drew: They're, they're on the smaller side for the companies that we target now. So we've been kind of steadily going upmarket and, but, you know, our productand, this is actually just I think today, it's released today for the first time, we have a product that's designed for like SMB companies that's self-service.

It's called the Team Edition, and you can go... you don't have to... now for the first time as of today, you, if you wanna use our product, for your company, you don't have to talk to, you know, our team.

You can just go to our website and you can sign up for Team Edition, swipe your credit card, 

and you're off and add the users that you wanna use, and you're off to the races.

Up until now, we had to,we didn't have a self-service onboarding.

we would implement every customer with our own customer success team. And, so, I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is we're going upmarket, kinda steadily, like, you know, average customers are couple, couple hundred to a couple thousand employees.

That's kind of the, the ballpark that we play in.

But even, but if you're in the, you know, single digits or a couple dozen employees, we have a great product for you as well and you don't have to... And it's cost-effective for us. You can just come in, sign up and use it and, 

[00:19:12] Jay: what I need. That's what I need. I need the one for like-- 'cause I, I may not have a lot of people, but I have a ridiculous network, and like,

so I need to leverage it through a tool like this. And I think that's most agency owners, right? I mean, like we're, well, I mean, I'm a introvert by nature, so I've like forced myself to like go out and be whatever.

And like you have to network. If you own a business in a place like that's just,

 it's made for people like us. But also I see the big value in those, you know, the bigger spaces with teams. So it makes a lot of sense. I do... is the tool... And I don't. I'm not like I don't know. I don't have an MBA.

I don't know anything about sales. I just figured what I figure out every day. That's why it's fun. but 

[00:19:51] Drew: way to do it

[00:19:51] Jay: It is. It's every day is great. It's just the most fun. I just love it. I really do. but is this tool better for certain types of salespeople than others? Like are

there some people who don't really like... 'Cause because I am a relationship guy, I know there are other people who don't really sell that way and are more like volume, I guess, or more like some

other sales methodology. Is this

not as good for somebody like that?

[00:20:13] Drew: Yeah, it's not for volume.

You know, there might be some use of our network for volume selling at some point, but we, like, ... But we're kind of the anti-volume selling platform.

[00:20:24] Jay: No, I love it. Yeah,

yeah.

[00:20:26] Drew: Cause it's, basically, and I'm working on a thought piece right now that I'm co-authoring with one of our, you know, the marketing exec at Norwest, who works with a lot of B2B, you know, B2B,sales organizations and marketing organizations.

We're, we are, in this thought piece, there's too much to, like, talk about the whole thing, but there's one thing I'll laser in on, is, everybody's looking to automate everything right now. AI makes that possible. So, the volume of, like, marketing is crazy and it's getting crazier. And, the

We're calling it the anti-automation signal,

and that is if you can see across your entire network as a company that you've got a strong relationship with the person or one of the people that you need to get to at a company, then don't automate that.

[00:21:12] Jay: Mm.

[00:21:12] Drew: do it, like, do the actual

[00:21:15] Jay: It's like preventative. Preventative, That's why I don't do that type of selling. I don't sell that way on, like, because I don't wanna come back to that same person and that guy be like, "Well, fuck that guy. He just, like, sent me a bunch of automated shit. Now he wants

to talk to me like a real person."

That's a great idea. I love that. love

it. All right 

[00:21:33] Drew: just if you think about it, if okay,you wanna sell to Acme, and they're just part of a list of, like, 2,000 target accounts, and so you have this blast email account going out to everybody, and everybody's deleting all those emails because, you know, they're cold emails.

But then you can see that, like, your VP of finance has a strong relationship with their CFO. Why are you automating that? Just ask... and there is a thing that we can build the workflow for you so that you see that, and then we propose to you and say, "Hey, ask your VP of finance to talk to their CFO."

That's it. That's it. And then when you do that, you get the meeting, and then the whole thing works as opposed to the whole thing just being a waste of time.

[00:22:11] Jay: And also everything else is a waste of time. If you have that connection and it works,

why are you automating any-- why are you talking to anybody else at that company? You've got your in at the executive level, so what are you doing? All right. I mentioned this beforehand, 'cause I wanted you to get a little bit ahead of it, but,why can't somebody go to Claude Code or whatever today and say, "Hey, make me connect the dots"? Like, what is protecting that for... I mean, it's a really great idea, but it's like almost as soon as you put these ideas out there now it's like, shit, should you be scared? Now, you guys have been doing this for a while, and you have some infrastructure in place, and there's a lot of stuff that I think you guys have, and maybe that is part of this answer.

But just in general, like, how are you in the future kinda thinking of, shit, how do we keep this proprietary enough

that we can keep it safe?

[00:23:00] Drew: Well, I mean, you ask a great question 'cause everybody should be asking themselves this right now."What is the moat?" And you hear a lot. So we're a network effect company. Network effect companies have a... They have a built-in moat, and that is the network. The fact that they need the network to work.

You can't just do this by yourself. So you can't just turn on, You can't just build our product and use it for yourself and then have a network. You don't have a network. All you have is something that you are using yourself. We built the product so that this is a global graph of relationships, which means it's more like a Facebook or an Instagram or a LinkedIn.

So it's something like that. And so the same reasons that those companies have, you know, they have moats,

 because of their network-work effect, we have the same, we have the same mechanic in place. We're not nearly as big as those networks at this point, so the network effect is not as strong. But

our goal is to grow the network as fast as possible and, you know, dig that moat deep and wide.

[00:23:57] Jay: Are you guys add, gonna add a bunch of other shit on there? Like, can you see if my Fa- like who on Facebook, like I, my COO is like friends with? 'Cause like, I mean, I think obviously we're just scratching the surface

and it's like social is a whole other thing. You guys, can you do that? Is... That was another question just in general, like what is the TOS kind of stuff for

this with LinkedIn and whatever else?

Like what does that look like for you guys?

[00:24:16] Drew: Yeah. I mean, it is, that's a big complex topic and, you know, we'd need probably, you know, 30, 40, 40 hours to talk about all of it. But the short answer is yes, we're expanding all of the things that you can connect to Connect the Dots. So you're using it as a individual user right now, I think, right?

You haven't signed up as 

[00:24:33] Jay: Yeah, yeah. Yeah 

[00:24:34] Drew: So we have a product for individuals, and then we've got products for companies,

and but it's all built on the same foundation. So if you set it up as an individual, you can connect whatever you wanna connect to it. Right now it's your LinkedIn contacts and all of your email contacts from every email account that you connect to it.

And then we do a bunch of magic by looking at publicly available data and then organizing that to augment your view so that you can see other connections too, based on, publicly available data. Like, you know, maybe you know me, you've got a strong relationship with me, 

 and then I worked with somebody for some period of time,

 at a small company, and you can intuit that, from that, that I have a strong relationship with that person and you would ask for that introduction.

[00:25:14] Jay: Okay, so building

social into this is part, like more social stuff, right? And but it, where does that ethically, like where do you guys stand on that? Like where is it like, okay, this is kinda weird because I know that like my COO was, friends with somebody that liked a Facebook post of a person I want to talk...

You know what I mean? Like is there a point where you go like, "Yeah, this is like too connect-y," like it's we're digging in too deep or is it not?

[00:25:41] Drew: Well, 

[00:25:41] Jay: I would say no as a person who is a ultimate business relate- I will go, you know, if I see somebody I wanna meet is at a concert, I'm going.

You know? Like, I don't,

like, that's the level I'm at. So that's my thoughts of what is

the platform's view of that?

[00:25:53] Drew: Well, I think users should be in control of, you know, how much they wanna appear and not appear on the network, right? So, you know, it's up to you to, do you wanna be a node on this network or not? but, and I haven't really thought deeply about like, you know, social cues, like you're gonna be at a concert or an event or something like that and then showing up to, you know, to try to see that person.

[00:26:13] Jay: I haven't thought super deeply about that. I've never

actually done that, by the way, just in case anybody thinks I'm a lunatic. I just use that as an example of how

intense I plan. You know, in my head, that's the type of seller I am. So I just

want to 

clarify real quick. I haven't actually done that to anybody yet, at least I'm gonna say publicly

[00:26:27] Drew: One of my, one of my investors is hosting an event for all their portfolio CEOs next week. And like, you know, they sent out the list of who's going, and a lot of them are, good prospects for us. And so, you know, that's an example of like, I know they're gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. You know, and I'm planning on it.

I'm, you know, I'm thinking about the things I wanna say to them.

And, so, to answer your... Let me go back and make sure I answer your first question correctly or thoroughly. Yes, we're gonna let you add all the ways that you're connected to people. So, you know, if you know, it's coming soon that you'll be able to have your, contacts from your iPhone or Google contacts, you know, WhatsApp, people that you've communicated with, Slack, you name it.

Like, all the ways that you communicate with people or wherever you track your relationships, we're gonna let you add that so you have a complete picture of all of your relationships.

And that's yours as an individual, so that you, Jay, own that and you keep that for life. And if you go work for companies throughoutyour life, that's yours.

That's yours. You keep that with you forever. And then if you plug into a company, you go work for that company and, you know, hopefully you've got stock options so your incentives are all aligned, then you can bring your network to bear and say like, "Hey, these are all the people I know. Let me know where I can help sell or recruit or fundraise or whatever, because we're all gonna get rich if we do this right."

And then when you leave that company, hopefully with a bag full of money, you know, from your IPO, you still have your network and you take that with you wherever. So that is how we are architected. We're architected with the individual first. Like this is your relationship network, and we want you to make it as big as possible by connecting everything to it 

[00:27:56] Jay: Yep. Love it. What about, like manual stuff? What if I'm like meeting people in person? Is that,is the preferred method, I guess, to have them in some sort of CRM that's connected to Connect the Dots? Or would you... Is it like a manu- Like how, if you're an event guy, like how do you kind of pipe those guys in?

Or do you?

[00:28:15] Drew: We don't have anything specifically built for that today, but, you know, hey, after this show, you should talk to my co-founder, 

[00:28:21] Jay: I'm gonna go tell him, I'm gonna go, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna make it in Claude myself. That's what I'm gonna... I'm just kidding. 

No,it's, I should. Drew, you're awesome. I love the story. I feel like we could talk for much longer, and I'll probably have you back on so we can.

I have one final question for you, non-business related, non-Connect the Dots related. If you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail,

what would it be?

[00:28:42] Drew: I mean

[00:28:45] Jay: That's the right

[00:28:46] Drew: How about like,

[00:28:47] Jay: the right answer so far. 

[00:28:48] Drew: how about end poverty, suffering, and death?

[00:28:51] Jay: Sure. You can't

fail, buddy. You did it. Congrats. Woo! 

[00:28:53] Drew: End 

 poverty, suffering, and death. 

[00:28:55] Jay: That's it. I mean, you

hit the big three. We're done. That's it.

I guess we can just focus on the fun stuff now. Drew, you were fantastic. I don't gush about platforms like this. None of them do what I want them to do or are what I want them to be, and this, like, solves a problem for me, and you may not find anybody else who will just love it genuinely as much as I do, and I appreciate the thought behind it and the roadmap and all the shit you guys are doing. So keep it up.

Let's stay in touch. And, if people liked what they heard about you today and want to reach out specifically

 to you, how do they reach Drew?

[00:29:28] Drew: Yeah, you can, you find us on our website, ctd.ai. You can set up an account if you heard what Jay said, and he loves it,

you should get one too.

and then if you wanna reach me specifically, I'm available at drew@ctd.ai or you can find me on LinkedIn

[00:29:42] Jay: Beautiful. Drew, fantastic. Thank you for being on. I will be actively, not just monitoring, but participating in your journey. And, thanks for being on, buddy. I'll talk to you soon. See ya.

Thanks, Drew. 

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