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“Our grandparents took a boat to cross the Atlantic with their kids, didn’t speak the language, came to New York, set up either, built a business, worked really, really hard to put food on the dinner table and then wanted the most for their children.”

— ZACH LATOS

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ABOUT THE “INVIGORATE YOUR BUSINESS” PODCAST

The Invigorate Your Business with George Stroumboulis podcast features casual conversations and personal interviews with business leaders in their respective fields of expertise. Crossing several industry types and personal backgrounds, George sits down with inspiring people to discuss their business, how they got into that business, their path to the top of their game and the trials and tribulations experienced along the way. We want you to get inspired, motivated, and then apply any advice to your personal and professional lives. If there is at least one piece of advice that resonates with you after listening, then this podcast is a success. New episodes weekly. Stream our show on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Amazon and all other platforms.

ABOUT GEORGE STROUMBOULIS

George Stroumboulis is an entrepreneur to the core, having launched several ventures across multiple industries and international markets. He has held senior-level positions at progressive companies and government institutions, both domestically and internationally, building an extensive portfolio of business know-how over the years and driving profit-generating results. George’s ability to drive real change has landed him in several media outlets, including the front page of the Wall Street Journal. George was born in Toronto, Canada to his Greek immigrant parents. Family first. Flying over 300,000 miles a year around the world puts into perspective how important family is to George’s mental and emotional development. With all this travel to global destinations, the longest he stays even in the most far-out destination is 3 days or less - a personal rule he lives by to make sure he is present and involved in family life with his wife and three daughters. To read about George’s global travels, stay connected with his blog section.

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FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT

George Stroumboulis, Host - 00:00

Welcome to another episode of Invigorate your Business with George Stroumboulis. On today's episode, I sit down with Zach Latos. He is the founder of FlyMeOut, which is an exclusive members-only travel business that he started after he quit his high-profile, high-paying job as an attorney Crazy story on how he had security, financial stability and threw it all away to pursue his dream of starting this business. We're going to dissect what's going on in this travel app world, the success he's seeing globally and just the idea dissecting the business side of it and really get a better understanding of this incredible company that he's launched. So get ready for this episode starting now. My name is George Stroumboulis and I'm extremely passionate about traveling the world, meeting new people and learning about new businesses. Join me as I sit down with other entrepreneurs to learn about their journeys.

01:02

This episode of Invigorate your Business starts now, so we're going to jump into this. I have Zach Latos sitting with me today here in Newport Beach. I drove like 14 hours from Los Angeles to be here today, yeah, but very excited to have you here. You're doing some kind of game-changing stuff in the travel app space right, revolutionizing it, and not just doing that. You came from being an attorney right At prestigious firms on the East Coast to saying, hey, my late 20s, I'm done, I'm going to start something new. I believe in something new.

01:36

Walking away from a very good salary, great compensation, you know a legacy of family being attorneys right In New York, immigrant family and saying I'm going to put it all out there. I'm going to start a travel company, but not just a travel company. We're going to revolutionize how people travel, how they experience experiences. So we're going to unpack all that today and just get into it. So thank you for sitting down with me today. Thanks for having me, man, absolutely. So talk to me, man. How do you describe your company FlyMeOut? We're going to jump into that first.

Zach Latos, Guest - 02:10

I think FlyMeOut is the coolest platform on the internet. Hands down, what it is is an invite only group travel platform. Members go through an interview process. During that process, they're asked questions about their travel experiences where have you gone? What did you do when you traveled? Who'd you go with? Do you have references? Once they're approved, they can upload their trip itineraries and their travel plans, invite their friends to join the platform as well, showcase that their friends are joining them on this trip, and then open that trip up to other members within the community to apply to join their trips. So our platform is pretty unique where we have founders, ceos, content creators, models, influencers, professional athletes. So it's a really unique member base with really unique members hosting trips, and it's incredible.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 02:54

Absolutely. It's exclusive right. So anyone listening today, just kind of going back to some facts Last year I read somewhere that there were over 500 million half a billion downloads of travel apps globally, right, and the majority is like an Expedia and Airbnb apps like that. So people are obviously in real time, want to experience things, want to. You know, even if they're not going on trips all the time there, people are always flirting with the idea Where's this, where's that? You know, just talk to me the actual idea for fly me out. Where did that even start?

Zach Latos, Guest - 03:29

The idea is um, so that started. I was a corporate attorney in a previous life and as a lawyer, you work, work, work, work, work all day and you take one big vacation a year. My best friends were all in finance in New York and similar lifestyle work, work, work, work, work, take one big vacation a year. So we were all planning on going on a trip to Greece, specifically Mykonos, and, being the guys we were, we kind of booked last minute and we decided, all right, well, let's go to Mykonos in about a month and let's get a villa. So the only villa available was one that slept 15 people. There were six of us, so we had four extra bedrooms available and I said, hey, it'd be cool if we could bring another friend group of girls, because you don't want to be six guys on a boat. That's the most embarrassing and boring thing in the world. No offense, guys, I love you, but let's see if we could bring a friend group of girls. So I went on, hinge, put a picture of me and my five friends said, hey, we're all going to meet. Going to August 1st to the 5th. We got a giant villa, four rooms. We're looking for another friend group of girls to join us. Hit me up if you want to come.

04:28

I had about 400 friend requests on Instagram, jeez, and it was insane. The girls were paying, sending me roses, to get to the top of my Hinge profile. I ended up interviewing about 40 girls, different friend groups. We all got a group FaceTimes together and, you know, we ended up selecting six girls. Three and three, two different friend groups put this group chat together. The group chat was electric, jeez.

04:50

All the girls were from London. We were all from New York. The banter back and forth was great. We ended up going on this trip and the trip was amazing. Like by the end of it, we all felt like a little family. Like you party with people five days straight. You get to know each other Absolutely. Like no one wanted to leave each other by the end of it and we stayed in touch and we're still in touch to this day and I turned to my co-founder at the time and told him hey, man, I think I found something here. Like the traction was uncanny. I've been building companies for a while and the traction that I saw using a platform like hinge.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 05:20

Describe hinge.

Zach Latos, Guest - 05:21

I'm not familiar, I'm hinges a dating app Okay, regular dating. Describe hinge. I'm not familiar, I'm. Hinges a dating app okay, a regular dating app. But I thought, hey, this is a really good place to go find girls to come on this trip and specifically friend groups, and there was nothing in the market that existed to scratch this itch right so I had to improvise.

05:36

So I went on hinge and it worked. It was serviceable. But there was a lot of things missing. Right, there was the friend groups. I didn't know whose friends they were friends with. The communication wasn wasn't there, the itinerary for our trip wasn't there, pictures of our villa wasn't there. My friends weren't on there. So like there was a lot missing. So ultimately I used Hinge and I feel like we struck gold.

05:56

So I turned to my co-founder. I told him hey, man, I think we got something great here. Sure, let's build it. And we kind of launched this makeshift website in 30 minutes, immediately after your trip, no, eight months after. Okay, so we were working on another project.

06:11

That project failed and in the startup world, you pivot, yep, and that's exactly what we did. So we pivoted, we built a website May 27th of 2023. And the website was built in about 30 minutes. It said find your tribe, see the globe, apply for an invite, fly me out, had an influencer posted on her story. She posted it on her story. It got 111 applications in 24 hours. Jeez, yeah. So, like in my previous experiences, like you got to sell first and build later, yep, that's a common mistake founders make is like they're always looking to build extra features and they think the logo is what people care about. What's the name, what does it look like? Who cares about all that stuff? Is someone willing to buy your product? That's all that matters Absolutely Dollars and cents here. So we sold the idea first and we got 111 applications on that fly me out makeshift website. It's crazy.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 07:03

It was from around the world Like where were these? Applications all over the planet.

Zach Latos, Guest - 07:06

The first application we got was some girl from Australia with 50,000 followers. I remember it like it was yesterday. I saw it and I lost my mind. I was like Australia, 50,000 followers You're kidding me. And then I was refreshing. And another one, and another one, and then I let it be. The next morning I woke up 111 applications all over the planet, all different type of people, super diverse, but really like our ideal users lawyers, real estate developers, content creators, check, check, check. And I turned to my co-founder and I said, given my experience during my trip and using Hinge, given my experience here, building this MVP that really is functionless and people are applying to get in Now it's time for us to build a real MVP, a product, which is exactly what we did. We built the uh, we built the app in about two weeks using no code. It was absolute dog shit. It was terrible, right, super clunky, but we hacked it together.

08:00

Proof of concept right, exactly, that's all it is, is proof of concept and, once again, I learned from my previous mistakes that, like don't overbuild anything. Build your core functionality, your core features, and as fast as possible. Yes, if you're waiting until it's perfect, it's too late.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 08:12

Yeah, which which, by the way I live my life. Get it to that 80 to 90%, because that last 10% to make anything perfect can take forever. You're just going to get lost in the minutiae. But really quick, before we dive into the actual app, go back to okay, you're single and you're going on this trip to Mykonos, right? So what was your actual intent? You're going to a buffet and you wanted to bring a sandwich, right? Essentially, so when you were going there, was it just to have like banter? Obviously there's hookups going on, like what was the original so going on a party trip is unique, right?

Zach Latos, Guest - 08:50

if that's like saying you're going out to the club, if you're going out to the club, why are you going out to the club? You're going to meet people, sure, right? So the foundation of this entire experience was like let's just go meet people. That's why we didn't bring friends from back home in new y invite a friend group of girls. We knew it's like no, we wanted a new experience, we wanted to go meet new people. So I said let's go set the location for London on hinge, cause logistically that's the cheapest, like flight and the easiest thing you don't lose anything in translation there and let's go meet new people. And that's exactly what we did. And the experience was incredible. And, yeah, we met even more people when we were in Mykonos, because you're not six guys at the table beating your chest, trying to bring girls over and hang out.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 09:30

Sausage party doesn't work too well.

Zach Latos, Guest - 09:33

And it just creates so many headaches and it's so difficult and like if you rent a boat in advance, which is what we did in the boat was an expensive boat, it was beautiful, it was 55 footer, really nice. Once again you don't want to be just six guys on that boat and the night before when you get to Migonos like in my experience this has happened before where you got the boat the third day of your trip. But guess what? Now, the first and second day you got to work, to go meet people, to invite them onto your boat for the third day and, if you fail, you just spent 10 grand and the boat ride sucks after that Because you're looking at all your friends in a circle and like it's terrible.

10:07

It's not fun, so it takes all the work out of it.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 10:16

And we'll get into the platform and we'll get into it. So, even again, single days going on trips obviously we know intentions and everything, but like when you're going there with right to book it, do they like when they're messaging you, is it, hey, you have to pay for the villa and the boat? Or is just like just come on on party, no expectations, like, was that the premise of that?

Zach Latos, Guest - 10:32

That's sort of how the platform works and you customize your itinerary and your trip. Like, if you want to upload a trip where everyone has the cost share, sure it'll say cost sharing trip. If you want to upload a trip similar to ours where the villa's there, we already got the villa. It's huge, we need people to fill it and you want to host people there, by all means, say, villas included. Pay for your own flight If you want to. If you're super loaded, you don't care. You want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to come. And you want to pay for flights? Pay for the villa, fine too. And there's a group chat involved. There's a chat involved, so you have to have those conversations on the platform. There's your Instagram linked to your trip. There's your friend's Instagram linked to the trip If they're co-hosts.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 11:10

Due diligence right, just everyone's due diligence, yeah.

Zach Latos, Guest - 11:13

And, at the end of the day, like it's our job to vet the members in the community, but it's also your job to kind of ask those questions too and make sure everyone has the same expectations. The vibe of this trip matches your vibe as an individual and we have vibes, vibes on the trip where, like this is a party trip, this is a yoga retreat, this is a wellness thing, this is just luxury and like sightseeing, and you could see that, based on the trip itinerary, is there smashing vibes?

George Stroumboulis, Host - 11:37

Like are they? We'll get into it, but yeah. So from from a trip standpoint, can it be one-on-one, Like, hey, I'm one of the bomb? No, never one-on-one. So it's always a group aspect.

Zach Latos, Guest - 11:47

Yeah, very cool. Safety comes first for us and it just feels a lot more genuine when it's a group. The whole point is to connect people Like a tribe. There's multiple people in your tribe and that's our tagline Find your tribe, see the globe. So we want you to connect with other people. We want you to bring your group of friends or meet another group of friends and bring both groups together, which is the applicants and the hosts. So there has to be at least two hosts and at least two trip mates before a trip can even be uploaded. Okay, yeah, so really, the hosts will show like, hey, it's us, me, and like my two friends and you'll see them. And then all the applicants know okay, there's three people going on this trip and they're looking to bring another three people, so I'm not going to be alone. Right, right, right, super cool.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 12:30

So let me ask you what's the percentage of successful trips that are matched Like? Is there a percentage where, yeah, this one didn't get matched?

Zach Latos, Guest - 12:38

So the matching aspect isn't something that we necessarily do. It's not AI yet we're getting there and we're working on that right now. But I'd say it's a high percentage of our trips where the host hosts the trip and members apply and they actually go on this trip.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 12:53

Amazing.

Zach Latos, Guest - 12:53

Yeah, yeah it's. I think I'm building the coolest thing on the internet.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 12:56

It is the coolest thing and the little I've seen. Obviously I'm not on there, I'm not a member. I would like to think like, if I applied, maybe I'd be accepted there. Not a member, I would like to think like if I applied, maybe I'd be accepted. I don't know, maybe I'll just go under another name, but it looks like a luxurious experience, right, like a professional experience. It doesn't have that cheesy like hey, we're just trying to hook up type aspect, right, which some people think that it's been pegged like a dating app, right. So no Barstool Sports, like. You guys have gotten some crazy press about this, right. Positive, right, if they're talking about it, it's millions of views. Yep, what was the barstool one that went viral.

Zach Latos, Guest - 13:33

So I'd like to lead this by saying the worst thing anyone can say about your business is nothing.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 13:39

Exactly.

Zach Latos, Guest - 13:40

I've been on the other side of that where no one cares, and I'm on this side where everyone seems to have an opinion and everyone cares, and I love being on this side. Over that side, barstool Dave Portnoy got ahold of the app and said new app went viral called Fly Me Out, where guys can upload their trips and invite girls to join their trips. And then he looked at the camera and said brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and Portnoy is an idol of mine. Love the man. I think everything he's built is incredible. I think the, the tenacity and the way he built his company is amazing. So like for him to say that to me. Dude, I was through, I was through the roof when I saw that I was waiting outside in the driveway and my girlfriend pulled up because she was coming home in like a minute and I was like the smile on my face was insane.

14:21

Compliments like that from your idols really like is is what keeps you going. But then there's the other side of it where a lot of people are going to say bad things. They're going to say new human trafficking platform just drop. New escort servers just drop. Whatever the case may be, at the end of the day, we know what we're building, I know what my sensibilities are, I know what I want to build, I know the experience I had. I know what I'm trying to replicate here and it's kind of up to me to make sure that we're kind of setting the agenda and it starts at the top, absolutely, really quick.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 14:54

Dave Portnoy out of all the stuff he's done, I'm a huge fan of him too. I love the no filter. Just says it how it is.

Zach Latos, Guest - 15:05

What's one of the things that you respect about him? The way he responds to criticism yeah, we spoke earlier off camera about like just keeping a mental catalog of all the people that have wronged you, all the people who never supported you, who say bad things about your business, say bad things about you, questioning your judgment, whatever the case may be and the way he responds to criticism and uses that as like his Absolutely yeah, that's Is he an attorney by trade?

George Stroumboulis, Host - 15:28

I feel like he would have been a lawyer Like this guy's. Yeah, he would have made a good one. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I also love dude what he did during it's not a Dave Portnoy clip, but what he did for the restaurants during COVID yeah, like just unbelievable. Right, the government's sitting there fumbling it and this guy's going out raising money, giving them keeping these places open he doesn't get enough credit for that. Raised tens of millions of dollars for these restaurants. They're just cool stuff. Yeah, he's a maverick. He's a maverick. Go back to, like, the legal side of it. Right, you're an attorney, we'll talk about that as well. But when someone applies to become a member on Fly Me Out, what does that process look like?

16:05

Because, you're almost taking a responsibility as well of saying, okay, they've been vetted. You have the front side profile that this person is succeeding at what they're doing professionally. I'm sure there's an aspect of that. But you're also legally saying, yep, this person is normal from what we see and they're approved into the community. So what's the process of actually someone being accepted?

Zach Latos, Guest - 16:26

Yeah, so legally we're no different than any other platform out there that connects people digitally and brings them together in the real world. So you have bad examples because they're dating apps, but it's very comparable. Where you're connecting to strangers is like Hinge Bumble, Matchcom, Raya where you have to apply to get into Raya, as like an exclusive dating app or once was and you have to apply to get in and you have to be approved. So our process is pretty similar. What we look for is travel acumen. How often do you travel? What does it look like when you travel? What position do you have in the world? Are you a corporate professional? Are you respectful when we have a conversation? Do you understand that? This isn't a dating app? Because we asked you those questions during the interview. You do, okay, yeah, do you have travel references, things like that?

17:13

And then, of course, we have our own network of people that kind of do some digging but we don't review for safety, Like that's something no platform really does, because it opens up Pandora's box for liability, Like where do you draw the line If you've got a parking ticket or if you've got a misdemeanor, whatever the case may be. We don't look into that. All we care about is are you who you say you are Name, location, address. Do you live where you say you live on your driver's license when you submit that? Do you travel often? Do you have pictures of you traveling? Do you have references? Whatever the case may be, and that's it.

17:47

If we vibe, then you're approved on the platform and then we put it onto the members to kind of vet each other, ask questions, hop on a FaceTime, meet each other in public if you want Go. If you're both in LA, like meet up in LA. Like it's not up to us to make sure you're asking the right questions and all members know that and we tell all members like it's up to you to ask the right questions. Like at the end of the day, we're not there holding your hand when you're on a trip with someone. Like it is a group experience, so there's safety in numbers, Yep, but it doesn't matter. Like, ask the questions you want answers to.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 18:17

Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. And is it mostly male versus female? Like what's a breakdown of people going on here?

Zach Latos, Guest - 18:24

It's, yeah, it's really 50-50 at this point, which was amazing. In the beginning, we had way too many females, females, way too many.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 18:33

Well, let's break that down a bit. So why more female? I thought it would be more dudes like on there trying to match, but is it the girls that are just looking for experiences?

Zach Latos, Guest - 18:42

Yeah, exactly that are just looking for experiences. Yeah, exactly Like I think the name lends itself to like what the platform is or what they want it to be. Sure, and in the beginning we had way too many females, not enough trips, and that was a really big issue for us because we got to make sure we're having trips on the platform for everyone to apply to. So that got us thinking about brand experiences. So we started partnering with brands who then satisfy the model, influencer, content creator demographic on the platform through brand experiences, which has been amazing, amazing. And then, as we started to gain popularity and traction and word of mouth, we spent no money in marketing the first year. The male demographic started to catch on. You know, one person hosts the trip. They're blown away. They get 200 applications, he tells his friend, who then tells his friend, who then tells his friend Uh, so really the network effects have been incredible. And now we're kind of we still have like too many females and not enough males.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 19:34

Do you hear that gentleman?

Zach Latos, Guest - 19:36

Yeah, and that's something we're we're really trying to solve for is like, how do we get more males to be comfortable with hosting their trip on this platform? And that's a problem and something I think we're doing a good job of solving. It's done by user feedback, communications, really figuring out what do you want out of this platform and how do we build it for you, and I think we've done a great job there. So it's starting to even out, but you can never have too many of either or Are you kidding me?

George Stroumboulis, Host - 20:02

And you launched this officially in 20. June 14th?

Zach Latos, Guest - 20:06

2023.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 20:07

Okay, and we're basically a year later, and you've already had this tremendous success.

Zach Latos, Guest - 20:12

Yeah.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 20:12

Already eyeballs people registering all this stuff. That's huge. Is it on schedule with what you projected? Is it ahead schedule, like where are your expectations?

Zach Latos, Guest - 20:20

Ahead of schedule. Wait, yeah, yeah. When looking at the road map, when I quit my job on june 27th 2023, I did not have this success in mind. I thought we would be probably half of where we are. Yeah and granted, shoot for the moon and you'll, you'll, if you fall. I will shoot for the stars and if you fall, you'll, you'll land on the moon. And that's kind of what happened here, where, like, we're in a really great place, but I'm not comfortable, I'm not getting complacent and I'm always pedal to the metal yeah, absolutely.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 20:48

And you're barely 30 years old, right, just turned 30. Yeah, okay, so rewind. You had a a very stable career, great profession, as an attorney. Yeah, on the east coast, from new york down to north carolina, right, working for various firms. Just talk to me, like, how do you do that? Start getting a good reputation top of your class, all this stuff, walk me through just that because it runs in your family and then saying one day like, yeah, you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna risk it all and step into this world, high-tech world. It's crazy.

Zach Latos, Guest - 21:19

Yeah, so it all started my second year of law school. I had an idea for a wearable device that connected people close vicinity at like networking events. So I was going to law firms meeting other lawyers and I didn't meet everyone in the room and I wanted to meet them and I was pissed. Then I would say, well, I wish I could connect with them on LinkedIn, but I didn't know his name, whatever the case was. So I had this idea and I wanted to build it. So I started interviewing designers to build mock-ups and build a logo immediately, mistake most founders make. But that's the direction I went. And the guy I met was my eventual co-founder and him and I clicked immediately and I fell in love with the process of just ideating building. We started doing logos for other companies because we couldn't afford to build our startup idea, started doing logos for friends and family, website designs. Website designs then turned into web development, which then turned into app development and turned into iOS consulting. So we scaled those operations and, mind you, I was in law school at the time still, so I was moonlighting, kind of juggling two things at once.

22:21

But I was in love with the creative process of like building a company and it was kind of at that moment where I realized, all right, well, there's what I want to do with the rest of my life, how am I going to be the best chief executive officer I could possibly be? And uh, I decided, well, I have to go the corporate law route. And that's what I did. I I um was on the trial team for my school. I loved litigation, I took a restructuring course, bankruptcy course, and I fell in love with the diverse aspect. And I always believe like the best executives know a lot about like a lot of things and they're well-versed in diversity and restructuring and the practice of bankruptcy is an aspect where you kind of do a little bit of everything. You do IP law, you do real property law, you do contracts, you do litigation, whatever the case was.

23:05

And I said this is what's going to make me the best and most well-rounded CEO. And that's what I did. I double majored, I got my JD in LLM, so I hyper-focused in restructuring. That got me a clerkship with a federal bankruptcy judge, which was an amazing experience. Yeah, what is that like? It's? It's a process. So I actually accepted my clerkship in February Cause I got that LLM I had. I passed the bar exam 2019. I came back to finish out that semester to get my LLM in New York state in New York.

23:36

St John's law the best JDLM program in the country Shout out and, um, I got my clerkship off season, so it was February when I moved down to North Carolina and I had a conversation with the judge when I interviewed and he goes son, you know, there's about 200 miles of flyover in each direction, like do you know where you are? And I go, of course, but he was a super well-respected judge, really good Chapter 11 cases, which are big business cases, and I could learn from him. So I picked up and moved and in the back of my mind I always knew I'm not practicing law forever, so how am I going to stockpile and save as much money as possible and be able to take that leap of faith one day? That's what I did, right, like I. I saved so much money moving down to greenville, north carolina. It was off season for a clerkship, so wherever I was getting a clerkship I going, even if it was Alaska.

24:26

I was going to go because they don't pop up often, and move down to Greenville. A month later the pandemic hits. Now I'm in a city of about 60,000 people when school is in session. There was no school in session because of the pandemic, so there was maybe 15,000 people in the entire city, and I'm coming from Queens, new York, like my cousin Vinny.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 24:48

Yeah, and Ghost town.

Zach Latos, Guest - 24:49

Yeah, so I really relished in that opportunity and I was going 100 miles an hour with learning how to be the best lawyer and also I had the studio so I was reading every single day. I would be done 4.30, 5 o'clock with the judge, go up on my balcony just read, going through books, all pandemic, and like waking up really early, calling India, building that relationship with my team, growing my team, and that was like when I really decided, all right, I'm in, 100% I'm in, but before I could quit my day job I have to save a lot of money.

25:23

You had your target like where you wanted to be, had my number in mind and once I got promoted to senior law clerk for the judge and once that clerkship was over, I got an offer from a big firm down in Charlotte, picked my life up, moved down to Charlotte, north Carolina, moved on over to Charlotte, north Carolina and worked at a big firm over there. An amazing restructuring team worked besides some of the most brilliant attorneys like you can imagine, and I really learned a lot from them. Just picking brains every day. They see through walls. These guys are just brilliant, brilliant attorneys and the work ethic was incredible.

25:59

You have to have a high motor to be a corporate attorney, especially corporate restructuring. The it's a melting ice cube, like the company is a melting ice cube. And we represented lenders. So our lenders lent 700 million 500 million to these companies which are failing and you have to come in and stop the bleeding. So some of these companies would trip up financial covenants in their credit agreement which then would require restructuring of the contract. You restructure that contract once. You restructure it twice, you restructure it three times.

26:28

The lender's getting impatient. They don't trust the judgment of the company anymore, right? So what do they do? Well, you need to file for bankruptcy. We walk essentially lenders will walk the debtor into the bankruptcy court with a gun to their head and say you're going to file right now because we need the automatic stay to be in place, because you have other creditors that are coming for all your assets, so you got to put a stay to all that and it's super high paced. So you have mergers, you have acquisitions, you have restructurings. They need money tomorrow and those documents need to be drafted, everything needs to be reviewed, there needs to be diligence. So it's an incredible practice and it requires a lot of focus and it requires a high motor. So that's the cloth that I'm cut from.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 27:13

Yeah, so really quick. Even that like. So. When you see Toys R Us, for example, files chapter 11, in a lot of those cases and not speaking specifically for them it's a gun to their head that hey, no, no, we don't need to file right now, but everyone's basically calling in their debt right and they're basically forced, is that?

Zach Latos, Guest - 27:28

Yeah, usually it's the senior secured lender that's giving them no choice. Okay, Like you gotta file.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 27:33

And you're doing this representing the federal government.

Zach Latos, Guest - 27:35

No, we represent the lender, the lender okay gotcha, we represent the the lender. And then there's debtors council and there's a lot of parties involved here. Sometimes there's 10 lenders on a deal and that's called the syndicate group, where there's the main lender, and then there's all the other syndicates that made. If there's a hundred million dollar loan, some party made 10 million, the other party made 30 million.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 27:55

Whatever the case is, sounds like a mafia cartel.

Zach Latos, Guest - 27:57

The syndicate right yeah, really, they own everything. Like usually. They're super secured, they own all your assets and there's a priority here and everyone's. It's a carcass, really, and all the vultures are coming in to get their pound of flesh, but there's a priority to that and the bankruptcy court brings order to that process, allows you to litigate in one forum. So this isn't a legal class, but like that's what I was attracted to, because I knew one day I will be the owner of a company on the other side and I want to make sure I'm not making all the decisions that these bankrupt debtors are making.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 28:32

So smart. Let me ask you you said you're learning from these guys that could see through people right, like do they learn that as they go, or is there a psychology aspect to this that you need to have to be able to do?

Zach Latos, Guest - 28:44

that I think a part of it is innate. You're just really. You're genuinely a whiz. You understand, I always considered myself a blue collar worker. It didn't come to me immediately Like I wasn't book smart where I could read something once and I got it I had to read. If you spent an hour in the library, I had to spend three just to really understand the material.

29:05

And I think corporate law is made up of a lot of those whizzes that just are computers. They could process information, synthesize it and then, obviously, repetition. Over the years you're doing this 24-7, 20 hours a day. Over the course of 30-year career, you've seen everything and they have the ability to kind of advise their clients and see things that other attorneys don't see. So that's the innate part, and then it's learned.

29:34

That said, that skillset is something like everyone has their a talent right. Some people could process better, other people are more creative, other people are marketing minded, other people could write, and I always felt like I was pulled in two different directions where, like, if you want to be, if you want to be really, if you want to make a difference in the world, do what you do the best and do that 20 hours a day, seven days a week, around the clock. I always felt like, yeah, I was a good attorney. I wasn't them. And working with them, like I could see, they thought differently. They thought very, the legal mind is a different mind and I was good. I wasn't great. I do believe that I'm a great founder.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 30:13

See, that's incredible. And you're still rolling with the top in the country. Yeah, powerful country. Yeah, learning. But you said something you knew going into this to do this this was just a launching pad. You already knew, so it wasn't one day you woke up and said, hey, I'm going to go start an app company. That's incredible, yeah. So you make the decision, you hit your financial target. You have the idea right Like that trip to Mekonos was like happened as well and you said, hey, this is where I'm going to dedicate my time. Yeah, so day one, you quit your job. Where do you?

Zach Latos, Guest - 30:42

even start. So let me rewind a little bit, because I would consider so. Mind you, I had the studio at the time. I had another startup project I was working on which was flailing and really difficult to get off the ground, and I was waking up 4.30 in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, calling India, building the team, building those relationships, leaving for the office at seven o'clock 8am, coming back home at like six seven doing whatever legal work I had to do and then hopping on board for another two hours to make sure any startup work was done with.

31:13

So I always felt like I was. I had this mistress on the side and my company was always my mistress, and then my wife was my, my nine to five. So it was really difficult to balance the two and I was just drowning. I was dying to like tell the partners in my firm guys, like I'm doing this, like if you think my work products good. I just wish you guys also knew what else I was doing. But no one cares and they would have gotten pissed because you're not doing my work, you're doing someone else's work, you're doing your own and the golden handcuffs is real in corporate law.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 31:49

They want you to buy that house.

Zach Latos, Guest - 31:49

They want you to have kids. They want those kids to go to private school 100%. And that was expressed to me like oh yeah get that house yeah, get, get married, send them, send those kids to school, and that's real. And they want to keep you on that machine and they want to keep you billing 24 seven and that's not a life I wanted to live. It's lucrative, if you love it, it's an incredible life, but it's not something I wanted to do. I wanted more for myself. I just wanted freedom.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 32:10

Were you single at this point.

Zach Latos, Guest - 32:11

I was single.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 32:12

Yeah, which is a big factor.

Zach Latos, Guest - 32:14

Yeah, big factor. I moved to North Carolina for a reason because if you were to practice big law in New York and you want to live and live below your means, you have to live in Queens. Want to live and live below your means, you have to live in Queens. So you've got to commute an hour and a half to the office, an hour and a half back from the office. That's three hours a day, five days a week.

32:30

Miserable life, 15 hours a week that you could then put into something else Go to the gym, play basketball, whatever. So I wanted to move to Charlotte so I walked to work every day. It was a nine minute walk, really close, amazing, saved a ton of time there. Put that into my business and it was a matter of when, not if, and whatever caught. Traction was going to catch traction and fly me out. Caught steam, and I've seen enough in my short entrepreneurial career to know that traction is uncanny. You don't get that engagement that quickly from that quality of member right who can afford to buy your product. You don't get it that easily. And the fact that we got it, I'm not going to pass up on this opportunity. I have a legal degree. Worst comes to worst. I could always go back to the practice of law, but I'm not going to pass up on this opportunity. I'm going to go for it. So I sat down with the partner who hired me. Opportunity, I'm gonna go for it. So I sat down with the partner who hired me.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 33:29

Um, amazing guy love him and, uh, I had a conversation with him and I told him and he knew, he knew he had a feeling that that you were preoccupied, like mentally or towards the last, like towards the last, like six months.

Zach Latos, Guest - 33:40

Yep, he just had a feeling, because I was you get restless man? Of course it's not. You want more for yourself. You're like I don't want to do this credit agreement, I don't want to review it, I don't want to do the checklist, I don't want to do signature pages, whatever the case may be, I want to build my vision, I want to build my company and that restlessness people see on you, especially if you're someone like me. Yeah, but I wear it on the outside and they saw it and I told him and, a, he was impressed. B, they were upset, not in a bad way, but they were like we're going to miss you. You were amazing and I can't believe you did the quality of work you did while doing all these other things Like how did you sleep? When did you sleep? And the answer was never, never. Yeah, but I made that decision and I haven't looked back since.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 34:24

That's incredible, man, that's incredible. And you build this and I guess in this space you find out quickly if it's worth pursuing or not. You said before you started a company, eight months in you're like, hey, this isn't working. Yeah, that's amazing that you're able to sit there and say, hey, let's jump ship, cause a lot of people think pride of authorship, ownership I started it, it's going to work. Let's get more money, let's ask family and friends and by the end of it you're just bringing more people down with you, versus let's just cut it. Yeah, right, yeah, you're in a position now, just a year later. Can you talk numbers of the site? Is there any public information on like, how many people in a year have actually registered to be on the platform? I'm sure millions of views Can you give us, because it's a short period of time this thing's taken off.

Zach Latos, Guest - 35:09

Millions of views, 60,000 applications. Jeez yeah, 60,000. 60,000 applications From endless countries All over the planet, really Any country you can imagine. We have a member there, most likely Yep Uh, and we have applications in the dozens from the most remote countries you can imagine, all over it's, it's incredible.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 35:32

So is there a rate of like for every 10 applications one's typically accepted.

Zach Latos, Guest - 35:38

It varies some months, uh, it's higher, some months it's lower Cause you can't really, if you get a thousand applications that you're reviewing this month, right, like those thousand could all get approved theoretically, or none of them could get approved, but usually it's between like the 10 to 25% range Amazing that are getting approved.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 35:56

Yeah, so you see a lot of different trips, right? So you see in your platform of this trip, this trip I follow on social media now so I'll see, like this new one in Indonesia and just really cool stuff. Are there three common destinations that you always see Like? Is it Ibiza, mykonos, is it those?

Zach Latos, Guest - 36:15

So we haven't been around long enough to really collect this data, so it's not set in stone, but in my experience, the summer was exactly what I expected it to be. It was like seven trips to Ibiza, seven trips to Mykonos, italy, croatia, like it was. It was very like they call it the circuit where all the rich people go through the circuit, and it's the Mykonos, ibiza, san Tropez, yeah, and we got a lot of those. And now in the winter we're starting to get the Miami's. We're getting like the St Bart's, the Aspens Okay, so it is the Tulum's. It's exactly where you would expect the hot spots to be. My favorite trips are the unique ones, right when they're going to like a small village in Italy and they're doing like they're bouncing around villages, like not the mainstream stuff, like really let's go out there and see the world. And that's something I'm trying to unlock, like how do we plan those trips for some people?

George Stroumboulis, Host - 37:05

Right. So that's what I wanted to ask you If you're not a member, can you go on there and search trips, or is it locked out? Locked Okay, so lock. So give the listeners because at least 75% of the listeners will not be approved to become members, right? So when you go there, can you set everything up and say can you actually search for villas, like, is there an Airbnb integration or is that in the future? Like I can actually find a villa in Mykonos on the FlyMeOut app and do all the?

Zach Latos, Guest - 37:33

booking through there. So the villas aren't yet integrated, but we will help you book those villas. So we have villa partners. We get you discounts on villas, we get you discounts on yachts, private jets, whatever the case may be, and there are certain memberships, right. So we have our premium membership, which allows you to host unlimited trips and you get certain perks and benefits and discounts, so you'll get a discount on a yacht. And then we have our diamond membership, where we will be your concierge one-stop shop. We'll plan this entire trip for you, we'll get the villa for you, the yachts, the whole nine, and we get pretty sweet discounts for our members as well. So the villa integrations are coming. It's something I'm really excited about. The yacht integrations are coming sooner, which is great, and all of that. I envision this being a one-stop shop on the platform. Where you come, your entire trip is done, the last mile of getting people to join you on the trip is done and, yeah, that's going to be a big part of what we do in the future.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 38:25

That would be so helpful. Even I pay 20 grand. I got the car, I got the this, I got the yacht, people are in there and then you would be managing that as a merchant. So from a revenue standpoint, does the company make its money off memberships, percentage of it's off membership platform? So you have access to this elite.

Zach Latos, Guest - 38:49

So there's three real streams of revenue right now. It's memberships, where you're paying a basic membership, a premium membership, a diamond membership and that's recurring revenue. It's predictable. You love to see that curve and you could really build a business around that. And then we have our brand partners, who brands started integrating brand experiences where they purchase and select to sponsor influencers on our platform. So we're going to announce a few big brand trips for the new year and we have some undisclosed partners that have basically purchased the right to promote through these influencers on this trip. So we got four girls, a million followers a piece, going on this trip. We take that, go to a few brand partners and say, hey, who wants to be the name sponsor for this trip? And they'll send them goodie bags, packages. The girls will wear the apparel or promote the product, whatever it is, on this trip. And there's media deliverables. So you got to tag the brand two times a day, you got to post the reel, you got to do a TikTok, come on.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 39:43

Yeah. So let me ask you on that Like that's for a company, just use mine. For example, lighting. We sell around the world. If there's a new hotel that's opening up that we did the lighting and we want to get promotion. Yep, can I as a business I'm sure it's separate from an individual create a platform and say, hey, we just did hotel X? Yep, we would love three social media people that have at least 100,000 followers to go there. I would pay for three nights, flights or whatever, and they would go there and then there would be deliverables. Exactly, jeez, dude. Okay, that's a whole other, because we go through it all the time on all right, we can send a photographer, we got to get approval and they go, and we have the photos and we post it to ours and there's zero engagement, little engagement versus someone who's in that space. And I could say is there someone in the architecture space that has a following? And then your team would go through and seek that Exactly.

Zach Latos, Guest - 40:33

That's a game changer. Tell us who you want, but you want someone in the architectural space. You want real estate, whatever the case may be, and we could either source that influencer for you from the platform network or you could be the one who's hosting the trip. You're going to get two 300 applications on this trip and you could go through them and select, have conversations. The brand's marketing team will really be the one interacting and that's what takes us from being a $15 million company to a $100 million company. That's huge.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 41:02

Like those experiences. Now you're just replacing inside marketing people within a department to this. Hey, go, go to fly me out. Set up your own brand trip. Yep, that's incredible. When you launched this, did you have that vision, or did this organically happen? Organic, yeah, that's going to be the future for you. Right, like that's incredible.

Zach Latos, Guest - 41:21

I think so. I think the brand trips are going to be a giant part of what we do starting Q1 of 2025. And we're working up to that initiative. Right now we're testing with a few brand partners, figuring out what do you guys want? How do we make this experience better for you? So when we launch, we're doing it right.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 41:36

So, like Fire Island, if they came back to try to do a brand experience, would you let them on the platform Too soon? Yeah, they're actually doing another one. I heard about this. Yeah, is this the same guy? Same guy Out of jail? Yeah Right, entrepreneur is a good entrepreneur. Oh, dude, what was his name? Mcfarlane? What was his name? Seth McFarlane? Seth McFarlane, yeah, which I always confuse with the other, seth McFarlane.

Zach Latos, Guest - 41:58

Yeah, I saw him.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 41:59

Yeah, I saw him on another podcast dude. That's incredible. So I want to ask about a few more things. Right, any horror stories right now? Or advice for people you said earlier like hey, make sure you vet, it's like no other, any other app If I go on an Airbnb. Right, like there's only so much. But is there any advice for people that are from the hosting side and then from the being accepted side?

Zach Latos, Guest - 42:22

Yep, so this summer we had a trip to San Tropez. Okay, and the trip to San Tropez was a fun trip. It was a party trip. You're going to San Tropez, you're not doing yoga there, you're not sleeping at all. And two of the members who applied and went on this trip, they weren't into partying, they didn't drink. So there was actually an issue there where it was like hey, like we're on this trip and we don't really party or drink, and the host is like I have these people on this trip and they're a terrible fit for the trip. What the hell, man? And that's something that we're really working to solve. And it's the communication. We integrated vibes after that experience. So we got that feedback, we replicated it and we pushed that out. So now there's vibes and it's clear it's like hey, this is a rager trip, do not apply if you're not into raging.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 43:10

Vibes, basically a classification that you kind of rated after Okay, trip vibes where it's rated, before the trip.

Zach Latos, Guest - 43:16

So we talked to the host and we basically asked him all right, so what's the vibe of the trip? What is your speed here? Are you looking at a party for five days straight and not sleep? Are you looking to go sit on a beach and not move? Right? Because, depending on what you're doing, you're going to get those types of those style of applications, and that seemed to help the problem for sure, and we're not getting comfortable there. We're working with AI to integrate vibe matches and make sure we're promoting the right profiles based on the questions you answer when you onboard onto the platform Yep. So there's a lot to do.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 43:45

There's a lot and then do like Susie and Mike if they were on the trips, do they get a rating after? Like I could go back and see hey, mike has been rated, like can you see stuff like that?

Zach Latos, Guest - 43:55

Yeah, there is reviews. Just like you would review a restaurant on Yelp, after you've been to the restaurant, you could review a host. You could review an attendee. Those reviews are something we're always kind of tinkering with and trying to figure out a way to make people feel comfortable and leave reviews and encourage them to leave reviews. We're finding that people love leaving great reviews. They don't want to leave bad reviews. So how do we encourage that? And you're problem solving.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 44:20

You're problem, yeah, yeah. Do you think the exclusive is a big success factor for the app that it's exclusive? Or do you foresee this one day being the Airbnb version of experiences and you just open it up to everyone and then let nature take its course? Because, like you said before, someone's accepted in there, but if they're not matching, that's up to you. Maybe the trip's not good, maybe the vibes aren't right. Is that something?

Zach Latos, Guest - 44:45

I think the exclusivity is going to forever be something that's core to who we are and what we're building right. Like Hermes doesn't build for everyone, lamborghini doesn't build for everyone, and they're still incredible companies, there's a giant market out there of top 10% earners who love to solo travel, who want to meet people. Absolutely that's our market. I don't need to build something for everyone, because if you're trying to satisfy everyone, you're satisfying no one.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 45:11

Yep, that's great. So exclusivity works. Yeah, a couple more things here. So funding and team, right, like these are a couple of things I want to talk. And then advice. But like, from a funding standpoint, you knew to build the app it took this much to run the sales, the marketing, the day-to-day. You went from like a very good compensation salary in your attorney days to nothing overnight and then you got to build that up Like, just talk to me, how is it managing finances in this and dealing with that? And then I'm sure you're bootstrapping and raising with certain investors. It's a whole new world. A whole new world. Notice the deep side. Before even getting into this.

Zach Latos, Guest - 45:53

You're scratching and clawing for everything. You want to make sure that if you're not VC funded which we're not we're cockroaches Like I'm going. I come from a restructuring background, so I've seen money spent. I've seen it spent poorly. I've seen funds mismanaged, Like that is not the cloth that I'm cut from. So to get me to spend a dollar is pulling teeth Absolutely, and I wanna make sure there's ROI behind every single dollar we spend. 46:18

And it doesn't always work that way, Like it's not all quantifiable. So there has to be a balance there where sometimes you're just swinging and you have to make a bet and that bet is not backed by anything and you just have to realize like, hey, my intuition may be right here. Let's do this, let's undertake this initiative and we'll see how it goes. And that's all it is is testing. As far as funding goes, we're currently fundraising in our seed round. We raised the pre-seed round was pretty successful and then, early on, our first five investors were early adopters of the platform, Our ideal members, our ideal users. They believed in the platform. They cut us a check and it's just, it worked. It worked for us and going forward, we don't have to raise capital. That's the position I put us in because you don't wanna burn, just to burn and grow at all costs.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 47:11

Which, sorry, like Silicon Valley again, I'm not from that world, but you always heard it was a celebration. We raised X million. We mean you just took on more debt. Like do you need that money? Is that the success factor? On just raising capital, it always blew my mind. I know it's a different world, but if you're not raising with expectations and the raising of capital is the end goal, I just it doesn't make sense to me what people and maybe they do understand this.

Zach Latos, Guest - 47:40

But how I see it is, venture capital comes with a venture expectation for growth. You now have a boss who's going to angle for a board seat, who's going to make sure that you're growing at all costs and you're hitting milestones. And if you're not hitting those milestones and you're not performing, they're going to pull their funding, because that funding is not all coming to you at one shot. It's tied to milestones. And now you just ramped up this entire team. You brought on a sales team, you got a marketing team, you got this, you got that. And then what? You get your funding pulled. Now you got to fire the team.

48:12

You're going to lose a ton of momentum. You're going the core, really, and it's an issue and you're setting yourself up for failure in some instances because you're over-raising and now you're pegged to a valuation that's unrealistic, that you're not going to be able to hit. If you don't hit that valuation, the next round is not going to be a good round. The next round is going to be a down round of fundraising and no one's going to touch you because you've now haven't shown that you're trending upward. So sometimes, take less money, take less money at a lower valuation. Knock it out of the park and you know, give yourself, set yourself up for success Like who cares. You raised 40 million. What are you going to do? What are you going to do Exactly? What are you going to do with it? Be realistic and we think big founders think huge founders want to. You know, knock it out of the park and sometimes it's just about being methodical and all the decisions you make and making sure you're thinking about the consequences.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 49:09

Yeah, well, that's a good point. And you said making ideas making, uh, making decisions, making them quickly. So who do you bounce ideas off of Like this? This is your baby. You have investors, sure that you can always tap into and get some ideas, but in real time, when you're pressed against the wall, what's your idea? You know decision-making process like for you Number one is my girlfriend.

Zach Latos, Guest - 49:31

Okay, she's the best, has been there from day one and she's the one I go to with all my ideas, all my problems, all the issues. She calms me down. She really brings me back to earth and, like allows me to see it for what it actually is. Like, why are you so upset? Like look where you've gotten in a year. Like you've barely raised, like you've done amazing. Like she's really an amazing sounding board for me. Um, that being said, last night I actually pitched her an idea, a creative idea, and I got mad because she shot it down and I retaliated and said you're not a creative person, so it doesn't matter, you don't get my creative pitches. And that could be true. That could be true. Like there are certain brains that process things and that see the grander vision, so it's hard. Like, where I get my ideas from? Is I like to?

50:21

I listened to this podcast called founders. Yes, it's an incredible podcast. David Senra dissects everything. Yeah, absolutely. I have conversations with the eminent dead all day long, like I'm listening to Rockefeller, I'm listening to David Eck. I like all these people that have just been through the process and I don't speak to them, but they speak to me and I'm having that conversation back and forth in my head and that motivates me to go out and build and do things differently. So that's really who I have those conversations with. And more recently I brought on an advisor who's super smart, has built his own company. Our investors I go to and talk to them all the time. Manny, for example, I speak to him once or twice a week and we just bounce ideas off of each other.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 51:04

Yeah, Like Manny Kess we talked about him for a second. Like this is totally Manny. For anyone who doesn't know Manny Kess, Like obviously he was on the podcast Great guy, but this speaks his language. The guy's ultimate traveler around the world experiences. Like it makes sense to have someone like him supporting this right Someone who's unbelievably connected.

Zach Latos, Guest - 51:25

Yeah.

51:25

Someone who knows everyone and anyone you could imagine and this is his playpen Like he understands the landscape. He's in Vegas, he owns Vegas, it's concierge nightlife service, so like he's crushing in and people like that are who you have to bounce these ideas off of and understand. Like not everyone's going to see it your way, there's a certain vision in your head and it's hard to paint it for other people, but you see it crystal clear. I think that's a skill Getting people to really understand. Like this is the vision and they'll see it one day, but right now you don't see it, so just be patient.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 52:00

And the ones that matter, yeah, the ones that need to see the vision right, like the haters. The noise will always poke holes at it, and that's fine, yeah, but it's just how do you tune that out? Like that's the challenge? Easily, easily, right, yeah. So from a team standpoint, positive, negative, like how has it been managing employees? And like this is this is a software company? Right, there's a marketing aspect, there's, you know, the human aspect, people actually filtering applications, creating experiences. Like it's a big operation to make this all happen. Talk to me on the good, the bad, the ugly managing this.

Zach Latos, Guest - 52:35

Team building is one of the hardest things you can do. Managing people is something you can never learn. Inaging people is something you can never learn in a law school. You can never learn in a boardroom Like you have to be in it. You have to have strong emotional intelligence, you have to understand and you know connect with them on a deeper level, because everyone has their wants, they have their needs, they want to be recognized, they want to be patted on the back and you have to be delicate with certain people and you also have to know when to apply pressure.

53:00

Yeah, it starts at the top. You have to set the expectation for everyone on the team, and how I set the expectation is pretty crystal clear. I didn't quit a $250,000 a year job to play tic-tac-toe and Mickey Mouse Club over here. I'm trying to build this to a point where we're all going to be good, because employees earn stock and all that stuff Absolutely, and you've got to give them some skin in the game. So set the standard at the top and give clear guidance. Somewhere I failed in the past where my guidance isn't necessarily crystal clear, which brings me back to the conversation we just had.

53:34

It's hard to paint that picture for other people and then build that roadmap and try to figure out how are we going to get to the end point. And a lot of it is milestones and having those conversations, having really hard conversations, like you got to step up your performance because we're a lean team and now we're not necessarily that lean. We got 14 people, we got our tech team, we have our product team, we have our marketing team. We have our product team, we have our marketing team, we have our member development team. There's some overlap there. Customer service is involved. Uh, it's a big part of it. Funding, legal, all those issues. Just, you're constantly putting out fires it's an operation.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 54:13

This isn't like you said, it's not a mickey mouse operation. Yeah, so those are the challenges, and are you like the type of manager that you are? Do you hit it head on? Yeah Right, because you're also dealing with different cultures. Yeah Right, it's not just Americans, it's people from around the world. Yeah, what's your management style? Like, do you go back to that? You know, courtroom type attitude and like, hey, fortune 500, like I'm going to hit it head on.

Zach Latos, Guest - 54:35

I try to be delicate about it, but there are certain issues. You have no choice. You have to be strategic. Let's wait and see. Let's not push buttons right now. Where are we at? Is this really a fire we have to deal with right now, or is it going to start a bigger issue for me and I'm not going to have an answer for it? So you have to play the role of strategist. Think about it. How am I going to approach the situation Is? Is it something I'm doing where I could actually tell you what to do a little bit better? I could try to get the most out of you or am I just going to come and start blaming you for not doing your work? You got to be patient.

55:07

Obviously, there's been instances where I'm as patient as I could possibly be and this just isn't working out. We're not the right fit. This isn't the right place for you. Sorry, find another place to work. This isn't the best for you. And then there's other times where it's like no, I could be better about my job. I could build a roadmap for this team, because the team's lost. They don't have direction, and I got to give you direction, like you're not going to come up with it. Right, it's not your job to. Something I want more out of the team is more autonomy. I want people to people in my company to not necessarily be so dependent upon me. Think for yourself. Right, it's tough. If this isn't the last place you work, I want you to go on to your next employer, the next job, and then turn and say, wow, you're an amazing employee. I want you to be poached because that means I did a great job of training you or I made the right hire.

George Stroumboulis, Host -

56:00

Yeah, and you excelled here, you flourished here.

Zach Latos, Guest - 56:02

Exactly, and that's what I want. I want people that are killers, like people that are just thinking critically for themselves, always pushing the outer limits of like what can I do here? How can I improve the company, the bottom line, and just take ownership of what you're building, because that's a reflection of you, that's a reflection of you and it's a reflection of me.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 56:19

Yeah, and it's tough right, like I see it in my company. It's like that ownership aspect. You know, I've struggled early on when we launched this company. It's like man, this employee in this country, just it's a nine to five and they clock in, they clock out Like I wish they would treat it like it's their own. And I remember there was a successful businessman and he's like but George, it's not theirs.

56:38

So you have to change your expectations. Obviously they need to perform, but if they're doing a nine to five and you're paying them for a nine to five, then make sure they know it's a nine to five. Obviously there's profit sharing and if they're not going above and beyond and all this stuff, so that one day just switched it, because growing up in the restaurant industry, I remember my mom would be like oh, this girl, she's not smart, she can't even give the right change back from the cash register and she would treat them just like an employee. And then they would complain like, oh, they call in sick, it's not like it's their business. What do you expect?

57:07

You're treating them like it's not their business either so just like village mentality and applying it here, it's constantly just talking to the right people. I find for me, and oh you know, different industry, but I like what Zach's doing there. Like, let me try to shift it. If we're not learning every day, then what are we doing?

Zach Latos, Guest - 57:23

Exactly this is a place to learn. But if you are doing that nine to five, do it right, do it right?

George Stroumboulis, Host - 57:30

Yeah, absolutely, and sometimes less is more like fewer hours in the day. You can be more efficient. I'm not. I don't need you there until midnight. Just to say you're there until midnight, it means you're not doing your job, right.

Zach Latos, Guest - 57:40

No one's working 40 hour work weeks if they're a nine to five salaried person. Totally that's not realistic, absolutely. But if you are going to work, you know, five hours a day, give me great work.

George Stroumboulis, Host - 57:51

Give me great work, like just go to town, absolutely yeah, you have a wealth of knowledge before I ask you just about advice. Okay, I want advice for the listeners business podcast, but we have a broad range of listeners. You came your family, your father's successful lawyer, your uncle's successful lawyer in Queens, new York, right Servicing the tri-state. How was that telling your dad that? Hey, dad, I'm leaving this, which is what our family does, and I'm going to start that. I can't imagine as an immigrant. It was truly, dad, I'm leaving this, which is what our family does, and I'm going to start that. I can't imagine as an immigrant. It was truly supportive. I'm making that assumption.

Zach Latos, Guest - 58:27

But how was that? We Greeks I'll speak about Greeks have this gene of entrepreneurship. Right, we took a boat. Our grandparents took a boat to cross the Atlantic with their kids, didn't speak the language, came to New York, set up either, built a business, worked really, really hard to put food on the dinner table and then wanted the most for their children. So it starts with my grandfather, who really was a taxi cab driver, painted bridges, didn't speak the language. He just passed away this summer. But what always stuck with me is like he would tell me imagine me coming to New York with a wife who was pregnant and then a newborn son. Imagine me who didn't know the language.