#344 Building a Startup for Gen Z: Sam Obletz on the Evolution of Claim

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today I'm very pleased joining me, Sam Obletz. Sam, thank you very much for joining me on the show. As I was telling you before we started the recording, the way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to tell [00:01:00] us a little bit more about themselves.

Mehmet: So same with you, tell us a bit more about your background, what you are up to currently, and then we can take the conversation from there.

Sam: Great. And first of all, thanks for having me on the show. It's an honor and I'm excited to chat with you over the next half an hour. So, um, so I'm Sam CEO of claim. Uh, my journey started in Portland, Oregon in the United States.

Sam: Grew up here. I started tinkering at a young age, started to really small and I'll emphasize that small businesses. When I was 10 and 11 years old, the first one was a computer integration company where I built gaming rigs and then sold them on Craigslist. And the second was a freelance web design company where I had to go out and market, you know, I'll redo your WordPress site or I'll, you know, build a CMS for you and, um, no one on the other side knew that it was a 11 year old and that was kind of fun.

Sam: And that was empowering. Also, when you're 11, you don't usually have living expenses. So that allowed me to kind of use income from those revenue streams and, and [00:02:00] kind of build and tinker and, and kind of, you know, create, um, over the next few years. After, um, I left home, I went to the East coast, went to undergrad, and then I moved to New York city.

Sam: I worked in investment banking at Goldman in New York for a number of years, and then moved into the investing side, investing Goldman's balance sheet. That was a really inspiring experience because I got to meet some incredible founders, um, from a venture capital perspective. And that inspired me to go become a founder one day that led me back to graduate school where I reunited with my closest friend, um, tap who became my co founder.

Sam: And we've been building claim ever since for the past three years. So it's been quite the journey. Um, and to do it with kind of your best friend is a special level of Trust and fun and celebrating the highs and the lows.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And thank you again, Sam, for being on the show today. So, you know, I, I just want to, to.

Mehmet: ask you this because some of my guests, they mentioned [00:03:00] also they started very early. Like I had one guest actually who they started not, I mean, in starting a company, but they started kind of an entrepreneurship journey very early, like at seven years and eight years. So does that give you a, I would say competitive advantage if we can use the term and in the sense that you learn a lot about the challenge early.

Mehmet: So when you actually You know, for example, when you start claim, you had something that you faced before, or maybe you've learned about before that helped you to overcome the challenges that usually startup faces, like, especially in the early days. So that's something that helped you, Sam.

Sam: So, uh, to, to kind of date myself here, we're talking 2001, 2002 ish.

Sam: Um, when I worked on this stuff. And so from a technical perspective, or. You know, a, a tech stack or, you know, anything of the like, nothing really translated there. But what did [00:04:00] translate is appreciating kind of the joys of, of building something. Um, and that probably is the greatest competitive advantage moment because, um, you know, entrepreneurship is a difficult journey.

Sam: It's a singular journey. Um, it often can be a lonely journey. And so at least to have like the twinkle or the, uh, I don't know, the glimmer of, of kind of what it feels like to build something definitely carries through now, um, even if it's subconscious,

Mehmet: that's absolutely, you know, something which also like I've, I've, You know, kind of, you know, um, learned myself because I can claim also that I thought maybe I didn't start a company or a business in the sense of a business, but you know, very early in, in, in, in my childhood, I would say like I was going with my father to his shop, you know, and I was trying to learn how trades happens.

Mehmet: And of course, these things comes back to you, you know, when you grow up. Now, one thing that always I ask founders, and maybe it sounds like kind of a Traditional question. So talking about [00:05:00] your current startup claim. So what I like to understand, Sam, is how did you spot, you know, that there's a problem that needs to be solved?

Mehmet: And I'm sure like there's a moment you said, okay, we, you and your co founder tap, there's now a need that we need to start building this now. So tell me more about the background, why you decided to build the company and what kind of problem you still, of course, aiming to, to solve with it.

Sam: Yeah. So, um, first of all, from going back to kind of our previous point, The motivation to us is so important.

Sam: And when tap and I talked about the type of company and kind of the audacity or ambition that we wanted to, to run after, we wanted to build something big and we wanted to build something at consumer scale. And so the kind of mantra that we repeated in, in at least my mind was, um, you know, build something big design, something beautiful.

Sam: And so what we started thinking about, um, when we were in our dorm room and in grad school. [00:06:00] Um, was really, um, understanding the experience of marketers today, um, and understanding the experience of consumers today. And I think the beautiful thing about claim is that all of us can relate to what claim is trying to accomplish on the consumer side.

Sam: And so I'll kind of share three insights that to us. Um, culminated and the early idea for claim, the first insight is that as consumers, um, our consumer attention is being pulled in a million different directions right now, and it's being diluted by the current social media platforms. So, if you think about, you know, scrolling on Facebook or Instagram or, or tick tock, you know, these days were interrupted by either influencers trying to sell us products.

Sam: Posts and the job to be done on Instagram isn't necessarily for us to go buy things, but that's certainly the job to be done for the platform. And so there's a fundamental mismatch there. And I think that resulted in a lot of us saying, we're done with social media. And, you know, as an example, I quit [00:07:00] Facebook in 2013.

Sam: I never got an Instagram because of being. Kind of dissatisfied with the current system. The second aspect that TAP and I noticed, um, again, mostly among our peers was that, um, our transactions or kind of interactions with one another feel impersonal. And what I mean by that is, am I liking your post on social media?

Sam: Am I sending you a Venmo or a Zelle? Basically our digital interactions have. Reduced the vivacity of, of our personal interactions. And we think that there's something about, you know, the human connection that needs to be restored. So that's kind of this consumer theme that we're, we're playing at the last part, which really kind of completed the puzzle for us was talking to the faculty at, at Harvard and particularly the marketing faculty and interviewing, you know, dozens and dozens of, of marketers and understanding that we're at a unique time where marketing is more difficult than ever.

Sam: Um, we've seen the cost to acquire customer kind [00:08:00] of the CPA triple in the past eight years across the board. That means that if you're a, you know, you're an entrepreneur, you're a founder, you're running a marketing organization, uh, getting your PNL to pencil is more difficult than ever because. You're trying to bring in a customer through the door and your unit, unit, unit economics aren't working, um, multi touch attribution, which is an industry term for, if we bring in a new customer, where did that customer come from?

Sam: And how do we allocate value to the sources that brought in that customer? That's an insanely complex, um, task and it's only getting more complex. And then these sort of thematic shifts in privacy, um, Google phasing out cookies, apples do not track or anti tracking technology. GDPR in the U. S. U. C. P. A. All of these things are kind of, um, converging on creating a really difficult experience for marketers.

Sam: And so, you know, if tap and I asked ourselves, what if we could reimagine what? The brand [00:09:00] and consumer relationship looked like, what if it didn't have to be this kind of push and pull, and instead we could create moments of delight for consumers to have experiences with their friends around new brands.

Sam: And therefore, you know, we kind of set off to replace advertising. And you know, I say that kind of flippantly, but that is the goal for claim is to Replace advertising as we know it today.

Mehmet: That's very great. Um now can I Say or claim And funny enough you you claim your startup name is claim. Yeah that You try to take the word of mouth and Usually the word of mouth happens between friends, family, and so on. And then take this experience and kind of digitize it. Can, can I say this is what you try to do?

Sam: Yeah, that's, that's exactly it. So word of mouth marketing has always been the holy grail, [00:10:00] because I think all of us have had this experience. If a friend or a family member recommends something to me, I am many multiples more likely to go try that thing. And so there have been various ways to try to productize word of mouth in the past.

Sam: Most of them come off pretty inauthentic, but on claim, what we're doing, the value that we're delivering to consumers is that you save money when you discover new brands with friends and for brands, we allow you to acquire and engage the next generation risk free and by next generation. Claim is all about Gen Z, which in the United States, you know, the, I think the beginning and end are a little bit blurry, but we focus on the college age demographic, which is where culture is defined in a lot of ways.

Sam: And that's why it's so interesting for marketers, but it's also so important for us to capture, um, what that demographic looks for. And in particular. Um, what they're recommending to each other from a word of mouth standpoint.

Mehmet: Now, I understand that you focus on, on [00:11:00] the consumer space and the Gen Z, of course.

Mehmet: But have you thought or do you think that this is something that can be applicable to other generations? And because if you think about it, actually, Sam, it's like, Someone like me. I think they call us the baby boomers. Um, so do you think that because at that time, you know, think, okay, so, so, so I was, you know, I was growing up when the internet just came, you know, like I was just like, probably 17 or 18 years at that time.

Mehmet: Um, Same thing with the social media and, you know, and I talk to a lot of my friends, so who are same of my generation. So they remember that, okay, you know, like we used to, for example, to discover the next, um, let's say video game. from someone who actually bought it and then he would start or she would start recommending to others, right?

Mehmet: So, so I think it's not maybe only Gen Z. So have you thought also, have you [00:12:00] experimented with other, I know like, of course it's very good practice to start with one segment of the market, but do you see that applicable later to other generations or maybe for the mass? This is one, and I know it's like crowd, like it's tough question, but take your time answering it.

Mehmet: The second part of the question is. I always ask why we can't have the same for business to business. Like, okay, consumer, it's, you know, very straightforward. It's very logical. Can be applied to even B2B in your opinion.

Sam: So. Question one is a good one. And you're also spot on with our intent with starting with a single demographic.

Sam: Um, the reason that we started with Gen Z is because it's a lot easier to understand what kind of college age students are doing and then move up market to millennials, Gen X, et cetera, et cetera, [00:13:00] than it is to start with older folks and move down market. At least that is our hypothesis. But to your question, you know, we see claim is if not universally, then broadly applicable to every consumer in a way, because we believe every consumer should have great experiences with their friends, should be able to discover new things.

Sam: Um, and should want to trust kind of the recommendation of their friends. And, you know, there are various examples that we point to in the industry. Um, honey being one of them. So honey is a browser extension. It was acquired for about 4 billion by PayPal several years ago. And honey would just sit in your browser.

Sam: And when you checked out an e commerce flow, it would automatically append coupons to your. Your cart, um, and therefore save you money and create kind of a little moment of delight or a little confetti moment. And so we use that as kind of table stakes for, for what we're trying to do with claim, um, where if you imagine that claim is [00:14:00] a, an app where it saves you money, but it also creates multiplayer or real world experiences with your friends.

Sam: Then we can create something exceptionally powerful that is still applicable from, you know, the time you first get your first debit card or credit card. You know, all the way through, uh, you know, your golden years. So that's, that's my answer to, to kind of where we're going to go with claim. It's just a question of timing and when we expand into these other demographics on the B2B question, my understanding is the extent of what, um, exists today.

Sam: Is something like a G2 or a trust pilot. Where there are kind of trusted sites that verified purchasers can leave lengthy B2B reviews on. And in addition, there are certain kind of referral schemes or give one and get one schemes. But what I haven't seen is, um, outside of probably really dense founder communities.

Sam: Any sort of social proof for [00:15:00] recommending B2B solution. So in other words, I'm not aware of a broad social network that is designed for founders or operators. Um, for recommending B2B solutions. So if somebody thinks that's a compelling idea to run at it, it could be cool.

Mehmet: Yeah. You just, you just gave a, uh, a good business idea to start because, you know, to your point again, nothing against the websites you just mentioned, but people always have, especially if it's a review, if it's someone just writing a review and especially nowadays, Oh, maybe they, I have wrote this.

Mehmet: So, so they always have this kind of, uh, You know, thought that that might not be real, or that might be biased somehow. Nevertheless, what I'm interested to ask you about Sam now, because you are all about, you know, marketing a service, and then back to the consumer space, of course. So, out of curiosity, how are you actually acquiring your own [00:16:00] customers?

Sam: Yeah, so, it starts with creating a moment. And in the U. S. we've had, you know, a ton of these moments over time. It used to be watching friends on Thursday nights and talking about it on Friday. Obviously, there are big macro moments like the Super Bowl or any Taylor Swift related news. Um, more recently, there were, uh, apps like be real.

Sam: Um, or HQ trivia. And the idea there is you're bringing everyone together to have this sort of collective experience. And we do the same thing with claim and we do a big drop and we call it the drop and it's Thursdays, um, at 11 AM Eastern time. And what that allows us to do is create a lot of hype and anticipation every week about the drop happening.

Sam: And during the drop. You're going to get your brand for the week to go try out. And so we text our users and everyone comes to the platform at the same time. We then create that sort of confetti or [00:17:00] moment of delight, you know, that I mentioned with, um, PayPal honey. And what this allows us to do is, is not only create hype for the drop, but also fear of missing out.

Sam: And so when we're launching, if you're not on claim, you're hearing all of your friends talk about the drop happening. And that is our own kind of. Word of mouth, um, organic marketing for claim and very tactically what we do to launch is we start in certain geographies and geofence it. And so we started on Harvard's campus 1st within about a month.

Sam: We had half of Harvard's campus on claim. And then now I think we're at 70 to 80 percent of Harvard's campuses on claim. We then took that sort of geo fenced approach and applied that to other universities in the United States, not just kind of Ivy league universities, but also, um, great state schools like UT Austin, university of Michigan, UCLA, USC, ASU, and being in those sort of dense communities.

Sam: Is kind of a hack that [00:18:00] many consumer startups use to grow quickly within, um, kind of a word of mouth context. And so there are various kind of. Feed on the street or boots on the ground motions that we use in order to activate at a campus. But we now have a playbook where if we want to go launch in a given geography, we know what we need to do to lay the groundwork.

Sam: And within a few weeks we can be at thousands and thousands of consumers.

Mehmet: Um, you know, like, Again, I love this because you know, you're, you're applying your concept within your company itself, which is, which is fantastic. So, um, because like, it will be very weird if you would tell me, yeah, I'm using an ad to get this.

Mehmet: So it's like, yeah,

Sam: that would be antithetical.

Mehmet: Now you mentioned something about social media and the use of social media. Um, So someone, and again, I'm not asking this question to challenge, but [00:19:00] just like as they say, food for thought, right? So someone might say, yeah, you're right. You know, like we see a lot of things that we don't want to see usually, uh, over there, but the population is there.

Mehmet: So why I don't take the moment and I know like some platforms, You know, sometimes they run really good. Uh, I mean, from price perspective, so their CPA is still affordable for many. Um, mainly, you know, maybe it's Instagram, TikTok, these platforms. If I want to think about Gen Z, right. And I've seen even, you know, some people who talks a lot about another platform where you can give ads, which is X or Twitter formerly.

Mehmet: So how, how do you see this? Like, do you, do you think like this kind of, of, um, conception that, okay, I need to [00:20:00] follow the mass if I want to grow, because you know, the more people are on a platform, of course, I will not be able to bring all of them to my service or product, but you know, like it's a large ocean.

Mehmet: So like, If I put my net, I'm going to get some fishes. Like, do you think this is really something still logical today to do? Or you believe, and you told me you don't have account anymore on some of these platforms. Do you, do you see it like, no, like this going to go nowhere from, from, from this point forward?

Sam: It's a great question. I think the self aware and sophisticated marketers realize that The numbers aren't lying on these platforms. So I do agree. You can probably find, especially if you're a brand growing incredibly quickly, a lot of value in, you know, Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. And it certainly is a scale play.

Sam: Um, and it's a reliable play. And so if I'm a marketer allocating a 10 million [00:21:00] budget, I know I can, you know, put 10 million in and some, you know, slight multiple of that will come out. And in marketing, what we are looking at in the data is seeing that the return on ad spend, which is essentially the return on investment.

Sam: On Instagram, which is measured as essentially revenue that comes from each dollar of marketing spent that has converged to about two. And a two X return on ad spend is difficult because that doesn't bake in anything about your own cost structure. That is purely top line. And when Instagram was. Five, 10 years ago, marketers were frequently getting three to four X return on ad spend.

Sam: And so clearly if CPA is to your point for e commerce are hovering in the 15 to 50 range, if not more, um, it is difficult right now to get a high return on ad spend. On Instagram, but you are benefiting [00:22:00] from the scale. Cause all the consumers are there. The other difficulty though, is you become beholden to the algorithm.

Sam: I don't mean that in a scary way, the all seeing all, you know, all powerful algorithm. But it's the very real reality that if you try to pull back spend, um, you get penalized at the end of the quarter. And the algorithm itself is opaque and. Marketers tell us is capricious. And so we're, we're, we're told all the time that Instagram, Facebook are like a drug.

Sam: And part of, um, part of what makes claim appealing is that it is an alternative to these platforms. Um, and so, whereas we can't compete with the, you know, billions of people that are on Instagram yet, what we can offer With claim is a very differentiated and captive audience in Gen Z and more than anything.

Sam: And this is the, maybe the most crucial learning for, for me. Um, we have gotten people on claim excited [00:23:00] about seeing an ad every week. That's what the drop is, is we're showing you a brand. We think you'll. You'll like, and contrast that feeling of excitement and anticipation with, Oh no, like another sponsored post, probably for like something I already bought, um, that's just a very different experience.

Sam: So there are pros and cons, but the marketers that you see talking at conferences, the people that are trying to be industry leaders, they're always willing to try new things and try to capture the arbitrage before the rest of the market, um, you know, wades in and causes what's happening on Instagram, which is a.

Sam: You know, two X return on ad spend.

Mehmet: Absolutely. It's, it's, you know, I love, you know, and ask this question because love to see the perspective from your side, because I'm sure also when, um, when you prepared, you know, kind of your business strategy. You've looked at the competition and you noticed all the pitfalls that they have.

Mehmet: So it's great to, to, to, to hear [00:24:00] this from you. Now, I know like you have, you know, you've done something which not everyone can do, which is securing funding from major players like Sequoia Capital, which is Absolutely not a small feat, right? So I'm interested to know, you know, about, you know, how was the funding journey looks like and did, you know, you know, your previous experience working in the investment side help you also in this?

Mehmet: Um, and I'm asking again, I ask these types of questions to Give some hints to fellow founders on their journey when they decide to raise funds.

Sam: Yeah. So, um, we can talk for a long time about this Mehmet, but I'll, I'll keep my thoughts brief. The first question I think any founder should ask is, um, what type of funding is right for my business?

Sam: And there's this gravitation towards venture, but venture has certainly pros and cons. Um, and the next [00:25:00] question the founder should ask is when is it right to seek outside capital. And there's a trade off because the more you can de risk the business, the better valuation you can command, the less dilution that you'll therefore take.

Sam: And, um, you know, if you can add capital. At the right time and put that capital to work. That's only going to benefit kind of your growth trajectory. Um, for us, we were fortunate to raise a precede institutionally, um, back at the end of 21, early 22 from 2 great investors. 1, um, Sousa ventures out of the Bay area and 2 box group out of New York City.

Sam: Both, um, our partners there, we work with Chad Byers and Greg Rosen respectively, have been absolutely lights out, just fantastic individuals. And so the kind of second learning from my journey is it's so important to find mission aligned, values aligned people that you're willing to build with for a decade.

Sam: Because, um, you know, when you're trying to build a venture scale business, [00:26:00] you're not designing for a quick win, you're not designing for. You know, a 10 million, a 50 million, or a 100 million exit, because that's not What you're essentially signing up for. You're signing up for a billion plus exit. And that usually takes, you know, based on us equity markets or M and A or otherwise, um, a long time.

Sam: And so we were fortunate to start with great investors and we've since layered on some incredible folks, including. Sequoia as well. Uh, we also had the benefit and curse of raising at different types, different times in the fundraising cycles. We raised when capital was flush in the market. We also raised when capital was more constrained in the market.

Sam: Um, and the stories that you tell, what you emphasize and kind of where you focus. As a founder during those fundraisers is very different. And lastly, to answer your question directly, I did benefit from kind of seeing in small ways, um, the investor's perspective on what a fundraise looks [00:27:00] like, what you're solving for as an investor.

Sam: And, you know, there was, uh, there's kind of the school of thought as an investor that, you know, You're buying a piece of a company. And so as a founder, then if you can orient your mindset around, I'm selling a piece of my company. This is why this should be interesting for an investor to add to their portfolio as an owner of my company.

Sam: It's kind of the Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger mindset of they are owning a piece of your company. You are partnering together. And the more that you can kind of frame it that way, that's where we had success.

Mehmet: Uh, great insight, Sam again. And, uh, So did you, did you see, you know, also they get interested because you are, for example, talking to a new segment, which is the Gen Z, right?

Mehmet: So this is a kind of an untapped market, or do you think it is just the idea of like, you have large population that you can target? Like, is it, is it like the [00:28:00] market size that, you know, uh, attracted the investors more, or is it, you know, actually. Your focus, or let's say your, uh, ideal custom profile that attracted them.

Mehmet: Of course, I'm sure like when you went there and you raised, you know, the, the round, you must have some tractions. You've did some market research and so on, but I'm interested to know like what was, I would say in your opinion, the thing that, you know, they said, okay, this is a green light for us. We should go ahead and do it.

Sam: It probably varies on, on each stage of funding, right? So at the pre seed stage, it's about the team and. You know, the idea and the product is maybe not even in existence, right? At the seed stage, it's team product traction, you know, et cetera, et cetera. What, what we never had to contend with fortunately is questions over total addressable market, because we're going after essentially every consumer.

Sam: Who has a credit or debit card. Um, and so as, as [00:29:00] opposed to, you know, other startup ideas, we didn't have to have a TAM slide to talk about why this could be a big thing, which was great. But because we're, we're kind of fishing in that larger pond, it meant that we had to be more. Precise about why this was the right opportunity.

Sam: And to us, you know, claim is a marketplace business and marketplace businesses are difficult to start, but once they get going and marketplace to start to balance, they're pretty unstoppable. And so if you think about, you know, Uber or Airbnb or door dash or eBay, um, some of these marketplace businesses become the most enduring non AI companies in recent memory.

Sam: And so I think it was solving a specific need for marketers that is very acutely felt combined with solving a very specific, actually generalizable need. I think for consumers, which is we want to save money. We want to have better relationships with our friends. We want to discover new things. We want to create memories and that sort of marketplace [00:30:00] businesses business that serves.

Sam: Both sides of that market, I think is probably the compelling aspect of what we're building.

Mehmet: Um, probably I wasn't intentionally aiming to have this conclusion, but I'm happy you mentioned something very important, Sam. And, um, and the reason I asked you like what attracted, because I think each startup is unique.

Mehmet: Of course, like there are some common grounds when it comes to to raising funds, like, of course, you need to present your team. You need to do this. The message I was trying to convey, and you helped me a lot in this is, you know, founders, they should. Consider themselves unique, not only from what makes them different from the others.

Mehmet: I mean, even the way they go and talk to the, to the investors, because you see now people say, Hey, you should do one, two, three. This is how your pitch should look like. This is, these are the slides. Uh, it's not, I'm saying this is wrong, but I, I always tell, you know, founders like, Okay, like [00:31:00] these are samples for you or something that get you inspired to build your own thing and don't, you don't have necessarily to follow like hundred percent, you know, all this because sometimes we don't need some part of it.

Mehmet: So I'm, I'm really happy you mentioned that. And the second thing you, you mentioned, which also like made me smile when you said non AI. And again, this shows that it's not always good to, you know, just jump on the bandwagon because Yeah, you can still have very good, healthy business, a very good startup idea, and you don't have to put jargons and, you know, high ports and, you know, all these things to, to show yourself successful.

Mehmet: So I'm happy you mentioned also this, uh, now coming back to, to, to claim, do you see it, uh, growing on a global level also as well? Do you have plans for, for scaling in the future? Like, um, tell me a little bit more about [00:32:00] how you see Claim in like, I would say like in, in three, four years, uh, down the road from now.

Sam: Yeah. And I just wanted to, to, to key in on one point you said, um, And again, end of one fundraising journey here. But, um, at a large venture capital firm, partners are evaluating or being exposed to thousands of deals. They're probably taking hundreds of meetings a year and making a handful of investments.

Sam: And chances are they have probably seen something close to or adjacent to the business that you're trying to build. Um, and so when you can be. More authentic about what motivates you, why you're different. Obviously there's a, there's a line that you need to be careful of around humility and self awareness, but the more that you can bring that sort of authenticity to the conversation will be memorable in their mind as they're trying to matter, excuse me, pattern match across.

Sam: You know, every other deal that they've evaluated, um, in the space that you're, you're operating. So [00:33:00] I did want to, to emphasize that, that I agree with you there. Um, so your question on where does claim go from here in a dream scenario, we are making savings cool. Again, we are creating easy and affordable memories, and that is transferable across the globe from a technical perspective and where we want In terms of growing the company, I see us being, um, U.

Sam: S. based over the next 1 to 2 years. And then we'll evaluate where the next kind of great markets to grow in. There are some aspects of our tech stack that are rather complicated. Um, you know, claim is a consumer app on the, on the front end. And in a lot of ways, a FinTech on the back end, we're interacting with a lot of transaction data.

Sam: Um, as well, which is pulled from various issuers and sources and the likes. So, um, there's some complexity there, but we do have aspirations for this to be, um, a global tool, a global app in the same way that, you know, PayPal, [00:34:00] various other, um, fintechs are able to serve a global audience. I think we're, We'll probably be in the three to four year horizon for that.

Sam: But like I said, it's a decade long journey. So we're still in the early stages.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And, uh, to emphasize on something you mentioned a couple of times, and I forget to, to, to mention before also is about preparing yourself for the long journey. I think this is something very important. Um, The other day, you know, I was speaking to someone and, you know, they had this idea and they kept mentioning about the exit value and the money.

Mehmet: And then there's a very famous video by Steve Jobs where he say, like, if someone comes to me and, you know, Their only thing that they think about is just money. I tell them, you know, I can't help you because you need to have a kind of passion. You need to have Patience also as well. So it's a long journey.

Mehmet: It's not like a get rich quick scheme, right? Where oh, I found like a good idea [00:35:00] tomorrow. I'll put it I will get the investment and then Someone will come and buy the company probably in two years and I will become like a multi. It can happen. Of course, it can happen,

Sam: but like tap and I, you know, we, we've said this when we were evaluating ideas before claim, oftentimes the most excited you'll be about something at the beginning, when you're naive to all the challenges with building, whatever you're excited about.

Sam: And obviously in the journey, we've had highs already that surpassed our excitement at the beginning, but for the most part. If you're not excited at the beginning, and you're not all consumed by it at the beginning, it might not be worth your time because things get difficult when you're trying to start something.

Mehmet: Yeah, and I've seen people also who got frustrated because they were not, they thought that they are excited, but they were not. You know, they, they, they were just, you know, I don't know what is the exact word, but, you know, they thought that [00:36:00] something easy to do, let's say they underestimated, you know, um, Uh, how hard is it to build something and you know, I always give Example even I say forget about a startup, right?

Mehmet: I mean in the term of a company I said take podcasting for example as as As another thing to talk about so Do you know, like I said, do you know, like majority of the start the podcast, they don't do more than 10 episodes on average, I think 90% or something like this. And the reason is people get excited.

Mehmet: They think they get excited about the idea of podcasting. Yeah. And then they leave, uh, and they said the same story with the startups because you think, okay, I'm excited to build this, but actually you don't have the passion. And one exercise I hear from one of my guests, I, I actually multiple guests, is, you know, the, the idea is to ask.

Mehmet: You know a couple of times why i'm doing this, you know, and then you keep asking the why it's coming from the japanese you know Philosophy is like making the kaizen. So you [00:37:00] keep asking the wise you keep asking these five times wise until you say Yeah, this is exactly what I want to do because one two, three, four five.

Mehmet: So absolutely on this and and I

Sam: borrowed to a um Another tip that i've kind of used I borrowed from ryan peterson who's the ceo of flexport And, um, on the journey. So let's say you are obsessed with something you are excited, you're raring to go, and then the highs become high and the lows become low.

Sam: Um, I've started doing a quarterly audit of my own time and what gives me energy and what depletes my energy. And if you can essentially take a week and you can classify how you spent your time that week into three categories, red, yellow, and green, red being energy depleting, green being energizing. Um, if you then can figure out ways to either cut or delegate the reds and promote or sustain the greens that can create a more [00:38:00] sustainable way for you to continue to build.

Sam: And it's something that, you know, whether it's Kaizen or, or this strategy. It can help shape your perspective and keep your motivation for the long haul.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Absolutely, Sam. Now, as we almost came to an end, and this is again, maybe a traditional question, but final words of wisdom for fellow entrepreneurs.

Mehmet: Because you have, you know, this, uh, uh, skin in the game, as they say, you started early, as we, we discussed before. So kind of, you know, what, maybe not generic advice, but because especially let's focus on people who want to build for the Gen Z, because you are in this space now. So what advice you can give them and maybe in general as well, and where people can find more about you and about, uh, Claim.

Sam: Yeah. So, so two, two quick generalized pieces of advices. Then we can talk Gen Z. Um, number one is surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. I'm fortunate in our team that I have that, um, because [00:39:00] you need people to help you see around corners, whether it's investors, advisors, teammates, subordinates, et cetera.

Sam: Um, it's really important. And the second piece of advice is to try to, to zoom out and have a little bit of perspective, um, at a time where it feels like everything is blowing up, um, it is comforting and my wife helps me with this to realize that. We're we have the opportunity to build something big and we are surrounded by smart people.

Sam: We do have great capital partners. We are running after a massive, massive problem. And so, you know, Lowe's hopefully are just blips towards building a enduring company. Um, from a Gen Z perspective, if you're trying to go reach Gen Z, you just got to talk to them. It's so funny to go to conferences and see.

Sam: You know, people in their thirties or forties or even up to older scratching their heads and saying either, how do we reach Gen Z or worse? This is how to reach Gen Z. And you know, in the same [00:40:00] way that social proof and word of mouth is core to everything we do, you really have to deeply and authentically understand the folks you're trying to serve.

Sam: And so that for us means there's a lot of Gen Z folks on our team. And it means that we're talking to students, our customers. Every single day directly and you just got to do that. Um, and realize that it's a blind spot if you're, if you're not part of the, uh, demographic that you're trying to serve.

Mehmet: Great. Thank you very much, Sam, for these insights and advices, I would say. And, uh, so where they can, uh, you know, the website or maybe, um, where they can find more.

Sam: Yeah. Um, so our website's claim. co C L a I M dot C O. Um, our Instagram handle is, uh, claim underscore co I am not on Instagram, but you can find me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, uh, slash Sam Obletz.

Sam: Uh, on X, Sam Oblitz, um, my emails also, uh, I can give to Mehmet to put in the show notes if it's [00:41:00] interesting, but I'm happy to chat with other founders who are building.

Mehmet: Sure. Sure. Great. Thank you very much, Sam. The links will be in the, uh, in the show notes. Indeed. And again, thank you very much for the time.

Mehmet: And, you know, I know as a founder, how much busy you are, uh, and excited at the same time to continue building, uh, the great platform you are doing. I like the idea, honestly. Um, so. This is for the audience and this is how I end my episodes usually if you liked this episode and you discovered us now by luck.

Mehmet: Thank you very much for that. Please do me a favor if you can subscribe and share this with Because the aim of this podcast is to help founders help founders on one side. Also to educate anyone who's interested about tech startups, entrepreneurship, because as you can see, We cover a lot from entrepreneurship perspective, tech perspective and marketing sales and all the other stuff that is really [00:42:00] pitching to investors also as well.

Mehmet: So if you liked this episode, please subscribe to the show. You will find a lot of great episodes out there. And if you are one of the loyal fans who keep coming and keep sending me their messages, their comments, suggestions, thank you very much for doing so. Keep And finally, if you are a founder, tech leader, you have an idea.

Mehmet: You are looking for a place to get your voice out. Don't hesitate to reach out to me. You know where you find me. I'm more active on LinkedIn. Reach out. Let's discuss and we can find a time to do it. Thank you very much for tuning in and we'll meet again very soon. Thank you. Bye bye.