Building a No-Swipe Dating App With AI on a Small Budget

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone. My name is Armando Perez-Carreno and welcome to the Web Talk Show. Today with us is Richard from Authenti. How are you Richard? Tomando. I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. I we we were having this show uh last week and then suddenly we had a little family emergency had to run off and so Richard has been so good to come back on the show so we could do it again. So thanks a lot for that uh Richard. But before we get into Authenti, can you please just tell our listeners a little bit about how you got to where you are and how Authenti came along? Okay. So, serial entrepreneur, graduated high school in ' 82. 6 months I sweat equity into my first restaurant operation and I never looked back. I've never worked for anybody in over 44 years. I've created all the businesses and concepts that I've ever been in. And that's anywhere from health clubs, nightclubs, restaurants, marketing companies, construction companies. I just find a niche. I see where something could be done and it kind of like gets piped into me. Like I'll see a building and I just get like an inspiration and then I just if you're an entrepreneur, it's all about execution. A lot of us have ideas and nobody executes or pulls the trigger. Um, with Authenti, it was just very interesting because, you know, I was in a long-term relation, 25-y year marriage, um, and then another long-term relationship behind that. So, I was never in the dating apps. They didn't exist before I started it. And when I'm married, you're not going to be in them. But I watch a lot of my friends and families and clients and my my health club industry and stuff, you know, on them. And I've seen the decline over the years and the frustration of what's going on in that specific industry. So, what we created with Authenti is not really a dating app. And the concept came to me. It's kind of like you got a music speaker, right? Playing your favorite band. If you break that speaker open, you're not going to see the band. that's kind of like piped in and this concept just got piped into my idea is like why don't you create something in a better world and then I went and researched the industry and I'm like wow people really want to **[00:02:00]** get together and people really want to meet but the systems broken kind of like what Uber most likely did when it looked at the taxi industry like we knew people wanted to get from here to there and point A point B but they were doing it incorrectly so Uber didn't compete with taxis they kind of replaced them created a whole new lane in the ride share industry it's no longer I don't even think people call taxis anymore. I travel all over the world and it's always Uber, Uber. I I've never flagged a taxi in I don't know how long. And that's really what Authenti is. We're not in the dating app category. We're something completely different. We don't have profiles visible to the general public only to intentional people you decide to meet. We have privacy and discretion. We're not There's no swiping. There's no um um objectifying. There's no marketing of yourself. you're presenting yourself and who you are today, you know, what you're looking for today. It's not about posting pictures and people get to look at it. It's so it's a big change from what's out there, but it's because it's all about intentional. Um you're not swiping all day long looking for your perfect mate. Wear out looking for you. You set it and forget it. And I think, you know, the whole concept really just came to me from seeing friends and family frustrated what was out there. And I think I was taking a shower one day and it just came to me, you know, why don't you look at this? So I went So every every business that I've done, I never was involved in that business until I opened it. Like sure, the restaurant industry, I like to eat, but I never owned a restaurant. I figured it out. I've been working out since I'm 14 years old. I never owned a gym, but I didn't like the gyms I was going to, so I built my own. Um, the same with anything I've ever done. And then you just do a deep dive. You know, that's the job of the entrepreneur. do a deep dive, see if there's a marketplace there, see if you could bring it to execution. And the world of AI is now like a it's a dream come true for inventors and creators because you could get to market rapidly fast, so inexpensive. Like when I brought Authenti to a dev company, they wanted a quarter million dollars in six to nine **[00:04:00]** months before I was out to see in the market. I went and built it myself and went back a few weeks later, I think four weeks later, and I'm not a tech guy at all. So, I put 12 different AI tools I used to do it, brought it back to the same dev company, $25,000 or less, and be in market in six And that's how Authenti came to life because now as a creator and an inventor, you actually could get MVPs, you could get things built, you could do it yourself with a significantly cost savings and more importantly, time efficiency. So, your idea comes to concept. You know, everything that I've done so far with AI, I'm in business within six or eight weeks. We have another app coming out behind this. I've done patents on Authenti. Okay. The last patent I did was 9 months, $30,000. This patent was less than an hour and a half, 750 bucks filing fee. I'm patent protected now. I did my trademark, opened the banks. It does everything for you. So, it's not I don't look at AI as artificial intelligence. I look at it as amplified which is not giving me anything artificial or fake. It's just grabbing the data at a very fast efficient manner and you still got to check it. You got to look at just like you would check a co-orker's work. If they give somebody gives me a report, I'm looking at what they did. I'm not taking it for okay, you're good. You know, you you always got to double check. That's what your job is as a leader. But the fact that you could get that information and get it that effectively like even it's doing AI in my authentic um service is on the back end finding the matches for me rapidly. Right? So you're coming in, Armando's coming in, you know, or Rich is coming in, you know, I'm 6'3, 210 pounds, and I'm physically fit, dark hair, and I'm looking for 5'6, physically fit, you know, open to I'm telling them what I'm looking for, and I'm telling what I am. And that amplified intelligence is going through my database in lightning **[00:06:00]** speed and bringing back 5, 10, 15, 20, all depends on how many people in the database fit my criteria. And then it's comparing all the onboarding questions about my likes, my hobbies, my beliefs, my philosophies, and say, "Oh, this person is really identical or close to you, and this is your percentage match. Do you want to be introduced to that?" So, I just said it and then I forget it. So, I'm not spending Saturday night swiping. You know, the profiles are but you're not being your profiles not being revealed until you're intentionally introduced to that person. your pictures are not being revealed until you're intentionally introduced to that person, which what's that mean? Um, you're up and coming in the career Why should your boss, co-workers, mail room, doorman, everybody get to see your photos and get to see your profile? You have no interest in being with these people on an intimate level, on a relationship level. Why do they get that little just call peeping tom experience? They get to see what's going on there. Right. We don't even give a last name on authentic because why should people get to do a deep dive on you before you get to present yourself, not market yourself, talk to them and live in the moment about what you are today. So, you're going to see a smoked out image of that physical person you're looking for. And they're going to see a smoked out image of you. So, there's going to be enough of an image reveal where they know, okay, he definitely is tall, he definitely is fit, he does have dark hair, but they're not going to see all of it. So, it's a little bit of romance and mystique. Hm. And then after you get over 70%, now it's in the human's handbag again. You can What do you want to share? You want to share your last name, you want to share what you do for a living. Um, you want to share a photo, but now the photo you're sharing, maybe I talked to this woman that I'm a big avid motorcyclist and so is she. So, I'm going to show her a picture of me driving, you know, in the canyons or something out in out in Colorado in the desert cuz it's a picture related to who and what I am. It's just not some selfie screenshot of me sitting by a pool with the best shadow and the best lighting and being **[00:08:00]** judged by my looks. This is a picture of who and what I do. And you know this because we've already talked about it. So, I'm going into a relationship with somebody that I'm already informed and it works the other way too, right? The AI could bring me together with that so-called perfect match by our ideals and stuff, but we might start talking and realize, you know, this is a flat tire. We're not going anywhere. So, why should you know my last name? Why should you see my pictures? Why should you see what I do for a living? Because I don't want you to make a decision on me because I'm a serial entrepreneur and I own 10 companies. I don't want that person in my life. I want somebody to make a decision on me cuz tomorrow I go bankrupt and be broke. Are you going to be there for me when I'm there? Like the old song, right? Will you be there if I lose everything? You know, everybody everybody loves to be there when everybody's riding high. You know, that's even what I tell people with Authenti. We could bring you together with somebody. We're going to give you an above average chance of having a successful long-term relationship, but that relationship's going to be tested by life. And it's how you go through those life experiences together whether you're really ideally met. And there's no dating app or any kind of system that could matchmaker that could tell you how you're going to handle certain things in life. Mhm. you know, but there are apps now that are designed for transactional hookup financial, you know, they're just they're just icky. They give me the ick. That's a word I heard and that's being used now. And then you're going to have a service like that mine that's really authentically trying to give it a best shot of finding something that you're aligned with, but also giving you back time. We're going to give you privacy. You're newly divorced. You don't want anybody to know what's going on in your life, but you want to enter the dating world again. You don't need the drama. Kids, family, in-laws. Nobody knows you're there. Unfortunately, people get widowed, too, and you want to get back into the world, but you don't want people's opinion too soon. You didn't wait. You didn't grieve long enough. Or you did the job Well, just simple, you know, privacy and discretion. Like, you know, the person who's interested in me, I could bear my soul and show you my pictures and do everything. The **[00:10:00]** person that's not, why should they get to have a judgment of me? And why should I get to judge them? So the way the apps are service designed for now, we're actually their products and one of our big slogans and we have t-shirts and hats that match. We are not products. The human being was never meant to be a product. So here in New York, we have four million people on dating apps. So that's about 20 million photos that's belongs to these dating apps services. You're paying them 40 or 50 bucks a month to post your photos, which then they're using to get somebody else to join based on your product to make them a product. So, they have a full product inventory store that cost them actually nothing and you're paying them for it. Now, I have the same product. I have the same profiles, but I'm not showing it to anybody to exploit my financial gain. I'm only showing it to the people that's going to help you gather an intelligent, you know, um, intentional relationship. It's big difference than what they do to what we're offering. I like the concept. I remember back in the IRC days when the internet was just starting and you were using uh, MIRC, right, to to chat with people. It was a completely blind chat. You had usernames. Nobody used their real names. you were chatting with people around the world, but you got to interact with people. Well, before a bunch of crazy things started happening, of course, but when when things were still genuine and people were actually interacting, I remember having very interesting conversations with people around the world who I had no idea what they looked like, what they did, etc. And it was a nice experience because you got to to just just talk about Yeah. Be you. Exactly. And so you're not performing, right? You're not you're not doing a performance. Right. Right. That that's why I like it. But as you were talking, I this is **[00:12:00]** excellent because that way you can if you match by other parameters, then you start a conversation and and then it it it's a way of getting to know each other and then the rest comes after. But once you've actually seen if there's any any chemistry even even just by by by talking, right? Yeah. Because you're going to have, right, you're going to get like you could be lined up with someone physically they match what you're looking for. We've all been there. You know, 60% of the people couples today in the world are with somebody that's not considered to be their type. Because that shows you where that's why the dating app, the way they're set up now, it's kind of wrong. You're like everybody's looking for hot hot not, And we could be physically aligned and we could ask you the same questions, but then when we start talking to each other, we just don't have that And if that percentage doesn't grow high enough for you to do the full reveal, no harm, no foul, no judgment. It's just, hey, you're not for me. That's cool. Wish you well. No ghosting, none of the stuff that happens on there. No identity theft because they don't even have your identity. We're preventing and and and to get to the introduction phase, you belong to our site for free until you go into the introduction phase. And then you pay, I think founding members, it's $129 for 12 months for unlimited introductions. But you have to pay to get to that introduction level. And that's where you're going to lose a lot of the people who, let's just say, have um not your best interest at heart with these sites looking to scam you or steal because scammers have enough to do for free. They don't pay a dollar to get You know, that's why they consider themselves good thieves of people's, you know, emotions and and and then their money cuz they don't invest. They just go and do what they the creepy stuff. So now you flatline the conversation. It's not a big deal, but it grows and then it's a wow. Okay, we're really not only does the the database configuration say we match our communication. So it's not I'm not AI dating. We're not AI hooking up. We're human designed using AI as amplified intelligence to rapid fire everything to get you through a **[00:14:00]** process. The average person, and this amazed me, 280 hours a year they'll spend swiping Okay. That's two and a half or two months and one two months, two weeks of work that they'll be swiping. I tell people because I work with a lot of people in recovery and and some of my other story in my life. You need apps because I know so many people who swear I'm off it. I'm never going to go on these apps again. They're terrible and now they're home alone on a Saturday night. They had a couple of glasses of wine or tequila back on the app. And then Monday they're depressed because they went back on the app. The same as if you were somebody who was addicted to alcohol or drugs. you had a slip and then you're depressed because you did exactly what you didn't didn't want to do, which is okay. We all learn from all that stuff. But that's how the apps are designed. They're actually designed for a dopamine effect and they give algorithms that ensure non-long-term because they want you to continually swipe and improve their cash flow. I in our marketing material on the website, I want people three to six months in a relationship. I hope it lasts and if it doesn't, I hope at least it's a good experience so you come back for more. See, they're betting on the fact that they feel they can't lose their customer base. They want their monthly cash flow. I'm betting on the fact on the high road that there's more people, and I know this statistically entering the dating world every year, whether it's by age, divorcing, widowing, long-term relationship ending, then or leaving. So, what if we made a system that actually serviced them better? It would increase the relationships. There's so many people who even touch dating apps anymore or who never like myself never really been on one because I was aged through it, you know. But now at 61, I talk to other people who are similar my age. Like, I would never go on those apps, but I'll **[00:16:00]** try this because it's private. It's about me and who I want to meet because there is a physical attraction component to all our relationships. You know, I'm not stupid. I get it. What will that physical attraction come down a couple of notches when that other person checked all the other boxes? Because if you if you the more you get mature in life, you realize your physicality is changing. All right? But now if this person is hitting all the other boxes, will you now say might not be that hot one that I wanted, but wow, she's beautiful in other ways. That's why 60% of the people in this world are with somebody who's not their type because they've gone through the type. It's called type abuse and we do it and it's self-inflicted. A lot of us, a lot of us shop way outside of our category. Wouldn't even give somebody in our category a chance cuz we think we're better than that. We got our teeth kicked in. We got our money taken. We got our hearts broken. All this crazy stuff happens to us. And not because they were doing it intentionally or they're a bad person. It's all self-inflicted because we chose that person to be in our life. And a lot of us don't want to take ownership. You know, I look at life as there is no mistakes. It's just another take. It's kind of like we're producing a movie. Take one, take two, take three, mistake one, mistake two, mistake three. You're the director, you're the lead actor. You're bringing in all your cohorts. You could cut them whenever you want. You could give them a supporting role. You can give them an academy. It all decides on what you want to do. You know, one of the best things I do for my life every day. I wake up and realize that I'm in the best magic show ever because I know for a fact two things are going to happen to me today. Things are going to appear in my life and things are going to be removed from my life. Just like they appear by magic. The only ones I complain about are ones that get taken. I don't complain about the good stuff but I complain about leaving them. So, you can't have both ways. You just got to realize, you know, this is it. Something's going to be taken today and something's going to be given to you today. And you just It's how you react to it. Oh, yeah. That's going to dictate how your life is going to be. You can react to it like angrily and you're going to have a very sad day. **[00:18:00]** You can react to it like responsibly, mature, and say, "Okay, all right." because we're not going through anything. We're growing through You know, there is no woise me. It just is what it is. And and we should try and make everything simpler. Like connections should be simpler. You know, there what's out there now is enticing you to market yourself. It's saying show your best self. So people aren't intentionally lying, but they might take a picture. Like we talked before the show, I I do some competition with physique, bodybuilding. Do I show that picture from my show two years ago when I took second place or do I show today? But it's telling me to show my best self. That was my best But now when you meet me, it's like, wait, where's that eight pack? Where's that? Well, that's when I was in show condition. I'm not in show condition now. It's like I can't maintain that body forever. That would be insane. It's like, but that's what it's But so you're not lying. You're being asked to market We're authentic. We're just saying talk about yourself today. So, I really can't put in, you know, I weigh about 218 today. I can't put in I'm 198 and I won't be able to do it. Your brain stops when you're describing yourself when you're showing a picture of yourself. When you're marketing, there's two different parts of the brain. I'm not a a brain neuroscientist, but I do enough research, I just remember all the terminology that when you market yourself, the pitch comes in. When you're talking, it's kind of like your perennial gan and your manigula. They they the different parts of the brain get fired. When when you're in a descriptive self, you're just answering questions honestly because it's very hard for me to type. You know, I'm 6'3 198 when I know I'm 6'3 and 218. But if I got to show you a picture when I was 28, I'm okay with showing that picture because that is who you know what I So, it's not like people are intentionally doing it. They're being they're being enticed to do it that now gives **[00:20:00]** a product to a site that I pay for to be part of their show. I'm not going to knock the guy's business. I think what he did was outstanding when it started, but it's just gotten a little bit out of hand Yeah. Well, it's a you can do the parallel with real estate, right? You see the houses and the pictures and you have to showcase the house otherwise the bad pictures people won't even visit the property even if it's good. And so you're not lying, but the wide angle makes the space shine cuz it looks sure spacey and all that, but some new construction 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. You did it like not with the stained carpets and and it's like but it the the platform Yeah. sort of shoves you that way. Um makes makes perfect sense. The the whole marketing yourself thing is it's really bad nowadays. Uh I hear a lot from people who like Instagram, they they see these other like moms, right? They see other moms with young kids and they they're like they get depressed or frustrated. How how is how is she handling all that and taking the kids and having so much fun at the park every day and doing the thing and and but yeah, well the thing is she's just showing you the the advertisement like the trailer for the film. She's not showing you the whole thing and the the tantrum that they threw right before they got in the park and like the the whole mess of things. They're just showing you the nice little thing. So to be base yourself on on the other person's exterior, right? It's like it doesn't match and it's not good for you. It's not only that you're basing yourself what we're doing and it's just subconsciously done. We're comparing our insides to their outsides. Yeah. And it all looks good, right? The shiny car looks good. The body looks good, but we don't know how much makeup and what's been done to that body. Like you said, they're marketing. It's their job. It's their job to come off as this hot all put together person. And how many times have **[00:22:00]** we picked up a newspaper or saw an article, exfluencer just did this to their partner, exfl they're human beings, but in that hour we're getting to see them, they're performing. Same thing is happening with those dating apps because people want to get they get addicted. I got to get swiped. I didn't get swiped. Why are they swiping me? I have a very attractive friend. I mean, turn heads attractive, physically fit triathlete, like literally turn heads. She's on them, newly divorced and um not getting swiped. And she was sitting in a restaurant and she's just I'm with three guys who don't know her. She shared the story with me and they said, "What can we see?" And she showed her her pro profile. She's like, "This isn't you." Like, "That woman is not this woman here." Because she doesn't she's not a selfie taker person, photogenic. So, she's getting passed by by all these guys. But I'm telling you, if she walked down the street, every guy that did not swipe her would be trying to say hello to her. Well, that's also the problem in nowadays society. Men and women have both forgotten how to say hello to each I was at a beautiful eery the other day called Sunife. It's was it's great organic food. I love the place and I see this woman there all the time. So I just walked up and introduced myself to her. I said, "Excuse me. I'm Rich. What's your name?" Name is Tracy. I says, "Really nice seeing you. I see you all the time. We eat a lot of the same food. I look forward to seeing you again." That's it. And you walk away. You've now begun the beginning of a conversation potentially a friend. You're not hitting on them. You're just talking like you're a kid in school making friends. People forgot how to make friends. Yes. Yeah. You know, I met another one there at the same place and the next day I met her with her husband. It's not a big deal. She's like, "Hey honey, this is the guy I was talking about last night. You know, he came up and he said, "Hello, he owns this fitness truck. He's doing this app and he's doing all this stuff." People forgot how to interact. Yeah. I think 70% of people from 18 to 30 have now got on a physical date. Wow. Fact check it. I'm telling **[00:24:00]** you, it's freaky. And a lot of it has to do with COVID. A lot has to do with these dating apps, you know, and it's lot it just people just forgot how to just walk up and say, "Hey, what's going on?" That's why it's really like all my friends tell me like, "I can't believe you're the one creating this new service because you're the one that could always just go out and talk to people like I can't do it, Joe." I'm like, "I don't know why you can't." It's like just talk to people, but also, you know, talk to them like you don't have any other intentions but other men could talk to them. Yes. A lot of these men, unfortunately, they're leading too much with their wrong head when they're talking to women. They pick up that energy. They pick up that vibe like this guy just wants nothing else other than. But if you talk to him just like you're talking to him from the inside and not from here, it's like so that's what authentic is kind of doing, right? We're trying to shut this off and turn this on. like get into a relationship with your heart, your spirit, your energy. Then bring your mind to the game because this was the last organ developed in in the in my fetus. So why should I lead my life through this? This is for I have a meeting with Armando 11:00. This is my computer. That's why they made computers to mirror the human brain about scheduling. But unfortunately, society over time has let us lead with our brains instead of our emotions. M and when you're leading with ego, you're really not going to end up in a good place. You might have that transactional hookup. You might do this, but you're then you're depressed and sad about it because there there I believe in life everything's like timing, right? Age appropriate. I call it like in my 20s drinking like crazy was appropriate. That's what you did. Now it hurts. Your body don't want it anymore. You know, being sexually miscuous, you know, then your 20s, it's normal. You're exploring the sexuality. Human beings after you're 30, 40, 50, time to settle down, get in a relationship. you know, it's just all age appropriate, right? Um, but unfortunately, we're using this way too Way too much. Yeah. I I uh you hear with kids now, we have young kids, we you see them **[00:26:00]** just making friends like you were saying, just all over all the time and meeting even young people, all like they just they just want to introduce themselves and say hi and and play and whatever and everybody's their new best friend. Yeah. Yeah. And but then you see grown-ups and also the mobile devices also play a role in this of course but you go to a bar or something. I I don't go to bars but I was in in Chicago doing a a talk recently and I met someone a client at a steakhouse and they had a bar like pre pre-entry to the thing while they got there. So I'm just sit down look around and anyone who was not with people was on their phone. Yeah. like what? You're there, you're waiting, you're obviously like you're not going to go just there to be on your own, right? So why don't why don't you just chat with someone or just at least look up like you don't you don't know maybe you find something interesting but uh everyone's on their phone and so there's that too. The funny thing is um you can look at a flower, the most simple organ on the planet, one and and just wow that's beautiful. You could be in a grocery line or anywhere and see another human being who's taken exceptionally well care of their skin or their body. God forbid if you give that person a compliment, you're like a creep or the boyfriend wants to beat you up. And this is the most complex organ on the planet. So, the fact that you got to keep it together and and look as good as you look, that's effort, man. You're working out, you're meditating because it's just not about physically. You could tell energetically hot and be in a really bad Or you could be not so physically hot in a really gray spot. Beauty really does emanate from the inside because we always change our outside. And that's the wonderful thing. I mean, I've been doing fitness for over 40 years, owned a bunch of brick and mortar gyms. I really didn't care what anybody looked like when I met them because I knew over time if **[00:28:00]** we change your diet, change your nutrition, change your you could change everything about this, you know, but your attitude and your perception of what you're going through life, you really got to cut you. Everybody looks for somebody to make them happy. If you're not starting out happy, you just gave an unbburdened load to that person to do it. You got to be happy. They can amplify you happy. Just like I'm using amplified intelligent, my my new coin phrase for AI because nothing I use is It's AI. It's not making up relationships. It's not making up how you connect. It's just saying, "Hey, Rich, really quick. I know these two. I'm not done." You know, it's doing things for me in seconds that would have took me, you know, who knows how long. You know, I I couldn't even tell you. and we've lost that side of humanity where you could just really say, "You look really I love your hair." God forbid if you say something complimentary to somebody that doesn't know you. The fear factor in our world right now is so huge. Instead of just why don't we just to me fear is you know face everything and rejoice. You know cuz if it scares me it's got to be good. Unless I'm physically being accosted. You know if this if it scares me that means there's something about me I got to figure out how it works. M and unfortunately a lot of people look at fear as false expectations appear real and then they just you know like before we had this probably two months ago before I created authentic I had shoulder length hair down to like And I'm pretty tattooed all over my body. So there's a perception when you see me get off my Harley and walk down the street. I could see people in the perception. But then when I start talking to the people and they get to know me and they're like, "Wow, we didn't really think you would have these conversations so deep." I said, "Why?" because of the way I look. I said, "This look is intentional because that means who approaches me is somebody I'm welcoming because my energy. It's kind of like a guard, right? But unfortunately, a lot of us have that mask and guard up for all the wrong you know, and you don't, like you said, you buried your face in the phone. And usually the people who bury their face in the phone, those are the ones who get mugged, attacked, stolen because they're not paying attention to what's going on. And the thieves see it. The thief's like, "Oh, they're on the phone. I'm not paying. I'm grab the wall. I'm going to grab this. I'm a scam. You know, if you got **[00:30:00]** your phone down, you're looking eye to eye because thieves, they don't want Yeah. Hey, that's a that's a smart smart thing to consider as well. Well, they want to take you by surprise. They want to know that you're going to be you're going to be shocked and scared into it. But if you're looking at them, it's kind of like having two buildings. This one says protected by an alarm. This one says no security. The thieves going over there. They're not going to deal with the alarm. And that's you walking down the street. You're buried in your phone. It takes two seconds for them to do what they want to do to you to scare you or cause you. You're looking at their face to face. They need to think about how they're going to approach you like next one. There's too many people out there, you know, that they could do. And it's so perception, awareness. I I it's there's like a real part of this universe or world right now where people are walking around asleep, you know? They're just they're just asleep, you know. I I consider myself fortunate cuz I walk around very awake which some days is great some days it's painful but I'm very awake and that's why these concepts I do I execute I hear them I listen to them let's just go ahead and do it disregard the good opinion of others awake means seeing that person and saying hello like you know you saw four times in the store already you're apparently here all the time you're eating the same food could be a new friend could be a relate who cares just hello how because then the next time you come to the store it's a social interaction hey how was your day what's going Huh? You know, there's this it's you break the ice a little bit. You don't It's not a full-on, hey, can I get your phone number? Let's go days. It's like, hello. Like the kids. Then you get a new bestie. Every time I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old, it's every similar age of yours. Every time they go to a park or anywhere, they get in the car. I got a new bestie today, Papa. They'll probably never see that person ever again. But man, and that's the smile you have on your face right now is the same smile they have when they're talking about their new And it doesn't matter if that bestie was Asian, black, Chinese, fat, short. It just ended. They're hugging each other already. You know, they're doing things that, you know, we all forgot about our inner child as we got older. But unfortunately, a lot of us didn't **[00:32:00]** grow up emotionally. And that's why when we have disputes in our relationships, we're like 5 years old going into a schoolyard. We want to yell and scream and tantrum because we stopped emotionally growing, but we physically grew. So, we have the appearance of being an adult, you know, we have the job to makes us look like an adult, but then when hits the fan, we're like, "Oh my god, I'm like a child. I'm throwing a tantrum, you know. I'm yelling and screaming. I want my way. Yes. No, that and and it's uh it's very interesting because you can you can see people that are normally staying away from even the person across the street here in your I know like I don't I don't know. But find that same person in Europe or Asia because you're walking around in the middle of a whole crowd of people that you don't know, but you see the same person and now just because you've never seen them before just because they're from the same country as you or the same city even. Now there's an immediate bond. You're like, "Hey, cuz we we gravitate toward similarities, right?" And so it's like, "Yeah, now now you're best friends. as you're walking around town, but in your own town where you live and might see them every day, you you just never say hi. Yeah. Well, it's like when you go on vacation, you're walking down the streets, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Your own town, head down, face down, phone down, it's like, you don't say I said hello to everybody. I walk by and some people think you're really weird. Some you say it to them, they go, "Excuse me." I'm like, "Well, I just said hi." You know? Um, it's interesting though. And I'm really excited, you know, to see, you know, Authenti launched a few weeks ago. We got a a couple hundred people already joining. It's all done organic. We're not doing meta ads. We're not doing anything like that because I want the real clientele who are intentional about relationships. The other sites are not going to go away. Just like taxis didn't go away. You know, the big airlines didn't go away with JetBlue. The only thing that went really went away was when Netflix replaced Blockbuster. It kind of squashed that completely. Um is how, like I **[00:34:00]** said, that hotness barometer comes down when you've checked all the other boxes. Like, wow, they like the same thing. We do the same thing. You know what? the hair might not be I'm okay with this if I connect to this person, you know, I think women will be more forgiving than men because men still leave with a little bit of, you know, um, whatever. I get a kick out of it. You know, they actually, you know, but it's a even if you have a a plan for people to last a year, right? Instead of just keeping them on hooks forever like all these apps, you have a plan like you know what your lifetime value is for those customers. You have you plan for that and that's okay. Like not every tool has to be a lifetime subscription thing where you're you're always on the hook and you can't leave the platform. Like you eventually you might have other services as I'm sure you've you've thought of and planned that that align to your crowd, right? It doesn't have to be that way they're doing it now. So, so the fact that you're doing it with an intent of making their lives different and actually changing something, helping them, I I mean, personally, I think that's that's great and that's how we all should think, but it's but it's not this the typical way because everybody's about, you know, they're more about the financial reward and the monetary gain than they are about the service that they're given to the community, not realizing the better the service, the better the monetary. So you lead with where a lot of people and just because this is the way they've been pre-programmed and again one my own opinion, two it it doesn't it just is what it is. If you lead with especially as an entrepreneur, my job is to put out the best service that I possibly can. I'm not responsible for the outcome. I let that go. Do I want to be, you know, you know, have that money, so to speak, and not worry **[00:36:00]** about anything in my world? Sure. Um, but do I build the business with that in my forefoot site? No. Let's just build it and let's see what happens. Offer a good service. Make sure it's community orientated. Make sure you're changing somebody's life. Make sure you're improving their life. And make sure again because you said now you get a Always have another thing that you could promote to the same crowd. Hey guys, you we did good here and you're going to get a certain amount of percentage. So, it's all about, you know, it's I I just think catering to the community is where your best service is because and that probably comes from, you know, starting businesses in 1982 before the internet So, we had to look at people. You had to shake their hands. You had to be known in the community. It wasn't just this thing like this is very different for me because everything I did was within a 10 mile radius. That was my audience. So, I had to promote to that local community and all my brick and mortars, This is nationwide. It's going to be international. So the message has to carry in so many different places in so many different times. So it's really intriguing on how do you get it to carry? And the best way to get it to carry is word of mouth. And the best way to get word of mouth is serving the people correctly. It's not pricing. It's not your price point. You could have a you could have a a race to the bottom really quick. If you think you're going to sell something, you got to price it. You got to price it right, you know, and then you got to have somebody say, "Yeah, I was simply introduced on authentic this authentic site. Within three months, I had a relationship. You know, I was on a relationship. I It lasted for two years. I'm back on it because that was probably the best two years and learning experience I had. It wasn't two years of me hooking up every Saturday night with a different relationship. that's I think that's a real lesson for people, too. If if you're building businesses and and uh have ideas, it's not just about selling. And then think about how it was before like you were saying 1982 you had to go out there and there was still a market in that 10 mile radius there's still a market for a business. So if you can envision that people nowadays **[00:38:00]** are like oh no my total addressable market isn't that large and you're thinking about the whole country like you can think of a neighborhood and have a total addressable market that's going to make you money. You can go to the city that can go to whatever like so Authenti is nationwide. Mhm. It's on the internet, but we're marketing it city by city to build up the database. So, we're like, right now we're focused in New York City, then we're going to go to Chicago, then we go to Miami. After you have enough cities open, then you could blow up the But you have to start, you just can't start, you know, that your TAM potential TAM could be outrageously huge, but if you don't focus on a microscopic TAM to work out all the bugs, to work out how you could best service the community, you're going to learn from every city you go to. Then you're not going to grow your TAM at all. you're actually going to hurt your Tam, right? Yes. Yes. That for the listeners is what you learn after making and creating many companies. I I I hear I mean I'm glad you're saying this because you have the experience and the proof. There's there's many people that I talk with that that still think like, "No, no, but but why focus? We have to target no. You have to you got to start so and then learn from all that growth and then just because you're growing there's an ingestation period when you start a business it's the same as a woman making a child like this business is my baby in the first three months I was nervous and exciting had a little morning sickness and the next three months kind of like coasted now you're in launch phase and it's like coming through the birth canal it's really uncomfortable it's really painful I can't sleep at night I get to but because you're creating something right and if you try and create it to a nationwide audience and even just state by state, city by city, personalities are different, perceptions are different, belief is different and you really want the community selling for you. You don't want to be the one. I don't sell anything. You know, we find a a need and we fill the need. It's like the great Jordan Belelfford, the guy who stole everybody's money, **[00:40:00]** but now they write documentaries and everything about him, which I I knew him personally. You know, he talks about selling a pen. You're not selling the pen. You're selling the need of why they need that pen. And if you cop off and say because it's got good ink, it's got this, you're not a salesperson. But if you come out of the gate, you know, what would you use the pen for? Well, I don't use a pen at all. Well, now I'm not selling this guy the pen anymore because it's something he doesn't need. I didn't waste my pitch. Like, I'm not um transactional hookup relationships. I'm selling intentional relationships. So I don't need you if you're traveling and just looking for that, you know, weekend lover. They stay where you are. I need you if you're looking for that, you know, six month, nine month, 12 month, lifetime, whatever. Like I said, relationships, you know, that that the old poem, right? Reason, season, or a lifetime. Some people going to come your life for a reason. Earn, learn, season, they're there, or a lifetime. That's not for me to decide. I'm just going to give you a good head start knowing that you you're coming for you both came here intentionally looking for a relationship. So, chances are you're not that transactional hookup. Nice. That's excellent. Richard, this has been very insightful. I'm very grateful for you for sharing both about Authenti and your experiences with entrepreneurship and how to build these companies. I think listeners who are in the position to to need something like this will really enjoy it because it's yeah there's there's so many people who would like to meet more people and just don't have the way to do so or even the the the personal power to go out yet, right? and and having a tool that allows them to do it without all the conceptions that people have preconceived notions of of what a dating app is. This **[00:42:00]** is something where they can be themselves. They can maybe find someone who is like them or that they can have a real relationship with. And especially for those people who are maybe of high net worth or in a certain economic or social position, they don't they don't want everyone to know what's going on. I mean, this is perfect. So, thank you so much for sharing about it. If people want to learn more about Authenti and what you guys are doing with it, where can they get more details? You would go right to be authentic.com. Pretty much a full layout. you get it on your phone and or get it on the on the on your laptops. If you do it on your phone and you click download authentic, if you're on a Android, it's going to bring you to Google Play. If you're on iPhone, it's going to bring you to the App Store. And we do it that way because just like, you know, App Store and Google Play are businesses. Until you're there long enough, you're not going to be on the top rating. We do this so you find it automatically so you're not searching through all the other apps that are out there. and the the website version you get like I said you can also get it on the phone is very descriptive about all the steps and what we do and how we do it and like and they could always listen any of the listeners who want to talk with me direct it's I'll help them with their entrepreneurial goals I'm not an entrepreneurial coach I just like to talk to fellow entrepreneurs I call them entrepreneurs people who are looking to start a new business you know being introduced on how to be an entrepreneur um because to me I learn from those conversations because what I'm sharing with them is probably something I forgot that I should apply in what I'm doing. That's so great. I'm really happy that you shared that and and that you're doing that. It's uh not everyone accepts this this type of uh conversation, but like you said, like it's all about actually getting out there and and having the conversations, and it'll be so helpful for anyone who actually reaches out uh and talks to you uh for their further journey. Thanks so **[00:44:00]** much again, Richard. And I'm I'm sure we're we're going to meet again We got the other one we're talking about soon. I appreciate your time, Armando. Best of your family. And um let's catch up again soon. Thank you, Richard. And everyone, if you haven't liked and subscribed to the show, please do so so you can learn about more episodes with amazing guests like Richard here and also to see when Richard might be coming up soon once more on the podcast. Thanks everyone and we'll see you in the next one.