YOU’RE OVERPAYING FOR YOUR PHONE BILL—HE BUILT A $1 BILLION BUSINESS MAKING IT FREE 👀

0:00 Why am I paying $ 20 a month for texting, $ 20 a month for calling, $ 20 a month for data when I could text people for free on my computer?

0:08 Would you say that the average customer is getting ripped off by their cell phone provider?

0:11 There's always ways to pay less. There's actually a federal law that says once your phone's paid off, they have to unlock it. They have to let you take your phone to any other phone service provider.

0:20 How did you manage to make your service free?

0:23 It started paid. And then when mobile ads was available, we put it in our free version. We actually found that we were making more money on our free version than our paid version. Not a lot of people know that. There's like this kind of like secret backdoor to like convert email to text. And we use that. My history is always like trying to find ways not to pay for something. I still circle the block for free parking.

0:43 You have a $ 350, 000 car. But you're also financially frugal enough to not want to waste $ 40 on parking. Where's the balance here?

0:52 Instead of going straight to the most expensive option, I always say, look, is there a better option?

0:56 How you were able to become profitable so early.

0:59 It's more fun to just spend time building products rather than building PowerPoint slides for investors. Because if you take on investor money, it's not your business anymore.

1:10 You've got 10 million monthly users. What's the pathway to getting to 20 million?

1:13 Our goals always has been to just figure out how to give people more for less. We started out with just only free texting and then figured out how to give people free calling. Now we're trying to figure out how to give people free data.

1:26 The phone bill in 2006 was $ 44 a month. Today, the average phone bill is $ 120 to $ 140 a month. Why is it going up if the technology is getting better? All right, guys. Welcome back.

1:38 Yeah.

1:39 We have a special episode.

1:41 Indeed.

1:42 Tech found that we always have a good time when we talk to the entrepreneurs and people that's on the cutting edge of actually changing the world and changing the game. So Derek Ting, co-founder and CEO of TechsNow. I'm sure you guys have been seeing TechsNow. We've been doing a lot of work with them. Great content, great interviews. So it's an app-based wireless company that provides affordable phone solutions to hundreds of millions of users. Is that the best way to really describe it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go into the business model behind text now and also, you know, how you got started, your backstory and, and explain the whole, the whole deal. But, um, so you, you, you launched text now in 2009. Yeah.

2:26 Right. Yeah.

2:27 So, okay. So give us the backstory of how you came up with this idea and explain your version of like how, what text now is like, what's the elevator pitch. If somebody has never heard of text now and they see your t-shirt, and they say, what's text now? What would you tell them text now is?

2:47 Yeah, I think the simple answer is if you want free phone service, download our app, you get to pick your phone number from any area code you want, and then you can text and call for free. You got a phone that has no service, you can also download our app, and then you install a free eSIM on your phone, and then all of a sudden your phone has service. So you don't have to put a credit card or nothing. It's just, there's no prepaid.

3:11 There's no monthly bill. Exactly. Exactly. So free, free phone service, right? Yeah. What does that include? The ability to call, to receive text messages, like a full.

3:20 Yeah.

3:21 Talking text is completely free. Um, if you also want a second phone number, I know a lot of people want to do that. For business purposes.

3:28 Exactly.

3:29 You can just separate kind of business and your personal, you download our app and you get a second phone number on your phone without having to get a second phone or pay for a second phone line. If you, yeah, exactly. If you have also a phone that has no service, like you just had like some phone in your drawer, right?

3:45 Has no service down their app. And then all of a sudden your phone will have service. So talk and text is free. And then if you want data plan, there's affordable data plans too. You can add on in the app.

3:57 And data plan is for like apps. Yeah.

4:00 Yeah.

4:01 Yeah, exactly.

4:01 Yeah.

4:02 The eSIM will be free. Like you could talk and text, you know, on, on your wifi or on the cellular network. And then if you want to stream or browse or whatever, then there's data plans you can buy. You can buy it. What's unique is with us, you can buy it by the day, by the week, or by the month. So you're not committed to a monthly plan. You could just pay for data when you need it.

4:28 Yeah, flexibility at its premium. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

4:31 So this is, I mean, we like disruption, right? And we like innovation too. What got you to the point? Cause I mean, telecommunications is tough and there's legacy brands that I'm sure are trying to disrupt what you're doing. So what made you come up with this idea? Was it, you know, I'm tired of paying the phone bill. Like how did you get to the point where I need to create something on my own?

4:56 Yeah. Interesting.

4:58 When we started, we knew nothing about telecom, like zero, had no experience with telecom. We actually started the company actually while I was in college and I just didn't want to get a job. I just needed to make money and pay rent and buy pizza. And instead of getting like a normal internship, like all my other classmates, I didn't want a normal internship. I wanted just something where I could just make money and do my own thing.

5:33 That's how it started. Back then, I heard these people are making money from apps, like publishing their own apps. So I was like, I could do this. I could just sort of get a regular internship. I could just make apps and just make enough money to pay my $ 600 a month rent and get by. That sounds like way more fun than working as an intern for these big mega corporations. So that's what I did. I recruited a classmate. of mine and say, Hey, you want to do this app making with me for your internship? So he decided to do it with me. And that's all we did. Like for, for internship, all we did was, was just make apps and trying to make money making apps and text. I was one of the app ideas because I, at the time was, was questioning why am

6:27 I paid 20 bucks a month for texting 20 bucks a month for calling 20 bucks a month for data when I could text people for free on my computer because I can instant message anybody for free on my computer. So I essentially have a pocket computer now with internet. Why am I paying for text messaging? You shouldn't have to pay for text messaging. So, so, so, so that's kind of the conception of the idea is an app, but an app where I don't have to pay for text messaging because I was just too cheap to pay for it.

6:55 And at the time, this is, you're doing this in Canada, right? Or is this a domestic thing or international thing? How did you break that barrier?

7:06 Because I know I bought a phone.

7:07 I'm saying it because I bought a phone in Montreal and I came back to New York and they were like, we can't do anything. You can't activate this phone. It's a totally different SIM. You got to go back to Montreal to activate it. And I'm like, you want me to fly back to Montreal? And I didn't even understand the international part of buying phones. How did you combat that issue?

7:28 Yeah, the very first version had no cellular service. It was just literally an app, and then you would text somebody.

7:39 And then.

7:41 The way it would work is it would use your phone's email to text you. So for example, everybody's phone number has actually like an email, an email gateway. So you could like actually text like, you know, 10 digit phone number at txt.att.net or whatever. You can email that and that email gets converted to text. So not a lot of people know that. There's like this kind of like secret backdoor to like convert email to text. And we use that. So actually that's all the app did at the time was just like convert email. email to text i just learned something yeah yeah and then we just made the app like to do all that work for you so then you didn't have to do that and then eventually we then realized almost all of our

8:26 customers actually were down we're using it on their ipod touches and so that was kind of our aha moment because we were like what why why do we have all like these these ipod touch users And then eventually we realized they were doing it because they didn't have a phone plan. They didn't have a phone plan. That's why they were on the iPod Touch. But they still need to communicate. So then what it means is they were using our app as their main means of communication.

8:58 So then that began our multi-decade obsession of how do we actually give these people actual phone service, not an app, just an app that gave free texting. So then we started researching how all the stuff actually works. How do we get phone numbers? How do we make the phone numbers text message enabled? How do we get calling to work?

9:23 And now our latest thing is how do we make the data plans cheaper? How do we make the data plans free? That's our goal one day. Make everything free. Yeah, that's our goal.

9:34 So would you say that the average customer is getting ripped off by their cell phone provider?

9:40 I would say there's definitely a lot of people that are paying too much, for sure. And there's always ways to pay less.

9:49 So like the average person, right? They're probably paying Like I pay $ 110, $ 120 for my cell phone provider, T-Mobile. So how would I pay less? Like what's the average breakdown? Because nobody really looks at their phone bill, right? You pay $ 100, $ 110, $ 120. What are things inside of there that this is $ 20 too much, this is $ 30 too much, this could be lower? Like what does that look like?

10:16 Yeah, I think the biggest expense... is like a lot of people like upgrade their phones, right? So when you upgrade your phone, the carriers will lock you in longer, right? That's their way of like locking people in longer for like a longer duration. So for example, like if you go from like the iPhone now 16 to 17 or whatever, then you gotta then that's another two years. You gotta pay like 40, 50 bucks a month to pay off your phone. But actually there's not a massive difference between like the phone that's like a couple of generations older than like the next, next one.

10:56 Right.

10:56 In fact, I'm still on the iPhone 12 pro because I broke my newer phone. So then I just went back to my older phone. I realized there's not much of a difference. I'll just keep using my older phone.

11:05 Right.

11:05 So a lot of folks kept saving a lot of money, just delaying the upgrade. Also with delaying the upgrades lets you do is you could then once your phone's paid off, you can unlock your phone. There's a rule where after your phone's paid off, the carrier has to unlock your phone.

11:23 What does that mean?

11:24 That means you could take it to anybody. So let's say you bought the phone from T-Mobile. Your phone's paid off. Now there's actually a federal law that says once your phone's paid off, they have to unlock it. They have to let you take your phone to any other phone service provider. So T-Mobile can't lock their phone to just T-Mobile because now you own the phone.

11:47 So T-Mobile, you got the phone from T-Mobile, but after you've done paying it off, now you can change it to TexNow.

11:53 Exactly. Then you can install an eSIM from TexNow and then pay $ 30 a month for the same thing, right? Or if you don't use data all the time, like for example, most people are just at home most of the time on Wi-Fi. You don't really need to be paying a data plan all the time. So you just pay for what you need, right? Not even with us, with any other, there's tons of other phone service providers out there that probably will beat that monthly price and will let you just install an eSIM on your phone and not lock you into a contract. But with TextNow, you know, the beauty is, like, if you just need talking text, it's free, right?

12:37 So.

12:38 That was my issue.

12:39 That literally is what happened when I when I brought my phone to my provider after I came back from Canada.

12:44 They're like, the phone's locked.

12:46 Right. We can't add this to your plan because it's locked. And then we try to unlock it. And I try to call the store. But the Apple store said, look, we can't help you. You'd have to come back. And I was like, I'm not like driving five hours or flying. two hours just to get a phone. I still have it, but now, text now becomes an option for me because I can just use that as a phone calling or text service on that phone.

13:08 Exactly, yeah.

13:09 Yeah, any phone that you have in your drawer or whatever that you think is no good anymore, it's actually still good.

13:16 Yeah, it's a brand new, at the time it was a brand new 17.

13:21 iPhone 17.

13:22 I had just bought it because I wanted to use the earbuds that translate, and then I needed to update it to a new phone.

13:29 So I'm thinking, okay, perfect. This is going to work. And then when I got home, it didn't.

13:32 But you said something important, and most people, when they hear free, they're like, no, there's got to be costs. So sometimes in the phone bill, if you look at it, you see some of those things. You see taxes. How did you manage to make your service free? How is that possible?

13:47 Yeah, our free experience is ad-supported. So there's no secret. That's not a secret. It's just like we make it really clear. If it's free, how we make it free, just like any other free service, there'll be ads. But the ads are no different than ads you see anywhere else, any other place like Facebook or whatever. It's just there are ads in the app, and then you just continue to use it for free. But that's how we make the money, to support the free service.

14:22 So you started your first business when.

14:27 You was 15?

14:27 My first business, like, ever?

14:29 Yeah.

14:29 I was in high school, yeah.

14:32 15? Yeah, yeah. That was a tech business, was it?

14:37 I mean, yeah, kind of, yeah.

14:40 What was it?

14:43 Yeah, it was this, like, well, my history is always, like, you know, the theme is I'm always, like, trying to find ways not to pay for some things. So I didn't want to pay for text messaging. And back then, you know, I was just like a teenager. So I didn't want to pay for music. I didn't want to pay for movies. So I made a website that allowed people to like share bootlegs of like music and movies and TV shows. It was like using a new technology back then called BitTorrent.

15:16 Hey, I remember that.

15:18 Yeah.

15:19 Yeah.

15:19 Back then it was like, like a brand new thing. Nobody knew about it. Everybody was using like Napster and like.

15:26 Yeah.

15:26 Rapid cheer, BitTorrent.

15:28 Yeah.

15:28 So the BitTorrent was really new. And what made BitTorrent special was that, um, it's, well, it's, it's like back, it's peer to peer.

15:39 Right.

15:39 But, but, but the thing is, since it's peer to peer, you need somewhere like you need a centralized place. to like index all the stuff that people.

15:51 Have, right?

15:52 So they got, these are like torrent files and you need like a tracker to track all these things. So I built a tracker, right? And they eventually turned the tracker into like a, because back then, you know, BitTorrent trackers weren't user-friendly at all, right? It's like literally just like a piece of software that like tracked all these different like files, right? And then, so then I turned that into something just more like user-friendly. So it looked like, like actually looked like a website where you can like browse all the different bootleg stuff.

16:23 Right.

16:23 And then you could pick the bootleg thing you want.

16:26 Right. Sometimes you got to download about four of them to see which one's the best.

16:29 And, and, and you know what, that's the beauty of that is like it organized everything for you. So you don't have to like figure out like. what's good or what's bad. It would just like show you like all the good ones and all the bad ones, you know, just put them in the bottom. So anyway, that was, that was my first thing. And then, and then because it's not exactly kosher and I was about to go to college. Yeah. And then my parents didn't know about it.

16:53 I was doing it in their basement on my home internet connection. And when the website blew up, my home internet stopped working. So, so my mom was like, why is my internet not working? I was like, I don't know. Because I was hosting on my home internet connection.

17:08 Wow. Yeah.

17:09 Because I didn't have any money, right?

17:11 For the people who are not in the know, when you say kosher, that's a cold word for it.

17:15 This was illegal at the time. And there's a story behind that.

17:18 Because when I was doing a lot of stuff with computers, I was studying computers at the time, using BitTorrent, using RapidShare to download music, sometimes movies.

17:26 This is the first time I ever hear the word Bitcoin.

17:29 Because it was illegal and then in order to have a subscription sometimes guys got sophisticated in order to use their site you had to you know get a subscription to their platform but if you use the credit card that was traceable and we they try to figure out what people could use to not be traced anymore and this is the first time i hear bitcoin it's like 2011 12 and people are using bitcoin to pay for their subscription so it can't be traced because again it wasn't kosher right right right right on right on This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. One thing I've learned over the years is that building wealth starts with being intentional. And one of the things we talk about all the time on Earn Your Leisure is that

18:10 it's not about how much money you make. It's about how you manage the money you already have. That applies to everyday spending too. The more aware you are of where your money is going, the better decisions you can make. That's one reason I appreciate Apple Card. You could earn daily cash back on every purchase you make with Apple Card, and you could earn that daily cash back every day.

18:31 I also like that Apple Card keeps things simple. There are no annual, late, or over-the-limit fees. No fees ever. And you can choose to grow your daily cash by opening a high-yield savings account through Apple Card. At the end of the day, building wealth is about developing better habits and making intentional decisions with your money. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today.

18:55 Subject to credit approval, variable APRs from Apple Card range from 17.74% to 27.99% based on credit worthiness.

19:05 Rates as of October 1st, 2026.

19:08 Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or at card.apple.com. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings in Apple Card by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City branch.

19:24 Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com.

19:28 So how did you learn at such a young age how to build code and how to do the computer? Like, did you teach yourself or were you being taught this in high school? Like, how did you learn?

19:38 No, my high school actually didn't even have a computer science program. So it was just like learning on the internet.

19:46 So you taught yourself? Yeah, yeah. trial and error trial and error locking yourself in the basement just figuring it.

19:52 Out literally yeah it'll be just out of the basement yeah just I'm just like having fun really.

19:59 So what lessons did you learn from that in the basement that helped you you know become the entrepreneur that you are today what takes.

20:07 Now I think what It taught me was this different avenue to like make a living, right? Like a lot of people, a lot of my friends or peers growing up, their mental model is like, hey, the only way I make a living is like I go to college, I get like a corporate job, like climb the career ladder. And then because I kind of was making money in high school already doing my like weird side projects, I kind of knew there was like multiple options, you know, that you could like either do this or that. And I tried that for a while engineer engineering.

20:46 Yeah.

20:46 I went to, I went to like a fancy schmancy engineering school. Um, it was really, really hard school to go to. Uh, it's called university of Waterloo, which is like one of the hardest engineering schools to get into in Canada. Uh, it's like the quote unquote MIT of Canada.

21:04 What kind of engineering did you study?

21:06 Um, computer engineering, computer engineering.

21:08 Yeah.

21:08 And then, so yeah, all my peers, you know, got these like corporate jobs and then also like the school to graduate, you had to have like certain amount of internships to graduate. So every other semester you actually had to like, you actually like had no choice. You had to apply for a job. You had to like do the job and then like, you know, and then, and then you have to get your credit.

21:30 Right.

21:31 Um, So eventually through that process, I was just like, that's not for me.

21:36 Yeah.

21:36 Like doing, doing this like normal, like corporate job thing and kissing my boss's butt and all that stuff. Like I just know it wasn't for me.

21:44 Entrepreneurship was the only way. Yeah.

21:46 And at the time I didn't even know it was called that. It was like this other thing where I would just like do it yourself, do make my own stuff and generate enough income from it to just sustain myself. That sounds like a better deal for me. Um, there was no plan to turn this into like, you know, like a big company or anything like that. It was just like, I'd rather just do this rather than do that.

22:12 So you, I mean, you obviously have the engineering side down back, but the business side is something completely different. So did you, your partner that you brought along with you, did they know the business side or is this something again, you're learning trial and error as you're building this app that number one, you know, is disruptive, but number two is has potential to scale.

22:34 Yeah.

22:34 I didn't know much about business. Um, I didn't know anything. I didn't even know what bookkeeping was. I didn't know how to like do taxes even, um, didn't know anything about HR. I think these are all things I kind of learned as I, as I go. And then good thing is there's a lot of resources out there. You know, there's a lot of advisors that will, just either advise you for free or you could just pay them. They'll advise you. So, um, that's what I did. I just either learned it myself or just paid people to teach me. Right.

23:08 Yeah.

23:09 Yeah.

23:09 So when you start this company, right, you raise money.

23:13 Oh, that was the other thing too, is like, um, for a while I thought, Yeah, I had to raise money because all these other successful companies were raising money. So, um, even though, you know, we had enough money to sustain ourselves, we thought, Hey, we needed to raise money. Um, and then we did, we did like a small seed round. Um, but then as time went on, I realized that it's more fun to just spend time building product. building actual stuff rather than building PowerPoint slides for investors because that took just as much time from me as actually just building stuff and if I built stuff that also makes money right whereas if I built PowerPoint decks you know yes I'll raise the money but then what right so

24:12 eventually I realized actually like I don't really need to raise money I could just keep building product.

24:19 Well we'll talk about that because that's not the traditional model as far as tech companies in silicon valley right is it is to raise money um and it's they may not be profitable for a while so being that you decided not to raise money after the initial raise that forced profitability early right so talk about like how you were able to become profitable so early and just the general mindset of not raising capital and actually just bootstrapping it when most of your peers are doing the exact opposite. Yeah.

24:57 I think we, a lot of venture backed companies, they like get a bunch of users first and then they figure out the business model later. And so then as it gets bigger, it just needs more capital and then it'll burn capital till it figures out the business model. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is just figure out your business model and your product at the same time. And then when you do that, as you grow, you actually generate cashflow rather than burn cash. Um, I'm not going to say there's a better way to do it. It's just one way to do it requires less capital than the other way. And you get to keep more of your business. And you get to be in control of your own destiny at the end of

25:48 the day, because if you take on investor money, eventually you don't really own it at the end of the day, right? You, you, you share it with investors and investors will have a say on whether you should sell a business, whether you should do this with your business or whatever, because it's not your business anymore. Um, so that's one thing that I've realized because when I look at my peers too, that raise a lot of money, they, they don't get to call the shots anymore.

26:14 Right.

26:16 They say they do, but underneath the hood, there's all these like legal issues and yeah, legal fine print that like, they got to ask them permission to do this. They got to ask them permission to do that or whatever.

26:29 Right.

26:31 Because yeah, with investors, they want to protect their investment. So you got to ask them for permission when you want to do stuff.

26:37 Right.

26:37 So, so that's one thing that, you know, people got to keep in mind.

26:44 Right.

26:44 And also with, cost of building things now going down with the new age of AI, a lot of people could bootstrap because you got now Cloud Code, you got now Codex with ChatGBT. You don't even need to know how to code anymore to build stuff. You don't need to actually hire an engineer to build your prototypes. You could actually just have AI build it for you. So now investors are even less relevant when you have a new idea because you don't even need to hire anybody to build it. You could build it yourself.

27:30 So you think AI is making investment less. You don't need investment as much as you once did because now artificial intelligence.

27:38 Yeah, exactly. Because back then, you're like, hey, I need to hire a mobile... app engineer, I need to hire this engineer to make my idea real. You don't need that anymore. You can just go do like, like a AI tool that will like build an app for you.

27:57 How has that changed your business model?

28:00 I'm assuming when you're doing this, you're building, but there's a team that you're probably assembling to scale. And now you're looking at the advent of some of these models and Has it changed the business model for you?

28:12 Oh, I think it unlocked a whole new world for us before we would say, hey, we only got this much time, right? And because we only got this much time, these are the things we got to focus on, right? There's all these other opportunities out there. And gosh, we would love to get to those things, but we only got so much time. So we got to focus on the things that are most important, right? And now with AI and the whole company now, adopting AI, we're finding ourselves not able to, like, tackle some of these opportunities that before we're like, hey, we just don't have enough time to do it. So, for example, we always wanted to build a phone plan for kids because we just think, you know, social media is toxic, but then also, like,

29:02 the phone itself, though, is really valuable because it unlocks the ability for someone to communicate, right? So, for example, like, I want to wait for my kids to text or call their grandparents without the social media shit on the phone. So we always wanted to build a phone plan for kids that they can communicate, but it doesn't have all the stuff that we don't want them to be exposed to.

29:29 And now we finally were able to get that done.

29:34 So let's talk about AI just in general, right? because obviously you've been in tech pretty much your whole life yeah and it's the number one trending topic right now as far as you know the dangers of ai well ai in humanity but like you said as far as this revolutionizing business so what what are your thoughts on the on the current state of ai as far as do you think it's more of a danger than a help at this point?

30:06 I'm not like seeing that right now. And maybe I'm naive, but I'm not seeing people using it for like dangerous things yet. I do think like there are safeguards in it and there should be safeguards in it. So if you're using it to like, do nefarious stuff. I think it should not let you do that. But I think in general, it's kind of like the next, I think it's like the next industrial revolution where we're all just going to get so much of our, like humans in general, we're going to get so much of our time back and then we're going to be able to redeploy our time into other things.

30:51 Like in 10 years, right? What do you see the world look like in 10 years as far as how AI changed it?

30:56 Yeah, I would like, I would say like the best analogy is like back in the old days, I'm sure like most of our time was spent like farming, right? Like, cause we didn't have like machines, machines to like harvest the potatoes or whatever.

31:12 Right.

31:12 So then you gotta do it by hand.

31:14 Right.

31:14 So to eat, there's gotta be this many people that have to go and, you know, farm. Right. Um, but then since now they've automated a lot of farming. Like we all get to do other stuff. Like we don't have to farm anymore. Only a small percentage of people have to farm and then feed the whole population. So I think it'll be just something like that where there's going to be a lot of like busy work that people are doing today. Not even busy work, just work in general that people are doing today that now AI could do for us and that would just free our time to do stuff that AI can't do, which is more creative things.

31:55 Yeah. I think I'm with you on that.

31:56 I think the time is the thing we need to think of. And even from the entrepreneurial mindset, working in a nine to five, which I was for years, and then being an entrepreneur, you don't realize how much time you have to think, right?

32:12 Because when you're in the grind of get.

32:14 Up, go to work, do the job, have lunch, do the job, go home, eat dinner, reset, do the same thing again tomorrow. There's not time to be creative, to critically think, to figure out what else I can do. And if that's given back, how much more creative things can be done? So I think that you're spot on with the assessment there. I want to talk about the revenue model because it is ad-based. Getting partnerships is tough.

32:43 Finding people to sponsor and be part of the ad team is tough. How has that been to you early stage as to now? Because and you can correct me if I'm wrong, cumulatively, you've generated a billion dollars throughout the course of the company?

32:59 Mm-hmm.

33:00 So how's that gone for you?

33:02 Yeah, we have a hybrid business model. So we make money from ads, and then we have upgrades in our app that people can upgrade to.

33:11 Mm-hmm.

33:13 Also, within ads, there's ads that we sell directly, and then there's ads that we auction in the marketplace for people to bid on.

33:22 Mm-hmm.

33:22 So in the early days, we actually didn't even have to sell ads directly. We just put our ads. And there's like auctions that you could just like put your ads in an auction and then people bid on it. And then, so the ad ecosystem is pretty sophisticated like that. It's like you actually, a lot of independent properties that want to make money, like monetize their ads. their properties, they don't actually have to hire their own ad sales team.

33:52 They can just either use Google's auctionware or all these other auctionwares out there. You can just integrate it into your app and then the people can just bid on it.

34:04 So as it scales, obviously you need more people, then more ad dollars come in. Is there any point that you think to yourself, all right, maybe we should charge 99 cents? Or has it always been the thesis, we're making this free the entire time?

34:19 So it's actually the opposite. It started paid because there was no ads back then. Back then, there's no such thing as mobile ads. So then we had to come up with a price for the rent to be paid and the pizza. Don't forget the pizza. And the ramen and the pizza. So we experimented in the beginning. For a while, it was like five bucks for the app.

34:47 which may seem like a lot, but, you know, our rationale is, well, you're texting 20 bucks a month. So five bucks is a one-time fee is a bargain, right? So actually that's how it started off. But then a lot of people didn't trust that it worked, didn't know that it would work. So it was like five bucks was a lot to risk, something that you don't know is going to work. So we then lowered the price to a dollar and then our sales like went through the roof. then we're like, okay, well, what if we made it a dollar for the first three months and then four bucks a year? And then it didn't really change or like volume at all, except it's, except we just made more money. Um, because, because the idea is

35:30 once people found out it worked, you know, they, they see the value and they don't mind paying, paying more. Um, so that was like original business model. And then eventually we had a free version, which let you test send 15 texts a day. Um, And then you want to send more than 15 texts a day, you got to upgrade to the paid version. And then that really made it really, really take off. Because now you don't have to pay any money to see if it worked or not.

35:54 You get to see it for free. So that was kind of the original business model. And then when mobile ads was available as technology, we put it in our free version. And we actually found that we were making more money on our free version than our paid version. which wasn't very intuitive. Um, so they were like, well, why don't we just make it free? So that's what we did. We just made it, made, made, made, made, made it free. That's, that's how it's kind of evolution of business model.

36:28 And how have you been able to market it? Like how, how do people find out about it? Like how, what's the campaign that you've been?

36:35 Um, yeah, in the early days it was just word of mouth. And then the initial seed of users was just like me, like, reaching out to people being like, Hey, can you review our app? Give me some promo codes. Um, and just doing that over and over and over again. And then bird of mouth, uh, got us to probably our first million customers.

36:58 How many users do you have?

37:00 Um, we have 10 million monthly active users, something like that.

37:05 So in the app store, like Apple takes 30%, right? But, but if it's free, How does Apple get paid for a free app in the App Store? Do you have to pay Apple to have your app in the App Store?

37:15 No, just the app purchases. They'll get a cut of that. I think in the ads, too, there's other people that take a cut of the revenue, like people that provide the auctionware and all that stuff, like Google, whatever. There's a lot of players in the middle that take a cut of their ad revenue in the middle. Apple used to do that, but they don't anymore because Apple kind of exited the ad business.

37:41 Oh, Apple's not in the ad business anymore?

37:42 Yeah, they used to run their own ad platform called iAd, but that doesn't exist anymore. So I don't think Apple gets a cut of the ad revenue.

37:54 So 10 million monthly users. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. How are other telecommunication companies viewing you? Are they looking at you as hey, this is an alternative to that scaling that we need to take notice of, or are they looking like, hey, we need to change pricing, or is it C, how do we try to acquire that company?

38:18 I think it depends on the company. I think not all telecom companies are the same. They all have different management, and they all think about it differently. I think some of them for sure view us in a more hostile way, and some of them view us more of a friendly way. And so, yeah, we work with actually one of them, right?

38:41 We go on their cellular network, right, when you're off Wi-Fi. So we partner with one of them. And one of them, you know, it's AT & T. We partner with them. They, yeah, they see the value in partnering with us. So, you know, we write them big checks every month, right? And the way they see it is we partner. It's a win-win, so.

39:05 I'm thinking about the 10 million again. How were you able to handle that bandwidth? That's not something that people think, oh, more people is better. But when you go from a million to two, now you've increased by 100% in terms of bandwidth. How were you able to manage that up to 10 million now?

39:22 Yeah, I mean, that's another thing is like when we first launched our app, it was like you know, we like kind of like put it on like a server somewhere and we kind of, you know, had duct taped it together, right? Like, and then once we got like our first like 100,000 users on it, it would just crash all the time, right? Actually, interestingly, like the first Christmas after, we like launch text now, um, all these people were opening iPod touches on the 25th. That's their birthday present. Right. So then what happened was like, there was like a massive surge in traffic, um, on the 25th.

40:06 And then literally like, I remember like that Christmas at like, like we didn't get any sleep. We, we like had no time off. We were just like 24 seven trying to figure out how to keep our servers up. from all the new traffic. Also, we didn't really, we didn't have experience back then on how to like scale a web service. Cause yeah, we never had to. So then, yeah, as you scale from like, you know, a hundred thousand, a million, 10 million, you have to like hire people that have done this before and can scale web services.

40:43 So you just can't have it on like one machine anymore. You got to have it like on the cloud on AWS and you got to like scale your services like horizontally. That's what they call it. And then, and then, so then no matter if it's like one person accessing the service or a hundred million people accessing the service, there's, there's, um, there is server capacity available.

41:08 Right.

41:09 Um, and you can just scale dynamically on the cloud. Um, so, but, but back then your AWS wasn't a thing.

41:15 I'm trying to think as you're saying, I'm like, was AWS even there?

41:19 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

41:20 So, so, so, so, so then back then you had to like buy multiple servers.

41:23 Right.

41:23 And then, and then, and then like, Oh wow. You got to like project like, okay, how many users are you going to get?

41:28 Okay.

41:29 If like, okay. Like if you're going to have like this many users, then like, okay, we need like more servers. So that I remember like for Christmas, the next Christmas we had to like, plan for like more capacity than we have in case, you know, there's a surge of users, we won't go down. But nowadays, yeah, and then eventually when AWS came along, now you can just like move, we move our infrastructure to AWS and now you can like dynamically scale.

41:53 Yeah, that changes everything. Yeah.

41:55 So you invest also. I heard, Sam, you invested $ 8, 000 in Apple and it grew to $ 80, 000? Sorry, what? You invest in the stock market, right?

42:05 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

42:06 You invested in Apple?

42:08 Yeah, yeah, I did, yeah. Well, back in the old, like, college days, yeah.

42:12 I, like.

42:12 8,000 and it grew to 80?

42:14 Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I, like, took all my, like, internship money and, like, instead of, you know, blowing it, I, like, I just kept buying Apple stock.

42:26 So, what did, what did dad teach you about investing and patience and the markets?

42:32 Um.

42:32 Connecting your money as a, as a young kid, like, you know, that's something that's, like, you probably was 20 years old, 21 years old, so. What did that teach you?

42:39 Oh, I think, I think, yeah, I mean, yeah, I was fortunate. Like I, I, growing up, I had like a friend in school, um, that, you know, his dad was really wealthy. Um, and then, so I learned a lot from my friend cause he was like a middle school friend. And then, so like, he like learned about this, he learned about the stock market from his dad and I learned about stock market from him. And then through that, I kind of learned that like, oh, like if you actually just like save your money, but like not in like a savings account, you just keep putting money in the stock market, the money when the stock market will actually work for you and then also compound. So what that means is the earnings from the stock market, right?

43:33 If you don't take it out, those earnings will, will get automatically reinvested. And then you get compound interest. So I learned that concept from him. And then that's kind of like how, you know, when I was in college, I was like, well, instead of with all my internship money that I didn't use, instead of, you know, finding new ways to spend it, I was like, yeah, I should just buy Apple stock. Cause that was also the only company I actually really understood what they do. So instead of buying like, Because I also remember if I buy random stocks, I would lose my money, right? So then, you know what? I'm going to stop doing that. I'm just going to buy the one stock that I understood what they do. And I knew it was a good

44:20 company and the management was good. So all I did was like every dollar that I didn't spend, I would just like buy Apple stock.

44:30 You still have it now?

44:32 I sold it, I think. Few years ago.

44:36 Yeah.

44:38 Not that long ago.

44:42 Yeah.

44:42 I mean, you know, I think still a good company, but I think now there's like better, more interesting things to put my money in.

44:50 But how have you been with money?

44:53 Right.

44:53 Like you said, I'm putting every dollar ahead at that time to a point now where you have a business that's generating pretty, pretty good profits.

45:02 Yeah.

45:03 Have you always been disciplined with money or were you frivolous at it at a point as it started to come in more?

45:09 Um, yeah, it's interesting because my mom was always pretty frugal. So I kind of like learn those ways from her. Uh, she's always like trying to find the best deal.

45:18 Um, yeah.

45:20 So I, I still am, you know, um, you know, my wife makes fun of me when I like, um, circle the block for parking and I could just, pay.

45:32 For parking, you know?

45:33 Cause like, Hey honey, your, your time is worth more than whatever, you know? Like, why don't you just pay for parking? But I still, I still circle the block for free parking, free parking. So there's some habits that don't, don't change. Um, um, so, but that parking situation, right? Yeah.

45:51 Is this, so one thing to circle a block, you have a $ 350, 000 car.

45:55 Yeah.

45:55 What car is it?

45:56 It's a, GT3 Touring, a Porsche GT3 Touring.

46:03 I was just looking at that car. Is that a dream car?

46:07 Yeah. Yeah.

46:08 Sick car.

46:09 Yeah.

46:11 Okay. So you have a $ 350, 000 car and your wife caught you on a computer, like looking for free parking?

46:22 No, no. It was actually, the story was like, I... was going to meet her at Benihana because it was my father-in-law's birthday, you know, celebration, right? We were going to go meet Benihana. Um, and then instead of going home and then going together, I was like, I'll meet you there. And so, um, and she was like tracking me on the life 360 app. And then I was like, Hey, I'm there just finding parking. And then, you know, and I was supposed to be there at seven and I was there like 710 or something like that it was like.

46:57 Because you couldn't because you didn't want to do valet.

47:00 Yeah yeah so she caught me like circling yeah yeah eventually i gave in i like paid for parking but then she caught me circling the block.

47:07 Well what's the mindset of that because this is an interesting paradox right where yeah you obviously aren't afraid to spend money on things that you like because you have a 350 000 car but you're also financially frugal enough to not want to waste $ 40 on parking when you can find a free parking spot. That's an interesting dynamic.

47:30 What's the psychology behind balancing? Because it would be one thing if you had a Prius and you was doing that, but you have, you know.

47:38 They don't even make that anymore.

47:40 Yeah, you got the rare Porsche and you're doing that. So where's the balance here?

47:47 Yeah, I think the psychology is like, just the value I'm getting out of it. And like, what's my alternative, right? If like, okay, the value of parking is just like, okay, like it's gotta just be close to where I'm going.

47:59 Right.

48:00 And then, you know, has to like, also like do the job of just like, okay, here's a spot.

48:06 If it's, right. The value add proposition. Yeah. The car is, you can rationalize the uses of the car, but parking is like not a finite resource where, does it really make sense to pay $ 40 for parking when mathematically there's a good chance that you can find parking for free? It's like an equation. Exactly. Yeah.

48:27 There's alternative. Then you go for like the alternative that's better, but there's no alternative. Then I'll just pay for, for it. Right. Rather than go to the, like the most expensive op, like it's never going straight. The most expensive option. I always say, look, is there a slightly better option?

48:44 Yeah.

48:45 Um, and if, There isn't, then I'll give in to the more expensive option. And I guess that's how I'm thinking about parking. It's just like, okay, well, if there's a better option, which is free street parking, I'll spend the five minutes to just check if there is.

49:03 Then that's text mail. The better free option.

49:07 Yeah, that's how it started. I was like, hey, you can go straight to the most expensive option, which is paying $ 20 for texting, but hey, there's probably a free option. And then that's how I found out that That's... hack that you could send text messages for free. And then I was like, oh, I'll make an app to let everyone use that hack.

49:26 I do the same thing. I'm trying to figure out, let's look at free first.

49:30 So in the city, usually after seven, you're pretty good, but definitely after nine, you got a good chance. So I'm like, no, let's go around that time. Let's see if we can find free. And if not, we'll park. But parking that on the street is kind of tough.

49:42 That GT is.

49:44 Actually, like, see, it's like I also thought about that. Parking on like a, you know, in San Francisco, parking spots are really tight.

49:54 That's true.

49:55 So I'm exposing myself to door ding risk.

49:58 Ah.

49:58 Right.

50:00 Whereas I'm parking on the street, I'm not exposing myself on door ding risk. I might be exposing myself to bird poop risk. which I'm fine with.

50:09 The street is actually safer.

50:11 I think so. As long as you're not curb-rushing your wheels, you know, parking too close to the curb, I actually think street parking is way safer. You don't expose yourself to door dings.

50:24 Here's what I want you to tell them next time you go to the parking garage. Leave mine in the front. Leave it right in the front. Don't put it in the elevator. Leave it right in the front. I'll be back in an hour to come get it.

50:36 Yeah.

50:36 That way nobody can touch it.

50:38 Yeah. Yeah.

50:39 That's another way to do it.

50:39 You've earned it.

50:40 Yeah. You got to pay extra money for that. So upcharge.

50:43 We'll upcharge.

50:44 Yeah.

50:45 No dings though.

50:46 No dings.

50:47 No dings.

50:48 So you keep, you referenced this a few times as far as like, there's a backdoor way that you found out. Like you said, like the email, if you have an email, you can send a text message for free. You found, that's what you found out. That's like the. Yeah.

50:59 I found out every like phone number has like an email attached to it.

51:04 Every phone number has an email attached to it.

51:06 Yeah.

51:06 What's the email? Just a random, nobody knows that email. Like I have a phone number. Yeah.

51:10 It's like, it's like, um, it's like the format's usually like your phone number at like, and then the carrier email. So for example, if you have like Verizon, it would be like V text or whatever.com your phone number at V text.com. If it's T-Mobile, I think it's like your phone number at T-Mobile mail or whatever. And then if it's like, It's like your phone number at txt.att.net or whatever.

51:39 So then like every carrier has like this email that's attached to the phone number in that format. And then if you email it, it'll just come through as text.

51:50 And that's how you figured out that we could just have free texting. Yeah.

51:53 Yeah.

51:53 It doesn't work that way anymore because now we actually get people actual phone numbers and it works like a normal phone now. But back then, that's the very first version of an app. That's how it worked.

52:06 No, we travel a lot.

52:07 So I'm wondering now, I got text now on my 17. When I travel to Africa, if I travel to Europe, same, is it international rules apply?

52:20 How does it work from an international standpoint when I'm traveling?

52:23 Yeah, as long as you have Wi-Fi and internet, the app will work. The eSIM... Won't work unless you're in Canada, US, or Mexico.

52:34 Okay. Yeah.

52:36 But yeah, internationally, all you do is connect to Wi-Fi. The app will work.

52:41 The app will work.

52:41 And you can text and call through the app.

52:45 So almost like WhatsApp, in a sense, where I can text, call, do all those things. I just need to have Wi-Fi.

52:50 Exactly, yeah. Gotcha.

52:52 Cat Williams. How did you decide to work with him for the, I believe it's the Way Too Smart to Pay Dumb campaign?

53:00 Um, I'll be honest. I mean, that's something that I think a mark, you know, marketing team, um, their excellent job.

53:09 Did you know who he was?

53:11 Uh, I'll be honest.

53:12 Not really.

53:13 I found out about him after we picked him. I'm not like plugged in to pop culture. Um, I kind of joke, you know, cause I'm building my thing. I'm like kind of under a rock, you know?

53:27 So how much, okay. you say you're under a rock, right? What does that look like? Do you actually have social media? Are you on social media? How many hours a day are you, you know, reading or in front of a computer? Like what's your normal day look like as far as what is your exposure to the outside world and how is your workflow?

53:48 Um, I mean, like I watched like I'm Canadian. So like my obsession, um, outside of work is like hockey. So I'll like watch like, hockey highlight videos.

54:01 Leafs? Yeah.

54:02 Yeah.

54:03 Okay. Yeah.

54:03 They had their first, uh, regular season game yesterday. Yep.

54:08 Um, yeah.

54:09 So I'll like watch that. Um, and then, and then the rest is just like, yeah, I'll kind of boring. I just read the wall street journal and like stuff like that. I'll read the news.

54:22 Um, no time for social media.

54:25 Yeah.

54:25 I mean a little bit, little bit but most of you look at my social media it's mostly just like hockey content really yeah um and like other sports content too yeah yeah mainly sports.

54:39 Yeah that makes it that makes a lot of sense i wonder like when you're thinking about i'm under the rock i'm working like what is something that you see in the future that you guys.

54:49 Don't already have in the tool belt that's like.

54:53 I'm looking at the space and this is something that I see it's going this way. We need to figure out how to build that for us. You mean like new products, new products?

55:08 Yeah.

55:08 Yeah. Yeah.

55:08 Um, I mean, that's one thing we really always wanted to build was like a really smart phone service for small businesses.

55:20 Okay.

55:22 I think small business owners spend a lot of time answering phone calls, talking to customers, delivery customer service, you know, like for us, we're a bigger company. So we kind of have the luxury of like, you know, bigger company having, being able to divide and conquer, right. You know, we got like customer service department and we've got like different departments, but like if you're a small business, you gotta like do, you gotta wear like all the hats and do everything.

55:47 And I think it managing customer communication and, customer service i think it's a huge pain point for a lot of like small um small business custom small businesses so i think we have an incredible opportunity to provide a bunch of tools for them to be more efficient.

56:06 Yeah i'm not i'm thinking envision like i have this small company everybody has their own cell phones i'm assuming but having another cell phone an additional cell phone that is like most people say i have a work phone Right. Are you envisioning like that? Like we'll be that for that additional quote unquote work phone.

56:24 Yeah.

56:24 Well, on top of that also help.

56:26 Yes.

56:27 And, you know, help them also get their time back. Um, because we're, we're helping them be more efficient at answering phone calls, knowing what calls are spam. They could ignore knowing that like, oh, like this phone number belongs to so-and-so customer. They called you. already like five times right about this thing so and then have like a summary of like hey you know you have this history with this customer um being able to summarize that um being maybe eventually have it be able to like answer phone calls for you a receptionist um take notes for you right with what the customer wants you're building the algo to do that yeah or yeah i think it's like with ai i think there's a lot of interesting things

57:14 we could build to just help small business, how small businesses get their time back. So that's something we're thinking about. We talked about the kid phone. So that's something that's also top of mind for us too. Yeah, there's a lot of things like that we're cooking.

57:40 You said something that made me think about something where I was talking to troy i was um talking to the guy sells solar energy and he was saying how solar energy is one of the few energies that's actually got cheaper over the course of time like 1970 to have solar power your home it was like a thousand dollars a month now you can do it for 200 a month because nobody really had it in 1970 right and it was it was so involved now that more and more people are getting it, it's becoming a lot easier for the install. So it's actually, the cost is going down. When you really think about it, that should be true for any level of technology, right? Because I just looked and the phone bill in 2006 was $ 44

58:23 a month. Today, the average phone bill is $ 120 to $ 140 a month. That's a 175 to 200% increase. But technology has gotten more efficient. So In reality, the phone bill should actually be even cheaper. So why don't we have a question why our bills keep going up if more and more people are coming to the ecosystem and the technology is becoming more and more efficient? What's the justification for it to be extremely, because that's not even like a small increase. That's almost 220% increase, right, in 20 years. That's a pretty extreme increase. Why is it going up if the technology is getting better?

59:08 I mean, to be honest, there's no justification. for it.

59:11 But nobody ever asks the question either. That's the thing too, right? We just pay our cell phone bill. We never really think about it from that standpoint.

59:19 From an economic standpoint, I think if you want to break it down, it has to do with consolidations.

59:29 Of companies. Yeah, yeah.

59:30 Like a lot of telecom companies merged, they merged or they get bought by bigger ones. And as more of them consolidate, there's less players competing in the same market. And when there's less players competing for business in the same market, those fewer people have more power to compete. whatever price is high to whatever they want.

59:57 Yeah yeah you only got like a few options.

59:59 Yeah i mean you know like think of all the companies that got you know bought recently right even like you know for example one one recent example is like boost boost mobile right um it doesn't you know not independent anymore um.

1:00:16 T-mobile bought sprint sprint doesn't exist.

1:00:19 So there's just some examples of just like so much consolidation in the industry has probably contributed to prices going up.

1:00:29 And they'll probably use it from their standpoint. They're going to say, well, we had to expand on infrastructure. So when we went to broadband, that costs money. You want to go from 3G to 4G, that costs money. 5G costs money. Then they'll say, the other part is that they're passing on costs because when they buy from tech companies, let's say it's Apple, they're buying those devices in bulk and they're subsidizing it and they're saying, how are we going to pay for this? We're going to add that into a bill and nobody understands the cost, but it just gets added to it, right? Because every year they're getting new phones, but they're buying it at a certain price and selling it to you at a different price.

1:01:07 Exactly, yeah.

1:01:09 Yeah, I mean, also at the end of the day, it's like most people don't really need 5G. Like, there's not a huge difference between 5G and 4G or LTE, right? Like, your YouTube still works on LTE, right?

1:01:28 Yeah, they'll give us a statistic. It's 10 times more faster. And what does that even mean?

1:01:35 Exactly. Exactly.

1:01:36 It's just, again, it's just like a way for them to justify charging more. I think it's doesn't really, most consumers don't need that level of performance, right? They, they just, they're just, you're just texting and calling your friends and family and then scrolling TikTok and as long as it loads, you know, like I think coverage matters more than, than whether it's 5g or LTE or whatever.

1:02:04 Right.

1:02:05 Yeah.

1:02:06 Um, what do you, From a health standpoint, there's been a lot of things, especially talking about the 5G. And, you know, there's all types of things. It's like you should cut your Wi-Fi off when you're at night, when you're at home. You shouldn't sleep next to your phone. It could, you know, microwave your brain. What are your thoughts on the power that our phone has from a health standpoint on us?

1:02:34 I'll be honest. I don't know much about the... the effects of like the, the, the, the radio waves or anything like that. But I do think like the, like the screen time, it's like a pretty big issue. Like, like in general, um, there's a lot of like addicting apps on our phone. So it's like, I feel like that's just like a general issue now. It's just a lot of people are hooked on their phones. It's like crack.

1:03:06 Especially for kids. You know, recently there was like that ruling against Meta. So I think that's just like a trend of just like, you know, just us trying to figure out like as society, like how do we handle that problem? I don't think anyone's figured that out yet.

1:03:27 We got 10 monthly, 10 million monthly users.

1:03:31 Yeah.

1:03:32 What's the pathway to get into 20? Like how do we get there?

1:03:35 Um, I think it's really simple. Um, you know, since the beginning of time, we've just been, our goals always has been to just figure out how to give people more for less. You know, we started out with just only free texting and then we figured out how to give people free calling. And then now we're trying to figure out how to give people free data. Uh, we're trying to figure out how to make the data cheaper.

1:04:06 So we're always just always trying to figure out how to give people more for less. And as we just continue to do that, yeah, that's how we grow.

1:04:14 So would you look at your company right now as a compliment to the major providers or a potential replacement for the major providers?

1:04:22 It's both. It's both. If you're already using a major provider, you can use us as your second phone line. A lot of people could use a second phone line A lot of people have multiple email addresses. They have the Rook email, the personal email. They have their other email. So why not have multiple phone numbers? I think that just makes sense.

1:04:49 Especially if you're running a business.

1:04:51 Especially when you're.

1:04:51 Running a business.

1:04:52 I think that's really important when you're running a business that people don't have your personal phone number. Because when you're with your family or whatever, you could just send the other phone number to a voicemail.

1:05:02 So if I want to make a call from my other, I just go on the app and I make a phone call from there? Yeah. That's, that's how it gets that number. Yep. Exactly.

1:05:09 Yeah.

1:05:10 Yeah. And then, yeah. And then I think there's a lot of folks that.

1:05:14 How do I know somebody's calling? Like somebody's calling me, right? How do I know that they're calling the business line and not the personal line? If it's the same phone.

1:05:22 On your lock screen, it'll show like.

1:05:24 Say text now?

1:05:25 Text now on it.

1:05:25 Yeah. Okay.

1:05:26 Yeah. When the incoming call comes.

1:05:28 Okay. Yeah.

1:05:29 So you answer it from the business. Hello. This is as opposed to hello. This is John Doe. This is hello.

1:05:34 This is a whole different voice. Hey, how are you doing today?

1:05:38 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

1:05:43 He got your professional. Hello. He got your, what up?

1:05:47 What'd it do?

1:05:48 Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:51 And then, and then for folks that just want something that's free or cheaper or whatever, also we could, yeah, we could also replace your, your carrier line as well.

1:06:01 Right.

1:06:01 I think there's a lot of people that are juggling a lot of expenses. So like, Maybe it's like, hey, maybe you are stuck between, hey, do I pay for food or do I pay for my phone bill? If anybody is in that situation, then you don't have to worry about that. You could choose not to pay for your phone bill.

1:06:22 And if you have a family plan, you guys have family plans? No.

1:06:28 Okay.

1:06:28 No.

1:06:29 Okay.

1:06:29 No.

1:06:30 Well, what I'm saying is that if somebody is paying for multiple phones, now that cost savings, like if they have text now on every single phone, right? Now, instead of dropping maybe $ 80, now it's like $ 300 that's being saved. Right, right, right. Across the family. Right.

1:06:46 Well, you can get the whole family on text now.

1:06:48 That's what I'm saying. Yeah. If the whole family's on text now, now everybody's bill goes down.

1:06:54 That's true.

1:06:55 Yeah. Yeah.

1:06:56 So now it's a bigger group savings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:00 Also, you know, not everybody in your family may need a data plan, right? Maybe you're paying for your kid's phone plan. Maybe you're paying for grandma or grandpa's phone plan, but they don't really use all the data, right? Get them on text now and then you'll, you're safe paying for their phone plan, right?

1:07:21 It's true. I just updated my parents' phone. They're on the same plan and their plan was so old that it doesn't even exist anymore. So they had to upgrade to a newer plan.

1:07:33 Yeah.

1:07:33 Because, you know, they were like, hey, the data is getting used at a faster rate.

1:07:39 This is all nonsense. But I'm thinking to myself, they don't even need data. They're home most of the day. Exactly.

1:07:45 They're on Wi-Fi most of the day. And they're not using it. And they're only calling and texting a few people in life.

1:07:52 Yeah. But I still got to pay this.

1:07:53 I think it was like $ 112 for both of them now.

1:07:56 Yeah.

1:07:56 You can pay zero.

1:07:58 Zero is a lot better.

1:07:59 Yeah. Yeah.

1:08:01 Yeah.

1:08:02 Well, thank you. Thank you for your time. Tell the people, you know, the Instagram for TexNow and how to download the app and any information.

1:08:12 Yeah, at TexNow and yeah, search TexNow in the app store. Check us out at TexNow.com.

1:08:19 Yeah, that's what happened, man. And check out our series, man. Outsmart the System with TexNow. Make sure y'all go check that out. Dope content.

1:08:27 All right, guys. We'll see you next week. Peace.