How Brands Track Your Data to Predict What You’ll Buy Next

0:00 And by the end of the summer, I had to hire an assistant. And I made that first summer, I made $600. Oh my god, this is which is huge. And that was the money that I used for one of my first tickets to the States airplane tickets. And I applied for 250 jobs, and only one of them actually came back. And the guy is actually now the guy who hired me back then.

0:22 So now I actually invited him to join me in my journey as a business partner. Yeah, I received a seize and desists from my one of my prior bosses who I was consulting with for, mind you, $25 an hour. And then I thought, wow, someone actually thinks that I'm that good. I'll take all the business in the world.

0:44 Actually, I framed the letter as a good memory. When you sell a product, you're not selling yourself. You're not selling your idea. Right. You are selling the data and the analytics.

1:10 Right, who has against all odds, and that's what I like. I really like people who have not been just handed everything on a silver platter, people who have had uh, you know, uh uh adversarial, that's not the word, you know, uh have had difficulties along the way, bumps in the road, pebbles in their shoe, and that they've persisted, persistence, right?

1:29 And resilience, right? Spiritually, emotionally, financially, physically. Those are the things that make people their best self. So today is extraordinary. I'm having bringing you somebody who uh is really for me one of the most exciting people I've met in forever.

1:46 Wow. Wow.

1:49 So nice to have you.

1:50 So good to see you, so good to be here.

1:53 Because she knows I can't see red. So this is like I see this. I see the Bordeaux. It reminds me of a fine wine. My plant.

2:00 And what an honor. Wow, what an introduction. Now I now I'm almost scared. Can I live up to my introduction?

2:05 Absolutely. You blow that away. So let me let me pivot so that I can just have the gentle soft landing to make it easier for you. So anyway, when we come up here, we like to, I like to talk about people's beginnings, how they how they when they first felt and saw their vision, right? Uh, talk about the the bumps in the road and the pebbles in their show and things they had to uh transcend and oh oh and and get beyond, right, to get where they want to go.

2:34 And when did that, you know, when did the journey really start? And when did they see the vision and get in the lane that they wanted to? And then what have they created, right? What was it like then? What's it like now, and what does the future look like? That's kind of where we're at. So you know what?

2:50 So this is Sveda, she's from Bulgaria. Hi, my name is Sveda, I'm from Bulgaria. That's her elevator pitch. So we don't want your elevator pitch, just give me a little background about you, young Sveda at 10 years old, and where were you?

3:04 Wow, that it just brings back so many memories. But I was in Bulgaria when I was 10. I was learning English, not realizing that I would actually live abroad, but it was always a vision and a dream. So talking about spirituality and talking about vision and energy, which I'm a firm believer in, you really have to put it out in the universe, what you envision, and you have to work towards it.

3:27 And you know what? Maybe sometimes it won't happen, but that's okay because you still dreamt and you still uh tried something new, and obviously you'll land somewhere different than where you were before. So that was me at 10. I was hoping that someday my phone rings all the time and that I'm such a busy lady and people want to work with me, and that I was actually calling the shop.

3:50 You saw that at 10 years old. You're already right.

3:52 I was very my I was very bossy as a child, which in in Eastern Europe that was actually frowned upon. Really? Uh so my family For a woman, you mean. For a woman, yes. Not not okay.

4:03 Right, because Eastern European men are bossy by nature.

4:06 Well, Eastern Europeans are bossy, like to say that. But yeah, in initially my my family always used to say, you're too bossy, you have to tone it down. And I was like, but I can't help it, it's just my personality. So yeah, 10, I never envisioned that I would actually be here at the New York Stock Exchange.

4:21 I used to watch movies, and I would see the New York Stock Exchange again, the most iconic institution in the world that I love so much. It it brings to me just memories of me being a 10 and my reality now, which is I'm here and I am living my American dream thanks to the New York Stock Exchange and the opportunities that the country provides.

4:43 You know what you have lived, you in the short period of time I know you. You are you have every quality that uh that is the synergy between what goes on here and you and how you've grown and become the person you are. It couldn't be more you're you're iconic in your own way. And so you are you're you're the best of breed in so many different things.

5:07 Well, as is this great financial institution.

5:09 Well, the best breeds I think do come from uh from the dirt, like lotus flowers. So here's a nice uh scratch the dirt and things.

5:17 My my gut is that you will maybe, if that's what you decide to do as your exit at some point, as we just discussed, talking about exits, right? There are two reasons why people go IPO. Either to get money and get out of here or to grow their company and to really spread the love in a much bigger way.

5:34 That you may go public one day, right? One day you'll be up on that podium not looking down and clapping with everybody else. I love it. But you'll be up there ringing that bell.

5:41 I love it. Yeah. Honestly, I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I have no doubt that I could do it.

5:46 Without a doubt. If though if you choose to do it, I know that. For the little that I know you, everything you've chosen to do, you've done, right? Yeah, uh in spades. Yeah. So, okay, so let's go. So that was you. You had a you were a visionary at 10, right? But you were living in you know in a different life in in Bulgaria, and you had this dream of what you wanted to do actually then to come to America and to become something.

6:09 Yes. And at age 12, I decided to start my entrepreneurial journey and create money out of thin air, basically out of nothing. So Bulgaria, very unknown. I think still to this day, Bulgaria is very overlooked.

6:21 I would say Romania, Bulgaria, there are a couple of Eastern European countries that people just don't know.

6:26 Yeah, right?

6:27 But they're incredibly beautiful in so many ways. Go ahead.

6:29 And they border with beautiful other countries on the Balkan peninsula. I mean, we have Greece, we have Croatia, we have Turkey. Everyone has heard of these countries, but when you say Bulgaria, most people actually uh seem to think that I'm from Bolivia or another country.

6:43 And I guarantee you that they would not be able to point it out on a map. Oh, I actually guarantee.

6:48 Absolutely. And it's okay.

6:50 And what language do you speak in Bulgaria?

6:52 So in Bulgaria, we speak Bulgarian. Bulgarian. Right. Um, but growing up, I had the honor, my mom was a very fierce woman, uh, Eastern European woman, who uh always pushed to break ceilings and go beyond borders. So I did learn with her help and her influence Spanish and French fluently. Okay. And because education in Eastern Europe is actually very strong, I'm not sure if you're aware, but I grew up with it.

7:16 My parents are Eastern European, and education to them was everything.

7:21 Oh, it still is everything.

7:22 It's they've read every book, every poet, every language. My parents spoke 14 languages. So I was brought up with that sensibility that education is it. And right, you you've got, and it's not like one of this, one of that. You've got to do it all.

7:35 Yes, you have to understand again the authors of the world, the countries of the world, the languages. I mean, just be a well-rounded person. Yeah. And I'll forever be grateful for I mean, honestly, I'm I'm grateful that I grew up in an adversarial. That was the word I was looking for, adversarial. Country at the time, because again, things have changed and the country's evolved significantly.

7:58 But when I was growing there, growing up there, at age 12, uh, everyone was just enjoying their summer breaks. And I always I always have ideas. Every corner, and even since a child, everywhere I turn around, I s I have ideas about a new product or a new service or how I'm going to position something.

8:16 That's why we get along. I'm the same way.

8:18 And there were many tourists in my hometown. Right. And I spoke all of these foreign languages. Okay. So I decided that I was going to dress in a traditional costume, bring a metal can and put it in front of me, and everyone who took a photo with me would throw me a dollar or a euro or a Deutsche Mark or anything.

8:38 Right. And by the end of the summer, I had to hire an assistant because I still needed. Yes. And I made that first summer.

8:46 How much did you make?

8:47 I made $600. Oh my gosh. This is Which is huge. So much it was so much money. I mean, it was more than 30 something years ago. Uh well 20 something. I was gonna say thank you. 20 something. Um, but yeah, that's how I made my first money, which I actually put aside, um, and that was the money that I used for one of my first tickets to the States, airplane tickets.

9:08 That's amazing. That was my first really dabbling into and and tapping into entrepreneurship. And I realized that although I live in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere on the map of the world, you can create your own reality. And you know what? You have to be very, you have to be okay with understanding that not not everyone around you will appreciate it, not everyone around you will see the vision.

9:32 Right. Because again, I was a young child, right? And most of my friends made fun of me. Right.

9:37 But at the end of the summer, you had the $600 and they didn't. What did your parents think of this?

9:42 I mean, my parents were very proud of me, of course. They they always have appreciated I have these crazy ideas, and most of the time they always say, That sounds crazy. Like, please don't go ahead and do it. And I always do it, and I I always love it because I basically am in a different place. Uh but you in 2008 is actually when I applied for a very tiny college in Brooklyn that no one had heard of.

10:06 Except her, Mateo, and Frankie Mazziella.

10:09 That is correct. And why I had actually applied to that.

10:13 You're still in Bulgaria when you applied to this company.

10:15 Correct. And this is how it all happened. And I think this is also why my life just evolved into a social media, into the social media space. Uh, in 2007, MySpace was penetrating Bulgaria.

10:27 Okay.

10:27 And was it already here?

10:29 We're already on Facebook. It was it was very cursor to Facebook, for those of you who don't know. Oh, yeah, I'm sure there are many young people. It was the first uh social media platform.

10:38 So myspace.com was penetrating into Eastern Europe. And I had several friends, friends of friends who were connected to people in New York City.

10:47 Okay.

10:48 And in their location, it said Brooklyn, New York, and education is at St. Francis. So I clicked on St. Francis and I kept on seeing these uh Eastern European kids who studied at St. Francis. And I'm like, wow, this person's Croatian, this is a Serbian, this is a Bulgarian. What's what's the deal with St.

11:05 Francis?

11:06 So, anyways, that was the only college that I applied to. And I felt comfortable to come. Uh, again, I spoke very good English, uh, but that was basically like my comfort zone of coming by myself with pretty much no money. No, no to little money.

11:21 The balance of the 600 from then, I want to interrupt you for a quick second, because I think what's really important for everybody to notice here, I mean, you can listen to this story and take it for its face value, but you can also listen to it for the fact is, and it's one of my the biggest premise around me trying to have a platform to teach and talk to people, uh, you know, to motivate and inspire people is that you know what, I there is no excuse for anybody to sit around and play the old poor little me, poor little me game when you do when you're not born with or are able to achieve certain levels where that you know things are not given to you.

11:56 If you want it and you have a vision and you want it bad enough, you will get it done and you will find it. If you just are humbled by by by earth and by the universe and you go out and get it. No opportunity is gonna find you cowering in your bedroom crying about how you've got nothing and nobody ever gave you a break, and the big guys all over the place and you know, stick it to the man type of mentality.

12:18 At the end of the day, everybody has an opportunity here. And I mean, that may be a little bit uh uh uh catty for me to say, but this is a young lady who grew up in a tiny small town in Bulgaria, and I promise you you don't know where they are in the map, and she's now here running a multi-million dollar company, having gone to college and fought her way through.

12:38 Every, you know, she was hacking through the forest to get where she wanted to go. So that's the point I want to get here. Persistence, resilience, and drive is is is one of the greatest qualities of all. Humility, honesty, or some other ones, and kindness. We'll talk about that later. So go ahead.

12:53 I agree. I mean, yeah, persistence basically is a key key trait that you have to have. And honestly, just not yeah, not feeling ashamed of being on your trip. That's right. It is, yeah. And you know what? Everyone has to survive and everyone's fighting. It's a tough world. It's a tough world in the US, it's a tough world in Bulgaria.

13:10 So everyone has to just wake up and put their best foot forward, and that's how you do it.

13:14 On a daily basis, because think about it. Recently, uh I was talking to my daughter, and I have two wonderful children who have had every opportunity in the world. And my daughter said she was going to, I think, for a job interview or something, and she says, you know, I get like the butterflies in my stomach every time I go there.

13:30 And she goes, Do you ever get that? And I said, Look, I've been doing this for 137 years. I'm 137 years old. Uh, I just look good for my age. And uh I still, every morning when I wake up, I have butterflies in my stomach. When I come into the stock exchange, something I've done for 40 years, and I I've found some success, I think, along the way, just to humble myself.

13:50 I still have that. And so what you need to do is, and I learned this from my my mentor, David Melcher, who is what the movie Jerry Maguire is about, who's one of the great, great mentors of all time, who said that that feeling in your belly, right, which you think is like anxiety and not being good enough and all that, is not that at all.

14:08 It means you're about to go do some epic shit. Okay, so reverse that feeling of not good enough and anxiety and fear about stuff, false evidence appearing real, and realize when you get that feeling in your belly, right, of a little bit of uncertainty, all that, that means you're about to do some epic shit.

14:26 Yeah, and just keep going with it. Do not stop. Don't listen to the noise. Yeah, right. And never take that back to the phone.

14:33 Don't listen to the don't listen to the haters. Don't listen to the people who said you can't do it. We talked about that before, about knocking on doors. What is the worst that's going to happen? You know, people are like, I I speak to young people all the time about that, how difficult it is to make that next step, you know, to ask for a job interview or to apply for a school or apply for a job, and it's oh, I can't talk to that person.

14:54 Oh, those two. No, we're all look at the end of the day, if you make the playing field uneven, that's on you. But at the end of the day, the playing field is even, right? It is even basically because it's one human being from another. What's the worst that's gonna happen? They'll say no, right? And I'll learn more from no's than I have from yeses, right?

15:12 And then it's just another door to go to, and there will be a door that says yes.

15:16 Those are the best, actually, best doors. I love that in my whole life and career, especially the last uh two decades, right? I all I've heard has been no, and doors have been shut. Right. And I'm starting, there are so many doors that have been shut for me more than the ones that have been opened from being a foreigner, being on a student visa.

15:37 Being a woman, maybe, yes. Uh, but again, as you said, I hate uh when people start using sobbing story. Oh, this didn't happen for me because I'm a woman. No, no, no. This is it's an even field, and the best man or woman wins. Yeah. And you have to keep going and opening, and it has nothing to do with who you are, where you're from.

15:56 It's it has to do actually with what's in here, and again, to some extent, yes, what's in the heart if you're coming with a good positive attitude and with good, obviously, like a good heart. Um so yeah, no, for sure.

16:08 Okay, so St. Francis, you come to America and you go to school and tell me. I'll make the story.

16:14 I'll pick up the journey and I'll make it short. Graduating in 2012, the economy was not good. It wasn't the worst. It wasn't like the one in 2007, 2008, but it wasn't the best either.

16:25 We were just getting back to even, right? Think of it to seven till 12. Yeah, that took somewhat six to eight years, just somewhat, right? Because it was not a couple more years before things started to pick up. But basically, the crash of 07-08, it took seven to eight years to get back to even here, let alone what the economy was like out there.

16:42 Right. And graduating as someone with a different name and high school listed as in Bulgaria, right? If you picked up my resume, you would say, Oh, this person's not from here. Right, right, right. So I had a tear blue topic. Right. I mean, it says I speak five languages and I could have all these coding skills, but no one really cared because I was facing the challenge of getting sponsored for a work visa by an employer.

17:08 Okay. Uh, which is just so that is that is an extra hurdle. That's just it's a huge hurdle because it's a huge hurdle. Right, as opposed to just hiring you because you are talented and you're bright. Right. Right. It's like it's a bit it's it's extra paperwork for me. Yeah. And so that's been an obstacle.

17:23 I've seen that alone, a lot of people.

17:25 Yeah, that was my I had three hundred and sixty-five days to find an employer, actually less, because I needed to find the employer to prepare the paperwork and have someone apply for me. But again, against all odds, I think at the time I had applied, I I still have the Excel sheet because I wrote everything in Excel and I kept track.

17:41 I think I applied for 250 jobs and only one of them actually came back. And the guy is actually now the guy who hired me back then, who applied and helped me get my work visa. I didn't get it the first time around because it's a lottery. He applied a second year and I got it then. So now I actually invited him to join me in my journey as a business partner.

18:02 Yeah. Because again, I'm big on loyalty and I'm big on respect, and you believed in me, he believed in me back then. So that was the journey. But starting the having the vision, you said having a vision on how the entrepreneurial ship and basically a journey starts. I didn't have I didn't have a vision.

18:19 You know, I was frustrated, I had frustration. I worked at um several software companies at the time, and I was running their customer success teams, and it was crazy. Just thinking about basically the whole journey of getting and closing these huge deals, multi-million dollar deals, that I would pick up and then I'd have to figure out the team who would execute the work.

18:40 I saw these software companies outsourcing incredibly important, literally, literally, some of it was life-changing work to very inexperienced team members who I was shocked by by the practice. I was incredibly shocked. And I was frustrated because my clients did not deserve this. They paid premium dollars.

19:00 I mean, think they they could have gone to a huge consulting company. And it just bothered me so much that during the time I promised myself, if I'm ever a US citizen and I can open a business, I will open a business where I service the clients one-on-one, directly, no outsourcing, only the top-tier talent will be doing your job.

19:23 Um, and it was several years in between where I had to figure out how do I become a US citizen. Again, bringing me back to the uh experiences which were a bit more challenging. Uh but thankfully You don't need to go into that. Yeah, thankfully I got my green card. And the first thing I did when I got my green card was actually to go to my uh to the CEO of the prior company and tell him, I'm opening a business that will pretty much compete with you.

19:48 Is that okay?

19:50 I love it. Is that okay? You asked him?

19:52 Well, I didn't. Oh, did you have a non-compete? I said basically, can you re remove the non-compete? And then I said, I promise you, if you do so, I will basically give you mercy. I'll spare you. It won't go as hard as well.

20:04 I'm going to eat you up for lunch. Pretty much.

20:07 Pretty much. So that's what happened. And I started my my business in 2019. Again, I don't know if you're going to be able to do it. Tell me about it.

20:12 Okay, what was the business? So tell me.

20:14 The business was a very generic the word consulting.

20:19 Consulting.

20:20 Because I had no vision. I just had a frustration. You know what?

20:23 I want to interrupt you for a quick second. One of the things I've learned from really smart and and wealthy people is that is, I think I probably heard it on Shark Tank, which is for me like a wonderful wealth. Uh those guys are just uh amazing in so many different ways. And like I don't take everything just for face value, but there's there's some things you can learn about people who came from nothing and and and have made it really big, is that you don't need to wait until you have the vision or all the ducks are in.

20:50 You know, everyone says, well, wait till all your ducks are in a row to get it. No, that's not. If by if you're waiting for that to happen before you do anything, you're gonna be waiting for that till the end of time. Yeah, it is a matter of waking up in the morning and doing small things, small things, small things each day.

21:04 And what will happen is the vision will come together. Exactly. Is that what happened? Okay, so that is exactly what I hope. So I just wanted to make that point because it's really important. Everybody thinks you've got to have it all put together. I gotta have this part, this part, this part before I can make my move.

21:17 No. And that is that will never happen unless you are silver spooned. Everybody hands you a bunch of money and boom, boom, boom. Otherwise, just do the check, not the checklist off.

21:26 What's the expression in English? Perfection is the enemy of uh what? Prosperity. Well, yeah, because if you're waiting for progress, thank you.

21:36 Perfection is the what? Is the enemy of progress. Okay. That is true. All right, that's true.

21:40 If you think about it, like if you're waiting to have the perfect product offering.

21:44 Or the perfect company or the perfect thing.

21:46 Starts with a vision, starts with an action. I basically decided I was just going to go ahead and register a consulting company. Okay, I just knew that I was Rela Global Consulting.

21:56 Love it. It's got a big feeling to it, it's global.

22:00 To have several things. Global, because I have always specialized in tr international markets and international analytics. Right?

22:07 You speak languages.

22:08 Correct. And then consulting just because I wanted to keep it broad enough. Uh again, I've had to. You can do anything. Right.

22:14 You can do anything. The world is your oyster.

22:16 Yeah. And the first name of the company actually my husband came up with. Leva R-I-L-A. Right. He had been to Bulgaria several times. And he's and I said before he met you. No, no, after he met me. I was gonna say that would have been nice if he actually went there before he met me. No, after after we he met me, or we went several times.

22:35 And I said, please help me, what's a good name that Americans would not struggle with pronouncing? So, anyways, I registered the company and actually talking about getting back to the point of challenges. Right. Let's not use the word adversarial experiences. Um challenges being um, I love America. I let me just say it again.

22:56 I love America. And one of the things I love about America is the law, right? The law and the legal system. My first week prior to actually registering my business, I received a seize and desists. I've had those, yes, from my one of my prior bosses who I was consulting with for, mind you, $25 an hour.

23:17 My genius brain was I was handing to them.

23:21 Okay.

23:21 And I received a seize and desist. For don't register the company. Do not, yeah. And I and then I thought, wow, someone actually thinks that I'm that good. So then I'll hold a business in the world. So, anyways, I had a moment of like, wow. I mean, people will actually nine out of ten times do their best to crush you.

23:41 When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.

23:43 And right, that is true. Very, very good saying.

23:47 So yeah, I got the season desist, and instead of now it's for just creating a consulting company, or was it the name?

23:53 No, it was just in for me in order to.

23:55 I would imagine you didn't that didn't stop you.

23:57 Uh no, I actually framed the letter as a good memory. And it almost, again, frustration and empowerment have been my things. And I said, okay, wow, I I already love the journey. I haven't even registered the company. People are already scared that I'm gonna take so much business. So yeah, I I went ahead, registered the business, and uh within very short few months started applying for global RFPs and figuring out the vision.

24:20 What am I really selling? Because initially it's just me.

24:23 So what is it that what is Rela selling?

24:25 Rela is selling consulting for analytics. So when companies, big brands, buy all of these software tools, they buy TV media, they buy social media, they buy advertising, they buy out-of-home advertising, and they have all these numbers, multitudes, billions of numbers that clicks everything that you can imagine.

24:47 Knowledge about the consumer, knowledge about potential audiences. And it is incredibly challenging, I realize, throughout my journey to analyze all of this data and make sense of it. You're taking apples and oranges, and you try to come up with a multi-billion dollar strategy for these brands. Yes. And that's what that's what Rilla does.

25:06 So I have the best talent, basically, all the people I worked with in my prior jobs along the way, who I always said you're too good to be here. I basically swept up and I've led them along.

25:17 So so let's talk about that for a minute. So we've got social media, right? We've got we've got consumers. We are the greatest, the greatest, the greatest consumer generation in history. And as as consumers, we've been given this amazing tool, which is social media, right? And so from a corporate level or a or or a product level, right?

25:37 Think about all the brands that we know on a daily basis, from Uber to Shake Shack to McDonald's to Nike to whatever it is, right? So they have consumers, they have loyal consumers. We are an incredibly loyal uh generation as well. Like if you walk around, young people who ask me, like, what stock should I invest in?

25:55 And my best line is go around your school, walk around high school, and see what sneakers everyone wears, what phone they're on, what computer they're using, what social media they're on, and what they do in their spare time. And those are going to be five companies that are going to have major, major traction.

26:11 Now, not to endorse disclaimer across the board, but if you were to ask a kid that question right now, you would have Apple, Apple on the phone and the computer, you would have Nike, you would probably have Snapchat or or uh or Instagram, right? And then in their spare time, they're probably like gambling on sports, which is another huge thing.

26:29 So at the end of the day, people's buying patterns, buying habits, people's consuming habits, and and and the power of the consumer is unmatched in this world we're living in, right? And so the whole point is think about it. If you're a company or product, people, product, the four P's, people, product, profitability, and purpose, right?

26:49 That's what for me makes a company good. But at the end of the day, all that information, people's buying habits and the power of the consumer is clicks and everything you're gonna do, trying to sell stuff online, uh retail, whatever it may be. Okay, the whole power of that is so daunting. Once you try and put together all that information, data is obviously gold, data is the key, but analyzing the data is even way more powerful, right?

27:16 So, so what Sveta is actually doing in her consulting company, Rela Global, is being able to make sense of all that data, those clicks, all the funnels, all of the all the eyeballs and what they're seeing and how their reaction to it is. And so that's incredible. You're making sense of millions and millions of clicks and views and all that stuff.

27:37 And of billions of dollars worth of marketing budgets that they'll be. Marketing budgets, exactly. And the idea of analyzing the data is that we need to help the brand and the brand marketers understand how who is their consumer? How do they sell to the consumer?

27:53 Question number one: who is your consumer?

27:55 Who is the consumer? How do we sell to them, and how do we attract new audiences of consumers? So taking all of these billions data points that we analyze, we do consumer behavior modeling.

28:07 So I could predict behavior modeling.

28:09 Correct. So I can help brands predict how would someone react to a new product, how would someone react to a new logo?

28:15 Right.

28:15 I mean, there are cases in some um, basically depending on the brand, but in some companies where we actually can understand eye movement of the actual consumer. Right. So when they come here, see your logo. Would they see your logo or everything from whether they come in if you're a store, if you own teams?

28:32 Take a left, take a right, where do they go?

28:34 What do they take a left? Why do they take a right? Where do they eye land and for how many seconds and which color attracted it? Right. And why? Right. And everything's again, everything like a computer that we do reacts and comes back in zeros and ones. In my life, in my case, comes back with billions of other numbers, and I have to come up with basically the strategy and help these brands make sense of what they're doing.

28:58 So from in-person to a poster to social media to TV, it's all fragmented. It's so fragmented.

29:05 All these data is so these are all the all the different manners and strategies of marketing, right? So a company is going to either use TV ads, social media ads, uh posters, all that stuff, and the color of the logo, the brand awareness, all of that stuff is so so powerful. And think about it all the millions of dollars.

29:23 Like we talked about billions of dollars. We talked about it recently. So just think about like marketing of McDonald's, right? The happy meal. Or think that you know, there have been there have been for me. If I didn't do what I'm doing here, I would have been an advertising marketing person. And I guess I am in a lot of different ways.

29:40 Because for me, that's incredibly fascinating. Also, on so also on uh online buying is when somebody goes to your website, and this is something I've not yet far from perfected at all, when they go to your website and then they start to go down the funnel, at what point do they continue and go to actually check out and and and buy the product, or do they get their attention is diverted and they end up leaving the site?

30:04 Where along the way did I miss them? Where is the the the low-hanging fruit that I did not be able to find and to really uh utilize and make money on? I mean, all that kind of stuff is super frustrating for me as somebody who's a creator and a producer, but you, that's what you do, that's your lifeblood.

30:21 And for me, that is so exciting. I mean, for me, that's like the most exciting thing in the world to try and figure out what what people's journey is from the first thought to the final purchase.

30:32 The first touch to the last, basically, checkout. And you could do, I mean, it's incredible. Like the technology these days and brand marketers utilize a wide variety of techniques to analyze data and basically.

30:42 Give me a little example, because you know, in the old days, I had a best friend growing up whose mother whose mother ran a market research company back in the day where they used to do, they used to invite us for the weekend, and we would sit down and they would give us like taste this soda, try this snack, do that.

31:00 It was being done on really hands. I mean, we're talking when I was 10 years old, we used to have these markets, market, I don't remember there's a there was a name for it where they would have uh it was like I don't remember, but they would invite people off the street to come and try focus groups. Thank you.

31:18 That would have driven me crazy all day long. A focus, like a think back to the time before you had AI, and I want to ask you about the tools that are used now to do all that analysis, but it was a focus group to find out how they like the taste, how they like the color, how they like the logo, how they all of that.

31:33 That was being done hands-on, like one person at a time, and these decisions that were made. Think about it, we talked about it before. Coca-Cola, the greatest brand in probably one of the top five, I would imagine, in history, right? There was Coca-Cola, one brand, right? Before they had Diet Coke, right?

31:50 And it was they were going incredibly well. And then somebody they hired a new CEO, and it's a great story. You should go read up on it. And I don't know all the facts of the story. And they decided they're going to make new Coke because all these new products were coming in. People trying to copy Coke, other soda brands were coming out, the competition in the space was getting way, way bigger than they thought.

32:09 Because for a while it was just Coca-Cola and maybe ginger ale, right? And then so they decided somebody came up with the idea to make a new Coke, to take a recipe that was the most tried and true, original recipe of all, and mess with it. Right. And they spent billions and billions of dollars creating the new logo, the new flavor, the new focus groups back in the day.

32:32 It turned out to be one of the largest marketing disasters of all time. It's like if something's not broken, don't mess with it. So, anyway, sorry for my deviation. I went off on a roll. I love it. Tell me so you have this incredible company, it does market strategy analysis. And what tools do you use to do that?

32:49 Uh, it depends on the brand, it depends on the product, it depends on the use case. But everything relates to online softwares. And again, now the AI agentic workflows are coming in. Amazing, right? But basically, the brands themselves have bought, they've bought media, TV media, they've bought social media.

33:11 So they come and bring in like multiple data points, and basically whatever they brought to me, like I could come and analyze. And the team is like very skilled. That's the whole idea.

33:20 Right.

33:20 Um, but yeah, talking about AI and how AI basically has changed things. Yeah, now AI is basically you can create your own tool in-house. You don't even have to buy expensive software because you could just come and create your own tool and again understand multiple various data points, and again, the consumer journey from start to finish, from top of the funnel, which for the audience who's not aware, top of the funnel is referred to the first time you land on the WW initial, dot, whatever the website is called.

33:50 Call it dot com. We call that top of the funnel. And most of the time you've either been referred to the website or you maybe stumbled upon it, researched it. And the whole idea is how do you navigate throughout? What's your journey look like? And how do you exit purchasing a product? I mean, I don't know.

34:07 Where along the way, do you either stay for the journey? Right. Or do you go off, you get distracted, your dog, but your dog barks, right? Or you go get a coffee or you whatever.

34:16 And and all of that. So dog barking, you turning off TV, not being interested, any of those dis distracting actions that you take, we can also track depending on how you landed on the website. Here's a prime example.

34:30 And this is Tell me, tell me, give me the exactly.

34:33 It's scary because not many people actually know what happens in consumer behavior modeling, but it's also very powerful. And that's why most behavior modeling, most of the brands know how to manipulate you in order for you to buy products. So you have your cell phone. Right. Your cell phone is either connected to the internet via your, you know, 5G, or when you go home, you have a Wi-Fi address that automatically connects to.

34:58 Right. So right away, as soon as your phone's connected to a Wi-Fi, I can guess, you know, there's IP addresses on the back end. You can basically guess: is that a Wi-Fi at home? Is that a Wi-Fi at work? Was the Wi-Fi on between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.? Maybe that's the work Wi-Fi, and what actions you take on the phone.

35:14 So how active are you? And if there is a relation between your Wi-Fi action to turning on the TV or maybe to bring buying a specific product so you can understand it, was it a tablet? Was it a phone? Was it a laptop?

35:28 But sure, those are the questions you'll usually ask. If you end up entering into the journey along the funnel, then say so which and what what what what how did you find us?

35:37 Well, yeah. Uh normally you would have a question, how did you find, how'd you hear about us, right? But in the cases where you don't, there are ways that marketers, whether it's through through a hardware piece like a TV or a cell phone. Right. You know how when you click I consent, I consent, when you're signing up or something, and there's a I consent, but you never read what you consent to?

35:55 Right. Yeah, most of the time is because there are analytics that are being connected, and there are then on the back end of the company.

36:01 So they're trying to identify behavior, behavior to consumer. And do these companies buy all this? And so is there one company or many companies that co coagulate, correlate, and whatever the word is that put together all that information?

36:15 No, that is. You can go out and source it. You go and source it from various softwares. That's why we're at the New York Stock Exchange, and that's why I see all the tickers of multiple software companies, that's why you have multiples of them, because there's no one true source. I mean, every company software company allows to data.

36:32 Yeah, they have data. Yes, and you know what? You mentioned the cloud. So, one of the key things that actually I learned through Shark Tank, which is key, I think, for the audience, is when you sell a product, you're not selling yourself, you're not selling your idea. Right. You are selling the data and the analytics.

36:50 So let's take you as an example. When five years' time, when you decide that you're done with the Einstein of Wall Street Instagram page, that will never happen. Right. We hope we hope not. But whenever you're ready to basically package up and exit, you would sell the data. You would sell the followers, you would sell the audience information, the data that's been performed, if you've done any paid partnerships, basically what what were the clicks, what were the exits, what were the shopping carts again?

37:17 Like you are selling data at all times, any of these companies, whether software or other, everyone's selling data. And it's all about consumer data because who buys stuff? It's the consumers, right? Um, which again, we can make kind of reference to basically like earnings from Q1, which obviously have been reflecting uh very nuanced um picture with AI penetrating into a lot of the not only retail, but basically across the board.

37:45 But yeah, remember that you're always selling the data and the audience. So you're that's what you're selling for.

37:50 You're also selling, so sometimes in marketing, you're selling the experience, you're actually not selling the product. So when think about it, when somebody is buying a perfume or someone is buying a swimsuit or someone is buying something that's very experiential, right? So you're kind of buying that feeling.

38:09 You're you you're you're you're you're comparing yourself or you're identifying yourself with that person or that experience. Right. If I buy that perfume, I'm going to be Chloe Kardashian on the beach in Saint-Chope, right? Type of a thing. I mean, it's think about so you know, look at the consumer's uh behavior is is yeah, fascinating.

38:28 It's amazing. And this stuff, this analytics is just the for me, it's the most exciting thing. I'm sure it is for everybody, because at the end of the day, it's really what it's all about. I mean, it's the inner workings of the mechanism of our brain and our and our power as a consumer. It's unbelievable.

38:43 And so you've built this amazing company, right? You have, we I know you can't mention your clients, but you've obviously got some major global clients who will then engage you as a consultant, right? They'll basically come to you. Just let's try to kind of figure out to tie it down so that people understand what you actually do.

38:58 A company will come to you. Like let's say I'm, let's say I'm uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm McDonald's and it and I am, you know, there's a lot of new competition in the hamburger world, right? Suddenly I'm I'm old school McDonald's, I sell the happy meal, I sell the Big Mac and whatnot. Now suddenly the Smash Burger comes along.

39:17 Right. And it has got everybody by a storm, and they're all over the place. Seventh Avenue Smash Burger. This everyone's got the best Smash Burger on earth. And I'm frustrated by the fact that I'm losing market share as Mickey D's. Old school. I'm cheaper, I'm not the same quality and whatnot. And I come to you and I said, you know what, Tfed, I I think we're in a trouble.

39:36 You know, can you give me advice? Is that what I would was that something that would happen?

39:40 Yes.

39:41 And what would you do then?

39:42 I was gonna say, I love I'll just piggyback and say, I love that you said, yeah, brands come to you. Uh no, they didn't come to me when I first started the business. Again, I had to knock on so many doors. But now they do. Now they do. Now they do, which is a great thing.

39:53 For a minimum of 10,000, a call, just for the rest.

39:56 Minimum, yeah, minimum. Um, but they come to me and they say, I need to identify where and why I'm losing traction. Right. Who are my consumers? Main, do I have new audiences? Maybe in some cases results audience sentiment uh towards the bun, the burger, my logo. I mean, it could be anything, could be anything that is based on consumer opinion.

40:15 Right. And what we do is crunching analytics and data. A lot of the times the data that we use and utilize does come from publicly available sources where consumers go and talk. Prime example, billions of conversations happen every hour on a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram. Right. And these comments, while you think someone said, Oh, this is great, thumbs up, and to you it means nothing.

40:41 If you actually are looking at a specific topic, whether it's, you know, Mickey D or McDonald's or any other company, you can actually analyze consumer sentiment, leveraging the information that consumers are volunteering to give you. Right, right, right. And they don't even know exactly. They don't know, probably they don't care because they're not, you know, what are they gonna get out of it?

41:01 But at the end of the day, these brands care about what is happening with their consumer. And a lot of it doesn't come from the brand is experiencing a challenge. The brands are constantly innovating. So every week, every month, all we do is help these brands think ahead. What will be the trend? What's next to the trend?

41:21 Maybe could you be the trendsetter? Right. Could we help you be the trendsetter? And this is where social media.

41:26 We may not want to be always cat felt playing catch up. We may want to find out what can you give us foresight into the what's the next Smash Burger?

41:34 Or come and come up to help us come up with a new strategy, whether it's for any of their media channels. Right, exactly. So, yeah, that's what we do. I mean, it's fascinating. I could keep going.

41:45 So I could too. Yeah, I I love it. It's so exciting. And also, look, we you could not be at a better time uh for this to be happening, right? We're at the crossroads of so many different social media platforms. We are, as I said, the most loyal and the most consumer-based society in history. Never before have we even had the opportunity where I can go on Instagram and I'm being given, you know, impulses on a moment-to-moment because of my buying behavior.

42:10 They know what to throw in front of me and they'll say, Okay, do you want this? Yeah, I saw you bought that, but they're not saying it. They're just they're they're almost in my head and they're showing me something and they know I'm going to buy it. And then they say, Oh, now it's gonna take seven days to get to you for $39.

42:26 I can get it to you yesterday. Would you like that? And they know that every time I'm offered that opportunity, I go for the for the immediate because I'm all about immediate gratification. Yes. So I'm the poor. You're a perfect consumer. I am perfect. I will buy a $17 product and I will pay $39 to get it to me yesterday.

42:44 I love it.

42:44 So that the whole thing, which should have cost me six, just cost me $50, and everybody made a whole bunch of money.

42:49 And and that is why we're the New York Stock Exchange, and because consumerism still lives, and we're all selling to consumers. Want it or not, all these tickers that we look at, everyone's selling.

42:58 So let's like while we're here, K-View is the new spin-off of Johnson Johnson that they do Listerine and a number of other products. Lilly, obviously, Lilly is uh one of the largest uh drug companies in the world. They participated in the COVID and the COVID vaccine. Lockheed Martin is a is a uh uh uh what do you call it?

43:18 They they Lockheed Martin is a uh is a government contracting business. Sans is a casino, Las Vegas Sans is a casino. MasterCard obviously is a uh processing system. Mickey D is just what we're talking about. These are the companies that are publicly owned companies that are going by McKesson, massive uh uh advertising company.

43:38 Moody's is a look, they just downgraded US Debt uh radically recently, but what other people don't know is they're the ones that when two or three days before Lehman crash, they gave Lehman a triple A rating. Oh wow, right before they ended up going belly up. So the fact that Moody's just downgraded the US Debt is not that important.

43:59 They don't have great. Great cred, but 3M, 3M were the ones that were making the masks that people wore during COVID. So as I see all these companies go by, Altre is the company Philip Morris that makes Marlboros, right? So when I see a logo, when I see a name, I my brain is wired in a way that I know everything about them, I know everything they've done, right?

44:20 And when people come to me and go, I don't know anything that goes on at the stock exchange, and I'll go, I'll stand them in the middle of the room and I'll look up at that screen that we're seeing. So what we're seeing, you can't see it, ladies and gentlemen, is the ticker tape going by all the stocks that are trading, right?

44:35 And as I do that with a young person or an older person who claims they don't know much that what goes on here, they will realize within five minutes that they know almost every company that goes by them. They're touched by it because they touch our lives in some way. Whether it's the hamburger we eat, whether it's the shoes we make, whether it's the energy that comes into our house, whether it's the band-aids that we use, whether it's the medical facilities, whatever it is, our lives are impacted in a huge way by every public company.

45:04 Exactly. And then you come along and you're able to analyze that data to make it the perfect and best, most efficient consumer experience and marketing experience for those companies and for the consumer. So you are actually working, you're working on both sides of the thing. Yes. You're making a perfect consumer uh experience and a marketing one, and you're also protecting and helping the company be their best selves.

45:29 Basically, I mean for consumers, we focus on safety a lot too. So it's not, I mean, if you think of just general safety, um, so in the government perspective, obviously you're constantly having to listen to what's happening for the safety of the environment and cyber and all that kind of thing.

45:46 Everything.

45:46 And also if you're a company that delivers specific products to clients who take in your product, you always want to know if there's some kind of address effect, safety, compliance. So we're always at the forefront of our work is always the safety of the consumers.

46:03 Yes.

46:03 And we care about it. And we uh one of the specialties that we do is actually uh specifically on safety. It's a whole niche, it's a whole niche area. But yeah, we also help the brands. I mean, think about the TV spend that these brands only think of one brand, an insurance, life insurance company. I'm not gonna name any names.

46:22 They spend a billion a year on just on TV. And then you add on just a billion just for TV advertising. Then you add several more billion across the board for social, for your out-of-home.

46:37 And they need to understand whether that money is being spent effectively. How much is a Super Bowl ad? Do you know?

46:44 Oh, I mean they vary. Half a million? Where do you live?

46:52 No, yeah, that's cheap.

46:53 Um like where do you listen? No. Starting, I would say it's multi-millions, it's hundreds of millions, right? Multi. I mean, it's half a billion. I think the cheapest one that I from the last year was maybe like seven or eight million. Million dollars. But we're talking about a 30-second. And then from there on you're adding on.

47:12 And yeah, like we help analyze. So from basically advertising, well, which influencer should we pick? Should we pick the you know, this or the Tom Radio, the other? Well, would should they wear their hair up or down? Like, should they wear Bordeaux color? Everything.

47:27 Well, I think your Bordeaux color has done incredible for us here today. Thank you. One thing I want to talk about, the last thing, and then we'll wrap it up because this we could talk forever. I mean, it just goes on and on. Is so I have a friend, uh, his name is Matai Sada, and he owns a company called Blind Spot, and they basically have created the it's the Airbnb for billboards globally.

47:47 So they own to think about it. In the old days, in the old days, a billboard, yeah, it's a genius idea. Yeah. So in the old days, a billboard in New York on Times Square was painted, and it would cost a lot of money, and you'd have to buy it for a minimum of a year because it was hand-done, or it was on a poster that was put off.

48:04 And it was, you know, the the billboard ads were very effective and very powerful, sometimes less than other times. But I remember going back to being a kid, there was a Marlboro ad in Times Square of a man on a horse, the Marlboro man who's very infamous, who ended up dying of cancer from smoking. Terrible story.

48:22 Okay, but uh they had, and you there was a his mouth was open, and there would be a puff of smoke coming out. It's a great ad. Something we're checking out. There was a one called Lucky Strike, which was a uh cigarette brand, and it said rather fight than switch, and the person had a black eye. I'm just remember that growing up.

48:39 For me, um marketing and advertising has always been super exciting. But billboards are fascinating. I just drove through Times Square. We're here in New York, right? And Times Square, which was at one point just, you know, a different kind of a neighborhood, is now the Mecca for visual advertising, right?

48:56 There are digital uh billboards everywhere in the thousands and thousands and thousands, whether it's on a top of a taxi cab, whether it's at a bus stop, whether it's on the on the Nasdaq marketplace, whatever it is. And so to think that in the old days you had to sign up for a year minimum and buy the billboard and all do all this stuff and do the artwork and this and it costs $25,000 to $100,000, blah, blah, blah.

49:20 Now almost all of the billboards have transitioned to digital. And so you've got all this space and you've got to sell the space. And so what he found was that there is a miss, a miss, there's a there's a discrepancy between the bookings and the availability. And some people may not be able to pay $25,000 for the NASDAQ marketplace to put up their billboard.

49:43 However, if the space is unutilized for a 15-second or a 20-second spot, and that they would rather fill that space at a discount to and offer it to somebody who may not be able to afford the big deal. Right. And so I met him and I was fascinated by the idea. So think about it. Airbnb is basically utilizing houses and spaces that would not normally be used to make money, to you be used and make money.

50:09 And so it's basically the Airbnb of billboards, so that every moment, every second, which is dollars, money, right, being wasted if it's not being utilized, right, is being uh is being auctioned off, right, all over the world. They have access to 300,000 billboards. Beautiful. Yeah, right, good literally.

50:29 And so what he does is he basically fills unutilized space and time for a cause on billboards. And so for me, I I just brought it up because it's amazing to think of the ingenuity that people come up with in marketing and advertising, right? Because think about it, our lives are nothing more than a lot of visual uh impressions, right?

50:51 All day long, whether it's we get out of our house in the morning and it's walking down the street, getting on the subway, uh our phones are this or that, it's all about being just you know, and look at the floor of the stock exchange. This is all about the visuals, right? And for me, that's really exciting.

51:08 Some people look at it and just maybe they find it oppressive and not not that exciting. For me, it's that that's why I love what you do. Maybe, maybe you'll hire me when I decide to go on to my next job. But uh for me, the analytics on on marketing and advertising is so fascinating. And I think there are a million people out there.

51:26 So, anyway, I'm gonna wrap this off because we can talk forever. I know. You are absolutely extraordinary. Thank you for the fun. So think about it for a second. You know, I always talk to young people, they're always asking, like, what do you what should I do? And I I always say to people, it's not my line.

51:42 Find something you love to do, you'll never work a day in your life. Marketing and advertising, and now the analytics of marketing and advertising is a huge business. There is opportunity out there in it. And I would imagine we are all experts in our own way because we all have a phone and we're all on social media and we're reading and seeing this stuff.

52:00 So basically, you already have all the training you need to a certain extent about the knowledge of what we know, right? Through that. So, you know what? Go check it out, and that's all I gotta say about that.