Matt Bramson: Confidence Isn't the Secret, Vulnerability Is

0:26Thank you. show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, reveal the stories behind their successes and the lessons they've learned. Join Mark and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun. Now let's dive in. Good morning, America. How are you? Welcome today to Founders Forum. I have both me and my guest today, Matt. And Matt, our topic, we always start with the topic of the day. And the topic of day I'd like to discuss is an old one because we used to talk about it in the pandemic a lot. But I thought knowing your story, this would be an appropriate topic, which is pivot.

1:09And what does that word mean to you? Yeah, so I would say that's a meaningful word. In the present situation, I'm in the midst of a pivot. I spent about 30 years of my career being a part of developing and selling technology products and services, especially communication. And I've seen that a lot of those technologies have actually not had the impact that we had hoped. They haven't brought people together. They haven't diminished loneliness and isolation. They've done the opposite. it. So I've pivoted into this startup called Interact that is all about encouraging people to meet and talk and get to know each other in person, get off of your phones, get off of your screens, and really experience the people around you.

1:58And the pivot, so that was your pivot. We'll also talk about a little bit as we get further in the show, but you and I have been talking maybe for about a year and a half since we first met. And at that time, you were doing something completely different. You were very excited about it. And so when we will just mention that a little bit, because sometimes knowing when to stop and go into something else, you kind of hinted at that now. But we can talk a little bit about that in a bit. Sure. So now let me introduce we call this the MB show today because it's Matt Bramson with Mark Bernstein. And we don't have the same middle initial.

2:33We figured that out before. But but But Matt Bramson is co-founder of Interact, and he's a serial entrepreneur and revenue architect who spent 25 years scaling technology businesses from a global communications platform to$100 million plus energy company. We talked about that a little bit this morning since we're in Babcock Ranch, the first solar-powered community in America, so it's relevant to this conversation. By building the systems and models that drive real growth. He's now co-founder of Interact, and this is what he was referencing, a patent-pending live event platform designed to turn strangers into genuine connections one face-to-face conversation at a time.

3:15So officially welcome, Matt. Yeah, thank you, Mark. Thanks for being here today. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about Interact. And how long ago did you get involved with the founding of that? We started building Interact about a year ago. And it's you and you have other people involved? I have a co-founder. Yep. A co-founder. You've done this before. So what challenges are you facing? You know, we talk about the shows for entrepreneurs and it's about founders. And, you know, the joke is that you start it and it's like a smooth ride, right? So, and. Yeah. Well, I would say one of the biggest challenges of Interact is in many ways, it's about zigging when everybody else is zagging.

3:54Interact is a web app that is designed not to collect information, not to monetize users, but instead to encourage people to use their phones, to scan each other's QR codes that are issued to them when they come into an event as a wristband. And those scans, I scan myself, and then I scan you, generates an outcome on both of our screens that's a conversation starter. And it's designed to get us having a conversation and really, you know, experiencing the stories that we each have inside of us, the wisdom we have inside of us, the fact that we're all fellow travelers on this journey on earth at this time, in this place.

4:36I'd say the challenge is really around how different that is, how different that initiative is from so much of what we see in technology and innovation, which is about collecting and monetizing data and figuring out how to drive people to transactions and trying to drive people, I don't know if this is the intent, but essentially driving people away from each other. Isolation has never been a greater problem. I saw a statistic the other day that 45 % of young men under the age of 25 have never asked a woman out face to face. That's alarming. You hear of Scott Galloway, Professor Scott Galloway?

5:17It was actually Scott Galloway was the one that, I don't know if it was his research or he was just He's at Harvard, I think, or NYU? I think he's at NYU, yes. NYU, yeah. That's right. Yeah, and he does a lot of work on that, and he's labeled as a very big problem. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, we see it in the statistics. People report having fewer best friends, feeling more isolated, and a lot of it is this kind of alternate reality that's been created largely on social media. We just saw yesterday a huge lawsuit against Meta and Google that was successful around doing harm to young people with some of their algorithms and the way that they use the tools of addiction to drive user engagement.

6:03And it's different in another way as well, if I understand it correctly, because all of these apps and all of the use of technology encourages indirect communication. You're seeing each other on screens if you're seeing each other at all. That's right. This is encouraging a live conversation. You and I would be using the app. 100%. And talking to each other. So describe how that works a little bit. Yeah, so the way that Interact works is it's a patent-pending technology that turns two QR codes into a unique outcome. So as I was explaining, you come into an event. It could be a conference. It could be a music show.

6:43It could be a food festival. And you're issued a QR code. And that QR code is just a random number. It doesn't track back to you in any way. You scan your own QR code with your phone, no app to install. That takes you to the Interact website, which then asks for permission to open your camera again so you can scan the other person's QR code. That creates an outcome, which does have a sponsor on it, but there's no data being collected or conveyed to the sponsor. And those outcomes are conversation starters, and there's a psychological methodology to it. There's a psychologist named Aaron who developed a protocol he calls 36 questions, and they're in three sets of 12.

7:28And they basically take you on a path towards deeper engagement with somebody. Level one is very kind of light conversation starters. You know, tell me about your favorite vacation or what's the best book you ever read. Level two is getting deeper around your aspirations. You know, if you won the lottery, what's the first thing you would do or buy? Level three is getting really deep and maybe even too far to go in an early encounter. Question level three might be something like, of all the people in your life, whose death would devastate you the most? So if I understand this correctly, you and I meet at some kind of business event.

8:03We start this. We may go to level one. And then we say, hey, let's stay in touch. We'll get back together. We use the app again, I guess, to continue the conversation. That's right. That's right. As we scan each other, we go to higher levels of conversation. And it's really just a way to spark that interaction, get people talking. One of the things that compelled me is one afternoon, I was sent on an errand by my wife to return, I think it was a pot or something that she had borrowed from a girlfriend. And I went over to this woman's house, who's a friend of mine as well. and she was in the midst of hosting a party for her son and about 30 of his 17 year old friends and so I'm in the kitchen giving her back the pot and she says uh she tells me that this party's going on and she asked me to kind of do a lap around the house because her son has told her if she leaves the kitchen you know the you know he's gonna be he's gonna be angry with her so I did a lap kind of a reconnaissance lap and I came back to the kitchen and I was horrified with what with what I'd seen and what I was going to report, which was nobody was in the backyard trying to get to second base.

9:14Nobody was trying to sneak beer. Nobody was dancing. Instead, there was a bunch of healthy, happy 17-year-olds sitting shoulder to shoulder on couches and chairs on their phones, not talking. I experienced that myself. And I was horrified, frankly. And that was one of the experiences that sort of got my wheels spinning about how do we use these darn things, these smartphones to bring us together and to realize that some of the greatest gifts that we have in this life are the people that surround us. And we walk past them with our, with our faces and our screens. Of course, we've all seen the family having dinner at a restaurant and everybody's on their screen.

9:55Um, so, and I mean, we've all seen this, but I just decided that I was going to pivot into seeing if I could do something about it. I do want to get into your story a little bit because this is about the story of the founders. But I'm curious, is anybody else doing this? Is anyone thinking this way? Have you seen any other innovations around this? We've done a lot of research looking around. Nobody's doing exactly what we're doing. There's definitely a lot of activity around helping people meet. There's, of course, the whole dating app thing, which is not what we're up to. There are meetup type apps that are designed to get people to come to a place and meet.

10:32But nothing we've seen that really is designed to provoke those conversations and try to get those conversations beyond small talk. There's a realization, and we all experience it periodically, about how much we need and want to connect with other people deeply. We've all had the occasional conversation with a stranger where it goes into a really meaningful area. But what Interact is designed to do is to create that type of serendipity on a regular basis. So what you're telling me is the things that the meetup apps and things like that are still the more traditional mode, a little bit of probably data collection and encouraging meeting.

11:12And trying to get people into one place together. What Interact is about is taking it past that. So you've got people together because you've got an event that's going on. how do you get those people to break out of their little clusters of people maybe that they came with or break through their natural shyness, their reluctance to approach people? And there's some other tricks to interact. One of the things that we do at an event is we have a prize. At the end of the event, two people are going to split$1 ,000, and that's based on their interaction. How far they went into the conversation. Yeah, it's not about the money per se.

11:52It's basically about giving me an excuse, right? If I see you across the room and you look interesting to me, it's a little weird to approach you. But if there's potentially$1 ,000 in it for us, then I have an excuse to say, hey, we should try this. We might be the lucky two that are destined to win$1 ,000. You're searching for a partner. Yeah, you're trying to lower the inhibitions and the friction. In much the same way that if you've ever been to a well-hosted dinner party, the host or hostess is saying, oh, you and Mark have so much in common, you don't even know it yet. I'm going to sit you guys together.

12:25That kind of thing. So if I'm hosting an event, Matt, let's say I have Founders Forum Network that I have, and we get together. Entrepreneurs don't usually need that incentive to talk to each other and to discover. Well, maybe they do to get off of their pitch and get into something more vulnerable. That's right. Maybe, maybe. So if I did that, I would think me as the sponsor would have to tee it up to say, hey, we're doing this a little differently than we do other events, right? That's right. And I might talk to you about this because I'm going to have one of these coming up. I would love that.

12:55This would be pretty cool. We could pile it for you. So anyway, tell us about your story because you are a serial entrepreneur. You founded other companies before. Tell us a little bit about your journey. We only have about a minute and a half to start that before our break. Sure. So I kind of always start my story off with I got out of college. I was living in Philly, and I got a job working for a company that had developed a really... He's a Floridian now. He's a native Floridian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a background. Yeah, I grew up in Tampa. But joined a company that had developed a really groundbreaking and way ahead of its time kiosk for previewing music in music stores, which, of course, music stores don't exist anymore, and they were wonderful institutions that are gone.

13:44And that was when I caught the bug. I saw the opportunity that software, this is in the late 90s, that software gave a business person to develop and customize a solution very quickly to meet the needs of a certain customer or audience. And so from there, I got into telecom kind of accidentally, spent about 20 years in telecom, especially with a company that grew very, very rapidly and very, very large now as a part of Verizon. And then after that, I started a consulting firm helping businesses to overcome a plateau in their growth. What I learned from that, by the way, is that the plateau is always caused by the same thing, which is that the leader has plateaued in various ways.

14:40And then started a company that is where you and I first met called Greenwise that helped businesses maximize and automate the process of generating referrals. Got a decent amount of success with that in the roofing business. And for various reasons, I pivoted away from that. And now what I'm really focused on, in addition to helping some clients that are in need of my help on growth, I'm very focused on Interact. It's a great jumping off point. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back on Founders Forum with Matt Bramson. The Sattel Institute is the leading CEO member organization dedicated to corporate social responsibility.

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16:44We are back on Founders Forum with our guest today, Matt Bramson. Matt, so you've done a number of things. And what I like about your story is that each thing that you do seems to build on your experience from the last one. It's kind of leading you into the next. Is that fair for the most part? I mean, I think that's the way I'd like to think of it. It doesn't feel that way sometimes when I'm in the middle of it. But yeah, I think there is a progression. especially as I look backwards. Well, since I've talked to you for a while, I can just see how your thought has evolved from one project to the next.

17:19So that's my observation, but maybe it helps you with perspective on the harder days. Sure. It's always nice to feel like you're making progress. So given that, if you had to kind of generalize about as an entrepreneur, the challenges that you've had over the years, how would you characterize those? I would generally divide the challenges into internal and external. And I would say for myself, and I think I can extrapolate to most other people, the internal challenges are actually the most difficult. Overcoming inadequate confidence, overcoming risk aversion, overcoming this sense that you don't know enough or you don't have all the skills that are necessary.

18:01Comparing yourself to people that are more successful imposter syndrome sure yep comparing yourself to other people and and a feeling that you that you that you might not measure up uh those are to me i think the greatest obstacles because once you i don't know that you ever fully conquer them but once you once you overcome those obstacles gives you a lot of inertia and some of the things that that were external that were seen as as daunting you know are much more surmountable i appreciate you bringing that vulnerability to the show because we have some of that on the show but i'd say everybody is always so charged up about where they're headed that we sometimes ignore those pieces but i don't think there's an entrepreneur that hasn't gone through what you all those things that you just talked about you know for being real about it yeah so i appreciate you sharing them what kind of things have you done to counteract those do you do anything um meant you know any kind of mental exercises or reading or things that help you progress?

19:04Yeah, I do all that. I talk to a therapist once a week. I try to read books that are challenging in a mind-expanding kind of a way. I also try to remember that, and I think this is a common theme in the entrepreneurial community, so to speak, that this sort of fake it till you make it ethic is a little bit counterproductive. What I find is that the conversations I get into with potential investors, with potential partners that are more honest and vulnerable are actually the ones that propel the relationship and propel the cooperation and propel the business deal to a greater extent than the conversations where I'm very much in pitch mode and bulletproof type of an approach.

20:03And because it's hard to relate to somebody who's just relentlessly on message, relentlessly confident, you know, relentlessly, you know, I don't need anybody. I'm independent. This is going to be the biggest thing in the world. It's not as relatable as you might think it is, you know, as you're kind of, you know, uttering that kind of stuff. people trust people that they can relate to and that have challenges and struggles and when you when you uh when you embrace that uh and you share that you actually you i think some people presume you're going to repel people but in reality uh it's powerfully attractive i have a couple thoughts on that one is the fake it till you make it i think that did work in years ago you know i think that was an old kind of salesman's kind of i know that's when my father was you know his his day of reading dale carnegie and things like that i mean there was a lot of genuine you know genuineness and all that but there was also i think it worked in simpler times but i agree with you today i think there are a lot of things that used to work that are outmoded now yeah don't work as well the other thought i had is just yesterday we were in the same studio and we were recording a show with Sid Kitson founder of a Babcock Ranch is a great innovator and all that and he talked about relentlessness and determination and you know he talked about how he played in the NFL for a couple years and he talked about how how that that was taught to him on the athletic field and I can see that but he would he'd be the first to tell you and I think he said it twice during the show that he could have never done this with all the other people around him and he said one of his greatest strengths when I asked them that was hiring people smarter than himself so obviously he was able to stay real positive and real focused but at the same time recognize that he couldn't do it all alone and which is another I think aspect of what you're talking about in leadership so I think that's really interesting so given that so that's a challenge so let's talk about current challenges with Interact, what do you see in terms of getting, let me ask you this, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit, but you know, your future vision, we could talk about one year, five years, 10 years, how would you, what would you like to pick there?

22:33And, and, and tell me about what the future vision is. And then I'm going to ask you what the challenges are, and we'll go back to this conversation. Yeah, well, when it comes to vision, the longer term ones are always the ones that are more fun. So for that reason, I'll start with the one-year vision. My one-year vision for Interact is that we execute a proof-of-concept event, which is coming up in the next month, and then we do a half a dozen others over the course of the year that are successively larger and more impactful. um the the really the goal is to to remind people and i said this earlier but that the the the greatest gifts you have in this life are the people that surround you uh some of them you know they're your friends and family some of them are strangers though that you uh you know you pass by them and uh and you never avail yourself of of what they could teach you and what you could teach them and um and increasingly like i was saying when people are walking around um or sitting in a in a in a party on their screens um it's just clear that they're that they're squandering that gift that's around them and so that'd be the probably the central part of my one year uh goal or ambition for interact is to to play a small part in you know infecting the world with a greater understanding of the value of opening yourself up to other people and putting yourself in conversation with people on a more consistent basis.

24:15So one of the obvious challenges of that is that people aren't built that way these days necessarily, so you have to overcome that. Yep. You see any other challenges for that one-year vision? I think that we have been so trained to create frictionless experiences and doing things with the smallest number of clicks and consuming so much of our entertainment, so much of our need for engagement through these devices. Immediate gratification, right? Yeah, that when you go talk to investors, venue operators, event organizers, it's almost like you're speaking a foreign language that you're going to, you want to deploy a web app that doesn't collect any data from anybody, doesn't monetize the users in any way.

25:02And it's really about getting people to put those devices down and really, you know, have face-to-face eye contact conversations. Oddly enough, it sounds a little bit alien to people. and I have a lot of people kind of looking at me quizzically like what? So is gaining funding still a challenge? Not at this stage we've got a couple of angel investors that are real believers in the concept and we have enough capital to get us through this first phase. We are starting to see some interest from corporations that want to be a part of it. We would position them as as advertisers that are associated with an interaction.

25:43But like I said before, there's no data collection. There's no call to action on the app that captures any information, but they would be a part of it. In fact, to give you an example, I talked about the mechanic of it where I scan myself and then I scan you and an outcome pops up that's the same on both of our devices. And it could be a conversation starter, and it could be related to a sponsor. So for example, it could be the greatest vacation we've ever had brought to you by American Airlines, right? And that's the only association, but American Airlines would be potentially associated with a really nice conversation that maybe spills over into our view of the brand.

26:24And if I'm American Airlines, I see that I could use that as a culture enhancer for the company, right because if i want to retain employees and i can create more and more connections between them at a deeper level people think a lot less about leaving right yeah so yeah so i see that as a big corporate benefit but i can also see the difficulty in getting that across to them but look you don't need the whole world to believe to make this work you need you need believers you need a team of believers that's right well one of the things we don't realize i think in the digital marketing game is that only about a third of the dollars that corporations spend on marketing is trackable.

27:03Most of it is spent on places like billboards and other types of advertising that there's really no direct trackability to it. This has been a great conversation. It's a little different and I'm glad. It's really one of the most rewarding conversations we've had, but we are out of time. So I thank you, Matt, for being here. Thank you all for listening to Founders Forum and we'll talk to you again next week.

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