Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to our podcast, From the Ground Up, where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. We hope you be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Villarreal, and here with us today we have Raed Khawaja, the founder and CEO of Open. Raed, welcome to the show.
Raed Khawaja: Hi Jake, thank you. Excited to be here.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So, Open is a mobile app and a software company that resides in Venice, California. Raed Khawaja is not just the leader of the company, but prior to this, he was also at Jive, a data analytics startup, and ecommerce at PepsiCo. Before we dive in here, Raed, I'm just curious, walk us through a little bit about your education and what really brought you into the world of building a startup and really, technology.
Raed Khawaja: Sure. Yeah. The education started really in a meandering fashion and arrived at econ as a major, if we want to talk... if you want to use kind of college as a jumping-off point. Um, I was interested in the liberal arts. I was interested in the more technical side of things, and I thought econ would give me the ability to kind of straddle both conversations. Um I was always interested in the macro and how the world worked, but then also interested in um the micro of how actually got done. And so I think uh I think econ gave me a nice balance there. You can poke holes in that, but uh it's basically how I saw it. But yeah, that was kind of the formal education.
Um but the real education and the training definitely started as I started to um navigate career choices and you know took on work experiences that really offered me the um opportunity to have really a process of elimination if you will. Uh I was really curious, you know, how are things made and how is uh you know, how are things delivered and um how are things marketed and um how is it all capitalized? And so it all felt really big for me um coming out of school. And so I, I figured, hey, let's not try to uh know exactly which part of it that I want to work on, but rather get as broad of exposure as possible. And so um whether it was working for you know banks or big CPG and retail, or you know getting more and more engaged with the technology that kind of um transformed all of this into modern life. That, that's kind of how I you know took on my education formally and then how I navigated my career from there.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. Is, is Open your first startup or did you build companies early on? You know, a lot of comp-, a lot of people we talk to were founders really. They didn't define themselves as a, as a, as an entrepreneur at eight or 10 or 12 years old, but they were selling products to their friends or services to their relatives. What, what, um, what's your earliest experience of entrepreneurship?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah. Wow. I'm... it's funny, as you were asking that question, I I kept digging into "Oh, yeah. That was one thing, but there was a thing before that that I even did that was pro-, that would probably qualify." Um, so if it's interesting, maybe I'll hit a couple of them. I, I, my earliest memory uh comes from... I was really into uh consumer electronics, which is what I call it now, but I don't know what I would have, what I would have called it back then. Um, and I kind of for some odd reason had um something of a Palm Pilot or something like that while I was in junior high. I had saved up. I don't know what I had done, but my, my days were so busy that I needed to organize them in a Palm Pilot or some sort of PDA like that. And uh and then a, a MiniDisc player had come out. And I was really interested in recording um all sorts of content and I was interested in uh not only listening to comedy but also listening to music. Um and I needed to figure out a way, because I didn't have any resources to uh have both, uh is to unload the PDA on somebody so that I could go buy the Palm Pilot. And so that's like my earliest memory. I look back and I'm like, "how did I sell somebody in junior high that they needed something that I was so sure that I didn't need myself?" Um, so that's the earliest memory.
But one that's um, that I look back at more endearingly is that, you know, there was um something I I used to run... and this also might have been, you know, kind of in that same age range... it was called Jukebox Lunch. And I said, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could listen..." Whatever music was playing during our lunchtime I thought was um awful or not. I was like, "Wouldn't it be interesting if we could listen to the music that we wanted to listen to um while having lunch?" Um and then I was like, "How am I going to get uh the school administration to approve me basically playing the music I want to play? And also how will people kind of contribute to the idea of what we want to play, and how can this all feel like not something that's profiteering, but rather something everyone can feel good about in the process?"
And so Jukebox Lunch, Lunch was born. I uh recorded a bunch of music on a bunch of CDs. Um and I set up a sound system and every lunch there was a different cause that the money would be donated to. But you could come up and request a song and we would play that song during lunch. And uh, and, and you know we were raising money while doing it. So that's kind of the early stuff. Um and so yeah, there's so many examples after that, but you know, even things that don't show up on the resume. I worked on a men's skincare line when I was uh in my late teens um with a buddy, and he ended up going on and kind of growing that and and selling that, and spent over a decade working on that. But I, you know, I helped start that with him, you know, when I was 18 or 19. And these are all things that don't show up on the resume, right? But they're the, they're the morsels that kind of create the energy and the excitement about um what it means to, you know, do something from scratch and have a vision about something and um you know, and how, having it come to life and the joy that comes with that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. I, that's, it's fascinating to understand the story behind the story.
Raed Khawaja: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Which is, really helps prepare you for whatever you build today. Now you went out and you've built Open, now which you're growing and scaling and it's you know funded and it's doing well. Um talk to us about, who don't know what Open is...
Raed Khawaja: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: What Open is about, what it does and how it works.
Raed Khawaja: Sure. Yeah. That's, at its highest levels we think about what happens at Open, and as a way of living it, you know, on a modality level or kind of the what is made up of the offering practically speaking, is we have experiences that combine breathwork, movement, meditation, sound. And uh you know, we get at this whole mind-body equation, mind-body-spirit equation um when we really do it well. And, and so practically we, you know, we have an app and we have a physical studio now in Venice Beach, the first of many I hope. Um and you know, we offer experiences around those practices.
And why I say it's a way of living is uh you know, no doubt when you're engaged with any one of the experiences whether you know you're doing so digitally or in person, uh we like to think you're kind of training for life. Uh but the real work happens when you come out of training, right? And you take uh what you've trained for and you, you apply it um on your everyday life. And something that's core to Open's philosophy and our perspective on the content at large is that it's not enough just to practice. It's not enough to just engage with the various tools and technologies that can have these positive impacts on your well-being. Uh it's important to analyze, observe, understand um the theory or the wisdom of life that is really the thing that acts as the wrapper to the experience uh that we're having here. And so, uh it's really combining wisdom and practice in a novel way. Um and the practices, uh we like to think that we have a really honed understanding of um not only them individually but how they can work really powerfully in concert with, with one another.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: So your platform, a mobile app and also in studio if you want to go, I imagine it as an application that you can do online with a coach or with a teacher and you're going through a process in a session. Now there's a lot of companies out there that do similar applications in healthcare and different teachings. You're going to do a million sessions. Uh, and that's a lot of volume. It's also a lot of people that may not even know what Open is. I want to take it back a little step before this. When you talk about breathwork and well-being, what does that really mean? Because we breathe to live, right? And we also can breathe to feel good. And sometimes we breathe when we're not feeling good.
Raed Khawaja: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Faster than we should. What, uh, what is breathwork? Define that for us.
Raed Khawaja: Yeah. I think uh breathwork uh is the conscious manipulation of your breath. It's actively engaging with your breath and kind of pointing to it, "do this and do that," if you will, to oversimplify right. Um and you know when we say breathwork, we're not saying that you're... um the opposite would be passively observing, right, as you might do in uh traditional meditation right. And so you're taking your breath and you're voluntarily uh kind of directing uh your breath one way or another. Now, depending on how you direct it is the, your breathwork technique. And depending on which technique you're orienting towards or what ratios you're working for you...
What's so powerful about breathwork and how it works is that uh it turns out that this thing that we do all the time naturally as you said, um and you can actually modulate it to, you can you know, literally as a lever, take your breath in to do uh an up-regulation or a down-regulation. And that can kind of determine whether you're, you're putting yourself into a parasympathetic state or a sympathetic nervous system state, right? And so you, you really, we literally have a switch to our autonomic nervous system and it's right here under our nose, in and out of our mouth. And so it's this really powerful means of adjusting uh the experience you're having in life on a physiological level. This isn't woo, right? Um and so yeah, that's what, that's what breathwork is in its most basic, base sense.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: And it's not just breathwork, it's meditation and some other services that you provide in sessions. But what's the benefit of really honing in on your breathwork? I want to just keep on that topic a little bit.
Raed Khawaja: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Um that you can get from going through your, you know, your company's courses or sessions, and what's the end goal? What's, what's the outcomes you're really trying to provide for your users?
Raed Khawaja: Sure. One thing we try to do is um, look, there's all sorts of end goals. And depending on who you are and what you're experiencing in life, the, this vast spectrum of modalities... none of which we invented ourselves right? Um we're aggregators, we're curators. Uh but depending on what you have going on in your life, which is you might be an entrepreneur that has some goals and you're trying to build resiliency of mindset and you have these really audacious, just, or uh goals that you're looking to achieve. Um you could be somebody that's dealing with something a lot more acute and um in the moment and stressful or you know, or you might be feeling lonely, you know, um, and so, or you're somebody that you know, had, has struggled sleeping and uh you have a lot on your mind at night.
And so I, I won't take all our time in playing out all the versions of the human experience that people are playing out there. The reality is there's this really broad toolkit that people can engage with depending on what it is that is on the other side of their rainbow. Um and this toolkit, these tools can help you, you know, address them. And so what we try to do is actually describe the starting line rather than the inputs. Um, and we, we create a little bit of benefit of the doubt that our audience has been more educated than ever about the many benefits of things like meditation. You know, maybe breathwork is more nascent and less understood, but certainly fitness and exercise. And everyone knows what that can do for your mood and your body and your longevity and all these things, right? And so that's all there, and that's all, you know, clarity of thought, clarity of mind, that's all there in terms of what you can hope to achieve. But what we try to center as in and, and ground as a studio, as a brand, is that hey, it's really about taking stock uh and having awareness of your present moment, having a sense of your diagnostic of "Where am I right now? And what it is, what is it that I hope to achieve as I engage with these various practices?" Um, so yeah, that's, that's maybe how I would describe what you would engage with at Open.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: I mean, there's clearly a need for it. Uh, we talked a little bit about this briefly a few weeks ago. I, you know, I grew up surfing and for me, it's not just a movement of your body, but it's, you know, in a lot of ways, you feel like you're closer to nature. And, and you, you are in a different state of mind when you're out in the water. And ultimately you come back feeling just a different energy in a mindset. So for me, that's like a meditative way of moving and exercising and really becoming spiritual in some ways too. Uh outside of being close to the ocean, you know, if there's other options to do what would make me feel like that, this sounds to me like a great option to think about. And it's also something that a lot of other people are thinking about too, including your co-founders, which if you look on paper look amazing. Um, you know, your CTO, uh, Peter was the first engineer at DoorDash. Uh, for him to leave that to help build what you're creating now, there's obviously a real desire to, to do that, but also see the future and the vision of it. And also if I'm pronouncing the name right, and you tell me if this is accurate, Manoj?
Raed Khawaja: That's correct, yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: He was also part of your, is also part of your team and held multiple roles at Lululemon and um as an ambassador as well of promoting meditation and mindfulness worldwide. So it sounds like on paper you've got the dream team to really build something great. Um where, what, what, what, what's the market look like for this service and this product? There's, you know, many different versions out there, but as you carve out your niche, what was it that you were able to attract the right people with the vision you have to really be part of the journey?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm so glad that um you can see that in Manoj and, and Peter. And then oh man, there's a dozen names that come up right away as you talk about having a rockstar team um that we have here. And yeah, it is uh, we, we knew very early on that if uh the ambition of Open is, you know, to be widespread and um and to be ubiquitous. And if we had this you know grandiose vision for you know how far we wanted to take the uh the idea of Open, that we needed to have the best team possible. And so, uh, what Pete really, uh, represents on the team from the earliest innings is, aside from his dynamic skill set, uh, outside of just, uh, engineering, technology, and product... but really, we knew that we wanted to build physical spaces, and we knew that we wanted to be in real life with people carrying out these experiences. And we knew that there's just a linear step function that's inherent to building out um physical locations. And we knew that if we really looked at the customer's journey, that the opportunity set lied in not only being there for the studio environment for an hour-long class, let's say in community. But when people need you for 5, 10 minutes in their pocket at any given moment, um that there be an app that's available for you there. And then eventually... and you know it's, it's eventually people are going to be interested in more once they have a taste of an hour experience or you know a consistent daily practice, and that retreats would, would need to be available as well.
And so with Pete joining the team, what it really validated is that uh if we had this vision to you know be um both on and offline, that we needed to have in the genetics of the founding team uh technology built in. And I, you know, I had worked around technology but I didn't have the technical um capability that Pete does obviously. And so just to speak to kind of the magic that started to form with him joining. And then Manoj joining, it was really reinforcing to this idea that hey, we had this vision for the content that felt really fresh at the time of conceiving Open. Which was that there's these otherwise disparate modalities, right? Meditation, breathwork under movement, there's you know all sorts of different lineages. And there's fitness and there's mobility and there's conditioning. And there's all sorts of brands that exist, exist out there and they seem to be having a very separate conversation, um almost championing like "this is the best version of how you can train and address your well-being."
Um and for someone like Manoj to come in and really validate our thinking that actually, we need to do the hard work of simplifying for the end user, for the customer to say, "Hey, I know everyone, I know the internet is telling you you need to meditate every day, you need to do breathwork every day. You need to work out every day and you need to do it for this long in the morning and for that long at night, and you need to get sun exposure and you need cold immersion and you need hot..." Like we're just inundated with all the things that we're supposed to do that are good for us. And we felt like, "Man, we got to simplify this for people. We got to, someone's got to kind of, you know, broker in the middle and say, "Okay, we'll translate, we'll reduce, we'll simplify, and we'll create experiences that actually blur the lines." So, you don't know, you know, whether this is a full-out fitness experience or is this a mindfulness experience or is this a breathwork experience? Well, actually, it's all three in one. Come check out our flow.
And so uh for someone like Manoj and you spoke to his kind of experience and pedigree uh as a you know renowned meditation teacher to come in and reinforce this vision, um and reinforce the perspective that we have on the content uh was really validating. And so you know, just to round out um on the founding team and say you know, we have this really powerful punch I think um across technology and the content itself. Uh but the, the hole in the marketplace is, really reflects how we formed the initial team. When we looked out there, there might be you know in-person brands or companies that um in the pandemic or otherwise had turned on uh more digital capabilities, or you had the opposite um you know more digital apps that tried to have more in-person um presence. But it's just who we've been from day one. And I think that the opportunity in the market is to have kind of a sing- a single editing voice around the content that, that shows up really powerfully across both. And uh I think that still remains the opportunity in the marketplace. And hopefully we're, you know, one of many brands that emerge and um and kind of address this opportunity, because different brands will speak to different people.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Do you see yourself as a technology company or as a health and wellness company? How do you define it?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah, I think I see us as uh... well I define technology as uh magic, basically. Um and so in a way, we, the way we address problems and solutions that we want to achieve in well-being and around the space and the landscape of well-being is through the means of technology. And, and so in that way I believe, you know, we are a technology company that's addressing well-being for people right. And so it's really just, yeah hopefully that doesn't feel like dodging the question but reveals how, how we think about the role of technology. It's not this thing that sits on the side. It's not, you know, "oh we built an app and that's the technology." The technology is also, you know, how we designed the space. The technology is also, you know, the acoustic quality of the room. The technology is also, you know, how are we mixing these different modalities. Uh breath is a technology. Sound is a technology. Sound takes you into you know exacting brainwave states. Like what is that? That's a technology. Um so yeah, we, I think we, through, we see the world through the eyes of what's possible when we really leverage all sorts of technologies um to achieve you know well-being let's say is the word.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: The other side, so Peter you know, computer science major at Stanford, obviously great pedigree there. Um, is the technology that you're building for your company only, or is it uh also a, a business that you could provide to other types of you know services? Is it, what's, what's the, what's the scalability of the, of the, of the systems?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah, it's uh, there's definitely a temptation. There have been temptations. I mean there, you know, if you look at what we've built in just the app and the web environments, from live experiences to shared p- shared on-demand practices to you know, a whole list of other features like that. In and of itself is um a surface area that you could see you know, others might be interested in that kit that we've built. Additionally, we actually went ahead and built out all the studio software. Um, so the booking that's happening on the front end and the backend, all the software related to the studio operations is also something we've built in-house. And so, uh, you know, just between those two, you know, you have companies that could raise money on their own and kind of, uh, market those products. But um no, we're, we're pretty, we're pretty focused on u- continuing to develop the software and the technology for our internal purposes and to uh make the end-user customer experience even better um and delightful. Um we're very focused on building for ourselves.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Um you know when you, when you, when you started in the beginning, uh what was the thesis and did you have to make any pivots to where you're at today versus when you thought about the business idea?
Raed Khawaja: Jake, I'm so glad you're giving me the space to address some of that. I mean, even people who have been at the company for so long, uh I almost hear them uh use the "pivot" word sometimes. And we've pivoted, by the way, in so many ways along the ways in much um I would say you know kind of a smaller references: "Oh, oh, maybe that's not the right feature" or you know, "maybe um we should run this many classes in movement and this many class..." it's like, but the broader vision and the broader thesis uh that we started with and you know we engaged with from the earliest days when Pete joined the company, is that we wanted to be an on and offline company um uh that was you know putting, spreading the wisdom um of mindfulness and, and beyond. So uh physical locations and uh kind of a digital apparatus were, were always a part of the vision from the get-go.
Um now we did end up raising institutional capital on the other side of you know doing a lot of R&D and testing uh in the end of 2019, beginning of 2020. And, and we've raised capital saying this very thing, um that we're building out both locations and app. And uh you know, you plan and God laughs. So pandemic hits early 2020 and we can no longer work on the physical locations until... until further notice. So we got the gift of focus and, and so we really focused on the app um for the next year basically, the next two years until we were free and clear and could start working on the physical location. So we're very excited. I'm very excited Jake to be talking to you today um after realizing something that you know we have been working on in a lot of ways for years to truly be a hybrid company.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. COVID had an impact uh in so many different ways. Positives and negatives. Uh but anything that had to do with events or in-person activities had to, had to pivot and try and figure out other ways to continue to building what you're building or just get out of the business. Glad you were able to find your way and now the exciting times of you know having much more in person and locations uh is really, really exciting times I'm sure. Um as you look at uh your experience here, you know, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, there's many times you have to make bold choices and make hard decisions. Uh as you get funding as a company, sometimes you scale up and sometimes it's too, too quick and you have to downsize. Um what's been your experience in that process and what lessons if any have you learned that others that are having to go through that can benefit from?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah. No, I think you know it's uh funding is one element of it. And then it's just kind of the macro economic environment and dynamics that play out where there's just a, you know, um a constant um rhythm of contraction and expansion, contraction and expansion. And um if you're around long enough with your business or your endeavor, you're going to experience those. And so the first response would just be to kind of um kind of embrace that as um an immortal reality that these expansions and contractions happen. And you know, when the, I guess if there's any uh wisdom to share is that when you do have to make uh, when you have to pull back and you have to reduce, um that you know it can be a really painful process in the moment. And it's, it's painful for the right reasons when you're thinking about "Oh, you might have to part ways with folks that um you know you would rather not" or "you know, it wish you didn't have to be that way." So in the humanity of that it is painful.
Um but often the anxiety or the fear of that is misplaced because often what happens is on the other side of really hard decisions, you end up being uh leaner, more efficient, more productive, more focused really uh coming out of those kinds of cycles. And um you know you have to bottle up that clarity in the moment. I implore people to, you know, journal and uh really try to soak in those moments of transition um as a reminder to not get overzealous again and maybe uh hire ahead of your skis or spend ahead of the business.
And then the kind of the last thing I'd mention there is, and you know, I grew up in and grew up I mean I moved around a bit in my career: you know, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Northwest Arkansas, but I landed in the Bay Area in 2014, 2015 and there were high times that I landed in. I mean it was just that D2C exuberance. Um and you know, uh year over year um more and more was being poured into uh venture, venture capital as an asset class and you know it was just people were just raising more money, more money and it was growth at all costs. And so, um, the reminder would be that the fundamentals of what it takes to run a sustainable and healthy business do not change with these cycles. Um, you know, your unit economics and um your bottom line and, and your ability to reinvest into your future in a healthy way, those thing, those fundamentals are the same. And so being really sober and having a real sober mindset and a real uh kind of clarity of thinking as uh you move through these cycles that "hey, there might be a lot of exuberance or things might be really slow right now, but the reality is if I can um stay focused on what I know we're here to deliver on and we keep improving what that is, um and we stay really disciplined about how we grow," that, that you know, that you can build something that can truly be evergreen. That's definitely our intention.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, it's, I agree with that. And there's a lot of companies we work with that um grew and continue to grow, and then the market changed and they were caught off guard and had to make some adjustments and downsized, and then downsized again. And actually they have a much more productive team that's more focused, and they deliver really at the same levels which um, sometimes adding more doesn't give you 2x, 3x, 5x. It's really you end up becoming more, I guess focused but also execute differently. So I think there's some pros and cons. The, the con to it is that sometimes you downsize too much and then you have gaps that people are doing more work than they want to do, right? Or they should do, and the culture then begins to change. The pressure is there and they're asking to add more people. It doesn't quite happen when they want it. Um so we're kind of seeing some of that um boomerang trending coming back where now they kind of need to fill in some of the gaps that you downsized out and heading into 2004, you know, looking at a little bit more growth. Um, as, as, as you look at 2024, you've built a lot. Uh, I mean, a million sessions to me is incredible. Something to be proud of. And for someone who's never built uh a mobile app to get that much visibility, you're doing a great job on executing your marketing strategy, it sounds like. Uh as you look at the product itself and you look into 2024, what's on the roadmap for you know, growth and new features and, and functionality in addition to store locations for Open.
Raed Khawaja: Yes. Yeah. I think, and thank you. We're very proud. We have a, a Slack channel called "#why-we-do-this" u- where we share testimonials and feedback from our community. And um you know those are amazing um qualitative points of feedback of, and reminders of what we, what we do matters. But we love that number of sessions because at the end of the day, that's, truly reflects the scale of our, our work. Uh you know, we can get, we can get wrapped up in all the uh poetry of uh what these practices have to offer, but at the end of the day, if you just do it. If you just, if you just log a, a session today and then you do it again tomorrow, and then you do it again and you know it just works and there's a compounding effect there. So yeah, we love that. Totally.
Um, as we look forward to 2024, the feature set or, you know, what we're thinking about the app is really how we can become more aware of, uh, the individual playing out the experience. So, um, you know, everything from diagnostic information that is passively generated. So, you know, are we thinking about um existing hardware players that are, you know, picking up on your heart rate or, you know, um maybe they know something about um your HRV or they know something about your sleep patterns. You know, how are we plugging into that information and that ecosystem is something that we're really curious about. We're also really curious about how we're plugging into uh what's going on in your life period and you know, so user input, um and what we can do to kind of you know work off that data and that information that the user is providing to provide the right content at the right time uh for someone. So that you know kind of personal, broader personalization journey is something that we're, we're pretty interested and keen to uh develop this next year.
And on the location side, it's just uh you know, can we find a couple more locations um in LA is a priority. But uh we're definitely looking in other markets as well. Um and so we, we have some, we've got, we've generated such an amazing response and uh it's been yeah really fulfilling to uh have this first space in on Venice Beach. So, we're, we're pretty eager to have a couple more locations as soon as possible.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Yeah. Um, you talked about community. Do how, where is your community living? Is it on social networks? Do you have uh a place where they go and connect with you? If people wanted to find Open or wanted to find you, where do they go?
Raed Khawaja: Yeah. So, uh, if you, we're in the App Store. Uh, if you type in Open, Open Meditation, Open Breathwork, um, those kind of qualifiers will help make sure that you can find us in, in there. Uh, we, we're in Venice Beach. If you, if you are coming through LA, it's a, it's a must visit. Come check out our first ever class that we developed, of Breath and Sound. Um, you know, we're running classes um from sunrise to, to sunset over on the beach there. So, come see us there. Uh, and follow our Instagram uh and or TikTok. Uh, you can find us um under "Open" pretty easily and uh you can follow along with the community there. We have some other elements like WhatsApp groups and things like that. But if you DM the Instagram, we can get back to you and, and kind of find other ways to stay in touch.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. It's probably on the mobile app, but for those that are listening that are interested, what's the cost if I wanted to join and Sure., you know, jump on the app and try it out?
Raed Khawaja: Sure. It's $20 a month and then we have an annual um rate of 150. So, it breaks down to, you know, much less than 20 if you can make that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, that's great. Sign me up. I love that. Um well, Raed, uh God, I want to thank you so much for taking your time to spend with us today. Uh, and a big shout out to you for talking about your story and really where it started and where it's headed. And to all, all of our listeners out there for listening. World's the mean to, worlds, means the world to me and to us. And uh, thank you for spending that uh, today with us as we look um, going forward. Love to catch up with you Raed uh, in the future to see how things go and maybe an update on those different locations and how things are progressing with your application. And for the rest, my name is Jake Aaron Villarreal, the host of the show. Look forward to catching up with you all on the next episode.
Before we wrap up, I want to give a big shout out to all the entrepreneurs that have joined to make this podcast possible. And for all the listeners for listening, it means the world to me that you chose to spend your time with us today. I'm your host Jake Aaron Villarreal. Signing off for now, but can't wait to connect with you all soon on the next episode. Take care.
This show is sponsored by Match Relevant, a company that helps venture-backed startups find the best people in the market. And they do it in three simple steps. First, they sit down with founders to understand their story. Second, they tell their story into multiple candidate channels. And third, they schedule interviews within 48 hours. Find us at matchrelevant.com to learn more about how we do it.
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