Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to the Match Relevant podcast where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their success, challenges, and lessons learned. We hope you'll be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, and here with us today we have Todd Mickelsen, the president of Converus. Todd, welcome to the show.
Todd Mickelsen: Thanks for having me, Jake. I look forward to sharing our story with you.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Hundreds of AI startups are launching every month, battling to build their founding teams. As a leader, your job is to get results. When it comes to hiring, that's where it gets tough. So, you go out and you try a recruitment firm, but they don't understand your story. They're off target. And when they send you candidates, it's a waste of time. We believe you should never have your time wasted. That's why we launch Match Relevant because your story is more than just an open role. It's your founders' journey, the problem you're solving, the product you're building, and why it matters. When we work with companies, we make sure we understand your whole story. So, we go out and do a search, we're on target. It's worth their time. They're interested. And more importantly, it's worth yours. And when it comes to hiring engineers, we work to make sure we get it right by deploying a team of seasoned CTOs that have built some of Silicon Valley's best companies. They can collaborate with you in the technical interviewing process. They can be a sounding board or they can run it for you. When it comes to building teams, there's no time to waste. Let's make it count. If you have a role that needs to be filled, book a time with a hiring guide at matchrelevant.com and learn how we do it.
Well, a little bit more about Todd, he is not just the leader of the company, but he also has helped them to grow the business to over 600 customers worldwide. This is a tech startup and it's highly distributed and basically essentially it's a disruptive lie detection technology. As CEO, he's overcome funding challenges, status quo opposition, and attacks from the press. Todd holds a bachelor of science in marketing business from Brigham Young University. Todd, when we first had a conversation, you shared with me that, you know, kind of the inspiration behind this was a PE firm had reached out to you and asked you to come in and kind of lead building out a technology or being part of an innovation team was going to support how to counter corruption in Mexico or in different parts of the world. And really through a solution around lie detection was kind of the idea that came out of it. Kind of walk us through just the beginnings of how you and, and the current company came together.
Todd Mickelsen: Okay. So by, by way of background I, I've been involved in technology startups for over 35 years. And one of those startups I interacted with, with an individual who helped us in, in the area of new business development and he took that technology and went off and started his own company, grew the company, event[ually] sold it, and took the proceeds from that to become a, a VC. One of his desires was to build the first startup fund for a Latin American-based uh market. Uh he was living in Mexico at the time and was successful doing that about 11 years ago. Uh it's called Alta Ventures. The LPs that contributed to fund one for them were some of the more wealthy individuals running some of the biggest uh companies in Mexico. And uh as part of the charter, if you will, for the, for the fund, one of the, one of the goals that they had as LPs was to see investments made in technology that will help address some of their biggest challenges. And one of those biggest challenges is corruption. Corruption causes all kinds of problems in, in building a business and growing a business, as you can imagine.
And so the, the VCs, once they raised the fund, they went looking for potential technology solutions to address corruption. And they stumbled across what the University of Utah had been working on. A team of five scientists there who had really pioneered the first computerized polygraph in the, in the 1990s, an analog device, and converted it to a computer, built the first algorithms and sensors that could be run from a computer for doing lie detection. And in 2002, they started exploring alternative approaches, disruptive approaches that would allow you to automate lie detection. Something that could be run from a computer quickly in an automated fashion managed by someone who knew nothing about lie detection. And they, they discovered that eyes, there are involuntary changes that occur when people lie that can be captured with an eye-tracking camera or a specialized camera. And they spent 11 years proving this out doing lab and field studies showing that it could be done. And anyway, this friend of mine at, at the, at the VC stumbled across what they were doing, became very interested, reached out to me and said, "Hey, I think we, we really have something here. Would you be interested in coming and um a business wherein we license the science out from the university and build a commercial product and take it to market?" And that's what we did in 2013.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Wow, that's amazing. We talk to a lot of founders that they take a different path, but I like the idea of starting first with what the problem is and then figuring out how to build the product that can solve that problem. You have built out a brand. Now, when you look at South America, you look at Mexico, you look at different countries, you know, corruption is there. It's also in the US. What's been, I think from your perspective, some of the challenges of bringing a new technology that's around lie detection into other countries and also what's been some of the benefits that you've been surprised to see and, and build this, this service and this product line.
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah, I think one of, one of the challenges that we didn't anticipate is when you, when you take this solution into an organization that is really going to help them root out the corruption. The problem is if the corruption is at the top and the decision maker for whether or not this technology comes into the organization is made by that individual who doesn't want to be discovered and is concerned that this, this solution is going to be applied against them, then they become a, a barrier to entry, a gatekeep-, gatekeeper if you will that, that stop- find reasons for which they don't allow the technology to enter, was one of the un- unexpected um results. We found that working from the top down, if the folks at the top really wanted to effect a change, then it would happen. But if we were working from the bottom up, where many of the individuals who would make those decisions were corrupt themselves and taking advantage of position, um we had difficulty getting into the organization. So that was one challenge.
I think a second challenge is just the question around "does this stuff really work?" The characterization of, of a lie detection test, that's typically a polygraph. A polygraph has been around for a hundred years. Hasn't really changed much in a hundred years. And you know, there are ways uh, if you, if you know how it works, that you can, can beat it. Those are often shown in, in the movies. You know, you put a tack in your shoe and you invoke pain to, to cause a reaction. The questions actually that are being used as a comparison... So the way this stuff works is, you know, I ask you, I ask you a question that is really functioning as a baseline or a comparison question. And that's used to compare if you, if you react differently when I ask you a question that you're lying on. And so one, one tactic for a polygraph is, is to invoke emotion on the comparison so that when that emotion gets invoked automatically through a lie on the primary question that they look the same. And if they look the same, then you can't be discovered. So some people wondered you know, "does this stuff really work?"
Um our, our goal as a team was to deliver a product that was faster, automated, more accurate, could be run by anyone. And we discovered that uh a physiological reaction that is involuntary, so you can't feel it, you can't control it, is, or are these changes, these subtle changes that occur in the eyes when you lie. So when we lie, we exert more mental, mental effort. That exertion of additional mental effort causes these involuntary changes. And the changes are things such as your pupils dilate up to a tenth of a millimeter. Your blink rate slows when you lie. Makes sense, right? You're exerting more mental effort to, to, to communicate the lie and so you blink less. You make more mistakes. If you're presented with the same question in a variety of ways and told the answer as quickly and as accurately as possible, otherwise the time runs out. People under pressure make, make mistakes. Um, and those mistakes can be picked up in the eyes.
So anyway, convincing people that this stuff really works. We've run 19 studies over the last 20 plus years, both field and lab-based studies. 11 of them are peer-reviewed and published in reputable scientific journals. But despite all that, you still have naysayers uh who find ways to publish articles at, to, to discredit the, the, the solution. And you know, it makes, uh technologies all have error rates. Uh so they're not 100%. But that, that's not the point. The point is that you can utilize them to help make a decision. Just like in a job interview. You, you, you do, you do an interview, you may drug test depending on the position. You may do a background check. Uh you're going to go talk to former employers and so forth. Each of those are data points that can be used to help make a decision. And we, we encourage the same with our technology. It's not to go to court to see if you're lying. It's to help a business understand if this person has a history of drug use. If they have a history of drug use, they're going to use their position to get access to drugs. If they have a history of accepting bribes, they're going to accept bribes when they get into your organization. If they have a history of working with organized crime and cartels to say, "Hey, the truck loaded with goods is going to be passing through this location at a given point in time," to enable them to hijack it, steal everything. Those are the kinds of things that we can find and identify uh that there's been a history of that, and if they've done it in the past, they're likely to do it in the future.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. Talk about the corruption aspect of it. When we talk about corruption, it could be financial, white collar corruption. It could be different industries. What, what's been your target? Where have you seen the most success when it comes to helping utilize your product and your application to help solve some aspects of corruption in whatever country it happens to be?
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah. So, we're, we're actually in 60 countries right now. We have customers in 60 countries. Many of them are federal level agencies where historically they've had a problem. You think of some com-, some countries that only have one police force, a national police force. If you spent time outside the United States in certain countries, you think differently if you're driving and you get pulled over. It's not a matter of speeding. It's a matter of "how much do I need to offer to, to go on my way?" So there's a culture of, of law enforcement, and some of that's you know a problem with the c-, the culture of the country itself. They don't pay them well enough. It's just assumed that's how you get part of your salary, is um is, is recognizing, "oh that person probably has money to pay." They don't want to go through the hassle of a ticket or anything else. So, you know, it's $100 or it's $50 or whatever to be able to go on your way. Uh, so in those situations, we've had a lot of success with the product. Uh, turns out some of those same individuals work with the cartels. The cartels or organized crime come to them, and it's easier to flip them than to try to get their own people embedded into the organization. And so we have organizations that use the product to periodically test, and, and it functions like a deterrent. They know they're periodically going to be tested, then, then they avoid doing things they shouldn't.
G- has done a recent study on hiring loyalty of, of individuals. And what they found is, in, in college space you have... it's a traditional bell curve. 20% of the folks are, are going to be good regardless of what transpires. You have 20% that are bad regardless of what transpires, right? They're, they're going to be bad, take advantage of their position, steal from the company, whatever. And then you have this group in between where they can be influenced depending on the culture. Uh if everyone else is doing it and it's just kind of part of the position, then they'll follow along unless there's a deterrent. Uh so if they're told, "Look, you're periodically going to be tested, randomly once a year, and we're going to ask if you're stealing from the company. We're going to ask if you're accepting bribes. We're going to ask if you're sharing confidential information with our competitors and others. Um, um you're going to be tested on that." And, and it functions as a, as a great deterrent in, in those situations for that 60% group in the middle of the bell curve.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: It's great. It's, it's... sounds like it's a technology that act-, that can tell you if you're lying or not, or give you guidance if that's the case. But also psychologically can position you to not want to do the things you shouldn't be doing. Whether the, the test actually works or not, I think just from that perspective, you're already changing, you know, the rules of the game, if you will, from doing things you shouldn't be doing. When you look at white collar, for example, I think you mentioned AT&T where they're trying to assess in Mexico or South America, you know, if they're going to give a product or a service to a consumer, what's the reality they're going to actually get paid on that product or month billing, whatever it happens to be. Walk us through how your product works in that use case.
Todd Mickelsen: Okay. Yeah. So, I mentioned pre-employment screening. We, we have our flagship product called EyeDetect that came out in 2014. It's a computer-based product that has a special eye-tracking camera. So, there's a hardware component to it that you've got to go get, you got to buy in order to take advantage of the software. Um, it's used broadly in employment situations, like at a bank for the call center who has access to all of your PII. It's, it, it's the group that you call when you lose your credit card or you think it's been hacked. So, they want to periodically verify that those folks aren't taking advantage of their position and utilizing that information they have access to about you, right down to your social security number and, and, and the card number itself. So, for them, you know, they periodically bring the folks in, they sit down in front of the device and they take the test. And the test simply asks them things like, "Have you performed any unauthorized transactions?" Right? It's a nice way of saying, "Are you stealing, you know, information," but "Did you, did you in your position perform an unauthorized transaction since your last test?" That's great when you have a uh an employee already sitting in the physical location where you can run the, run the test.
What we found over the years is people said, "Hey, we'd really like a test that's only five minutes and could we take it from a mobile phone?" Why? Because we have a huge turnover. And we want, we want people to just come to our website, fill out a job form, and allow us to do a quick and dirty check on the back end to see if this person has a police record. And if they don't, a link. In fact, they might get that link via WhatsApp if, if it's outside the US or via text message here in the US, uh where they can click on it and answer some questions. That was the goal behind our, our product called Verify. It is a native mobile app. You can go to the app store and download it for free. You can't do much with it unless someone sends you a, a link that includes a test that they want you to take. But for an employment situation, now if you take that scenario and apply it to other use cases like credit risk verification, it becomes really interesting, right? Particularly outside the United States where they don't have credit bureaus. Some organizations uh want to sell you a, a product on credit, but they want to know you're going to, you're going to pay them back.
This is particularly interesting in some of the accounts that, that we're working with today that sell a cell phone as part of a plan. So, you know, you commit to a plan that includes the new mobile phone. It's a smartphone that's valued at about $1,000 on credit, but they need to know that they're going to, that you're not just going to walk away. And now you have a cell phone that's going to be really difficult. So, so we're working with a number of vendors right now, uh outside the United States that are running pilots on that scenario where you could either walk into the store and take a five-minute test from your own mobile device or from a mobile device that they provide there. Or you can get online, fill out a form, triggers a link being sent to you, and you take it right from your own phone. And the test focuses on, you know, "are you... have you defaulted on loans in the past? Did you submit any falsified documents for your application online?" Because, you know, some of these groups would require a utility bill, for example. And, and people will doctor those knowing that that's a, a requirement. "Or do you intend, if granted the plan, to pay it in full over the term of the plan?" And um it's a, it's a game changer in that regard where now they have another data point. Obviously, it wouldn't be the exclusive information that they draw upon to make the decision... to the job interview, background check, drug test, etc. It's a data point that uh an organization can use to, to make a decision.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. You know, we're in the business of helping companies grow and hire people. We recruit for them. That's our job. That's what we do. And one of the challenges as COVID hit and companies that are now re-, you know, hiring remotely, not just in the US, but internationally, you, you, you hope you get what you buy from the people you hire, but you don't always know. And sometimes you don't even know if it's the same person that's, you hire that's doing the work behind the scenes. So, you know, talk about where you see your mobile platform be a benefit in those type of use cases. Because we... I, I can see a clear reason why a company would want to utilize a product like this as another data point of not just, you know, the technical and the functional and the behavioral interview, but "you know, you said you did these things on your resume. I want to see proof and looking in your eyes when you say you've done these things and how you did it and what your success was like so that maybe what you're telling me is what I like to hear, but is it really true?" How does it work in that aspect of the interview process?
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah. So COVID really changed uh this in terms of allowing people to work remote and opening the door for organizations to hire people that not only work remote here in the US, but that work outside the US. So they, they can get someone, they can get a skilled engineer, software engineer for example, uh in some cases for a tenth of what they pay here. Someone who works out of Mexico or out of the Philippines, some other location. And what this has done is caused some of these staffing, the larger staffing organizations to change the way they recruit. Many of them are building a database of, of potential employees, contracted labor, where individuals can apply to be included in the database so that when a company comes calling, you know, where they're seeking some individuals, they can search this database and pull from a list of candidates.
Well, the staffing agencies verify that these people actually have the experience that they purport to have. And so they're using it to, to verify that. We, we have a customer here in the US that is recruiting a thousand nurses for a hospital here in the US and they're recruiting from outside the United States. They send them a link to Verify. Test affirms whether or not they are an accredited nurse in their local country. That they... you know the, the guidelines and requirements would be different here in the US, but they want to confirm that they actually are accredited in, in their, in their country. And so they ask that, you know, "Did you actually complete schooling? Did you pass the tests that were required," etc. And if they have, then they can apply for... to get access to an online course to pass the, you know, the things that they need to do in order to be a visa and ultimately come to the US and, and work for that uh, for that hospital. So it's changing it in, in that regard.
We have some companies that go deeper depending on the position. If you're hiring someone to work in finance and accounting that's based in the Philippines, they're going to... they're going to have access to your bank account and everything else, you want to confirm that they're not uh going to be at risk for robbing you. And so pretty much anything you can ask uh can be included in, in, in a test to, to, to help the organization confirm that and get comfortable that the person that's remote that they're hiring has been properly vetted and, and is going to be a, isn't going to be a risk to the organization.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: What's the legal ramifications if anything when it comes to policies of providing a lie detector test or some sort of technology that is making a judgment on "is this person telling me the truth or not?" And then you know, putting that into a file and you know, that's part of that person's you know business profile moving forward within a company. Like what's, what's, what's that look like if anything in terms of how it impacts getting your product in the door of a company?
Todd Mickelsen: Well, here in the US there is uh a law, it's referred to as the Employee Polygraph Protection Act. It's, it's really a law that protects non-government, for the most part non-government employees, doesn't matter whe-, whether it's, you know, the city, state, federal level. Or potential non-government employees from being even subjected to a lie detection test. So it doesn't, it doesn't matter whether it's a polygraph or EyeDetect. It would be against the law for me here in the US to ask someone to even take a test. We think there are some exceptions that should be made to that law and we've been working with government. It's one of the challenges, a barrier to entry here in the US, particularly people who work with youth, people who work with vulnerable people in care centers and things like that where there's been abuse. We think those exceptions should be made. Uh but right now here in the US if it's employment related, it's not allowed unless it's a government paid position, includes teachers because they're ultimately paid by the state if it's a state or city-run school.
But, so that's the first issue. That's part of the reason why we sell a lot more outside the US, because private organizations outside the US for the most part don't have that re-. If it's non-employment related, like an insurance company confirming that your insurance claim was real, that's allowed. Um, if it's someone in an addiction recovery program or maybe someone on parole. We have lots of Departments of Corrections here in the US where like a sex offender would be, uh, if they've completed a treatment program and um they're told that they're going to be tested randomly twice a year. Uh so if a former victim complains that they were approached by them, you know, they can show up and give them a test to confirm if that was true and if they've reoffended. So we, we, we have that.
Um I always get asked, "So is this permissible in court?" Uh the reality is, is polygraph data isn't permissible in court. So that, there's very little use of that. We do have defense attorneys that cases won't take on a case unless they first test a potential client to know if that client is telling the truth, because they don't want to represent someone um that's... so that, that's allowed. Um there are some states, New Mexico, where we have had cases where uh it has been accepted as evidence. And, but the vast majority of the states don't allow it. So the guidelines are: Number one, um make sure you're not violating a law. Two, make sure you get their consent. So they should give their consent to say, "I recognize I'm taking this test and the data could be used to help make a decision, and you know, I'm not going to sue the organization uh for that. I'm, I'm giving my, my consent." So...
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Makes sense. I, I want to go back to one thing you mentioned about lie detector testing not being permissible in court. Why do law enforcement give, or you see in the movies where you know people are given lie detector tests? What's the reasoning behind that if it's not usable, usable in court?
Todd Mickelsen: Um, in most cases, what they're trying to do is prove their innocence and they're playing to the judge or the jury in terms of saying, "Look, my client took a lie detection test and passed." We have had a couple of cases on death row actually where been asked to come in by the defense to try to get a stay of execution, and it's actually been successful. And in those cases what we have done is we have utilized two types of tests. We've EyeDetect test and a polygraph test where the individual is tested on both, you know, with, they're tested on the exact same thing, same topics, but independently by these two different tests. And you can use... I mean it's referred to as successive hurdles. It's a mathematical formula that two mathematicians came up with in the 70s, Drs. Neil and Rosen, that they say if you know the accuracy of two different tools and they're independent from one another, then you can calculate what the probability is that you got it right or you can, what's called the outcome confidence. How confident are we that the outcome we got is correct? So in that case, if you follow all those rules, you can get to 99.2% outcome confidence that you got it right. If the individual taking the test gets the same result from the two independent tools.
So that's, that's typically how it's, how it's used. Have a number of cases right now in several different states where we are pushing for that type of, of acceptance. Independent tools given by independent individuals on the same topic. You have a subject matter expert that verifies the questions are the same on the two different tools. They don't know the respective outcome from the two different tools either team. Uh so it's completely independent. And if you get the same result saying they're telling the truth, then you're 99, 99% confident probability that they are.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's fascinating. I, I had no idea that the test in the court of law wasn't about trying to prove someone guilty, but trying to prove their innocence. Which to me has got to be gratifying knowing that your technology might save a life even if they are on death row or maybe get somebody, you know, a jury to, to, to, to sway in the right direction based on the reality of their being innocent. So really, really cool to hear that, knowing that it's, you need to get consent in the US and it's not legal from a hiring perspective to utilize any sort of lie detection tests. What's the market opportunity look like for you? I know outside the US is bigger than maybe in the US currently, but when you look at the landscape, how big of an opportunity do you see your product in, in this space?
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah, it's definitely smaller here in the US from a hiring standpoint. Having said that, the US government does more polygraph exams than, than most countries outside the US. So, we've been working to get approval there and we're just finishing up some field and lab studies where we're hopeful to get that approval. So outside of that, um, I mentioned that there is a big market for non-employment related. We, we have a vendor today that does, that's taken our Verify product and built a B2C site called icanknow um.com. And anyway, it's, it focuses on addiction recovery. There are a lot of situations where you have a loved one that maybe has an alcohol problem and you require them to, to go get help. And in some cases, you have a spouse that says, "If you don't get help, I'm done." And so these tests are useful if they know they're going to be periodically tested. They're useful upfront to get all the information out. So, kind of a history test on "are you telling the truth about what you've done?" Um, they're useful to periodically test to ensure they not reoffend. And so, there's, there's great opportunity there.
There's opportunity in testing people on parole to know that they're staying clean, haven't reoffended, especially they know they're going to go back to jail if they do, back to prison. Um, and then the Verify product opened up these other three areas and I would classify them as credit risk verification. So, we're actually working with some companies here in the US where individuals are seeking credit. Um, they don't have residency yet. They're not a US citizen. They don't have established credit, and the organization wants to know "are they likely to pay it back?" So, it's easy to check. "Have you purposely defaulted on previous loans in the past? Did you lie about your income and your expenses?" Because they're being paid in cash, they have no way of confirming their, their income for. "Did you submit any, you know, falsified documents? Do you intend to pay back the full amount?" So, we do have some of that here in the US uh with people that don't have credit history, don't have the ability to show up in the, in the credit bureaus.
We're working with some insurance companies to verify if your insurance claim is, is legitimate. And that's not employment. So, it's, it's, it's allowed. Um, and the, the last one is just general claims. So imagine a dating site that has a gold or platinum level for your profile, where the gold or platinum level means that you've taken, that you've been verified, that you've demonstrated that you're not a registered sex offender or uh that you truly are divorced. Uh, one of the complaints on some of these sites that we work with is, you know, "they claim they're divorced, and six months later we go to get married and find out that their divorce wasn't really finalized." Uh, they, they, they shouldn't have that in their profile if, if it's not true. So, claims in general, you know, this could be someone who service coming to your home. "Are they really insured? Are they background checked?" That individual could, as part of their profile, say, you know, "I, you know, you know, I have met the requirements to come in and, and do some plumbing work on your house."
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Um, yeah, that's really cool. We just had some work done at our house and it would have been good to have that test to know that they done electrical work in the past or, you know, are able to do the things we're asking to do. Talk a little bit about the mobile app aspect of it. How easy is it to do the lie detector test through your mobile app? And as a, as a company, what sort of costs are you really charging for that? In other words, if you're a company like an insurance company that wants to use your platform, is it incremental based on the usage? Like what's the, what's the structure that you've gone to market with?
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah. So, first question, how easy is it to use? You simply click on the link. If you don't have the app, it takes you to the app store, prompts you to download the app. After the app has been downloaded, then it launches the, the test. The beginning of the test, there's a one minute tutorial on how to improve your, your results. Uh, and it will say things like, you know, "don't take this test outside. Take it indoors. Your eyes are like a mirror. You get lots of reflection if you're, you're sitting like right in front of a window." Um, um so it walks you through how to do it. You follow the instructions. Um at one point during the test, it, it will have you flip the phone and hold the phone like this, where we're using the camera on the back pointed at a, at, at a position where it's going to get the best data from your eyes. It prompts you to move it right position. So very e- very easy to use.
In terms of the costs for the mobile product, we have a software development kit APIs in it that would allow you to integrate this technology into your existing platform. So if you're an insurance company and you get an insurance claim that's been submitted through your own app, right? So the insurance company has an app where you can take pictures of the situation, submit the claim. That data goes into a database. Uh they're going to do some checking to see if it's legitimate. And if it looks fishy, they could leverage that same data in our APIs to generate a unique test and a unique link that then gets sent to you. So the test would be very specific. You know, "were you sideswiped in the middle of the intersection by someone who, who ran a red light?" So it could be that specific, and all of that can be fully automated through the SDK. We charge obviously for the SDK, but then on top of that we charge per test that you run. So for organizations that are just going to test a handful of people, they buy a block of licenses, uh the handful of people they want to test, and it, you know, it's a per test basis. Pay a little more, quite a bit more than someone who's running thousands of tests verifying an insurance claim. Under that scenario, then you know it's much lower and just built into the system. And as the run rate increases, then the price goes down per test. We do have all-you-can-eat models where you can, where we can size the situation and, and then set you up for a year and you're good for a year and as many as you want.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Makes, makes great sense. As we look at 2024, we're coming into the second quarter and already, you know, 2025 is going to be upon us. What are you excited about where you're at as a company and with the product? What's on the road map?
Todd Mickelsen: Yeah, so the Verify product was announced in March of last year. We released the first version of it in May of last year. And as is the case with any 1.0 product, you know, you discover things that you can do to improve it. And so we're, we're currently on version 3.2. We, we had some significant upgrades between version one, 1.0 and 3.0. And then we've had incremental updates coming since then. So, we're really excited that the product's had a year in the market. It's been hardened and, and polished. And so we have uh lots of clients all over the world that are, are deploying it now in real situations and using it. We're going to continue to enhance it. Added like everyone else some AI-based stuff to it. The, the positioning of where to hold it. You know, at first we used typical facial recognition capability that identifies "that's an eye." And we've since added AI-based capability to identify and confirm that that is in fact an eye. That it's not picking up something that looks like an eye right behind them, or jumping between, you know, their eye and, and, and their nose if the lighting is such that maybe it might get confused and think that's an eye. So we have some AI-based stuff on tap uh that will be coming out uh here in the next month or so. Things like detecting is there too much reflection for us to get good data, and if so to tell you to move to a different spot, physical location.
So that's coming. But we're, we're just uh, we're excited to see the growth shape up with clients that are getting implemented and really starting to grow. Uh in terms of the tests that they're running every day. We're in 11 countries now with actual customers running tests, and those span pre-employment, credit risk verification, claims verification on a variety of things, and identity verification. So, we actually do have some that just want to confirm, "are you really you?" And they'll capture a biometric at the same time, then use that biometric for future decisions if it's access to a facility. Um, they want to know that you're really Jake, and as they capture your biometric and associate your biometric into blockchain and use it for future decisions going forward.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. I love, I really like what you guys are building and I also can see opportunities for that too. Um certainly we'll connect you with companies that we know that there could be opportunities to build your business. We like to do that with the guests on our show. Um but if anyone wants to find Converus, where would they go and how would they find you?
Todd Mickelsen: So they can go to our website, converus.com, and my email is tmickelsen@converus.com. If you go to our website and click on "more info" it will eventually get to me there as well.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. Well, Todd, thanks so much for joining. Really appreciate you spending your time with us today, as well as our listeners for joining. It means a lot to me and to our company. My name is Jake Aaron Villarreal, the host of the show, signing off for now. I can't wait to catch up with you all in the next episode. Until then, Todd, listeners, take care. If you like what we're doing, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and follow us on YouTube where we go behind the scenes to learn what it takes to be a startup founder.
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