Maddy Sukoru (00:00):

I believe the last 10 years were built on the back of Facebook ads. The next 10 years are gonna be built on the back of communities.

Rabah Rahil (00:13):

All right, folks, this one is about to be a banger. I have Maddy, Sakuru not an Asian woman, an incredibly talented band who raised a bunch of money from, at T tech to now running his own incredible entrepreneurial journey with group shot. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Maddy Sukoru (00:30):

Thank you. He's a well baby. We ain't here. We made it. I'm famous now.

Rabah Rahil (00:34):

It's it on? You're not your hero as, I mean, I don't, it's all downhill from here now. I mean,

Maddy Sukoru (00:39):

It's

Rabah Rahil (00:42):

Maddy. You have a really interesting story. First off I'm in Austin, Texas as always, uh, where's this podcast find you

Maddy Sukoru (00:48):

I'm here in LA sunny. LA's actually, you know, not a bad day today.

Rabah Rahil (00:52):

There you go. Not a bad day in LA. So I was doing, I always do a lot of research on, uh, my podcast guests. And you have one of the more fascinating journeys. So you ultimately went from ATT tech to basically raising for group shop, which is a fantastic we'll get into what that is a little bit later, but how, how did you make that jump from basically kind of fairly blue collar medial stuff to basically running your own jam? Tell us a little bit about that.

Maddy Sukoru (01:18):

So a lot happened in between, I mean, it wasn't just like, you know, uh, jump was straight jump, a lot happened between, but just to short it up, yeah. Like drop outta college, like got a decent job like with at and T like, you know, doing a premise technician. So I was just like a cable guy, you know, I was the guy who called in when you needed, you know, your cable wasn't working. And I came in, you know, acted like I was fixing something didn't really fix it, told you to reschedule <laugh>. But, um, yeah. So did that for a couple years, stacked on some money, always wanted to like start my own business, always, you know, had the entrepreneurial spirit and so, uh, left there had a decent size 401k cashed that out. Oh, nice. Started like, you know, uh, a tech marketplace business, like, you know, Airbnb for space rentals event, space rentals landed flat on my SP uh, on my face.

Maddy Sukoru (02:05):

Didn't know what I was doing. Didn't know how to run a business. I was like, you know, 23, 24 at a time. And so had to pick myself up, you know, just hustle it out, uh, started an econ business after that and found some success with that. We were in an electronics and electronics niche. And so we're selling, um, you know, everything from like smart watches to like, you know, fake AirPods and things of that nature back when you could do that on, on <laugh> you can run ads on those, on Facebook, on Facebook, uh, platform. And so, um, ended up exiting that business right before, like COVID hit. And so that was kind of serendipitous. And then when I exited that business, I was in an interesting place cuz like, you know, it's COVID and I just, you know, sold an e-commerce business. And so I'm thinking through like, okay, what do I wanna work on on next? And I kept thinking back to like my biggest pain point, which was customer acquisition.

Rabah Rahil (02:58):

Yep.

Maddy Sukoru (02:58):

You, you know, and you know, I've been, you know, worked on different businesses in tech and I realized one thing in technology, especially like, you know, when you look at marketplaces there, this, these things called network effects. Yeah. Where if you acquire one customer, it makes it easier for you to acquire more customers without having to like, you know, increase your spend or run ads, you know, because it's word of mouth they're referrals. Customers are talking this hype building and however, like, you know, in my business and in a lot of e-commerce businesses, businesses like, you know, when you acquired one customer, you have to go back and, you know, put the money back to the Facebook slot machine and try to, you know, get more customers out of that. And this attacks every single time. And so started thinking through how do we create network effects in eCommerce?

Maddy Sukoru (03:40):

And you know, of course you have like, you know, referral programs and loyalty programs and things like that. But those are just not efficient. And I believe that consumers have grown still to the gift 20 get 20 and those type of offers. And so started looking at things that were happening in China. I don't know if you're familiar with pin duo met one somebody correctly. Yep. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, okay, how can we make that happen here in the us? How do we create network effects? How do we turn customers into like, not just like, you know, order numbers? Cause a lot of brands see their customers order numbers. These are people that have friends and have families have deep networks and connections. How do we tap? How, how do we make it? So when someone buys your product, you are able to infiltrate their group chat and their friend group and their local community. And so that was kind of like the Genesis of group chat.

Rabah Rahil (04:25):

How cool man. I did not know you were that, so that is a bit of a, a that's fantastic. That is really, really cool. When you were kind of like down and out a little bit, how did you pick yourself up? Was there any kind of like books you read or was it just like, you know, bite down on the mouthpiece and take another step or, um, cuz that's one of the things that I've seen. So I read a lot of business memoirs and things of that nature and very rarely the only one I can honestly think of is kind of Zuck where he really just never really hit a ton. I mean obviously there was some tribulations, but he basically went from zero to a thousand. Like, I mean, yeah, he didn't have that normal founder story where there was this thing and I tried it and I blew up and then I failed. And like, so obviously, you know, the first, your first swing wasn't really super successful, but super challenging when that kind of cuts you deep, especially cuz your personality is, you know, destined for greatness, I'm gonna win. And then you didn't how, how did you kind of psychologically rebuild from that to build something as awesome as group shop?

Maddy Sukoru (05:23):

That's a great question. It was, it, it was hard. It was hard because like up to that point, like I always saw myself with someone that can achieve above all odds. And so like, you know, a lot of times people say business is business is never personal or business, not personal. And I say, typically people say that when it's not their business, right. Like everything in this is personal, right. Like I attach so much of myself into the products I build because they're an extension of me. And so I felt like a failure at that point in my life. And you know, it was really leaning on family and like, you know, I had to go out there, you had to do the Uber, Uber eats, you know what I'm saying? You gotta, you gotta hustle, you gotta dug it through like, there's no way around it.

Maddy Sukoru (06:00):

Like, you know, we're at the end of the day, like you, you failure or not, like you still have to keep the lights on. And so it's really just shifting your mind state and like, you know, rebuilding that confidence back within yourself. And that's what I had to do. Like, you know, um, just reading some entrepreneurial books, like, you know, um, one of my favorites is the, um, I forget what it's called, I think is a, is hatch. And Twitter's just the story about, you know, I spent a lot of time on Twitter, but like, you know, just the story about how that company came about and great, you know, seeing the, the ups and downs and, and turbulence that they went through and like, you know, but a lot of it also is just, you know, it's just, I, I think was just, I started trying different things like, you know, Atlanta on e-commerce, but that was just one of the, that was the one that hit, you know, we did drop shipping, you know, before that we just did like, just, you know, I, I tried my hand at like, you know, being a growth marketer, you know, it wasn't very good at it.

Maddy Sukoru (06:57):

<laugh> it wasn't out back then, you know, I didn't have the cheat code <laugh> you know, so yeah, like you was just like, try, try an error. Like, you know, after, after you spend time moping, like, you know, I just had to, you know, kind of slowly, slowly get my way, crawl my way back out of it.

Rabah Rahil (07:15):

I love that, man. Yeah. I, I'm totally with you on that where, uh, you know, you know, take your day to cry over it and then lick your wounds and get back on the horse. And it is what it is. And like you're, there's always gonna be something and having that, that faith in yourself and just being able to the thing that I've found two with most like basically what you're just saying, one, you do what you gotta do when you have to do it, but also action breeds action. I feel like a lot of people that don't get to where they need to be is because they live in theory land a lot of times. And like, yeah, there's a saying where the map is not the territory where you can have this wonderful plan, but if you never execute on anything who cares, it's meaning us. And so like that's the fact just be bad and just

Maddy Sukoru (07:53):

Try better

Rabah Rahil (07:54):

Every day. Gotta

Maddy Sukoru (07:54):

Show up, love that show up. Like, I mean, I think that's my biggest takeaway from all of this is like, you know, this, this journey that we choose. And I just say, it's a journey that we choose. Cause we do choose this journey, Robert, like we can be doing anything else. We're talented people. We can go anywhere else, but we choose to be entrepreneurs. We choose to build products and we choose to innovate. It's filled with ups and downs and this that's something that, you know, no one escapes, well, except for Z, but <laugh>, I mean, he's down right now a little bit, if you think about it, you know? Yeah, yeah,

Rabah Rahil (08:24):

Yeah. Hundred percent.

Maddy Sukoru (08:25):

Yeah. So like, you know, so it's, it's just something that like, you know, I'm starting to, like, I'm starting to be more balanced in my thinking more balanced in my moods. Like, you know, I'm I wear my emotions on my sleeve, right. So when it's up, I'm in the moon when it's down, I'm down at the floor on the floor, right. So now I'm starting to like learn to be, you know, take the ups or the downs and just like, you know, Mell on my way through it.

Rabah Rahil (08:47):

I love that. And kind of, that's a perfect segue into the next question I had for you is one of the challenges with early stage stuff is you kind of do lose yourself in terms of showing up in your other, like whether it's, you know, relationships with your sibling. Other, let me personally, where I started in October kind of full time, like I had my own agency, life has gone great. I'm making all this money and now it's like my whole world's upside down and I'm building this whole marketing ecosystem from scratch and you know, 12 hour days. And Y ya yada, and sometimes you find yourself, you know, one like life, isn't all about working. My belief is like, life is about building deep connections with humans you care about. And sometimes I, I, I don't, you know, show up the best of my relationship when I'm working so much. And so I I'm with you now where I've tried to ride that middle ground now where the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low, but that, that middle ground for me, feels a little more sustainable. How, how do you kind of balance your, your work with, uh, you know, your personal life or your personal relationships or hobbies or what have you,

Maddy Sukoru (09:48):

I'm not gonna lie. Like it's, I don't, I, I try to, I know, but I'm currently not there. That's something that I need to work on a little better, similar to what, um, you said about yourself. It's like, I, I think my superpower is intense focus. Yep.

Maddy Sukoru (10:02):

I think that's the one thing I don't think I'm the smartest person. I don't think I'm the, you know, hardest working whatever the case may be. But I think when I, when I focus on a problem, I just zone in on that. And so what I have been able to do really is just write a momentum. And so once the momentum is going, I am all in on that. And once things taper off and things cool down, then I'm able to rebalance and recalibrate. And so that's kind of like how I've been kind of living. I don't know if that's good or better for worse, but like, you know, I've been just like, you know, riding a momentum of when you know, we're going a hundred miles an hour, then yeah. We're going, and when things start to slow down, then, you know, I'm able to like, you know, check around me and make sure that everyone else is good and things like that.

Maddy Sukoru (10:45):

Um, but I am gonna, I am, I made a note like, you know, to really just try to bring it to a more balanced point because it kind of, you know, write a momentum goals in my personality of like, you know, uh, you know, ups and downs, like, you know, just being able to like, you know, wear my emotions and my sleeves. So when I'm extremely things are good, I'm just going a hundred percent things are bad. I'm kind of like, you know, a little bit down about it. So that's not initially good, but I do need to work on that.

Rabah Rahil (11:11):

Yeah, no I'm tracking I'm, I'm similar to you. And I love the fact that you said focus. I think that is one thing that a lot of people, um, really lack and quite frankly, I think it's the number one luck, timing and focus, I think are the three biggest ingredients for entrepreneurial success because, um, there's that, that old joke of the meme of like, uh, kind of founders like, oh, we need to acquire more people. And it's just pouring features on, you know, like this just launching features, launching features and like, obviously that's great. And it's a little bit the kettle calling the pop black cause we launch a lot of features, but the, but

Maddy Sukoru (11:46):

You have a core product.

Rabah Rahil (11:47):

Yeah, exactly. And so at the end of the day, there's certain aspect of like having that focus is so, so important. And it can really, I think, you know, permeate through your team, which is even more important as you being at the top, you're the leader and you're people are gonna, um, value what you value. And if you value focus, I think that's a really big deal because then the team starts to value what you value. So I love that, man. That's, that's

Maddy Sukoru (12:09):

Beautiful. Yeah, exactly. And at same here, like, you know, and I think that's a problem that you face when you really have a cool, unique and innovative product that can go in so many directions, like, you know, this temptation to add all kinds of features and do go in so many different ways because it's like a blue ocean for you, you know? Yep. And so you just have to hunker down and decide the core thing or two or three things that you really wanna, you know, spend time on. And that's something that we struggle to struggle with as well.

Rabah Rahil (12:38):

Yeah. I mean, feature creeps are real. It's real, man. It's, it's super easy. Especially when you have a bunch of smart, people's

Maddy Sukoru (12:45):

Do this. Should you do that? A lot of good ideas.

Rabah Rahil (12:47):

Yes.

Maddy Sukoru (12:48):

And a lot of good ideas. And that's, that's the thing with Steve jobs. Like I learned that from, I read to Steve jobs about the law back and the one, my main takeaway from that was like saying no to the good ideas so that you can say yes to the one or two great ideas.

Rabah Rahil (13:01):

Ah, you took that right out. Look at this guy steps ahead of me. That was it. That's

Maddy Sukoru (13:04):

Where I

Rabah Rahil (13:05):

See you came to play today to play

Maddy Sukoru (13:10):

My game up.

Rabah Rahil (13:11):

I love it. Uh, okay. Two more questions and we'll wrap up the main segment. Uh, what's the best and worst piece of advice you've ever received.

Maddy Sukoru (13:19):

That's a good one. What's the best piece of advice I've ever received. The best piece of advice I've ever received is let it come to you. Let life come to you.

Rabah Rahil (13:28):

Interesting. I like that.

Maddy Sukoru (13:31):

What's the worst advice I hear bad advice every day. Like I wish I can like really, I wish online. I, my goal is to make fuck you money. So I can go on Twitter every day and just, you know, click all the bad advice. I see. Like bad advice, bad advice, bad advice. Yeah. No, I mean, it's just, I, I, I can't even think about the worst advice anyone's and the thing about me too. I, I listen to everybody I'm willing to talk to every single and what that you get a lot of opinions, a lot of bad advice when cuz that advice often comes with no context,

Rabah Rahil (14:00):

Right? Yes. So, well put

Maddy Sukoru (14:02):

So well put, so like you're hearing all these people give you feedback. Uh I'll circle back on that one. Rob. I don't want, I don't wanna, I don't wanna slow that momentum, you know? No,

Rabah Rahil (14:10):

I, I, I love it. That's a little bit of pessimism too. We we'll we'll keep the vibe light. I like that.

Maddy Sukoru (14:14):

Like it.

Rabah Rahil (14:16):

Um, okay. Well keeping the vibe high, last question. What's the nicest thing someone has done for you.

Maddy Sukoru (14:20):

What's the nicest thing someone has done done for me? I'll say this. I think so. I am originally Cameroonian. My parents are Cameroon country, west Africa. My mom came here while she was pregnant with me to give birth to me here in America because she wanted me to have a better opportunity. And she knew that, you know, I'll be able to have a brighter future here than I would back back home. You know, home is home, but we all know, you know, the perils of the world, you know, uh, nation. And so I think that's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me. So shout him, mom. I,

Rabah Rahil (14:54):

About that shout out mom and actually the, uh, previous person, the no commerce CEO, uh, his wife is Kimon

Maddy Sukoru (15:01):

Jeremiah.

Rabah Rahil (15:02):

Yeah. Jeremiah J plum.

Maddy Sukoru (15:03):

Oh good dude.

Rabah Rahil (15:06):

Very good guy.

Maddy Sukoru (15:06):

Yeah. I spoke to Jeremiah. Um, maybe a couple weeks ago, like off the whim, it was like, yeah, let's chat. Like, you know, just the humor up on the phone, you know, gave me a million worth of game for free. And I was like, you know what? You're a solid guy.

Rabah Rahil (15:18):

Yeah. Real talk. He's a, he is a great dude. And actually my dad is also from Africa. He's from Algeria. So a little bit east be guy, north Africa shot out.

Maddy Sukoru (15:29):

Africa's can move. Like it

Rabah Rahil (15:31):

Let's go. Okay.

Maddy Sukoru (15:32):

We gotta do. We got trip. We gotta do a trip. I did him

Rabah Rahil (15:36):

South. Yeah. Actually. So my dad remarried and uh, his new wife is, uh, Moroccan. And we went out to Morocco a couple years ago for a couple weeks and uh, wow, beautiful country. It is very, very,

Maddy Sukoru (15:46):

Very that's on my list for sure. I love modern. Beautiful. Yeah. You ever see the pictures of like, you know, the backyards with the tiles and like the pool and like, I love like I definitely some, my girlfriend actually went a couple years ago and she like rubs in my face all the time. So

Rabah Rahil (16:02):

<laugh> and if you like to eat, the cuisine is only second, two French. It's fantastic food. Very good, good food. And it's healthy. I lost, I lost like seven pounds and an eight crazy and what's even crazier. And then we'll get into the value add segment, but the, uh, how the states or pretty much the west has perverted, um, or not even Europe, Europe does a good job of this, but pretty much just the states has perverted eating where you go there. And like when you have a meal, dude, like everybody stops, you sit down, people talk, you enjoy the food, blah, blah, blah, where it's like, I'm like no TV, nothing. Right? Like here I'm like eating while I'm still working. I'm sending an email on what's absent, Maddie. Like there's all these things going on where everybody's just say it's meal time, let's eat and stuff like that. And it's, it was a really interesting the relationship with food versus the west or in specific, the states is such a, um, you don't know it until you kind of get out of it. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And knows really cool.

Maddy Sukoru (17:01):

Oh wow. So now I guess Morocco's moved to top of my list. I mean, it's awesome. Thank you. You know, so like, and I do love food. I love like food culture. So yeah. I definitely I'll let you we'll talk after this for recommendations.

Rabah Rahil (17:14):

Yeah. I'll give you the agenda. It was, it was really very cool bunch of in this. All right, baby. We're in the value add segment. This is why the people bought the ticket. Okay. Give us the pitch on group shot. Tell me why you started it. Was there an aha moment? Give us some color there.

Maddy Sukoru (17:28):

Yeah. So as I talked, as I said earlier, like the main goal was trying to figure out how do we create network effects and e-commerce how do we create?

Rabah Rahil (17:36):

Well, tell us, tell people that don't know what it is, what it is first

Maddy Sukoru (17:40):

Oh, group shops and e-commerce platform. Essentially our goal is to help you turn your customers into your growth partners. We want to help you, you know, transfer the money away from the big ad platforms like Facebook and you know, Google and, you know, transfer a portion of that over to your customers because your customers, they bought your product. They're sold on your vision and they want to talk about your product. They're already talking about your product, but you know, now incentivize them to talk a little bit more and share a little bit more. And so that's what we do. Our goal is not to replace your existing tools, our goal to enhance and help you acquire more customers in a cheaper manner, you know, love it. Um, that's as simple as I could put it.

Rabah Rahil (18:16):

Beautiful. I love it. And so you kind of gave us a little bit of background on it before, but was there like, what was the aha moment it was from when you exited your, your econ business? And you're like, oh man, there has to be a better way. There there's just space in the

Maddy Sukoru (18:29):

Market's. Yeah. Looking at pin duo pin Dule for those who don't know at one point was the fastest growing tech business e-commerce platform in the world fastest to a hundred billion revenue. And they did this all peer tope without, you know, any ads. It was just people, you know, referring other people to come shop, to get in order to get better deals and discounts. And so started thinking through, okay, you know, how do we do that here in the us? We can't really do it. Cuz a lot of these platforms are closed off Facebook, doesn't have an open API for us to tap into. And so started thinking through, okay, maybe we can do it on a platform level and use the brands as conduits. So like, you know, end customers, right? If you shop at Nike and you love Nike's products, chances are, you know, your group of friends or cousins, family members also gonna be interested in Nike products and it it's better for them to experience the brand through you than from an ad.

Maddy Sukoru (19:16):

You know, they're more likely to convert. They're more likely to be loyal and you know, if they hear it from you directly and more importantly, you know, if you're able to like, you know, now get some money back or like, you know, get and give your friends some discounts or things of that nature. Now you're also more likely to be loyal to Nike as a brand in the long run. And so that was kind of like, you know, the, the, the thinking behind it. And we went around and just, you know, built that into a platform.

Rabah Rahil (19:42):

I love that. I love that. What are the best parts and hardest parts of running group shop?

Maddy Sukoru (19:47):

The best parts is just, you know, being able to pass on some of, some of, some of the marketing dollars directly back to customers that back to consumers, right. Being able to like, you know, building a tool that, uh, that powers that empowers people to like, you know, earn for their influencer, you know, cause at the end of the day, that's all we're really just trying to do at really high level is turn, you know, customers into influencers, into, you know, creators and things of that nature. The hardest part is, you know, just the business part of it, right. The day to day, the things that are unex. Yep. You know, the, the, the, you know, hiring the firing the, you know, making sure everyone's aligned and things of that nature, you know, I am, I am a product guy. I love living within, inside the product. Yeah. And so oftentimes I have to get out of that as a CEO on the founder of the business to like, you know, do other things and the accountant, you know, HR and things of that nature, you know, things that are not like core to the things I enjoy doing.

Rabah Rahil (20:49):

Yeah. I think people overlook a lot of the, uh, the boring stuff sometimes. And a lot of times the boring stuff is foundational where like, if you don't have that in place, man, it can come up and bite you later. And it is just, uh, a headache of headaches. So I'm, I'm really happy to hear that you're, you're putting the required time there because

Maddy Sukoru (21:08):

Yes. Tructure. I mean, I don't, I don't enjoy doing it. Yep. I don't, it's not the funnest thing to do. Right. It's not the funnest part of running a business, but it's the, it is what moves the needle forward.

Rabah Rahil (21:18):

Yep. It's the, it's the anti to sit at the table and to drive the boat. I love that. Um, tell me a little bit about the fundraising process. So you guys raised a little bit of money doing, doing well. This is your first time raising money. Yes.

Maddy Sukoru (21:30):

Yes. This is my first time taking outside capital. And it was kind of, you know, you hit a typical, you know, got a thousand nos and three yeses story. I mean, it wasn't the traditional path for us. The first, uh, VC we spoke to, they said, yes, uh, capital shout to Brandon, the partner, uh, that I worked with on a deal on deal over there. Uh, you know, shout to all the VCs that we work with, our, our partners at group shop, you know, slot and Cole wonder co um, yeah, like, you know, we went start to finish in about three weeks,

Rabah Rahil (22:04):

Amazing where

Maddy Sukoru (22:05):

It's a little over a million dollars. And so that allowed us to like, you know, build out the team, build out the product and, you know, be able to take it out to market where we are today.

Rabah Rahil (22:13):

That's so fantastic. What was the, um, was there any kind of leeway between when you pitched and when you got the decision, like, was there a little bit of sweating or like, was it pretty much like, Hey, let, let's do this. Like, it was pretty done, like a gap where you were like, you know, looking at the phone, Mattie wouldn't even shut up. They might text me, hold on. I'm waiting for the phone call. Like give a little

Maddy Sukoru (22:35):

Comment. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't that dramatic, but it's always some drama. Right. I mean, cuz you know, oftentimes as you notice, y'all, y'all y'all are crushing it on the fundraising side and the business side, it's like, you know, it's not necessary. It's the terms, the terms of what makes the deal, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, this little, you know, this little, you know, uh, tug and pool on as far as the terms, you know, and the, the actual, you know, GRA line aspects of the deal, but like overall it was a smooth process. It wasn't too dramatic.

Rabah Rahil (23:04):

That's fantastic. What a, that is, that is a very unique situation. A lot of times to your point that the thousand nos or yeah, I'll invest, but I want 70% or you know, like just egregious terms where like, what do you, what are you doing? You're like,

Maddy Sukoru (23:20):

Exactly. Kinda spoil me a little bit now I'm like, you know, I'm like, like, oh, what about the next round? I'm like, know <laugh> yeah. I'm definitely, I'm sure I'm gonna be humbled at some point.

Rabah Rahil (23:34):

Oh, I love that. Um, how do you see the next two to three years unfolding for e-commerce like in the macro sense,

Maddy Sukoru (23:42):

I think we're gonna see a shift down to like, you're gonna see less brands getting started up. I mean, you already seen venture capital drive in the space.

Rabah Rahil (23:51):

Yep.

Maddy Sukoru (23:52):

And you're gonna see the money that went into like, you know, the D brands or the econ brands are not gonna go into the tools like that. We're building like, you know, triple well group shop and things like that to enable the brands. You're gonna see, you know, more investment on tools and, and enablement technology. And then we're also gonna see, but I think with less brands we're gonna see better and stronger brands that are built around communities that are built around solid products that people really love and enjoy, you know, as opposed to brands that are built around marketing, as we've seen in the past, I believe the last 10 years were built on the back of Facebook ads. The next 10 years are gonna be built on the back of communities. And I know that's like, uh, love that the award of the month. I mean, we board of a year for like, you know, econ, Twitter, you know, it's community. But I truly do believe that right. Is I there's no other way people, people have to truly love the products you're you're making or else you can't survive.

Rabah Rahil (24:46):

That's so eloquently put, I love that. I, I, I, I, a hundred percent echo those views and I think, um, people might have kind of like a morbid view of it. I see it more in the sense of like a Phoenix where it's like creative destruction, where a lot of there was just a lot of bad businesses that were to your point making a ton of money off of Facebook arbitrage where the ads were not only underpriced, but the targeting was really great. And so you had both of these tailwinds that were really, you know, helping these people grow these businesses that quite frankly weren't fundamentally sound, they weren't having, like, it was almost the era of the drop shipper, right. Where it's like, yeah, you would just make a first sale profit. And then you just hoodwink another person hoodwink another person. And like, that's not how you build a, a strong foundational business, especially in, you know, I wouldn't call this like necessarily a bear market, but it's definitely, I mean, maybe it is a bear market with Netflix. You see that Netflix has lost 30% of their market cap after hours. Like

Maddy Sukoru (25:40):

That's just today. We'll see.

Rabah Rahil (25:44):

That is spicy. That is super spicy.

Maddy Sukoru (25:46):

I wouldn't wanna be over there.

Rabah Rahil (25:47):

<laugh> no, I know there's kind of the joke of like there, the password sharing and the expenses are tightening down and stuff, but yeah, that's a, I think Reed Hastings is a fantastic CEO. Don't get me

Maddy Sukoru (25:57):

Wrong. No, no. One

Rabah Rahil (25:58):

Of the best, that's a big haircut, man. I mean almost 30. Your market cap overnight is that's that's brutal. That's tough. That's

Maddy Sukoru (26:05):

A tough mean dish right here says it all. Like I hate to read.

Rabah Rahil (26:08):

I heard it's amazing. It's good.

Maddy Sukoru (26:09):

I haven't started yet. I haven't started yet, but I haven't here got book. Have it in here every day. Like I'm gonna get to you eventually just put it. I look at it. That's so, you know, I'm gonna call sometimes you might need put it out, like, look what I'm reading.

Rabah Rahil (26:30):

Oh, what AFL that's fantastic for people that are listening. This is, um, the Biograph or not biography, but the, um, book on the Netflix culture, Netflix has a famous culture that, uh, read Hases is cultivated. One of the fascinating things about it. And uh, so I've read a few essays on him, has a super liberal, um, what's the line in the handbook? Um, mediocre work is met with a, uh, uh, gracious severance policy or something. I'm I'm basically paraphrasing that.

Maddy Sukoru (27:00):

Yeah. Something he only wants

Rabah Rahil (27:01):

Killers. He only wants,

Maddy Sukoru (27:02):

Yeah, they they'll fire they'll they'll they'll give you like a six months year over your pay. Just leave.

Rabah Rahil (27:07):

Yeah. If you're not, if you're not a killer, like nine months severance, just laters and uh, that's, that's

Maddy Sukoru (27:12):

Really fascinating. We don't, we don't want that energy here.

Rabah Rahil (27:15):

Yeah. Yeah. It's really fascinating to me. But, um, that's so funny you have that book. It's amazing. I love it. Um, what's one thing in the eCommerce community people aren't talking about and should be

Maddy Sukoru (27:26):

What's one thing in the eCommerce community that people aren't talking about and should be, I think. Hmm. That's a great question. Cuz people are talking about a lot of things. Um, I think, I think the biggest thing that people aren't talking about and it should be, is I think LTV the lifetime value of customers. I think oftentimes, I mean we're in acquisition, you know, part of funnel, right. We're selling brands and you know, we give new customer customers brands, but like, you know, I think we know a lot of, lot of people don't think through what is the life cycle of their customer. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Like, you know, like how else can I, you know, three months, nine months, 12 months, five years from now, is this person still gonna be a customer? And if they are then, you know, maybe I should pay more to acquire them. Cause I know that, you know, that LTV is just gonna stretch out. And what venture money actually did was made, it made a lot of people forget about that because you were able to spend whatever to acquire customers.

Rabah Rahil (28:31):

That's great point. I love that. And it's very aligned with your other thesis of community as well as group shop cause group shops, bringing people that are usually higher LTV potentiality, because these people are word of mouth is so like I I'm a big believer in before somebody transacts with you. They need to like, you know, you trust you and if's great. Mattie, if Mattie says something like you, pretty much, I know Mattie, I trust Mattie and like Mattie and by, you know, extension, I, I like, there's no better endorsement than a friend family member. What have you on a product? And so I think that's such a, a, a great answer. And then to your point as well, community can also enhance your LTV. Um, so I think get, get group shop and then community and boom, boom, boom. You'll really that LTV. Exactly.

Maddy Sukoru (29:13):

I think, yeah. I think what no best case scenario for us is to be able to like, you know, help brands discover who are those like, you know, diamonds in rough, as far as your customers, right? Cause often brands you can think about like, you know, influencer, a lot of brands now are running, like create influencer campaigns, but how are they finding these creators and influencers that go in and searching on TikTok hashtags and things like that. Right. But your customers are your best influencers and creators. Totally because they've already bit and bought the product from you. Yep. Then they're using the product yep. Used to be searching within your own customer break base for those ambassadors. You know, while you gifting random people, you should be gifting the people within your own, you know, segmented audience. But yeah, like that's, that's, that's something how we think about a lot and something we're trying to, you know, really be the one tool that helps power community for brands.

Rabah Rahil (30:06):

I love that, man. That's fantastic. Um, okay. One last question. And then we'll jump into the rapid fire. What is one of the most memorable moments, um, from running group shop? Is there anything that comes to mind where it's like, oh man, this was like a, a really like, oh, what a memory.

Maddy Sukoru (30:22):

Yeah. I think was the most memorable moment was when I so current. So we, we built an MVP, just like, you know, just simple version of the product. And um, I talked to the Murphy, the owner of, um, the five, four group here in Los Angeles. He runs the brands like younger reckless and like bunch of other like men's fashion brands. Yeah. And so he was just like, he had the trust in faith in me to say, Hey, put this, you know, uh, simple app, this simple Shopify app onto my store. And so we just like, you know, put it onto one of his stores, the younger reckless, and you know, the first month we generated like, you know, five to like six K revenue for them. Whoa, cool. No marketing, just putting a group shop widget on there. And that's cool. You know, of course that store went, went on to did millions of revenue that month.

Maddy Sukoru (31:12):

But just like, you know, just being able to like say we were able to generate some kind of revenue. Yeah. You know, just without any type of marketing, just with the widget itself, very rough, you know, not even a real version of a product and you know, that was just phenomenal. And that's what gave me the confidence to know that, you know, we might be onto something. And so that's, I still, I always think back to the early beginning on my darkest days when it's tough and I'm like, man, fuck it. I wanna quit. I'm like, you know what? You know, that feeling was just so phenomenal. Like, you know, it's always, I'm always chasing it.

Rabah Rahil (31:46):

<laugh> can't stop one stop. I love it. My man, you made it to the rapid fire segment. You

Maddy Sukoru (31:52):

Ready to do this? Yeah, I

Rabah Rahil (31:53):

Did it. All right. Alright. Okay. Get into the hot seat. Here we go. Uh, we are actually talking about this offline. So I actually added this question, but uh, Nike dunks, SB overrated or underrated,

Maddy Sukoru (32:07):

Super, super underrated. No. A lot of people, a lot of, a lot of kids now are going for the regular Nike dunks. Like, you know, I see a lot of those. Like they try to make a resurgence, but at SBS, like they had flavor. I look at the SBS, like, you know, like you go into your ice cream store and you're able to like, you know, pick whatever you want, vanilla, you want strawberry, but with the SBS, you're able to like, you want vanilla with like caramel, like it just had different kinds of flavors.

Rabah Rahil (32:30):

Yeah. I'm with you on that straight heat. Uh, so I was stocking your Instagram and you had a quote by him. So I wanted to ask you overrated, underrated. Um, John Makayo Baquet

Maddy Sukoru (32:42):

Um, previously I would've said underrated, but now since it's state, essentially just like put a slap in his face on every single thing that <laugh> has a slap in his art on every t-shirt skateboard, his pillows on anything they can monetize. I'll say overrated, unfortunately hurts my heart. It hurts my heart, but you know, I think great art should be experienced in a very unique manner. It shouldn't be like, you know, just put on everything.

Rabah Rahil (33:09):

Yeah. Very intimate. Very, very cool dude. And ironically or not ironically, but, um, you know, did get to really experience a lot of his success. Like a lot of artists sad, which is really sad.

Maddy Sukoru (33:19):

Yeah. Like I see Tiffany's ad with Basque on it. Basque would not want that. Like, you know, just reading the stories about him and watching like, you know, the biography movie made about him. He was like really about like, you know, you know, SAMO. He was really about like, you know, just the culture and like, you know, trying to educate through the art and like, you know, like, like he was the true artist, like graffiti artists, everything like, you know,

Rabah Rahil (33:41):

That's fantastic pieces though. Fantastic pieces really, really phenomen, amazing artists,

Maddy Sukoru (33:46):

You know, gold are one of those, maybe one of these decades,

Rabah Rahil (33:49):

Same, same Z. Right? Well not, not now cuz Jay Z pushing up all the prices.

Maddy Sukoru (33:54):

Right. That's what it driving up. The,

Rabah Rahil (33:57):

Um, small digression. I was watching a, uh, I forget what it was, but the Salvador Mundi, Hey, you know anything about that? It was like the Jesus painting and then the Russian guy bought it. But the Russian guy got hoodwinked by, he paid 85 million or 89 million for it. But the guy that actually brokered the deal took away 44 million, blah, blah, blah. And then they ended up selling it to the Saudi prince for 450 million and then they found out it was not really actually, uh, Leonard DaVinci that painted it anyways. I'm in the weeds, but it's really

Maddy Sukoru (34:25):

Interesting. Sounds like something that's happening in crypto right now, somewhere in the world. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (34:30):

Sing. I love it. I

Maddy Sukoru (34:31):

Love it. It's like something's happening to web three right now somewhere. Oh,

Rabah Rahil (34:34):

I love it. Um, Shopify overrated or underrated

Maddy Sukoru (34:39):

Shopify is very underrated as a ecosystem, as a platform.

Rabah Rahil (34:43):

Love it. Um, I

Maddy Sukoru (34:45):

Have no bad words.

Rabah Rahil (34:46):

<laugh> no same here. Yeah. We still on top of it.

Maddy Sukoru (34:49):

We're doing some funny things like, you know, acquiring competitive apps and doing some stuff like that. But you know, I, I, I have, I still like, you know, for what they've been able to achieve and unlock, like compared to what Amazon has been able to do on the other side of things. Like, you know, with you it's, it's not an easy feat. Like it's not easy. What it able do.

Rabah Rahil (35:05):

I, I totally with you. We, we love the people from up north. Yeah.

Maddy Sukoru (35:08):

Love. They will like us to build, to, to build, you know, to earn 11.

Rabah Rahil (35:13):

So well put so well put, and you're not gonna start a brand on Amazon. You're just not so stop. You're not own it. You're gonna

Maddy Sukoru (35:19):

Wanna, yeah. You, you wanna own the customer journey. You wanna own as much as that is possible. The customer experience, you know, it's, it's, it's Amazon is Walmart to Shopify's boutique, you know, store Mel.

Rabah Rahil (35:30):

Yeah. Yeah. I, I even take it a step further. I call it the Costco where it's like, there's cool stuff on there, but like you buy an iPhone in Costco versus you buying an iPhone in an apple store that is just totally different experiences. Totally. And it's, it's the exact same, like there's luxury products in Costcos. You can get nice teching.

Maddy Sukoru (35:49):

Yes.

Rabah Rahil (35:50):

But it's just a, a experience. It's

Maddy Sukoru (35:52):

Just a weird, you have to wait in that line

Rabah Rahil (35:53):

Sterile. Yeah. Grab a hot dog for a dollar, which is, you know, maybe that's, that's a bump, but other than that, you know, I don't know. It's just the sterile experience. No,

Maddy Sukoru (36:02):

That's a great analogy.

Rabah Rahil (36:03):

Yeah. Yeah,

Maddy Sukoru (36:04):

No, that's, that's, I'm still in that one.

Rabah Rahil (36:06):

Thank you. Absolutely. Uh, Pope fiction, overrated, underrated,

Maddy Sukoru (36:10):

Super unrated. One of the best movies ever made

Rabah Rahil (36:12):

With you hundred percent such a great flick. I mean, iconic cult classic.

Maddy Sukoru (36:17):

I was just talking to someone about this, you know, seeing with Wallace where she's getting a milkshake and uh, John Travolta's characters, like, uh, I forgot his name, but he is like a $5 milkshake. Yep. And he is like, where like, this is crazy. Like that's super expensive. And funny enough. And when I had, I was craving a milkshake, they'll ask me why. And when I bought one other day and they charged me like eight, $9. And I was just thinking back, like back in the day they thought $5 expense for a milkshake. I wanted like, you know, inflation man, hundred percent. That's just, I'm on a tangent there, but

Rabah Rahil (36:48):

Oh no, I love it. I'm with you. Like the Zs dead is one of my like favorite, just whole, like, it's just such a, it's every, there's so many just iconic scenes when she overdoses on cocaine and then they sip with the there's so many good scenes in there, the

Maddy Sukoru (37:00):

Drive in the bad. Great, phenomenal. That's phenomenal cinema.

Rabah Rahil (37:03):

So well put so well put, I love it. Um, so I know you're a little bit into the antique car, so this might be outta bounds for some of our listeners, but not for you. BMW, M three E 30 sport evolution over or underrated

Maddy Sukoru (37:15):

Super over. I mean, not underrated. Sorry. I,

Rabah Rahil (37:19):

People

Maddy Sukoru (37:19):

Are underrated.

Rabah Rahil (37:20):

It's a fun little car, right?

Maddy Sukoru (37:22):

Yeah. Like that, that thing Zs.

Rabah Rahil (37:24):

Yep, yep. Yeah. Some

Maddy Sukoru (37:25):

Of it zings, I mean, has, has some electrical problems, like, you know, has some issues kinda have to maintain it a little bit, but that thing moves.

Rabah Rahil (37:32):

Yeah. That it's a fun little way.

Maddy Sukoru (37:34):

I, and the funny thing, like, I don't know, I'm, I'm trying to get more into cars. I re I recently got a, uh, electric car. And so like, but I, I, my goal in life is to like, you know, get back to like, oh, like a, a water cool Porsche. Or like,

Rabah Rahil (37:47):

There you

Maddy Sukoru (37:48):

Go, like an old school, 1990s, like, you know, some and just fix it up over time, put some money into it and just be able to cruise on the weekends.

Rabah Rahil (37:56):

I love that.

Maddy Sukoru (37:57):

It's a little things in life, you know, it's

Rabah Rahil (37:58):

Little things in life. Like when you were telling me, uh, offline money's to be spent, you know, you got

Maddy Sukoru (38:04):

Money's on things. You enjoy, man. Like a lot of times, like people, people wash it and people like, you know, at the end of the day, like you can't take it with you. Yep. Use it. It's a tool easy to, but your benefit and put a benefit for others around you.

Rabah Rahil (38:16):

I love that. My man, I love that. Uh, NFTs overrated or underrated

Maddy Sukoru (38:21):

Currently overrated. Yeah.

Maddy Sukoru (38:24):

Yeah. Currently currently overrated. Uh, I know there are a lot of, I have a lot of friends who made a lot of money on it. Uh, but you know, we need utility. We need things that are like, you know, the world is very fucked up. You know, we need building things that are like, you know, at least making the world a little bit brighter and not saying art doesn't, but like, you know, uh, the lot of resources that go into that type of stuff, I think should be going into, you know, other things that can also do, you know, just as much good, if not more, but that's just one man's opinion

Rabah Rahil (38:52):

Now. And I'm gonna pile on a little bit, cause I have a little bit of an entity buff and I know it's your rapid fire section. So I won't talk too much, but I, the worst, like entities are actually really cool, like the protocol, but like art is just such a bad use case of it because for me, what drives value in art is scarcity. And by definition, you don't have scarcity cuz I could have this digital art. So the thought experiment I do is like, so what if you have a digital art show in the same place or at different places at the same time? Like what piece is better? And like how do you drive scarcity? Like the whole thing, like art is basically scarcity and culture. And so like you can do the culture thing, but the scarcity piece is gone, but I don't think there's no scarcity

Maddy Sukoru (39:30):

Don't I don't even think the culture thing's being done in antit cause a lot of the artists being done by people on 500 things of that nature. Right. And so like, I, I, I, I like the utility of it. Right. But I think it's a hammer searching for a nail to hammer down on.

Rabah Rahil (39:43):

Oh, that's really well put.

Maddy Sukoru (39:45):

And so yeah, I think, yeah, go ahead.

Rabah Rahil (39:47):

I was just gonna say to your point, like one of the things to make the world a better place, like one of the things that really gets my goat. So I went to school for economics and I hate when people distort markets. Um, and so one of the things that you could do is have NMT tickets to concerts and you can only charge more than three X of that ticket or something like that. And so you could start screwing over Ticketmaster and all these people that buy up the tickets and pervert the market where it's like, Hey, you can only charge more than three X and that price can't go, you can't resell this ticket for more than three X. And that way you can have these like cool experiences to contact and all these things that don't price people out that are actual fans that wanna go and support their artists and stuff like that, versus people that just have the economics to do it and stuff like that. And so I think there's definitely cool applications for the calls and stuff, but I think art is just not the PA I, I love the hammer searching for a nail that's so yeah.

Maddy Sukoru (40:35):

And I think at some point we will get there and there are companies that are working to build, you know, uh, those utility functions. I think like, you know, I'm very bullish on what the future holds for, but I just think the current iteration now is just, you know, it's more of a financial gain, you know, for people who are able to like, you know, incur, uh, incur the gas fees and the high prices and things like that and hold and wait to sell it to, you know, the next person and things like that. So that's nots a cause we're, we're building we're product builders. We're working here trying to build new things and bring 'em into the world. Right. I see. I, I, I equate business to art in a lot of ways. Yep. You know? Cause it takes a lot of creativity, a lot of imaginations to takes something for your mind and bring 'em out to the world and have other other people experience it in the same way that you do. Yeah. And so I think about that often a lot.

Rabah Rahil (41:22):

Yeah. I I'm with you. I think it was a jobs thing where he was like, basically business sits at the confluence of like art, um, development and economics where you, you have all these three things kind of come together to make this thing blossom because without any of those three, it's, it's really challenging to make a really, really valuable company.

Maddy Sukoru (41:41):

Wow. That's very well put, I'm gonna actually, uh, do some research on there and read more about when he, where he said that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rabah Rahil (41:48):

He's he's the man. Yeah, for sure. Horrible human, but really, really incredible.

Maddy Sukoru (41:52):

A lot of people say that. I mean a lot of people say he was a ho I don't know. I mean, I never met the man, but I mean reading from to how he treated, some people you see, like, have you read you probably all the way there, but like, but like with a lot of things, right? Like this people were all in perfect beings.

Rabah Rahil (42:09):

True. But uh, I mean, if what's true about him and his daughter, that's pretty tough. Oh,

Maddy Sukoru (42:16):

He

Rabah Rahil (42:16):

Was rich. He was Rich's F had all this money and still didn't want to give her any money, help her out. Yeah. He went as far as saying he couldn't have kids that couldn't be his daughter because he had a vasectomy, which he didn't like a lot of this kind, really gnarly stuff where

Maddy Sukoru (42:32):

It's

Rabah Rahil (42:33):

Show up, show up a little better in that. But you know, is what your point there? Maybe this is hearsay stuff, but the I biography was there was some anecdotes in there where it's like, yeah, that's that's

Maddy Sukoru (42:45):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say, yeah, you're right. Even like, you know, not wanting to give like early employees stock or stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, no, you're right. Some, some I forgot. I mean, you forget, you forget sometimes. Right. You forget. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (42:58):

Yeah. Success combined people or

Maddy Sukoru (43:00):

Yeah. You, you forget sometimes you you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You did some very not closer things, you know, you're right. A

Rabah Rahil (43:06):

Hundred percent. It was what it was. He's definitely, definitely. It is super dude. Um, overrated, underrated finding a company,

Maddy Sukoru (43:14):

Super overrated, man. Yeah. <laugh> super overrated. And I was like, you know, I'm a founder myself and I, I like, you know, but like, you know, I think, I think for me, the only way I'm found in another business and the only way I've founded this business and you know, every other business that ever founded is I'm a builder. And I don't see, I don't consider myself a founder.

Rabah Rahil (43:37):

Yep. I love

Maddy Sukoru (43:38):

That. Like to build things the same way, you know, a Basque likes to paint the same way. Michael Jordan likes to play basketball.

Rabah Rahil (43:45):

Yeah. I

Maddy Sukoru (43:45):

Love that. I love to, I love to take things ideas in my head and bring 'em out to life is not because, you know, I want to be a founder is not because the only, the only way I'm finding found another company is if I have a real problem, I can't stop thinking about it's something that I wanna put into the world that just doesn't exist. Or there's a better way for me that I think I could be solving something. I, I, you know, that's the only way I do it. Like, it's the last resort. I love that. That for me to like go on this life journey and like, you know, the amount of time, energy and emotional drain, like it's super, you know, a lot of people like, you know, it's glamorized now and media, you know, no, I definitely, I think like, you know, there's nothing wrong with like, you know, working and like, you know, working on things that you're passionate about and you love doing, I think that's, you know, a lot of people like, you know, and this is a kind of goes on a bit of a tangent, but like, you know, a lot of people wash IM Musk and I, I, and I'm like, Elon is cool, but I think about the thousands of people that work at these companies every day, they're put in the work to make sure that, you know, the Falcon nine makes it up to Mars or wherever the hell is going next, you know, that's not you all, that's <laugh>, those are everyday people, you know, don't gimme all my, so there's nothing wrong with that.

Rabah Rahil (44:55):

Yeah. Yeah. And that was something that I had to come to terms with as well. Cuz I was for, for a really long time, like an entrepreneur maxi where it's like, everybody should start their own business, blah, blah, blah. And then I came to the realization, like, what you're saying is like, there's nothing wrong with being an employee, working hard, clocking out, enjoying your life. Like some people just don't have the risk tolerance. And to your point of like the ups and downs of an entrepreneurial journey are rough. And like, if they don't have that in you and you don't have this like UN airing belief that you will succeed and make it out to the other end, like, it's just not for you man. Like if I can't, I think it was actually eat on Musk or something. Somebody said that, um, like what would you tell an entrepreneur to ask you? Like, well, should they start a business or not? And he said, if they're asking me that question, they shouldn't <laugh> because

Maddy Sukoru (45:39):

It's like, stop.

Rabah Rahil (45:41):

Like

Maddy Sukoru (45:41):

You just have just do it. It's not about asking for opinions. It's just, I just gotta do it. It's like, it's like, it's like having an itch. You have to scratch it. Right. Exactly. And the thing about it is that the one thing I will say and why I say it's super overrated is cuz you never turn it off. You take it home with you. That's

Rabah Rahil (45:58):

Really big point, man. It's very

Maddy Sukoru (46:00):

It's with you all times with you when you're with your girl more with your kids, with your mom, you're driving down the street. You're outta sleep. You're in a shower. It's with you.

Rabah Rahil (46:08):

Yep. That's so well put, I love that. Yeah. Um, shoe dog, overrated, underrated,

Maddy Sukoru (46:14):

Super underrated Nike book, right? Essentially not just a book, just like just learning Nike is just <laugh> man. The story of Nike, Nike is not supposed Nike shouldn't exist.

Rabah Rahil (46:27):

Yes. They drank a lot though. Didn't they <laugh>,

Maddy Sukoru (46:31):

They pour was a lot of drinking. There was a lot of drinking. There were alcoholics. They ran a lot drank a lot. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (46:39):

Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Maddy Sukoru (46:41):

Like, like just like just that journey, like, you know, like you would think like, you know, it's just a straightforward, like, you know, Hey, he started wanting a shoe company, started ran note, start up as a shoe salesman, like so

Rabah Rahil (46:53):

Fun. But for those of you that don't know, shoe dog is a memoir by, uh, Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. It's a, it's an absolute sensational. A great read. Fantastic read. Yeah. Um, favorite meal and why?

Maddy Sukoru (47:06):

Uh, I hold my girlfriend. Isn't listening. She's trying to get me to eat a little healthier, but I love French fries.

Rabah Rahil (47:13):

Yeah.

Maddy Sukoru (47:13):

I, I can eat French fries with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack.

Rabah Rahil (47:17):

Do you have a variation preference? Like, do you like the crunchy? Do you like the curly?

Maddy Sukoru (47:21):

Do you I'm I'm up? You I'm uh, Rob, what place has your favorite? French fries. French fries.

Rabah Rahil (47:26):

Ooh, good question. Honestly, man, I think it's, I gotta go back to my, they don't have, I don't know if they even have 'em here in Texas, but I actually enjoyed the, uh, steak and shake. I don't know if they have 'em in California or not, but they they're. But the, for fries, you have to eat 'em with the fork almost. And then

Maddy Sukoru (47:43):

No, no like the fat one,

Rabah Rahil (47:44):

No Nore like the string fries, almost that you have to aggregate together and then you use a for feet up and you throw on. They're not horrible. Yeah. I enjoy on Fri. I'm also a fan of the curly fry too. Like a nice curly fry.

Maddy Sukoru (47:57):

Yeah. Curly. I rarely eat here, but Jack box. That's a great curly

Rabah Rahil (48:00):

Fry. Not horrible, not horrible.

Maddy Sukoru (48:03):

If you're like hung over, like, you know, after a night, you know, out in Austin. I know how y'all get down. Okay. <laugh> sixth

Rabah Rahil (48:09):

Street shot. Okay. Here's weird one for you then. Have you ever done the, uh, Wendy's fry and the frosty?

Maddy Sukoru (48:17):

Nah, I've seen people do it. It's good.

Rabah Rahil (48:20):

That's

Maddy Sukoru (48:20):

Fantastic. I'm

Rabah Rahil (48:21):

I hate it on it. I hate

Maddy Sukoru (48:23):

It here with boo. I don't like food like that. Totally. I've seen people do it. So are you vouching? Are you, are you putting your step on approval

Rabah Rahil (48:31):

On that? Not horrible. It's definitely.

Maddy Sukoru (48:34):

Uh, I like that.

Rabah Rahil (48:36):

It's definitely particular taste, but uh, in the right

Maddy Sukoru (48:38):

Frame, I'll try to let you know. I'll try to let you know. I'll try if you listening out there, uh, tweet us, tweet us. Let's know front.

Rabah Rahil (48:47):

We do the, I love it. Um, your favorite antique car?

Maddy Sukoru (48:53):

My favorite antique car, I believe the Porsche 9 91. Yeah. I think that's the 1990 model. I might have the, the number wrong. I believe that's what it is. Uh, but I love that. Just love that build.

Rabah Rahil (49:06):

That's the weird, that's the rear engine, right? And then the

Maddy Sukoru (49:08):

Big, yeah, that's a engine and like the bug eyes, like yeah, like, yeah. I love that car just looks. I like, I'm a, I'm a stickler for design. Like I love great design products. Like, you know, iconic things that are just aesthetically beautiful. I don't know about the engineering and mechanicals behind it all the way, but I just, when I look at it, I'm like, okay. They took their time to really like, you know, and it's crazy. The thing I love about Porsche is that you can look through the evolution. It's still the same silhouette. Yes. Yes. It just evolved over time.

Rabah Rahil (49:38):

I love that. So well put, I love that. Love that I love that. Uh, favorite place travel to and why?

Maddy Sukoru (49:44):

Um, I love going to Cabo. I mean, LA is like an hour away. Like you can do a quick weekend, um, you know, come back. But my favorite city in the world's probably London

Rabah Rahil (49:56):

Really?

Maddy Sukoru (49:57):

I love London. Yeah. I used to go. I, because London is like, New York is close second. London's like New York, just, you know, everything just, you know, much lower, low, high rises. Yeah. Flat. And so, yeah, like I love, I love the it's multicultural. Like, you know the food, but it is multicultural and like, you know, English is terrible vibe. Yeah, yeah.

Rabah Rahil (50:17):

Yeah. The, the English reads terrible, but supposedly the cuisine is great there because it is so multicultural. Right? Like you, whatever you want, but English be

Maddy Sukoru (50:26):

Terrible. We're eloquently put, and I'll say this, this, uh, this show and, uh, Netflix. I was watching recently top away. I don't know if you've seen it. No, but was watching it. It's uh, it's interest show to check it out. I was watching it and it just made me feel like it's shot out in London and it made me feel like I was back out there. So I was like, all right, I'll have to go this summer.

Rabah Rahil (50:43):

I love it. We're we're doing a, um, a whale roads show and we're doing Toronto, London, New York in LA. So it's

Maddy Sukoru (50:50):

Gonna the well boys get out.

Rabah Rahil (50:51):

We gotta go. You gotta keep

Maddy Sukoru (50:53):

Well boys,

Rabah Rahil (50:53):

Community, baby community.

Maddy Sukoru (50:55):

Hey, I'm all for you. I love it, man. I'm about to send this to the team. Let's right behind. Let's

Rabah Rahil (51:00):

Go. Okay. Two more questions. And we'll wrap up the rapid fire. Uh, favorite follow

Maddy Sukoru (51:07):

On Twitter. That is such a great question. Who's my favorite follow on Twitter. Uh, I'm blanking out. I'm blanking out. I'm blanking out right now. Okay. I do have a favorite follow. Let me ski through, ask me another one at,

Rabah Rahil (51:21):

Okay. I'll this is the last one and this is gonna be a tough one though. So you might want to keep your, keep your wits about you for this one too. Okay. You could have dinner with anybody, any three people dead or alive, fictional, or non-fictional who you, who you like to dinner? I to what you you're, you're hosting a four person dinner. So you can invite three people to dinner. They're dead or alive, fictional or nonfictional. Who are you inviting? You're at a four person table. You're sitting at the head. You get to invite three people who you inviting?

Maddy Sukoru (51:46):

Who am I inviting to dinner? Oh, that's a good one. That's a really good one. Yeah. Uh, for sure Obama's gonna be on there. Love it. Um, probably on there cuz I mean like I just, I think he's just a phenomenal leader. Like as far as like, you know, never met the man. I don't know him, but I, I just, just character, characteristics I get from him. Um, who's second on there. Um, entrepreneurial wise, probably Jack Jack Dorsey.

Rabah Rahil (52:12):

Ooh, okay. Yeah, yeah,

Maddy Sukoru (52:13):

Yeah. Yeah. I love, you know, I like, he seems like probably the closest thing we're gonna get to jobs <laugh> yeah. Um, and this generation with hardware software and just the way he thinks about it. And then the last one, this might be controversial, but Malcolm X.

Rabah Rahil (52:32):

Oh, love it. All right. Yeah. So

Maddy Sukoru (52:34):

You have, you have, I think that would be a very, very interesting conversation between a hundred percent Obama, Malcolm X and Jack Dorsey.

Rabah Rahil (52:40):

Jack Dorsey. Yeah. Yeah. A co CEO, CEO of two, two massive companies, uh, historical president and then a cultural icon.

Maddy Sukoru (52:48):

Yeah. Those are quick like yeah. Does quick.

Rabah Rahil (52:51):

I like it. Impressive.

Maddy Sukoru (52:52):

Yeah. Like, yeah. Like you think about Jack Dorsey. Like he was like, you know, he was like a low level engineer at like 2900%. Yeah. He was, was in a lot of these tech guys are like 18. I found in my first building all startup, no, he was in, in the weeds trying to figure it

Rabah Rahil (53:07):

Out a hundred percent. And he was kind of a bit of like a emo little dude and had this like transition. Now he's like high fashion. Yeah. Invite in this beer. It's a very cool transition to see and follow him. Nick. The <crosstalk> Twitter is a great wreck. It's a really interesting read. It'll give you totally different. That Twitter is fantastic to me where they were so bad that they actually branded how bad they were, where I'm old. So the kids won't know, but Twitter used to fail all the time that there actually a fail <laugh> it was a fail well that they branded, like, what are you talking to? What an interesting company

Maddy Sukoru (53:43):

Said perfectly. He said, well, he was trying to buy him. He was like, it was like, they, they, they, they drove a clown car into Beaumont.

Rabah Rahil (53:50):

<laugh> so perfect. That is that's exactly it that, oh man, that is amazing. Yeah. Totally.

Maddy Sukoru (53:57):

One of the most phenomenal products we have out today, like, you know, super, it is super underrated. Like, you know, people think totally, but it's probably the product I use the most, cuz I'm a reader. Right. Like, you know, I just, I soak in information more like, you know, written than visual these days. So totally. It gives me a ton of value.

Rabah Rahil (54:15):

I, I have slept on it for too long. And then I recently came on kind of a year and a half, two years. And it is just value after value. I've meet really incredible people. I mean, it's just, it really is. Uh, yeah. It's, it's every, it's so much more valuable

Maddy Sukoru (54:29):

People wanna think share ideas. Yes, sure. You need ideas and connect on those ideas and, and talk about those ideas. Right. Totally. And that's all it is all that's. Every single tweet is an idea. It's like, you know, it's not a picture it's content that's coming from your mind.

Rabah Rahil (54:42):

Yep. And I like that it is short. So it's of forcing function for people to actually think through versus where you can be. Uh, there's that old mark Twain joke. Where, um, if you want me to write you, I couldn't write you a short letter be I had to write you long. I'm ruining it, but basically yeah. Yeah.

Maddy Sukoru (54:58):

I heard before. I dunno, but I heard it before.

Rabah Rahil (55:00):

It's much harder to write a shorter letter than it is a longer letter because you actually

Maddy Sukoru (55:04):

Yeah. That's agist.

Rabah Rahil (55:05):

Yeah. Any who Mattie, you made it through rapid fire.

Maddy Sukoru (55:08):

You did man. I did it. I did it so proud of you. I mean, I'm gonna have to come back and buy year or so and do it all the way. Cause I kind of skipped some questions, but you did. I did

Rabah Rahil (55:16):

My best. You did gimme the favorite follow on Twitter, but you hit, you hit the three people question that, that usually trips everybody up. So we'll call it a wash. We, we love it. <laugh> um,

Maddy Sukoru (55:24):

Ill take

Rabah Rahil (55:25):

It. Tell people how they can get more involved with group shot. How can they follow you this time is yours. My friend,

Maddy Sukoru (55:30):

Uh, follow me on Twitter. Mattie SRO, M a D D Y S U K O R U. Uh, I tweet a couple times a week, but I'm more so in there. Dig in and read and stuff like that. Engage in, uh, you can follow group [email protected]. You can follow group shop on Twitter on Instagram group. Shop it with a it and N and yeah, man. I'm, you know, I'm here any medium. If you find me email me, I usually get back to just about everyone, you know? Um, as long as there's value there,

Rabah Rahil (56:01):

Beautiful and people, you guys are open registration. People can sign other stores up.

Maddy Sukoru (56:05):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're still, we're still waitlisted of course, but like, oh, you are a

Rabah Rahil (56:09):

Waitlist.

Maddy Sukoru (56:10):

Okay. Yeah. Please, please. You know, join the, you have a cool brand, you know, uh, please sign up to the wait list. We'll get back to you, Paul. You know, uh, from our team, we reach out and like, you know, make sure you get sorted out.

Rabah Rahil (56:21):

Beautiful.

Maddy Sukoru (56:22):

Anything brands I'll do. Go

Rabah Rahil (56:24):

Ahead. Just go to the website. I mean, it is one of the most beautiful websites. I mean, drip on drip, on drip. It is. Thank you. Chef's kiss. Yeah. The static

Maddy Sukoru (56:31):

And

Rabah Rahil (56:32):

The flow. Everything is gorgeous. You guys really crushed it on that.

Maddy Sukoru (56:35):

Shout to nail Mel Nell did the whole thing. Like just pure, just visionary, visual genius on that. Like, you know, shout and nail can't take any credit. Yeah. But thank you. Rob means the world. You know, you guys nailed it. I love what, what you'all doing know. Check out triple Wells. Well, I mean, if you're on this podcast, you already know about triple well, so, you know, <laugh> all number. He said, oh, I

Rabah Rahil (56:55):

Love man. You're the best. You're the best. Yeah. And to Maddie's point, if you wanna get involved at triple well, it's try triple well.com. We are also on the bird app at triple well, and then we have a fantastic newsletter called whale mail that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday, you can sign up for that right on our Twitter profile at triple well, Mattie, you're the best one, man. Dude, I'll hit you up when we're in LA. And if you ever come to Austin, hit me up. Let me know. We're actually, you know what? We're throwing a DTC award show in September. If you guys wanna come out, you should definitely come out the whales. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I'll I'll give you the

Maddy Sukoru (57:26):

Dances on that. Love, love word shows. Yeah, yeah,

Rabah Rahil (57:28):

Yeah. It'll be, yeah. You're love boy. Of course you

Maddy Sukoru (57:30):

Love award shows. It's listen, I gotta face me for TV.

Rabah Rahil (57:36):

Let's go. Let's go, Maddie. This is so much fun, man. Thanks so much for taking the time. I love what you guys are doing over a group shop. If you are an awesome brand, go get on that. Wait list. Tell him Rob sent you and Maddie will get you expedited into the, the beta. And they're just doing really amazing stuff over there. And that's 36 in the books folks again, Mattie, thank you so much for the time and uh, whatever we can do to help you guys out. Amazing man, you guys are crushing it. Uh, you have such a cool story and I appreciate you sharing it without all of our listeners.

Maddy Sukoru (58:03):

Thank you, sir. All.

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