Moiz Ali (00:01):

October 1st, 2017 was the first month we paid for our own office space and it was like $8,000 a month. It was so cheap. I put like, you know, they were like, it cost $250 to put your sign on, to put your name on the door. I was like $250 and you fucking crazy. I took out a white sheet of paper, a black Sharpie. I wrote native. I taped it to the door and that was it. And I was like, great. That cost me. That cost me less than a penny. And then I remember, uh, after the acquisition, the P and G folks came for the first time to our office, cuz we'd always met offsite. Uh, they came to our office and they're like, the name is written outside with a Sharpie. And I was like, yeah, that's our, that's how we operate here. We're super frugal. Uh, we put money where it matters, which is into the brand and into marketing. We, you know, we don't have a lot of ego. We're not gonna pay that $250. I don't give a shit if this is owned by P and G or if it's owned by, you know, Jeff Bezos, that sign stays here. Um, and they loved it. You know, it's fantastic. They're like, well, this is such a great attitude.

Rabah Rahil (01:07):

All right, folks, we got, we got a heater for you today. I am. When I saw this on the calendar, this was really gotta, gotta tell you this's probably the best get to date. Um, and so I'm really excited to introduce you to you all the deodorant, kingpin, the interest knoe Moise Ali Moise. Thanks for joining us today.

Moiz Ali (01:27):

Thanks for having me super excited to be here.

Rabah Rahil (01:30):

Yeah, your, our 30th episode. It's incredible how these have just been, uh, flying through and then as the ES episodes escalate, so do the quality of guests. So I'm, I'm so happy that we have you on. So I am in Austin as always in the marketing HQ. Where does this podcast find you today? Moise.

Moiz Ali (01:45):

I'm in New York city right now.

Rabah Rahil (01:47):

Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. So much energy at that city. I love that city. So you're, you're all over the place though, because you went to the university of Florida. So south, and then you went to Harvard law, correct?

Moiz Ali (01:58):

That's right then I've lived in New York, San Francisco, LA Dallas, Austin, Miami pandemic. So I've really been bopping around it into quite a few times.

Rabah Rahil (02:08):

Oh, wow. What's been your favorite obviously the city or,

Moiz Ali (02:12):

Uh, I love New York city. Um, I think the pandemic really allowed me to spend a lot of time with my family and my parents. Yeah. Which, um, you know, I've really had a chance to do a, to of that since I've been an adult. And so probably spending time with them, that's been, you know, the best part of the pandemic.

Rabah Rahil (02:27):

Yeah. That's fantastic. So tell me a little bit about going from university to Florida. What'd you study there?

Moiz Ali (02:33):

I studied political science and microbiology.

Rabah Rahil (02:36):

Oh wow. That's a, that's a weird mix. So poly sci and microbiology. That's that's

Moiz Ali (02:41):

I would be a lawyer, possibly a doctor. And so I was sort of like had you, I'm gonna keep both my options open until uh, until I graduate.

Rabah Rahil (02:50):

I love that. And then you did end up, uh, studying to be a lawyer, went out east to Harvard law school.

Moiz Ali (02:57):

Yep. Was there, uh, I went to Harvard, I graduated in 2009. So more than a decade ago. Um, we, I, I moved to New York city for two and a half years after I graduated law school and I was a lawyer in New York city. Um, and then I St I quit. And then I was like, um, I wanna start my own business. Basically, everyone in my entire family had started their own business or like my brother ad my father ad. Um, my father's in his eighties. He's never once gotten a paycheck in his entire life. And, um, that's a problem. So I was like, uh, you know, he was like constantly calling me being like, what are you doing, working for somebody else, this isn't, uh, part of our DNA. Um, and so finally convinced me that he was right and I quit and, um, started an e-commerce business.

Moiz Ali (03:41):

My brother tells us amazing story. Um, he used to do this to my brother as well. So my brother graduated, Georgia tech got a job at Microsoft. And so on his first day at Microsoft, my brother called up my father. And he's like, this is my office phone and phone number. I mean, this is back in the nineties. He's like, this is my office phone number, whatever you need to, uh, get in touch with me, call me here. Like, this is my look, this is my phone number, private line. And my father's like, that's great that you got an office and you're on private line. I think you should go to your boss and quit today because you're not meant to work at any for anybody else. And my brother was like, this is my first day. Uh, like this is my first job outta college day one. And you want me to quit?

Rabah Rahil (04:21):

That's amazing. And, and to be fair too, at a fairly, you know, established company, I mean, especially

Moiz Ali (04:27):

It's a huge company,

Rabah Rahil (04:28):

Rocket rocket ship, like yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's darling time.

Moiz Ali (04:32):

Definitely. Um, and my mother's the exact opposite of my father. She's like don't ever quit your job. Like even now I think she still regrets quit being a lawyer. She's like, you could be running a suit and tie every day. Why wouldn't you keep doing that? Like, she's the exact opposite of my father.

Rabah Rahil (04:47):

Oh, wow. That's incredible. What kind of law did you practice?

Moiz Ali (04:52):

I was a corporate lawyer, um, for a firm called Simpson that term Bartlett. And so their primary clients were like big private equity firms. Yeah. So think Blackstone and KKR did a ton of work for JP Morgan. Um, I summered there the year of 2007, uh, during the financial crisis and you know, one of their top five clients was Lehman brothers. Um, oh. And so it was like definitely a scary time for the legal world cuz they're like, what's going on? Nobody wants, nobody's doing M and a, uh, or like voluntary M and a during the financial crisis and nobody can issue debt. So it's really, um, tough times. Um, and, but the firm was a stellar firm and like, you know, uh, I really admired the people that worked there. Like they, it was the first place I think I went to where I was like, wow, the people here are really bright and have incredible work ethic. Like, you know, people would work till four in the morning and do it again the next day and the next day and the next day. And they would never have an issue with that. And so I was like, wow, people here are smart and they don't have any problem working until 4:00 AM really amazing. Like I couldn't believe they, they could gather people like that into one building

Rabah Rahil (05:56):

That is incredible, very entrepreneurial a bit too, especially early stage, right. Where, uh, you're burning the midnight oil a lot of times at that early stage startup. So there there's definitely some parallels there. Right?

Moiz Ali (06:06):

Yeah. I mean, from a work ethic perspective, a ton of parallels from a, you know, you eat what you kill perspective as an associated law firm, doesn't matter at all. Like you, if you work 80 hours a week or 10 hours a week, you just got paid the same amount. And so that's kind of crazy.

Rabah Rahil (06:21):

Yeah. That is a bit unique. Um, how does you cut your teeth in business then? So you, you went on this very prestigious academic journey. Um, you got the job, dad hates it, mom loves it and then you that's right. Finally jump, jump into, um, the father's tracks, his tutelage and then you're, you're pursuing your business and your entrepreneurial dreams kind of gimme some color there.

Moiz Ali (06:43):

That's right. So, um, I, uh, I was talking with one of my law school classmates and we sort of like, um, brainstorm business ideas. And finally, um, we had, uh, an idea where we're like, okay, let's quit our job. Like, you know, we, I'm not even sure the idea was any good. In fact, I'm sure it wasn't any good, but like, we're like, okay, this is a good enough idea to quit our jobs and uh, say, you know what, we're all in. And so I remember we, I remember that one of the days we were brainstorming was like September, 2011. It was Ste. And the month of September, 2011. Cause I remember we were chatting about some idea and like I got the news that's jobs had passed away and I was like, wow, that's really tragic. Um, but I still remember like we were at the Starbucks in union square in New York city trying to figure out what to do with our lives.

Moiz Ali (07:30):

Um, and so like, you know, during that meeting at some point, we're like, okay, this is good enough. Let's, let's quit. Let's give our notice and see if we can do make a run at those. Um, and so he and I ended up like, um, wa you know, like go bouncing around a few ideas. And finally we started, this was back in 2012, we started a daily deal site for hard liquor. Um, it was called Cass. And so this was like, um, the, you know, the peak daily deals, uh, lifestyle list was all like, you know, when Groupon was around Groupon era social. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, exactly. And so like, um, uh, there was another one in the business called lot 18, which really focused on, um, on wine, which is a much better idea than our idea. Cause wine is, uh, you know, the first it's a lot easier to ship wine around the country than it is, uh, to ship a hard alcohol around the country.

Moiz Ali (08:22):

And there's just a lot more craft producers of wine, you know, like, yeah, there's no winery that like everyone in the world knows. Right. But everyone knows what Jack Daniels is Jack. Like, there's a Budweiser of the hard alcohol industry. There's no Budweiser in the wine industry. And so that was a much better idea, the wine industry guides, but that already existed. So we're like, well, we can't do it cuz somebody's already doing it, which is good bananas. So we're like, okay, let's do this for hard alcohol. We had to go at it. We bootstrapped the business started in June. Uh, I remember our first sale came June 18th, 2012 because, um, we were on this like, uh, email newsletter in New York city called Thrillist. You know, I'm not sure a lot of people are still using email newsletters. Like they, like they used to back in the day.

Moiz Ali (09:07):

Uh, I'm sorry, we weren't on Thrillist. We were in urban daddy, but like back in the days when Thrillist and urban daddy were massive and everyone sort of getting their, where should I go tonight news from those, uh, newsletters we were in this newsletter, um, uh, in urban daddy in June, uh, we launched, uh, and then all of a sudden we did probably like $6,000 in revenue that day. And we were, you know, ecstatic. We're like, wow, look at this day, one, $6,000 in revenue, we're giving each other high fives. We were pizza cuz like all these orders are coming in. We don't know what to do with 'em. Um, and so that was really great. And then like day two, you know, we had $0 in sales basically, cuz we didn't send out an email. We were prepared for day two. Uh, we were only prepared for day one. So day two, we basically have $0 in sales and um, you know, day three we send out an email and feature a new product like they would do on Groupon and uh, you know, we get some sales and we do that for basically 18 months. It's completely bootstrap business. Um, and then we, we sell it to um, a private equity investor based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

Rabah Rahil (10:10):

Oh fantastic. So you did, so that's your first exit then? I'm guessing

Moiz Ali (10:13):

That was my first exit. Yeah. Um,

Rabah Rahil (10:15):

Fantastic.

Moiz Ali (10:17):

And it was weird because um, the private equity investor was the largest customer of our, of our website actually <laugh> so he was the number one customer buying booze, you know, he'd buy like we'd feature a bottle for like $10,000, sometimes a single bottle of whiskey and he would buy it. And we're like, who is this guy who keeps doing this and finally contacted us and was like, I love this business. I want to invest. And we're like, well we're not gonna say no because you're our number one customer. And like, you know, you're spending tens of thousands of dollars, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on the site. Um, so you know, he, his team flew up here and they're like, actually we don't want to invest. We wanna buy the business. And so that's how we sold the first business.

Rabah Rahil (10:58):

Incredible. Wow. And so we'll get into native and in the value add segment, but just a small digression. Native was a very quick exit as well. If I recall, right. Two, two around two

Moiz Ali (11:08):

Business, native was two and a half years, two and first one was 18 months. So the 18 months was faster than two and a half years, you know, 18 months is uh, when I strive for yeah. Yeah. Those were both of them have been quick assets.

Rabah Rahil (11:20):

Yeah. That's fantastic. Oh wow. So how did you translate cuz there's definitely some parallels to a lawyer, but a lawyer is very much so there's some creativity to it, but it's more so understanding kind of the skill and the pieces and then how to apply those pieces when and where. Right. Whereas an entrepreneur is just trying to really grab when timing, ideas, people and synthesizing this into a thing that doesn't blow up. How, how did you kind of skill up to become this entrepreneur? And I know you said there's some ly term, your dad, the DNA from your dad, was there frameworks or books or how, how did you get to, to X? I mean first off exiting your first business profitably. Fantastic. Right? Like that usually doesn't happen at all. Sure. Second off in 18 months is sensational third off the idea, you know its okay. But it wasn't this wasn't this like incredible idea. Yeah. So like how did you, you know, land on all this success? Was there again like frameworks or books or people that you you listened to or mentored from or was it just,

Moiz Ali (12:24):

You know, there were a to of like I think, I think it was a combination of all of that. Like, you know, there's, I don't think anybody who can who's achieved any level of success can be like, this was the reason that I did it and point to a single thing like yeah. Did I read books about businesses? Of course I did. Um, did I like, uh, try and get inspired by the Gary vs of the world? Of course I did. Uh, but ultimately you are the only per like, you know, you're running your own business, Gary V isn't gonna come out and help you do customer service. And so you've gotta figure out, Hey, what is making my business work and what is making it not work? And so a lot of it has got, you know, some of it is, you know, you try to get as much data as you can.

Moiz Ali (13:01):

A lot of it is got instinct and trying to understand, Hey, what am I doing? Right. What am I doing poorly and doubling down what I'm doing. Right. And like sort of not caring about what I'm doing poorly. And so like, um, you know, the first business I had no idea, I, I didn't know the difference between gin and vodka at the time, you know? Yeah. And so I was like, let's just sell anything who cares and turns out it was whiskeys that we're selling and not vodkas and gins, which, you know, today makes a ton of sense. But when I started the business, I didn't know that that would be a thing. And so we're like, okay, let's feature more whiskeys than we do gins and vodkas. Um, you know, there was a sweet spot in terms of price point where we're like great, you, something like 60 to $80 is something that's hard to get.

Moiz Ali (13:38):

It's worth paying the extra shipping for something that's $20. Nobody wants to pay $10 in shipping for, cause we didn't offer free shipping for this something that's $70. The $10 shipping is a little bit more palatable. Um, and so we, and like, you know, Q4 is really when, um, a hard alcohol do like, you know, uh, grows or like that's the entire, like, you know, the last three months of the year are probably 50 to 60% of hard alcohol sales. And so, you know, preparing for that, creating a product lineup for that, um, getting your, you know, getting your, uh, partners ready for that. Um, and then like, uh, understanding how to scale, like, you know, I didn't know any of that kind of stuff before I walked into the business and you sort of learn or you fail. Uh, and you know, I'd learned enough where, you know, the exit was, uh, meaningful.

Moiz Ali (14:21):

And we probably sold the business when we were doing five or $600,000 a year. I'm sorry, it was five or $600,000 a month in revenue. So we were into some run rate. That's a, it wasn't like a bad business. You know, we were bootstrapped, we were profitable. We weren't materially pro you know, we were probably making $250,000 a year cuz we didn't know what we were doing. And like we were still being very frugal and you know, back in 2012, no one knew how to, there was no Facebook advertising. Like there is today, right? If you wanted to advertis on Facebook, you just bought a bunch of likes or like promote this post. And a lot of people will like it and that's what we did. And like, you know, uh, now it's a lot more sophisticated.

Rabah Rahil (14:58):

Wow. That's an incredible story. How about that? CAS? Let's go. That's amazing.

Moiz Ali (15:03):

Yeah. It's nuts was, it's an

Rabah Rahil (15:07):

What's one piece of advice you wish you would've gotten in your younger years. Um, when you were kind of on this entrepreneurial journey.

Moiz Ali (15:15):

Yeah. You know, um, I've generally been really frugal as an entrepreneur, my entire life, uh, both with like, you know, CAS was entirely bootstrapped and native. We raised about $500,000, but like we didn't really need to raise any of that. Oh wow. Or like we need to raise thousand. Um, and so, you know, for a long time when I've, when I've been frugal, I've been really embarrassed about it because I'll go to someone's office and I'll be like, this is amazing. Uh, what, like, you know, your name is outside. Uh, and it like, you know, someone paint like some, somebody did an amazing job making your art, uh, you know, you've got stuff on the walls, you've got nice desks and you've got harmless harvest coconut water in the refrigerator <laugh> you guys are rich. Uh, and it feels like you're rich and successful when you get in here.

Moiz Ali (16:02):

And so like, you know, I was super frugal and embarrassed by that because yeah. You know, I, I, because I was just like, we don't spend any money cuz we don't make any money. So I'm sorry. Like we're not as successful as you and I'm embarrassed. And now I'm like, that's actually, like, I read that as a badge of honor where I walk, like now I walk into a business and I'm like, whoa, this is a really nice office. You guys are burning a ton of money. You're having trouble fundraising. No, you know, here's something you should cut this. How about you get rid of that homeless harvest coconut water because you can't afford $4 coconut water, you know, people like it doesn't make any sense. And so I think like, um, people who are frugal and sort of like, you know, it's tough being a, a bootstrapped entrepreneur.

Moiz Ali (16:45):

The other ways are like, you know, when I was a lawyer, all my friends were starting to make a lot of money. Their third and fourth and fifth year of law, you know, being a lawyer, they were starting to make three, $500,000 a year. And I was like, look, I we're barely making any money. I don't know what, what I'm doing over here. I'm trying to start a business, uh, who knows what will happen. And um, you know, like entre, like that's the risk you take and you take a little bit of that society risk of not continuing to keep up with the Joneses and you take a little bit of that. Okay. I'm gonna be embarrassed because I just walked into this guy's office and super nice. And he's got an assistant and a chief of staff and you know, it's just me answering customer service tickets at my computer. And so I think it's a little bit, um, I, I hope a lot more people take pride in that rather than yeah. Do what I did, which was be a little bit embarrassed by

Rabah Rahil (17:33):

That. I love that. Yeah. Not everybody at the, uh, you know, before the raise needs a Herman Millon chair, right. Like, uh, we can do,

Moiz Ali (17:40):

Yeah, that's right.

Rabah Rahil (17:40):

We don't need 3000 chairs for everybody yet. Let's, it's,

Moiz Ali (17:43):

It's relax of it. It's absolutely, you know, native. Um, when I started like, so I started native, we worked in a free co-working space in San Francisco called the founders dojo. Once that sort of went away, I moved into my brother's office space and worked in like a CLO, like basically a closet in that office space. We started hiring like, you know, we started hiring and we probably had six or eight people and we moved into a conference room rather than a closeted. And then, um, like we sold the business in November of 2017, uh, like November 7th, October 1st, 2017 a month was the first month we paid for our own office space. And it was like $8,000 a month. That was so cheap. I put like, you know, there were like, it cost $250 to put your sign on to put your name on the door.

Moiz Ali (18:29):

I was like $250. Are you fucking crazy? I took out a white sheet of paper, a black Sharpie that wrote native. I taped it to the door and that was it. And I was like, great. That cost me. That cost me less than a penny. And then I remember, uh, after the acquisition, the P and G folks came for the first time to our office, cuz we'd always met offsite. Uh, they came to our office and they're like, the name is written outside with a Sharpie. And I was like, yeah, that's our, that's how we operate here. We're super frugal. Uh, we put money where it matters, which is into the brand and into marketing. We, you know, we don't have a lot of ego. We're not gonna pay that $250. I don't give a shit if this is owned by P and G or if it's owned by, you know, Jeff Bezos that sign stays here. Um, and they loved it. You know, it's fantastic. They're like, this is such a great attitude here.

Rabah Rahil (19:17):

I love that. That's fantastic. Okay. One last question. We'll wrap up the main segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Moiz Ali (19:24):

What is the nicest thing someone has done for me? Um, well go back a long time. Um, when I was in third grade, I'll go back a really long time. When I was a kid, when I was in the third grade one day I was walking home from school. I was in, I was like, uh, walking through a parking lot and a car hit me. Um, and it hit my knee and it started bleeding profusely. And um, my parents weren't home and somebo, like other student from my school saw get hit and she walked, she's like come to my house. I went to her house. This is, you know, probably like 1993. I went to her house and her mom like bandaged up my knee and poured, rubbing the alcohol on it and like called my parents and was like, your son got hit by a car. I'm taking care of him. What should we do? Uh, and you know, she complete random stranger saw me get hit by a car, took me to her house and her mom cared for me. And that's probably the nicest thing. Anyone.

Rabah Rahil (20:18):

Wow.

Moiz Ali (20:19):

Awesome. Like really amazing.

Rabah Rahil (20:21):

You have incredible stories. That's intense. That is,

Moiz Ali (20:24):

That is an intense story. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (20:25):

That's beautiful. All right. This is why people bought the ticket. Let's get into the value add segment. Um, why did you start native? So natives, uh, your biggest exit to date. Why did you start? And then was there like an aha moment where you're like, people hate crappy deodorant, people hate these chemicals or like kind of take me through that process. Cause it sounds like you already had these ideas with CAS, but this was a pretty big one, especially too, um, at the price point, right? Like it it's a premium product for a premium price to be fair. Um, and so that had to be a little bit scary, especially coming from this frugality mentality.

Moiz Ali (21:00):

Yeah. So, um, you know, I, I, I had the idea a like, well, long time before I started, which was, I was using ax deodorant, which was made by Unilever. And I was like, you know, they had these commercials on where they're like put on this deodorant and women will come flocking to you. You know, I was like, I've been trying this since high school. It is absolutely not working. Uh, I don't know what else I can do here, but in any case, I remember being Dwayne Reed buying it. And I was like, I'm gonna try and read the ingredients on this thing. And I couldn't pronounce one of the words on the back of this thing. And I was like, I'm a lawyer. I should be able to Le like, I, I can speak English. I can read English. It's what I do for a living.

Moiz Ali (21:36):

I can't even, uh, uh, like pronounce the words on the back of this thing. That can't be good for me. And I was thinking, okay, do you know dein is the thing that I put on my body all day, every day, like, uh, I put it on. When I get out of the shower, it stays on my skin. It's not like toothpaste that I spit out or bar soap or body wash that I wash off. It's like on my body all day, every day. So I was like, this can't be good for me. And then I was sitting in a conference room. I was sitting in that coworking space in San Francisco and there were just eight guys. And it was like, you know, the most ghetto coworking space you can imagine, but it's fantastic. So many great businesses launch out of there. And so, uh, you know, we're chatting with the, I like chatting with these guys and I was like, thinking about starting a deodorant business and all like six of these eight guys use alternative deodorant.

Moiz Ali (22:20):

Like one of them used a natural deodorant or a few of them used natural deodorant. A few of them used coconut oil. There was a guy that didn't use any deodorant whatsoever is very clear. And so I was like, you know what, it's not just me that cares about this. There are clearly other people that care about this. And this may be like a little bit of a, you know, a, a unique audience in that it's in San Francisco and it's a bunch of young people. Sure. So maybe it, maybe this won't hold, but I was like, let me launch this product and see what happens. Uh, day one, we had one sale day two, we had 60 sales and I was like, you know what, 60? Yeah. We were on this site called product hunt. And like, um, yeah.

Rabah Rahil (22:55):

Oh yeah. Fantastic.

Moiz Ali (22:56):

And so we were on product hunt and so we got 60 sales and I was like, okay, you know, 60 sales is not nothing. Let's see what happens. And so I sent out the product to the 60 people. Like I was mailing it outta my own house. Um, and you know, I started advertising from the product. Like I started running ads. I started trying to get YouTube influencers. I started to try and get, uh, you know, run Google ads. Um, so when people search secret deodorant, I said, don't use secret use native. And I couldn't get, um, I, I got a little bit of traction through Facebook, to be honest, no, the first day I tried was through Google AdWords and I think I lost $500 and the business was boots strapped. And I was like, fuck $500. That sucks. <laugh> uh, and then, um, then we started getting a little bit of traction through Facebook ads and that's how the business started. That's then we started getting a lot of organic, uh, traction because people, you know, it was, we were primarily advertising to women and women would tell their friends or their mothers or their sisters or their daughters. And so that's how we started getting this like flywheel effect of a lot more success.

Rabah Rahil (23:56):

Wow. That is fantastic. What, wow. Founder dojo just launching out

Moiz Ali (24:01):

Founders dojo. Yeah. It was fantastic. Is this guy named David Gross? Like, yeah, David, like I got on product, uh, I got on product hunt because one of the guys from product hunt would come to the founders dojo once in a while. And he heard me talking about it and he is like, I'll God ahead and put this on product to, and make sure gets on the first page. Like it was all, it all came out this like, you know, eight person co-working space with the crap. Like, you know, it was a crappiest place in the world, but like as a result of being kind of crappy, it had this sense of magic.

Rabah Rahil (24:32):

That is so, and you said it's free.

Moiz Ali (24:34):

It was free. Yeah. It closed down a long time ago, but

Rabah Rahil (24:37):

It was pretty, it probably not the best business model, but

Moiz Ali (24:39):

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't good business. Yeah. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (24:42):

That is so cool. Wow. What was the best part of running native in the worst part?

Moiz Ali (24:49):

Um, the best part was, um, the people like, you know, the best part was the people I got to work with and like the growth that we had. Uh, I remember thinking like, you know, first, like I was like, I'm the hire people that I genuinely enjoyed being with and not asshole. Um, and so I was like, this person is gonna be an asshole. Let's not work with them. This person's fantastic. Let's work with them. Um, and so that was a lot of fun. Like I, you know, the people that I worked with were close friends of like ended up becoming close friends of mine and I'm still in touch with a bunch of them. Um, and growth was also amazing. I remember thinking if I get hit by if a bus comes and hits me today, I'm still gonna go to work. I'm not gonna go to the hospital because we're gonna make so much money and do something amazing today.

Moiz Ali (25:33):

<laugh>. And so that was a ton of fun. It was really this feeling of invincibility that I'm not sure you can ever get, unless you have product market fit. Like once you have product market fit and product marketing fit, you know, I just felt like Superman, where I was like, you want me to fly? Do you guys want me to fly? Cause I can fly right now. I can do anything. Uh, it was an insane sense of invincibility that is, um, you know, an incredible high. And so I think that was the best part about it. What was the worst part? Um, the worst part was like, you know, there were a lot of things that we did really poorly, like, um, sure. It took a while. Like, you know, um, I felt like I was a bad manager. Like I had hired my friends, but I was a bad, you know, people would be like, Hey, uh, uh, like gimme a performance review.

Moiz Ali (26:20):

And I sucked at that kind of stuff. Like I wanted, um, I wasn't, I wasn't good at instituting processes. I wasn't good at following anybody else who was trying to Institute processes as making random decisions. I didn't hire a bunch of executives, which I should have done to alleviate a little bit of the weight that was on my shoulders. Yeah. And I feel like those were all big mistakes that I made. Yeah. Um, but like, you know, was there, there anything bad? Like, was it the worst part? Maybe that was the worst part, but like, there was not a moment I regret working in either. There was no moment where I was like, wow, I wish I hadn't started this company. Every moment. I was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever done. And maybe the first line of my obituary.

Rabah Rahil (26:58):

Wow. Wow. That is as, uh, what a story, what a story, um, who was your first hire?

Moiz Ali (27:05):

My first hire was this girl named Neva Bigler who is, was like, you know, she looks like she's eight years old and I still see her once in a while. And I'm like, I think you're eight years old and she's like, I'm 30 now or something. And I'm like, I think you're eight. She was like, she started in customer service. The first like three hires we had were in customer service because like perfect. We were just like, you know, uh, I, I was the only person at the business when we were doing about $200,000 in revenue a month. And the customer service inbox was just taking up so much of my time. So we hired Neva and I was like, great, I'm gonna stop doing customer service. And by, by then, then we started doing $500,000 a month. And he was like, I can't do all of this.

Moiz Ali (27:44):

Like this is, so this inbox doesn't stop ever. And so, and like $500,000 a month for a $12 product is a lot of orders. And so then we added another person and another person and the entire life of the company, we were basically trying to keep up with like the growth in the customer service inbox and people like, you know, did amazing things. She started in customer service, she moved on to marketing. She became a product like, you know, she really grew with the company and that was fantastic. Um, yeah. And, uh, yeah. Yeah, that was fantastic.

Rabah Rahil (28:14):

That's awesome. Does it ever blow your mind now when you're, cuz you, you out of dailies, uh, 20, 20 ish, right?

Moiz Ali (28:21):

That's right. Yeah. I left the beginning of 2020, you know, what's crazy is like, uh, I was at an open house earlier today cuz I was like, I'm looking to buy like a, a home I'm looking in Airbnbs. So none of this stuff behind me is my stuff and somebody else's. Um, and uh, somebody had native on their countertop in a home that I looked at and I was like, wow, I've never seen this before in somebody else's house. And so that felt pretty insane.

Rabah Rahil (28:48):

Yeah. I was just gonna ask cuz like every time I go into like target or any of these retailers and like you're always on the end caps and it's always like the most prestigious placements. And so that has to be when you're going through these places or Dwayne reeds or whatever and you, you just see 'em and you have to smile and no at yourself right. Where it's like, yeah, this is crazy great. An idea to be in this, this darling of retail. It's, it's incredible.

Moiz Ali (29:12):

It, it's a great feeling and it's like, uh, you know, a great brand like really changed the category in a few ways. Um, we changed the category cuz we've pushed everyone towards healthier ingredients, like secret and dove are now launching ingredients that are more like, um, that have that, that smell like things that on earth, like they'll call like, you know, dove, dove for men will call something eucalyptus rather than art hour or like Arctic shower or something, you know, cuz they're like, okay, natural is the way to go. We've pushed price points up in the entire category. Yeah. Like when I was at P and G, they were like, we're raising the price of secret DEO rent by a dollar across the board, old spice by a dollar across the board. And I was like, why are you guys doing that? And they're like, if native works at $12 secret, doesn't have to be at $3.

Moiz Ali (29:56):

We didn't realize this category could support higher price points. And so, um, in those ways that's been a ton of fun, like, uh, and like now natural dere are so mainstream. Um, and I feel like, you know, aside from being the, the biggest natural deodorant, we're also like the guys who really paved the way like the, the other guys came before us don't get me wrong. Tom's the main came before us. There were other brands that existed in the eighties and nineties, but we sort of were like, look, this should be a mainstream product. Not just this granola product.

Rabah Rahil (30:25):

Sure. Yeah. I for, for sure. And there's definitely some, like you said before you, but I feel like you guys were definitely the tip of the spirit to, to really, uh, again, move the market in, in all the ways that you just mentioned. It's uh, that's fantastic. Um, did you see the P and G acquisition coming? Were you building for an exit or were you just kind of blindsided?

Moiz Ali (30:46):

Um, well it certainly wasn't blind. Like, you know, uh, what happened was somebody came knocking on our door and they're like, we wanna buy this business. And so we're like, okay, if somebody's interested in buying this business, we should run a real process, hire a banker and see if we can sell this business. Yep. And you know, the crazy part was that probably started February, 2017. So 18 months into the life of the business. You again, we're, we're now in sales mode, uh, like, you know, we're like, okay, let's see if there's a home for this business. And like in 2017 the business grows like a rich shit, basically four Xs in the first 10 months of, uh, 2017. And so now we're like, um, you know, it's a big business, but we're, it's like coming, it's not coming apart. It's like coming apart of the sea.

Moiz Ali (31:27):

I guess that's the best way to describe it in that, like everything is brought busting. Uh, like our contract manufacturer cannot keep up with the demand or customer service team cannot keep up with the demand. Our influencer team cannot keep up with like, you know, the amount of influencers that we're working with. Uh, nothing is like the only thing we're doing is growing top line and everything else is bursting. Like, you know, we, we cannot contain it all. Like there are 30 fires to put out and each of those fires will take me six months to put out, like we need to hire more customer service. People hire like, you know, train them, better, create real processes around it. We need to explore our co contract manufacturer needs to move into a new facility, buy new equipment, uh, you know, and grow materially. Um, and so like, uh, there were a lot of things happening at that time when we sold, I think we had eight people. Um, and you know, the business was just on fire. Um, so it's not that I didn't see it coming. Like, you know, we had a knock on the door back in like December or January. Uh, you know, we had a, we ran a process that process took six months when we got serious about it. So I, I definitely saw it coming. It was just, um, it was like, uh, still somewhat unexpected where you're like, wow, I can't believe so much has changed in two and a half years of my life.

Rabah Rahil (32:45):

Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Cause I think I saw either a tweet or on your Instagram, you guys were approaching almost a million dollars in revenue per employee at one point, right. Where it was, it was,

Moiz Ali (32:55):

We were, um, I think we were doing at one point, I think we were doing like, uh, when like post P and G acquisition. I think we were close to like $700,000 per employee

Rabah Rahil (33:08):

Per month. Yeah. That's what it was. I think that was the,

Moiz Ali (33:10):

So it wasn't per year as per month, which is bananas. Um,

Rabah Rahil (33:14):

Wow.

Moiz Ali (33:15):

We were certainly doing a million dollars in employee in revenue. I mean, we were doing, you know, pre pre-selling the business. We were probably doing 4 million in revenue per employee, maybe 5 million in revenue per um, but you know, post acquisition, we were trying to do, you know, 10 million in revenue per employee per year

Rabah Rahil (33:35):

Is really game numbers. That

Moiz Ali (33:37):

A really, which is very, that's really tough. It's

Rabah Rahil (33:39):

Incredible. Uh, what gave you more gray hair? Well, you don't really have that much gray hair, but if you did have gray hair, what gave you more gray hair, CAS or native?

Moiz Ali (33:49):

Uh, native gave me more gray hair. Okay. CAS. I was young and didn't know what I was doing. That's fine. The dollars weren't as big, I could make mistakes and be like, you know what, I'm going back to look my old job by, by the time I was running native, you know, it was my career like e-commerce was my career. Uh, I, it was too like, you know, the ship had sailed. I could never become an attorney again because I did out of the market for so long. Um, and you know, the dollars were just big. Like I remember the, the acquisition, like, you know, the, when we were trying to sell the business, we were talking to people for three or four months, the business, you know, I was trying to keep the business together and continuing to grow it. Um, and we were spending time, uh, trying to sell the business. And that was a lot of, um, lifting to do. Uh, and, um, you know, the, the dollars were huge. I was like, okay, this is going to dramatically change the rest of my life if I'm able to sell the business. And, um, so it was, it was a big deal.

Rabah Rahil (34:41):

Yeah. That's beautiful. Perfect segue. So now you are, um, quite the investor. Now, when you do look at an investment, um, what do you, how you are evaluating that? How, how do you know when you wanna put some money down and plunk some money down? Or how do you know, Hey, this might not be the place that I want to put, uh, my cheddar behind.

Moiz Ali (35:00):

Yeah. Great question. Um, I think that like, uh, there's two things like, um, you know, most people, like a lot of guys, a lot of VCs will be like the founder. Is it like I'm investing in the team? I'm not that way. I'm like, I'm generally investing in the product or idea and the team could, the team can make or break it. But like, um, you know, if mark Zuckerberg was like, Hey, I wanna bottle my urine and sell it. <laugh> although I think that'd probably be, I, I think that business would actually probably work cause it's mark Zuckerberg. Um, you know, I'd probably be like, I'm not gonna invest in this thing. I, you know, you're clearly a brilliant founder and have built a trillion dollar business, but you know, bottled urine is not my, uh, cup of tea, so I'm gonna pass. Yeah.

Moiz Ali (35:45):

Um, and, and so I think like product really matters to me, especially when you were talking about consumer products. And so a lot of it is like, do I, can I see a market for this? A lot of it is, can this person market this product themselves? Like, you know, do they know how to get this product into the hands of consumers? Have they thought about that? Or have they spent, you know, some, some people are like, I've spent three years building this product. Well, that's great, but you've been trying to get the product right. For so long, the market has moved. You don't know, you don't know about marketing, how to get consumers to buy this product. And so, um, I think that's really dangerous. And so I'm like, yeah, does the founder matter? And no question, the founder matters. Of course they do. And I talk to them and, you know, we'll get comfortable with them, but a lot of it is also product as well.

Rabah Rahil (36:26):

I love that when you're investing, do any of like macroeconomic environment or indicators factor into your investment or do, are you agnostic of kind of where these macroeconomics are? Like, for example, like possibly going to the war in Ukraine? Sure. A bit of a meltdown in the market, like, does that start to tank or, uh, you know, move your investment strategies at all?

Moiz Ali (36:47):

Yeah. I guess one other thing that, that I'd say when I'm, uh, thinking about investing is oftentimes like I'm a user of the product. So if I, if it's like a consumer product, I'll try it. If it's a look I've invested in a bunch of e-commerce SA businesses. And so, you know, I'm a, I'm a customer of those SAS businesses and I'm like, is this good? Is this bad? And like, that's a great way to evaluate, is this thing gonna be successful? Like, you know, do you use it yourself? And do you want to continue to use that

Rabah Rahil (37:10):

Love that

Moiz Ali (37:11):

Do macroeconomic indicators matter? Definitely. Like I've seen valuations come down on SAS businesses in the past 60 days, uh, because you know, there's a lot more uncertainty in the market I've seen, um, you know, a lot of consumer businesses struggle to fundraise in the last 60 days because the market there's a lot of uncertainty in the market. Um, I've seen real estate acquisitions also get a little bit more scary because there's a lot uncertainty in the market, interest rates are rising. And so, um, I think there are absolute like tobacco economic, uh, matters effect of fundraising. Definitely. You'd be crazy to tell yourself if they don't.

Rabah Rahil (37:48):

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I love that answer. Um, kind of piggybacking off that, do you think there is like a quote unquote, best time to start a business or is it just ultimately now and fail fast?

Moiz Ali (38:01):

Yeah. Um, the best time is definitely now I, you know, like, look, there are Def, if you started a business in 2006, just before the financial crisis, it would be a terrible time. Like you're set up for failure and it's not your fault. Like, you know, look, very few people have a disposable income. People are leaving their homes, being kicked outta their homes. The whole world is coming apart. Everyone's worried about their own security and like everyone's treating their own bank account defensively. And so of course that's a scary time to start a business and you're gonna get, oh, like, you're gonna set yourself up for failure, not set yourself up for failure, but like, you know, you're more exposed to failure just because the market environment is so hard. You know, I think it's really hard to, it's easy to judge that, uh, you know, retrospectively, if you're sitting there in 2006 being like, should I start a business definitely show.

Moiz Ali (38:48):

And I think if you're thinking that today now is definitely the time, like it's not gonna get, you know, people are always, you know, well, I remember talking to Harry's guys when I was running native and they're like, um, you know, Facebook ads were great and digital advertising is great. If you talk to me, I would say digital advertising was great in 2017, there was someone today saying digital advertising, great is, is great. In 2022, you know, like people, people always say, oh, the heyday was in the past. Somebody's always finding the heyday to be today. Like the, you know, that the peak of Facebook advertising to be today. And so, um, you know, I, I think you've, at some point you've gotta do it. And like a lot of it is also just like your life. Um, you know, like when I started my first business, I think I was like 26 years old or 27 years old.

Moiz Ali (39:30):

I didn't have a lot to worry about. I had to pay rent and put food on my table, but I didn't have kids. I didn't have a family. I didn't have a mortgage. And I remember after I sold that business and before I started native, I was thinking about getting a job somewhere else. And I talked to a hiring, um, partner at Horowitz and I was like, what do you, what should I do? Should I start a business? Or should I work at Instacart? And he's like, look, Instacart would love to have you, but you're 31. Don't have a wife, don't have kids and don't have a mortgage if you're ever gonna start. Another business now is the, now is the time 10 years from now when you're, if you're an executive in Instacart and you've got kids in a family, you're not gonna be able to take the risk because it's gonna take too much of your time.

Moiz Ali (40:08):

And you won't be able to give up the check that you need to support your lifestyles to support your family. And so a lot of it is like personal as well. You know, if you've got that ability right now, you should do it right now. If you're about to have a kid, you have no money in your bank account and you know, you and your wife are struggling to make ends meet. It's probably not the best time to start a business, you know? Um, yeah. And so I think you have to be wary of those personal financial circumstances as well.

Rabah Rahil (40:33):

I think that's so eloquently put, I do. And I, I, I couldn't agree with you more. I think you have unique windows in your life that you will not get back that are very attuned to certain situations. And, uh, to your point, like, it just gets harder when as the responsibility gets higher, the lifestyle creep gets bigger where it's just like, it's just a challenge. Right? And then you get more responsibility, start to get piled on where it's one thing for you to have to eat tuna for a week, but to make your whole family eat tuna for a week, or like, yeah, it's

Moiz Ali (41:00):

Just,

Rabah Rahil (41:01):

It's really tough, different, different head space. Yeah. That, that can be challenging.

Moiz Ali (41:04):

And I think the sale, the same goes for like sale processes too. People are always like, why did you sell LA? I'm like, look, if Jeff, if I, if bill gates was my father, I wouldn't have sold LA. I would've been like, let's see if I can build this into a $50 billion a year business. But, uh, you know, I didn't have that look, bill gates is not my father, despite how I look. Uh, and so, um, you know, I was like, this is an insane sum of money. That's gonna forever alter the, my life. And I like, you know, 99% of my wealth was tied up at native at one point. And so I was like, I couldn't continue to have that. Like I need to diversify that risk.

Rabah Rahil (41:37):

Yeah, exactly. I, I love that, man. That's fantastic. Um, okay. A few more questions then we'll get into the rapid fire. What do you think the biggest mistakes people make when starting a business? Is it around this kind of timing, non lifestyle fit, or there other kind of pitfalls that people can, um, circumvent yeah. Or not go go through?

Moiz Ali (41:55):

I think in consumer, especially people are often like you need to find scalable, uh, acquisition channels for consumers and organic can be a scalable channel. It was for Dropbox, for instance, but it's really difficult. And the longer you wait and the more noise there is in the world and the less your product is differentiated, the harder it will be for organic channels to work for you. And, you know, I remember talking to a bunch of friends when we were all starting our businesses and they're like, our customers love our products so much. They're the way we're gonna get new, the new customers. It's so clear, like they're gonna refer their friends and that's how we're gonna grow. And that works like, you know, for the first layer, like the first 500 customers, you have may be able to get you another 500, but like, by the time you have 10,000 customers, it's not like they're continually doing that. And so I think a lot of new founders, or first time founders make a stake of like, um, my customers are gonna get me more customers and it's like, your customers are your customers. They're not your employees. They're not gonna be talking about your product at night next to like, you know, there's significant other, unless it's really changed their life. And so I think that's tough.

Rabah Rahil (42:58):

Yeah. I love that. And to your point too, to get the really step change that you need in growth, um, it's, it's just not gonna happen with that, that word of mouth. There's a certain kind of, I think, ceiling that you hit, uh, eventually with this word of mouth that it can get you, like you said, that kind of foundational layer of, um, really, it's almost like the crossing, the chasm kind of thing. It'll get you the early adopters and stuff like that, but to get through the chasm and to get to kind of the laggards and the other parts of the market that are much bigger, um, you, you need some other growth vectors outside of just that your, your quote unquote customers.

Moiz Ali (43:31):

Absolutely.

Rabah Rahil (43:32):

Yeah. I love that. Okay. Two more. I wanna put you into two choose. Okay. First, because this is actually stemmed from your, your threads. So if you wanna pair your threads, uh, they're fantastic. But if you're running the Canadian behemoth up north Shopify, what would you be focusing on now?

Moiz Ali (43:50):

Uh, software? Um, I would be focusing on how could I look? Can I make network effects across the multi, across the brands that we have at Shopify? Cause if so Shopify becomes something so much more than it is like right now it's a technology platform. Can it be a platform such that Shopify stores can connect with each other and share customer lists, share direct mailing lists, share like lookalike audiences across the, uh, you know, how can I create network effects within Shopify such that this mode that we have, which exists as a result of us being around for a decade, a huge developer community, a bunch of apps that mode is, but it's probably 10 feet wide. Uh, you know, a networking effect mode around Shopify would be a thousand feet wide

Rabah Rahil (44:34):

With some crocodile in there and some

Moiz Ali (44:36):

Spices with some CRO that's right. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (44:37):

<laugh> I love that. Okay. Let's, let's go, uh, a little bit down south and west to the Menlo park monster. If you were running Meow right now, what would you be focusing on?

Moiz Ali (44:49):

Uh, ad manager. I was 14 and a half. How do we like, you know, I, I think, you know, I think the hard part is that business is so big and they're trying, they're doing so much that, um, you know, if I were in mark Zuckerberg, I'd be like, let me focus on what I, what I have fun at. And maybe that's the metaverse and that's perfect. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. But if I were running growth or product or ad manager, I'd be like, how do we fix our reporting? How do we get more data that we, uh, like, you know, that we've always struggled to get? How do we get the data that has been removed from us as a result of iOS 14? A and I think there's a bunch of great, like, you know, I think that U they can use UTM parameters for admin.

Moiz Ali (45:25):

Like, you know, I, I look at manager and day one results are so off compared to even UTM results. It blows my mind. Um, I think that they could buy Nielsen and like, you know, Nielsen is still up for sale and just rejected and take over offer from Elliot. That's a fantastic acquisition. Like don't you wanna know what television ever, you know, all think about all the data that Facebook has. They could, you know, get all that data that is doesn't live inside their app and doesn't live on the phone with somebody like Nielsen. They could also get whatever people buy at target cuz target owns, you know, target sells that data or gives that data to Nielsen. So Nielsen's like, great. This is the product that's selling really well at target. Wouldn't that be helpful at Facebook? Uh, and you could tag credit cards back to that data. And so I think that, uh, if I were them, I'd be spending more time on how can I get other sources of information that don't exist within the Facebook app? And then how can I fix the issues that I was 14 and a half has caused?

Rabah Rahil (46:16):

Yeah. That's beautiful. We'll we'll link. You have a couple threads, uh, that you go into a little more detail on both of these, but uh, they're fantastic. The, the muskets and machine guns was such a beautiful metaphor for Shopify.

Moiz Ali (46:27):

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (46:29):

Um, alright moist. You ready? It's rapid fire time. Let's do it. Tim Tebow, overrated, underrated.

Moiz Ali (46:37):

I, I went to university of Florida underrated. I love him. He's a terrible, he's not a great NFL quarterback, but he won that playoff game against the Steelers. How could anyone not love him?

Rabah Rahil (46:47):

Okay. I love it. I love it. Law school, overrated, underrated,

Moiz Ali (46:50):

Underrated, uh, you know, even I would encourage everyone not to be a lawyer, but gonna law school sharpens the way that you think. Uh, some of my best friends like law school is like high school, but you're in your twenties. And um, you know, my best friends have come from law school and I really love it.

Rabah Rahil (47:06):

Ah, that's beautiful. Um, Cambridge overrated, underrated,

Moiz Ali (47:11):

Uh, overrated, uh, freezing cold gets dark at two, 2:00 PM. Uh, really tough to live there. I lived there pre Uber. So like you needed to get a cab to go downtown Boston. That's terrible. You know, you've gotta walk through the snow and look around for one, you know, I be Uber must have changed the game there.

Rabah Rahil (47:27):

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Um, flash sales, overrated, underrated.

Moiz Ali (47:33):

Uh, I think they're, they were underrated, you know, great business. Um, you know, and like everything else, like once it grows to a certain scale, the sexiness and cache, uh, is just not there anymore. You know, there were days when Groupon was offering $15 Starbucks gift cards for $5. Like, can you imagine they were offer like $30, whole foods gift cards for $15. That's just $15 of free money. And that's a lot of fun and really amazing. And everyone was after that. And then people were like, okay, it's all over. Like, you know, it all ended, you know, instantly. And so I think for a time they were underrated now, uh, you know, they barely exist in any, in any way.

Rabah Rahil (48:13):

I love that. I'd always joke with people about, um, when Uber and Lyft were coming up, um, how it was economically irresponsible not to use their services, cuz they were so heavily subsidized at that time where it was so cheap because the, the, they were just going after growth in $20 bills for $10. Like you can't do that in perpetuity. And uh, Uber's PNL showing that, but uh, <laugh>, it was great for the consumer. <laugh>

Moiz Ali (48:35):

Definitely, I remember taking Uber pools in San Francisco for a while. It was like $2 and 86 cents. And for like the first two weeks, nobody else would get in your pool. I'm not sure why they just hadn't like figured it out. So they like take Uber pool. We won't put anyone else in your car. It would be $2 and 86 cents. I was like, this is amazing. Let's go to the airport and back for fun.

Rabah Rahil (48:53):

<laugh> just, let's run it. I love it. Uh, TikTok overrated or underrated,

Moiz Ali (48:58):

Underrated, uh, incredible platform. People are spending a ton of time on there. I don't think it's an Instagram, like to be honest, I don't think what everyone thinks today is everyone thinks it's an Instagram killer. You know, there's like, um, when you go to a concert, you're likely to post that concert as an Instagram story. I doubt you'd post that as a TikTok stor you know, a TikTok, uh, video. And so I think it's a very different use case and I think Instagram and TikTok can live by themselves. And I don't think TikTok like, um, is like, you know, kills Instagram in that way. I think it might eat some of the viewing hours or like the time spent on phones, but I don't, I think it's a very different use case.

Rabah Rahil (49:36):

How do you think of it in relation to YouTube?

Moiz Ali (49:40):

Uh, that's a great question. Uh, I think YouTube is more long form, uh, but I think, uh, YouTube may be the most like underrated part of all of Google. Uh, YouTube should be worth more than Google and I'm shocked that it isn't like YouTube in and of itself should be a bigger platform than Google search. Cuz like, you know, how many searches is every like, you know, it's not like I'm going to 50 new websites every day and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna think, how are mirrors made? Let's Google that and figure it all out. And if I do, I'm like, let's go to Wikipedia and then I'll answer all of those questions. Um, YouTube is this discovery platform, massive content platform, bigger than television. So many more hours spent, uh, on YouTube than television. Um, I think it just hasn't been monetized correctly, but I think also Google's like, look, we're making so much money. Yeah. We don't need to, uh, you know, make everything work at a a hundred percent.

Rabah Rahil (50:28):

Yeah, totally fair. Play fair play. Uh, going to the super bowl, overrated, underrated,

Moiz Ali (50:32):

Underrated, uh, super bowl, all these experiences I've been there, uh, a few times now. And it's like, when you go there, you're like, wow, the eyes of the world are on this game and there's this like incredible sense of energy. As soon as you walk in there where you're like, everyone is so excited to be here, everyone traveled for this. It's really special. And I've also also only gone with my brother and it's like great family time where we get to connect. That's

Rabah Rahil (50:54):

Cool. Yeah. That's really cool. Uh, Kobe Bryant, overrated, underrated,

Moiz Ali (51:00):

Uh, underrated, uh, you know, played from 18 to 38 or something like that. What amazing, uh, you know, that's really special. Yeah. Um, pretty, pretty spectacular career.

Rabah Rahil (51:11):

Yeah. I love that. Tragic David DTC brand. I know man. Right. Crazy helicopter.

Moiz Ali (51:17):

Favorite direct to consumer brand right now. Uh, you know, I really like, I I've got a bunch right now is a company called jammies, which makes uh, pajama pants. Yeah. Uh, it's just like a fun name and fun guys who are going after like this old sleepy category. Pardon the pun <laugh> um, <laugh> and so I really love, I, I just like the branding of it and it really resonates with

Rabah Rahil (51:36):

Me. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. That's

Moiz Ali (51:38):

And it's like such a fun, they're like go home, get into your jammies. Like, you know, jammies is such a good word for what this industry should be called.

Rabah Rahil (51:46):

Oh, I told a hundred thousand percent agree. I love it. Um, favorite meal and why

Moiz Ali (51:53):

Favorite meal and why? Um, good question. I mean, if I'm most likely eating I'm or like most likely ordering take out or going to a restaurants, probably sushi just cause I feel healthy and clean and like I'm trying to live a little bit more of a healthy lifestyle these days, but you know, uh, my favorite will still be a hamburger. Like I love shake shack.

Rabah Rahil (52:12):

Oh yeah.

Moiz Ali (52:12):

Can't get on

Rabah Rahil (52:13):

That enterprise. Love it. Uh, favorite place travel to and why

Moiz Ali (52:19):

Favorite place travel to is uh, would be chiro would be Egypt. Um, really? Yeah. It's really like, uh, I'm not sure. Have you ever been to Egypt?

Rabah Rahil (52:27):

No, I've been to Morocco so close to this and my dad's actually from Nigeria, but never been to Egypt or chiro proper.

Moiz Ali (52:34):

Yeah. Um, in Egypt, like there's, uh, a pyramid built thousands of years ago across the street from a pizza hut, which blows my mind. And then, um, like, you know, so there's graffiti in Egypt. Like I, I saw some guy carved his name into, uh, Abu symbol, which is this like, uh, place in Egypt. Um, and he put his name and he put the year 1859 and I'm like, even the graffiti here is ancient. Um, it's it's bananas.

Rabah Rahil (53:01):

Yeah. I actually was blown away. I was very naive to, I didn't realize there's actually a, a straight shot highway to the pyramids proper right from chiro. Correct?

Moiz Ali (53:10):

Yeah. It's like a 20 minute drive from like chiro. It's not even a 20 minute drive. Like you can see chiro proper. It's like going to Brooklyn and chiro proper is Manhattan, except it's even closer.

Rabah Rahil (53:20):

They do such a good job of only the angle facing this way. You don't have

Moiz Ali (53:24):

Actual

Rabah Rahil (53:25):

Metropolis in the background. I thought it was just this total field in the desert, nowhere. And it's like right. One of the biggest cities in the world. Uh, it's incredible. And

Moiz Ali (53:32):

It makes sense cuz like they had to bring those bricks through the Nile river and it's not like once they got 'em off the Nile river, they can be like, let's take 'em 7,000, let's take 'em 700 miles over land. Like they didn't have that technology. And so like Egypt still exists on Nile and makes sense of the pyramids do as well.

Rabah Rahil (53:47):

Absolutely. You're crushing it. Okay. A few more. And then we'll close it out. Uh, favorite way to spend your free time.

Moiz Ali (53:53):

Favorite way to spend my free time, uh, outdoors. I really like playing sports. I'm really into paddle tennis, pickle ball. Um, I go to bunch. Uh, so uh, doing, uh, like real activities with my body to keep you healthy.

Rabah Rahil (54:05):

Yeah. I love, I love pickleball. I'm right there with you. Favorite follow

Moiz Ali (54:08):

On Twitter. So much fun. Favorite person to follow on Twitter.

Rabah Rahil (54:12):

Yep.

Moiz Ali (54:14):

Um, you know, I don't even know this guy's name, but there's some like, uh, Kai who is like an Indian face that constantly makes jokes is doctor or something. Uh, but I really like Sean PO do you know the doctor I'm talking about? I don't even Dr.

Rabah Rahil (54:26):

Perrick Patel. He's the bests finances. Hilarious.

Moiz Ali (54:29):

He's hilarious. I remember reading this thing with like, um, the Peloton CEO was like tweeting after like their stock went down 30% and he wrote, sir, please make Staco up down. I thought was the funniest thing I ever read. Oh,

Rabah Rahil (54:43):

I

Moiz Ali (54:43):

Probably laughed for 15 having read that. Have you read that? It's so good.

Rabah Rahil (54:48):

It's a great feed. Yeah. Yeah. Sean's also a great follow, a fantastic podcast as well. My first name really, uh, up into the righted. Didn't it? Yeah. That blew up.

Moiz Ali (54:56):

Yeah, really did. He's great. Okay.

Rabah Rahil (54:58):

Last question. We'll round out the rapid fire. If you could have dinner with three people dead or live fiction or non fictional, who would they be? You're at a dinner table. You're sitting at the head and you get to invite three people. Who

Moiz Ali (55:07):

Are they? Uh, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln. Ooh. And um, I'd have to think about the third one. Maybe like Joanna bark or somebody.

Rabah Rahil (55:17):

Interesting. I gotta tell you I'm incredibly impressed. Usually people at least take a three or four second pause. There you are on your toes. My friend that was that's incredible.

Moiz Ali (55:27):

Admire

Rabah Rahil (55:27):

That's phenomenal Moise. You, you absolutely crushed a rapid fire. Incredible. Thank you. The fast exit, I should have known that your rapid fire you'd be up for

Moiz Ali (55:37):

I'm ready to go. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (55:38):

Hey, tell people how they can follow you. How can they get involved in your investments or whatever you want to kind of plug here. This time's yours, my friend.

Moiz Ali (55:44):

Fantastic. Uh, I'm at Mo Ali on Twitter. I'm at Moise Moise, ali.com. That's my email address. And um, you know, I invest a bunch of e-commerce businesses. I buy e-commerce businesses. So if you're interested in selling e-commerce business, let me know. And if you are, um, you know, I also do a bunch of AngelList syndicates. So if you wanna invest in e-commerce, uh, or like businesses or software businesses with me, let me know and I can set you up with that

Rabah Rahil (56:10):

Beautiful Moise. Thank you so much. My friend, this is absolute blast. This was Ugh, such a, uh, achievement unlocked for me. You you're just one of my favorite. Awesome.

Moiz Ali (56:19):

Really appreciate it. Thanks so much for the time.

Rabah Rahil (56:21):

Yeah. Yeah. You you're incredible. Thanks so much, much. Um, really appreciate it. If you do wanna get more involved at triple well it's tri triple well.com. We're on the bird app at triple well, and then we also have fantastic newsletter that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called whale mail. Check it out. You can subscribe right on our Twitter app. And then again, Moise, thanks so much again, you are the man. We really appreciate it. Huge, huge fans over here and that's it. People 30 in the books and we'll see everyone on the flip. Thanks again.

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