The Most Innovative Virtual Space Platform: GoBrunch

Richard Lowenthal:
You know, it's a change of culture. It's a change of mindset.

Artem Daniliants:
Does it require glasses

Richard Lowenthal:
Mixing like a metaverse with a web platform,

Artem Daniliants:
Like a virtual space, right?

Richard Lowenthal:
This is like a blue ocean. Nobody is looking for it.

Artem Daniliants:
What makes your product different?

Richard Lowenthal:
And here you can move your circles, you can change your background.

Artem Daniliants:
There is so much underlying complexity,

Richard Lowenthal:
And our vision is to make the internet based on rooms.

Artem Daniliants:
Hi guys. Artem here. Unfortunately, Michell wasn't able to make it to this podcast recording, but it's fine next time you will see him with me. But we have today record from Brazil, and he's going to talk about his product and about his journey. Richard, uh, welcome to the podcast.

Richard Lowenthal:
Thank you, Artem. Thank you very much for having me.

Artem Daniliants:
Awesome, awesome. So can you tell a little bit about your own background and maybe a little bit about your product as well?

Richard Lowenthal:
Sure. Yeah. Ju just a little bit about my background. A i, I actually came from the educational business. I started in, I, I live here in San Paul, Brazil. I started an association back to 2002, 2003. And, um, we started promoting different kinds of conferences. And then in 2007, my partner said to me, he, I think we should, uh, start offering training programs.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay.

Richard Lowenthal:
And then I replied to him and say, Hey, uh, I, I think you're crazy because first of all, we don't have any backgrounds in education. Secondly, you and me, you have never been good students. Right. And , why you want to start a business, you know, related to training? And he said, well, maybe we can do it in a different way. Turns out that we, we started doing some, a lot of stuff in a different way. Um, we start, one of the things that we do in our, we, we created like a business school. And one of the things that we do actually is we pay our professors according to the student satisfaction, which

Artem Daniliants:
Is Oh, okay. Brand different. That's interesting.

Richard Lowenthal:
And yeah. Then in 2013, we started to offer master degree programs, which is, which are the main products that we have right now. It's a, it's a more consolidated business. We have, uh, around 600, 700 students per year. But as I think as every entrepreneur, at some point we need new challenges. Right. And that's why, um, I created Gold Branch, which is my, you know, the main startup that I have been working over the last years. Um, pretty much I was researching about metaverses, but way before, you know, Facebook started promoting it. It's interesting because, um, you know, uh, metaverse you can have a lot of different kind of social experiences, but it was just thinking how we could take this to a more professional level mm-hmm.

And, uh, you know, offer a different experience. And then I, I had this vision of mixing like a metaverse with a web platform, maybe like a poker stars view. And that's how we created a first version of Gore that we launched at the end of 2017. The pandemic is something that changed a lot in terms of remote working and stuff. And after the pandemic we started to see people using Gold Branch in very different ends. For example, for communities, for, uh, virtual workspace. And that's what we are exploring right now, how to create a more immersive and more interactive space for companies, especially startups who use on daily basis for working remotely and for communities in special.

Artem Daniliants:
That's awesome. That's awesome. So, um, are you running that business school still?

Richard Lowenthal:
I actually not working as an executive anymore. Okay. And, uh, I have a team of people working over there. Uh, I'm part of the board of directors and I still help, especially in the educational area because I, I am one of the main outbursts of our methodology, our teaching methodology, and I'm, I'm helping them with, you know, providing mentoring to the professors and stuff like that. But I would say that 90% of my time, I'm focusing on Goldbridge right now.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay, awesome. That's very good. So, can you tell a little bit about what makes your product different? And I think, you know, just like teleconferencing, you know, webinars, uh, online educational platforms, that seems to be like a very crowded space, right? So what motivated you to try to break into that, that industry? Cuz it doesn't seem to be very easy.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Right now, I, I would say that, you know, video conferencing is pretty much in oligopoly, right? Three companies dominating the market. And what we're doing right now is trying to stand ourselves out, out of this crowd. And we are saying we are not no longer like a video conferencing platform. Mm-hmm. , we are more like a virtual space. Mm-hmm.

A virtual space where you can set up different experiences. For example, you can create a community inside this community. You can have networking sessions for people to join at any time of the day. You can set meditation rooms for your members to ch you know, just to hang out or to chill and listen to different music. You can set up like a room at the middle of the ocean just for, you know, a different kind of brainstorming you can have, but you can have, for example, all just all the men videos, uh, for, you know, for people to join and interact with your content. At the end of the day, our vision Artem is pretty much the internet right now is based off pages. And our vision is to make the internet based on rooms.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay. Okay. So you talked that, uh, it talked about Metaverse a little bit, that it kind of inspired you, right? And you wanted to tap into that a little bit way before Facebook decided to go, you know, all in on Metaverse. So in terms of your product, like, and of course you cannot, uh, share your screen as well and maybe, you know, show us the product. Sure, yeah. Because I think, you know, it'll be a lot easier to just see how it works, but is it, does it require glasses? Like, you know, obviously Metaverse, if you are using glasses, then obviously not everybody can use it. So like, what makes your product special? How, how did you implement your vision of the, of the Metaverse?

Richard Lowenthal:
Let me share my screen. Of course. Im gonna show an example of a community based on Canada. Yeah. And they use Go Brent on their daily basis. And I think, you know, their example is actually easier for us to understand. Yeah. This is like a community that uses Go branch on daily basis. As you can see here, uh, there are different kinds of rooms or, you know, environments that they, they are creating every single day. Mm-hmm. , there's a video here, if you don't mind. I think it would be really cool if to play Yeah, please. Because, and then we can just, uh, you can ask questions during this video just for us to explore a little bit the possibilities. But yeah, answer your question. We pretty much don't have any needs for using glasses or special hardware. What we created is something very, very simple. I'll just play a little bit for you to sing, please.

Artem Daniliants:
Hello. Welcome to Create the Rules here in one of our public workroom that showcases some of the incredible possibilities and opportunities we have at Create the Rules Media and create the Rules Catalyst to make your way around our public workrooms, you can use the all rooms tab on the bottom menu and explore. You'll find a workroom open 24 7 with moderated cowork. This,

Richard Lowenthal:
This is the first concept that we have. Mm-hmm. , right? We have this kind of 24 7 rules. And then, and as you can see here, it's not only like the, uh, the environment for you to chat, but you do have like a calendar here where you can see the next events. Mm-hmm. , you have here, like a PO door clock. Every 25 minutes is chimes and say to you, Hey, now it's time for you to stretch or drink some water, okay. With different messages.

Artem Daniliants:
Also, have a bookstore, a podcast, listening lounge, a theater, and other rooms where you can explore what the Catalyst members are creating in each room. There are interactive elements and tools for you to use. Each room is set for your experience, meaning if there is more than one person in the room, you control the experience for yourself without interrupting the podcast or videos. Others are watching. The Catalyst is a one of a kind full support system for impact driven business.

Richard Lowenthal:
And yeah, as you can see, the rooms are actually not only for you to collaborate with people, but even if you want just work in silence. And there's a, this new concept that everyone is speaking about, body doubling mm-hmm. , which is very powerful. Let me give you like two examples that I have seen in this community and different c communities that use Go bridge, even even vo uh, startups, right. And use as virtual office. Um, the first one is, I, I usually join different communities and, uh, one of them, you know, there was like a lady, uh, crying, sharing her feelings, her challenges Okay. About her business and everyone providing support. And, uh, it was, you know, a very emotional moment. And that, that, that's the point, right? How likely this is to happen on Microsoft teams, right? Yeah. Which is more, you know, cold and this stuff. And here, you know, it seems like because of the environment that we create s more emotions and more natural flow from people to communicate.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay. Okay. That's interesting.

Richard Lowenthal:
There's

Artem Daniliants:
Leaders and culture creators. The reason why we focus on impact driven folks is because they are working so hard to create real and lasting change in the world, and are sometimes the last to ask for and receive truly great nourishment and support. We want to change that with our dynamic and highly interactive live done with you support system. What makes the catalyst truly different is our signature online real-time community that you can use 24 7 with scheduled moderated co-working days where you get access to real experts in the room throughout the day ready to help.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah. As she mentioned here is like, you know, this 24 7 mm-hmm. , right? And then people can join at any time. And, uh, again, it, it's a different way for you to interact with people. One more example I told about one, one of them, but the second example is I think the accountability that you get here, right? And you join one of the spaces here and, uh, I, I have seen someone say saying like, Hey, I, I cannot leave this place until I get my job done. And then someone else replied, Hey, uh, no worries, I will be your chief accountability officer. Right? And this kind of body doubling, it becomes very powerful for you to focus, right? And many people say, yeah, this is very useful if you have a D H D. But, uh, even if you don't have, I have seen a lot of benefits for, uh, you know, many times you don't feel motivated to finish something, but if you're working this kind of environment, and I have seen even offices working this way, it just captures, let's say the na the nature of the physical place, right?

Richard Lowenthal:
And you feel a little bit more, uh, less isolated and with more energy and yeah. Just for, um, I'll just draw, jump here to a specific parts that I think it's interesting. For example, this is a meditation room. Mm-hmm. , it was created inside a community, right? And here, as you can see, there's like this playlists of, um, by neuro sounds. And then you can join here to work in silence or just to chill with more people and listen to these sounds. And that's the, you know, the kind of metaverse that we believe. Like it's way more simple and mm-hmm. that you have options or for, uh, you know, joining in different, different environments, different atmospheres, but it's pretty simple. You don't need like a, you know, external hardware. And it's not like height, you know, it's like, like a cyber city, right? Where you have to really get immers in, in a different universe that you find a wall, well, what is this about? Right? It's a more natural, more human um, environment.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay. Okay. Was there anything else you wanted to show in this video? Or can we jump into questions? No,

Richard Lowenthal:
I think, yeah, I think this, this is, yeah, I think this already gives you a, a good perspective of the possibilities. Yeah. Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
I think it's, it was a really good overview. Thank you. So are you able to create rooms yourself and are you able to kind of, uh, I guess, uh, you kind of drug and drop, uh, different components, right? And you construct your room by just basically from the component list, you choose what you need, maybe change, background, image, that kind of stuff. And you are, you know, you are pretty much ready to go.

Richard Lowenthal:
Exactly. You're absolutely right. Pretty much what you can do here is, let me see. I, I am here. I can, okay. Yeah. I'm just, um, switching back here. But yeah, every room that you have here, you have this option for customizing, and you're gonna find here this really nice toolbar, and here you can move your circles, you can change your background. Yeah. You can in embed music, right? And you can even add this kind of navigations, which are very useful for you to connect your spaces, right? And this allows you to connect not only between your spaces, but let's say for example, if you want to connect your space with someone else, just like, you know, creating the back links, we are calling this a gateway can create this kind of gateways between your space and someone else from that, that you think it would be interesting to link with.

Artem Daniliants:
Alright, good. Good. So basically it's, uh, interactive canvas, and you add the stuff that you want, you set it, and after that, people are able to join and basically interact within the limitations that you have created. Right? They can interact with components. Exactly, but they cannot kind of change the canvas itself. They can only interact with it. So there are different levels of users.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yes. Different lable of users. And, uh, inside one space, you, you have multiple rooms. That's one of the reasons that makes it make it special, right? Because you, you can join at any time of the day. It's open. It's, it doesn't require someone else to just join and leave it open, you know, just open the door. It al it's always open and you can join at any time. And, um, yeah. In addition to that, you have this, um, ability to create different environments or different rooms inside the same space

Artem Daniliants:
When it comes to technology. Is this your MVP? Or, you know, is this already something that you've been working on for a very long time? You did mention that, you know, you got the idea I think quite a while ago. Um, so, um, and, and I see that you are, you are already selling the product. They're already paying customers and so forth. So, um, I'm, I'm always curious because I'm, I'm a little bit of a technical person. Did you like, create everything from scratch yourself? Or did you use some components? Maybe I'm just, because like I look at it and I just think like, oh my God, it, like, there is so much, right? Like voice communication, video communication, uh, yeah. Compression, uh, the interactive canvas, audio, audio files there is so much, even though it might look a little bit simplistic at times because it's not kind of like the meta metaverse experience we have in our heads. It's a simplified version, but still there is so much underlying complexity.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah. You're, you're absolutely right. Like, um, it, it's a mix of the, uh, different technologies and, uh, I would say the video conferencing, of course, we use a framework, but it's not a service, right? We don't pay for the service. We have our own infrastructure that we build in terms of video conferencing, we had to learn. Right? And video conferencing is very tricky. Uh, especially during the pandemic. We have to learn, you know, the, you know, in the worst scenario how to get 20, 20 times more people from one day to another mm-hmm. . And, uh, but yeah, we, we learn how to scale and do all this stuff. And, uh, yeah, again, it, it's, there, there are different technologies that we have, um, using and combining together from front end and backend. I am a database programmer. Oh,

Artem Daniliants:
Wow.

Richard Lowenthal:
Okay. And I have a team. Yeah. Yeah. I, I do like, you know, especially the database part of it mm-hmm. usually I, I tried here and there with, uh, you know, CS tests as well, and then I have a team from, from, from, you know, from engineers, um, working all the front end and back end. Yeah. It's quite challenging. Yeah. But you're, you're absolutely right. It's a mix of technologies. I would say that the, the only one that I think we use, like a third party mm-hmm. provider is the on-demand videos. Right. Okay. Because you can like upload and before here mm-hmm. and, uh, and for people to play and watch our lessons in food screen, for example, this one we, we use a third part provider, but in, I would say in addition to that, yeah. Probably everything else we build from ourselves. Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Okay. So how big is your team, if you don't mind me asking? Like,

Richard Lowenthal:
We are, we are in six mm-hmm. , um, pretty much, yeah. Two people here in br. Uh, I, uh, I, I live here in Brazil. Mm-hmm. , I have two developers here in Brazil. One of them is always Trav traveling, actually. Uh, we have one person in Peru, one person in Nigeria, and one person part, part-time from Egypt. It's a very global company. Yeah. .

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Truly remote only company. When, when you got the idea, right, and you decided to start this, how did you fund this? Because I think it's always interesting to hear how people actually start their business. Did you tap into your savings? Did you get a, like a seed round? You know, I think that'd be interesting and especially maybe there are, you know, something maybe countries specific things, you know, in Brazil, maybe it's easier to get funding or harder. I don't know. It'd be awesome to hear.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah. Yeah. It, it's interesting that you're asking, well, first of all, um, you know, I, I was working on my business school as I mentioned before, and my strategy was, Hey, I need to involve the board of directors, right? Because if I don't do this, I, I don't think this will work. And initially Gold Branch, uh, was already being used as a virtual classrooms or all the, okay. Uh, let's say online programs that we have. We do have like a in-person, uh, like a physical campus, but we, we do have a lot of online classes, uh mm-hmm. and, and all of them take place on Goldbridge. But yeah. What, what I, what, what I try to do is to involve as much as I could all the directors from the, from the school, my partners in the project, and say, as much as you don't have time, if you trust me, I think this can become something big.

Richard Lowenthal:
Okay. You know, the school helped us to fund, and of course at some point we needed to, you know, to, um, find our own, you know, way to monetize because, um, gold Branch is actually registered United States, not in Brazil, which makes everything easier in terms of, you know, global is, especially because our user, user base is, the main user base is located in North America. And we, of course, we have a lot of people from Europe and Asian as well. And, uh, but yeah, I would say the secret was to, uh, involve the board of directors who in initially injected some, some capital for us to start. We are still bootstrapy. We, we didn't have any rounds any, um, thus far. But yeah, we are, again, it, it's a, it's a cha a very challenging business model that we have. And, uh, we are still trying to fight our space.

Artem Daniliants:
Awesome. Awesome. That's good to hear. Yeah, I think basically it's kind of like a spinoff right? From the business school in a sense, in a sense, even though it's, it's different, but basically what you actually did is you had your first client right away, right from the first day, because the business school kind of helped you build the proof of concept and test it with real users and so forth. So you had a very, very good feedback loop right from the get-go. Um, that sounds very good. Um, when it comes to, you know, your current situation, are you able to break even? Or are you still kind of relying maybe partially on the business school?

Richard Lowenthal:
Um, yeah, this year it will be the first year that we gonna get, um, you know, a profit, right. Because we congrat a lot of interesting, yeah. But yeah, we are generating profits this year, but yeah, it, it's, it's been, you know, the last year is what they, they were very challenged, especially for us to find, let's say, the way of forge, of, of getting traction. Yeah. Right. And, uh, yeah, it, it's quite challenging for any technology because if you're working on a technology that just replaces something, you can always rely on, you know, um, directories or, or Azure or stuff like that, because people are looking for it. And maybe you can, you are offering something, uh, with more value. But in our case, we, we decided to not compete in, in, you know, in the middle of the, uh, Brad osha Right. With video conferencing.

Richard Lowenthal:
And we decided to, to hope to this new, um, market, which is virtual based on virtual spaces mm-hmm. , and as much as this, this is like a blue ocean, nobody's looking for it, right? Yeah. We searching on Google, like for virtual spaces, and that's what becomes our business, uh, let's say the, our business barrier challenge, because we need to find a way to prove them or to educate them how important or how valuable virtuous spaces are for their businesses. Doesn't matter if you're looking to have a virtual office in your startup or using this as, you know, part of your community. And, uh, again, it's a lot of, uh, efforts that we need to do for, uh, gathering people and educating and showing the real benefits that they can get. Right. And, uh, yeah. Quite challenging

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Well, as a marketer, myself, I own online growth agency and I work with SA startups. So like, in my opinion, basically what you're trying to do is you try to generate demand because it's a new category in a sense, right? And people are not searching for it. So you have to generate demand. And generating demand is always expensive and time consuming. But have you thought about maybe approaching it from a different perspective? So now there are a lot of companies that are either remote only or hybrid companies, and I'm sure, I'm willing to bet that there are companies and people who are searching how to improve wellbeing of like remote only, you know, teams or how to communicate more efficiently in remote only environment, how to conduct, you know, productive meetings, how to do the, like, basically people I'm sure like searching for ways to be more effective and be happier in this new environment that, you know, was, you know, created pretty much during the Covid pandemic and maybe, maybe you could go in that space, right? Like, and, and try to promote your product there as a way to kind of enhance the processes that they already have in place.

Richard Lowenthal:
We cannot miss what we never experienced. Right, of course. And what we don't know. And I, I think the main Yeah, I, I, I totally agree with you. I think the main challenge is that, let's imagine like a company who is, you know, which, which is working with Microsoft teams, they actually don't know that there are more possibilities, right. Uh, outside of it. And, uh, yeah. Well, what they have is what they have and what, what they, if they need more engagement, they create like an event here, an event there. And what I found out is that as many, as much as many people, many companies are looking for, that many comfort companies are actually very comfortable what, with what they already have. And, uh, it's not easy for us to, you know, knock on the door of a company and even either HR or even talk with the founder and say, Hey, uh, are you looking to booster remote culture and get, you know, generate more en engagement interaction?

Richard Lowenthal:
Mm-hmm. , because of course, the answer, yes. But at the end of the day, they have more priorities. And, you know, if they already have a system in place such as lack or Microsoft teams, they cannot see, um, you know, beyond. Right. It's very difficult for them to see beyond and takes a little bit of while, take a, take a while for them to realize the possibilities they can do. And they, they start saying, Hey, a, after a while that we start talking and demonstrating, they can say, Hey, but think about it, your virtual office, like your, it's a permanent, you can use it any anytime of your day. People can just drop by at any time of the day. And you can see like a working space. Everyone can be there. They don't need to send messages, they just need to share their screen and start talking. And, you know, it's a change of culture that not all the companies are willing to do. Right? They're already used to, uh, exchanging messages here and there, and some of them are working hybrid and they say, Hey, I, I can, I can meet in person, uh, like one or twice a, a week once a right. And, uh, that's why it's quite, it's kind of challenging for us to demonstrate this value for them. As much as they are looking to boost booster culture. It's not something that they are constantly looking for.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Understand, understand. Yeah.

Richard Lowenthal:
Getting, yeah. So daily basis challenge. Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking like, my entrepreneurial mind is right away trying to kind of solve the problem. So I'm coming up with ideas, but maybe the best way is to experience it, right? So when people experience your product, I think that's probably the best way to live, a good first impression. And, uh, you know, maybe you could, um, uh, maybe you could provide, you know, your service to like NGOs maybe, so that they could hold public events and people who participate in public events would be able to experience the, the service themselves so that they would get to know it a little bit more. Because I remember, you know, people started using, for example, uh, Google Meet because, you know, they got invites to Google Meet, and they were exposed to that technology, and then they were like, well, maybe it's not so bad, you know, let's use it next time as well in our internal meetings or something similar. So maybe you can kind of piggyback off, uh, you know, events that people participate in, where they experience you are offering.

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Events are one of the ways, but, and again, uh, every time you have like, you know, one time event or something like that mm-hmm. is usually stressful, right? Because you of course want everything to work very well. But I, I would say the best use case in Gold Branch is when you blend a lot, you know, different, different experiences, and then you, you have, uh, let's say a welcoming room where people can see your video, and then you have your office where people can see your office, and then you have like additional rooms with challenges or rooms where people can just, you know, um, meet each other mm-hmm. or then do networking, right? And usually when you blend all these kind of features or these kind of situations, it's where people start falling in love and say, wow, this is really magical.

Richard Lowenthal:
Because, you know, it's not only for one meeting and it's over. Right? I can definitely imagine myself using this. Um, you know, since I'm working from home, I can definitely imagine using this on my daily basis. And, uh, yeah, again, it, it's, it's a change of mindset and what we have in mind is to try to convince people or, you know, to pro to show the value of how you can, instead of spending time or, uh, building a website, build your virtual space and bring people into it, because you're gonna have, you, you have the ability to have, start a conversation with them, and you have the ability to make them, to leave a different experience, right. With different rooms. It's not just scrolling down and scrolling up when you're gonna see more people. You're gonna explore content in different ways. And, uh, yeah. It's, it's just, um, it's just, just just a different perspective that some people are starting to envi to see and say, wow, yeah, this can be very, be very beneficial for my business.

Artem Daniliants:
Maybe conferences, virtual conferences would benefit from something like this, because you might have multiple rooms, multiple speakers at the same time. You could have like a coffee room where people could network and just chit chat and drop in and drop out, you know? Is, is your software used in this scenario? So is it not a good fit in your opinion? It fits.

Richard Lowenthal:
Uh, I, I'll say that I, if it's like a conference that it's permanent, a permanent conference where, you know, it's not just like one day and it's over. Yeah. It's a very good fit. Okay. But if it's just one day, it's over. We usually do not recommend, to be honest, because again, people are very used to certain platforms. Why should we just, you know, use this one for this one for, for one day, or sometimes for one hour or two hours since you're gonna, you know, many people will go start joining and say, Hey, but uh, why, why did you choose this one? Why are you, we are not in Google meet, right? As you mentioned before. And, um, this, you know, creates a little bit of friction, right? But if you start using on a daily basis and with more casual meetings and then start, Hey, uh, why, why don't you have your meeting room here, eh, sure. And then, you know, start, create using this as in a more, um, pleasant way, in a more pleasant way. I think it's way more interesting. And let's say the adoption curve is way more smooth.

Artem Daniliants:
Okay. All right. So in terms of customer acquisition, how do you do it now? Like, what has been working for you guys?

Richard Lowenthal:
Well, we, we are working with many different marketing, uh, strategies right now. I, I would say that one of the growth hacks that we had was, you know, working with lifetime deals and, uh, because, you know, especially for people to understand better mm-hmm. , what branche is it, it was very, very, uh, you know, helpful for, you know, getting people on board, getting feedback, and even, you know, making friends. And we, I, I was speaking about team members and we, we do have, I forgot to mention, we do have one advisor in, in the data lads, which, you know, helps us a lot with product design and new ideas. Yeah. I would say that this, this market strategy was very important. In addition to that, we do have a lot of people, um, that, you know, are looking in directories and we try to work a lot with s e o, uh, we try to work a lot with LinkedIn, right, to reach out people and that might be interested or even, uh, network with people that already know.

Richard Lowenthal:
I would say it's always a combination of different medium and, uh, there's, it's, there's no right or role different in my business school, Artem, like, I would say the main, the main minutia that we, we we had was like in Mayo Marketing, we started from zero. And, uh, we built like a very good mailing list from, you know, we didn't buy from anywhere. It worked really well. However, here in Goldbridge, I found that, especially because we didn't start on 2003, right? We ne we really need to mix different media, different channels. And I still believe in, you know, people who know me are always say, Hey, you're looking for like an right, something like magical, um, a magical magic channel that will boost. I really believe that in our business, for example, influencer marketing is a very important channel. However, it's a very difficult channel for deal with. We are, you know, working on it for many years. Mm-hmm. still learning and learning and learning. Because again, if you, if you want to work with physical products like makeup or shoes or stuff like that, it's pretty easy. But once you are shifting to SaaS, right? Software service, it's way more challenging.

Artem Daniliants:
It might sound silly, but have you tried, like, did you try paid customer acquisition when people are searching for like, the best, you know, uh, video conferencing software and the searching for something like best video conferencing Yeah. Software for small startup or something like that. Have you tried, you know, injecting yourself in, in that kind of like, customer journey?

Richard Lowenthal:
Definitely. Yes. Um, the a again, the main probably, uh, we, we did, uh, work, uh, at the beginning of this year, which was very interesting, like to map all the kind of, all kind of blogs or directors mm-hmm. where people are searching and try to design this kind of customer joining. The main challenge that we have, Artem, is that if you, if you're looking for an alternative for Google Meet, for example, and you find Gold Branch, it, it's kind of difficult, right? Because you say, oh, this is different. Right? Um, okay. I, I, here I have camera, I have Mike, I have screen share. I can use this whiteboard here. Yeah. But it's different. Let, let me think a little bit because I'm not sure if this is what I need, and that's why, you know, if you're looking just for replacement for video conferencing, it's uh, as much as you can use Goldbridge, you know, for for sure.

Richard Lowenthal:
But yeah, it's not the same as a, I I'm really looking for a virtual office software, right? And not, not everyone is looking for a virtual office, but if people are looking for a virtual office, say, Hey, I, I'm looking for a virtual office where I can have the same sensation as I had in the physical place, and this is the perfect fit. And they fall in love and it's very, very difficult for them to say no to Goldbridge. Alright? But yeah, if they're just looking for a replacement, it's, uh, as much as we try to show, hey, uh, here you can have the replacement with more options. Many times it's not exactly what they're looking for. And we are not sure if you want to compete with, uh, you know, traditional video conferencing tools.

Artem Daniliants:
It's too different for them to consider it. Cause it, it can't be compared using the same, you know, methodologies and same, same criteria. Cause it aims to do different things. So it's hard to say like, Hey, you know, go branch versus, you know, Microsoft teams. Cause they do different things and, uh, it's very hard to kind of compare oranges to apples

Richard Lowenthal:
Every time we, we think about this kind of blue ocean, right? Where nobody's here, we do have, of course, a few, let's say direct competitors that I consider sometimes more like partners, right? Because they're developing the market just like us. But yeah, at the same time, it's very, very challenging. It's very challenging because not everyone is looking for it. And if not, and if people are not looking for it, how we can get traction, right? Marketing get, you know, becomes way more challenging.

Artem Daniliants:
But doesn't it make sense, you know, like for maybe promote yourself to like nonprofit companies or companies where, you know, they build and foster communities where there are volunteers and, uh, the feeling of, you know, just, just being satisfied with your work and doing the right thing. You know? I don't know. I, I just, I just think that maybe you have probably of course did your analysis, customer journeys, all that good stuff. So, you know, you probably have this target audience, your ideal customer. So I'm just thinking like, how can you get more of those, you know? Uh, so who is your ideal customer?

Richard Lowenthal:
It seems like, you know, virtual offices or virtual spaces are something that it's not, it's not just, um, it's just not just go branch that needs to evolve, but mean more tools need to evolve mm-hmm.

And because, uh, we, we need to develop the market, not a co, not only the company. We, we need to make people to understand that this is the future and this is way more interesting for you, way more pleased and way less tiring for you to spend your day than just, you know, 30 minutes meeting here and there and, uh, you know, use this and or use that. And it's way, way more productive. You know, we have seen customers using like as virtual office saying, Hey, now I have my team with more, more sync. I have more productive, a more productive environment. It's really better. Uh, I'll say the sensation for you to work online, it's way better. And, but again, it, it's, uh, doesn't matter for who we offer, the first questions will al uh, first question will always be, what is the difference between this and that?

Artem Daniliants:
Ryan, they are comparing us with a video conferencing platform as you did in the beginning of this meeting, right? And then we have to start, uh, saying to them, Hey, uh, if you just want to use as a video conferencing platform, yeah, that's fine. You can definitely do that. But think about it, you can evolve and start building a community. People who join your meeting, you can say to them, Hey, uh, I'm here in this office 24, you know, during, during the work hours, you can join here at any time. And now I have more experts here to help you. And, and then you start, you know, creating and, you know, naturally or organically evolving and growing your space with more people. And, uh, yeah, again, it's way more pleasant for you to work this way and just re reminds you when you are in the office and someone locks at your door and say, Hey, do you have a minute?

Richard Lowenthal:
Yeah, sure. And right now you have to schedule 30 minutes meetings here and there. It's always, you know, very tight schedule that you have. And you don't have time for speaking naturally or brainstorming naturally, even for brainstorming, you have to schedule, right? And, uh, that, that's why it's a change of mindset that I really hope that, you know, more companies like us, they can help to develop this market. And then we can compete, you know, at at the same side. And you say, Hey, you are a virtual spacey. I'm a virtual space school. Okay? We are the same, same place right now. It's quite challenging because, you know, we don't want to be at the same bucket as video conferencing, right? We, we, we offer way more than this.

Artem Daniliants:
You did describe it, I think in a very elegant way. It's a permanent, like a virtual space, right? Like that's the beauty, that's the difference. And once you introduce the word permanent, then it kinda, you know, forces the potential customer to shift their thinking because, you know, teams or Google meet, you know, they don't do that. Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well,

Richard Lowenthal:
Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

Artem Daniliants:
Well, this has been really, really good. Um, thank you Richard, for just, uh, you know, telling your story and showing your product. It was really, really interesting. Before we go, what, what it's like, uh, being an entrepreneur in Brazil, like, you know, I'm, I'm just, ah, I'm fascinated with, uh, with different countries, different cultures, different people, and I definitely want to visit Brazil. So like, do you have anything you'd want to share in terms of, you know, how is it different maybe to other places? Yeah.

Richard Lowenthal:
Well, yeah, but that's a very, very good question because here in Brazil what happened is that every, everything is very local, right? We have a local culture with as much as we have, of course, a lot of global companies, but yeah, people in general speak Portuguese, right? And just, just a very, very small fraction of, of the pop population speaks English or mm-hmm. in a, in a different language. And I remember that I was, um, having dinner with, um, my friends from, from, from my business school, and one of them, they, he was just coming back from Israel from one, one of these kind of missions, right? For visiting different companies. And he said, Hey, it seems like, you know, Israel is always focusing on targeting global companies. And here in Brazil, we are targeting only the local market. And I think for government, we should, you know, target global companies and, uh, you know, we should position ourselves, um, globally. I would say that this is pretty rare here in Brazil. Like we, usually, the companies are built just to, and of course we have a very big population, right? Probably, I dunno, three, two or 300,000 million people, right?

Artem Daniliants:
Mm-hmm.

Richard Lowenthal:
it's, it's a big population. I'll say that a big biggest, cha biggest challenge here in, in establishing a business in Brazil is that you have to really understand the culture and work towards the, um, the particularities that we have here. And even, you know, it's a very big country. I live in Sao Paulo, but if you want to target, for example, a different state, you really didn't need to understand, you know, the pre the pre preferences or the what they like, right? Because there are many differences, um, among these states. But yeah, it, it's, um, it's a very competitive market, right? And, uh, as every, every market in the world, I'll say, um, especially here in Sao Paulo, right?

Artem Daniliants:
Where I think 60%, it's very, very, it's crazy. Like I think more than 60% of the G D P are concentrated here mm-hmm. . And, uh, you know, it's very different from, for example, for example, United States, where where we have a more, um, uniform distribution among the states, or at least not as 60% in one single state. And, uh, yeah. Then, you know, a lot of, a lot of companies, a lot of competitiveness here. And, uh, I would say that it, it, it's, uh, it's a really nice country, especially because of the weather, many places to visit, right? But yeah, very competitive. It's getting more and more competitive for you to start a business here right now. It's like, uh, yeah, you, it's just like everywhere in the world, you really need a very solid business plan and, uh, very good, let's say strategy, right? Um, with marketing and everything is just, it's, it's really, really, really difficult right now.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. So I guess, uh, because you are aiming at global markets, that's why you started, like you incorporated your, your enterprise in us, right? So it'll be easier to go global from day one

Richard Lowenthal:
By, by following this strategy, this strategy. We actually lose some customers here in Brazil. Yeah. Because again, we are producing content in English mm-hmm. , and, uh, we don't, we don't have resources to still don't have resources for translating in all languages. And, you know, working at co in different languages. I would love to do that in Portuguese, Spanish, French, uh, and, you know, different languages all over the world. But yeah, we, we are focused on English and focusing on English is one more challenge, right? Because English, it's, I'm not talking about United States or North America, I'm talking about English, right? If you're competing with, in English right now, you're competing with India, you're competing with everybody, Indonesia, many countries that are, you know, producing content or doing stuff in English.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. All right. Well, Richard, thank you so much for your time. Uh, it's been a pleasure. I really appreciate you coming on podcast and telling us about your journey, sharing some insights. It's awesome. And, uh, yeah, I hope, uh, you will be even more successful. I hope you will accelerate your growth, but most importantly, I hope you will find that market fit so that you can start growing, you know, you know, customer acquisition, I guess. Thank

Richard Lowenthal:
You very much. Yeah, really push win.

Artem Daniliants:
Yeah. I guess the customer acquisition is the only, like the puzzle missing, right. You know, just to make that part of the business work, and then I think it'll be easier. Thank you so much, Richard. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Richard Lowenthal:
Take сare. You're welcome, art. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Artem Daniliants:
Thank you. Bye. Cheers.