Dave Kelly 4:44
Hey, Amina, welcome.
Rolando Rosas 5:53
Back correctly, by the way, you are perfect right? Did I get anything wrong in that intro?
Amina Moreau 6:12
That was a great intro. And I am happy to explain what I mean by chronic entrepreneur. Yes, go right into it’s just an odd way of putting it right. Usually people who have created multiple companies call themselves serial entrepreneurs. And I can call myself a chronic entrepreneur, because let’s face it, it’s a little bit of a sickness to choose this lifestyle over and over and over again. It’s fun, it’s rewarding, but it’s certainly not easy. And so I think you have to be a little touched in the head to do this over and over again. But I will say that the companies that I have created are symptoms, if you will, of my desire to put something meaningful out into the world. Yeah, that’s
Dave Kelly 6:57
awesome. That’s awesome. So we’re excited to talk to you about Radious. So real quick, what is Radious? And where did this idea come from?
Amina Moreau 7:06
And why on earth? Would anybody want to use such a service? Right? Because to your point, isn’t that a little weird to book somebody’s home for a workday? You know, likewise, isn’t it weird to get into a stranger’s car and pay for that, too, but Uber is pretty mainstream now. Right? So we’ll circle back to all of that. Yeah, in a nutshell, Radious is a platform that’s similar in concept to Airbnb. But we don’t do any overnight states. We work with homeowners and property managers. We take homes, apartments, even a guest house in somebody’s backyard, we make sure that it has workplace amenities like whiteboards, sit stand desks, meeting tables, even a V. So that companies, teams and even individual employees can book them on an on demand basis. So instead of signing a long term lease and paying for it every day, especially if your employees only use it once or twice a week, an hour, instead of being cooped up at home five days a week in isolation. You can book something that is right in your neighborhood and get together with colleagues get some work life separation in a homey environment that still has all the amenities of the office. You’ve
Rolando Rosas 8:25
got this off the ground. It’s not a true startup right now in the sense that you just started a month ago, but you’re expanding in several metro areas. What’s the feedback like that you’re getting from folks that get to play and or I should say work? Because I’ve seen some of the properties they ends up phenomenal. But what’s the feedback like been for those folks that actually get to work in these properties? Yeah.
Amina Moreau 8:47
Once you step in the door, if you were wondering for a minute, like, Wait, what am I doing here? Like this is this is a house, this is an office, why am I you know, why is my employer asking me to do this? Once you step in the door, you have this aha moment. Oh, I get it because you’re not just walking into a house and it feels like a living room or a dining room. You’re working into a residential space that has all the comforts of home, but still has all the amenities of the office. And so we’ve witnessed a lot of aha moments where people walk in and they just get it. And whereas what they might have been used to in the past was going to a corporate office or renting a sterile hotel conference room that didn’t have any natural light. With a Radious workspace. You you you’re effectively getting access to anything from a tiny home that has been outfitted with a sit stand desk and an external monitor, or maybe even a 3000 square foot home that has multiple meeting spaces that has private offices that has, you know, in the living room, you can plug in your laptop to do a presentation. There’s a whiteboard in the dining area that turns it into a collaborative brainstorm space, you can go into the backyard and to do team building exercises, play a little cornhole or just get some fresh air during a coffee break. You can cook lunch with your team in
Rolando Rosas 10:23
residence, you have a chef, that’s part of the work crew times
Amina Moreau 10:27
actually, yes, we’ve actually had some customers hire a private chef, not just to cook for the team, but even do a little cooking tutorial. So the team is cooking together. And, you know, it’s, it’s really an amazing experience, because you’re in an environment that gets the creative juices flowing. People love it, because it is a change of scenery. It’s not this sterile corporate, you know, white box, it is something that’s extremely unique. You know, there’s this, there’s one listing that we have in Portland, Oregon, that we call a conference yogurt, because it is so it’s an actually, it’s actually a 50 person yurts so it’s not small, you can do networking event,
Rolando Rosas 11:13
you can do a walrus,
Amina Moreau 11:16
it’s actually on an alpaca farm. And so, you know, you show up in the morning, you might do a meeting or a workshop or a training exercise in the morning, there’s a meeting table, there’s AV, a whiteboard, everything that you would expect in a conference room, but it’s in a Europe setting, so it’s extremely unique. And then during your coffee breaks, you take a big bag of apples out, and you go feed the animals and have a totally unique experience. And
Rolando Rosas 11:46
I would imagine the ultimate here. The ultimate when it comes to those folks that get to experience this, if they are coming back. Are you getting returned and repeat users as I’m coming back? Because I loved it. It was great. What’s What’s that been like? Like your your repeat customers?
Amina Moreau 12:05
That is one of the top three metrics that we look at is how many people come back. And it’s, it’s really through the roof. You know, to your point before, it’s kind of a strange concept, booking my neighbor’s house for work, why wouldn’t I just stay at home. But at home, some people might have distractions, some people might start to blur work in life a little bit, it’s hard to disconnect at the end of the day and get a little work life balance when you no doubt, literally live at the office, because that’s you live at the office when you work from home. And so some people, like I said, have distractions, feelings of burnout, feelings of isolation, because usually you are working alone when you are at home, not with your colleagues. And sometimes people like to have that work life separation, but their first instinct isn’t necessarily when they think about getting out of the house and doing work. That first instinct isn’t necessarily to book a residential space. And so as a new platform, we are tasked with educating the general public and companies about why this is a cool new solution that is out of the box. But like you said, the pandemic shook up the way that we go about our work day. And so people are actively looking for and excited for alternative and creative ways to get their people together. And so we’re finding that once they step in the door, and they go, Wow, this is different. I love this, they tend to come back.
Dave Kelly 13:39
I gotta say the idea in the environment, I think it’s underappreciated. Where people have new options of working. You know, I’ve worked for organizations that when they would do a, quarterly a quarterly review, they’d have the territory managers go to corporate for just a couple of days, but they would stick us in a room with no windows. Like you said, sterile, boring, everything was just one color. And when lunchtime came in, you broke out of that to go grab a bite, everyone’s looking at each other, like get me out of this room. And the idea of a view, colors and environment, something that’s only very attractive and I can see how that would reduce fatigue, increased concentration, make people want to collaborate versus make people want lunchtime to come as fast as possible. I think it’s a very creative idea. And probably a fantastic experience for the for the guests that are that are coming on. And
Amina Moreau 14:47
Dave how appropriate that you use the wording they break out for lunch, you know, they’re kind of breaking out of this room that they’ve been trapped in, right without any natural light and it’s it’s easy to undressed. To me the importance of natural light and love. Most of the time when companies are getting their teams together, it’s for team building. It’s for building camaraderie. It’s for innovation, it’s for creative thinking. And for inspiration, the last thing you want is to be in a drab dark box, you want to be in fresh air in natural light in an inspiring environment. And what better than say renting a beachfront home turned workspace with multiple rooms with operable windows with a rooftop patio. I mean, the sky’s the limit. Sign
Rolando Rosas 15:42
me up, I’m ready to go. I saw some really fascinating some of the listings you had on their mid century one rooftop one. For me, you know, I think about when, as you were describing, I was thinking about years ago that we had a conference that I went to, and it was a Newport Beach. And this was the only conference that I had ever been to in my life where the breakout rooms had massive windows facing the ocean. And it was by far one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had at any conference that I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to a bunch of them. And so if you can bring some of that experience into your work, you know, I’ve been able to also to work remotely for a number of years. And some of the places I’ve been able to travel like Montecito, for example, in your windows are facing the mountains, and you get that fresh air coming through. And that breeze stayed in Renton one time overlooking a lake. And in the morning dew coming over the lake, it’s just amazing what it does for your psyche, and how it sets up the Workday for you versus like what you’re talking about, where, you know, I’m an engineer or a sales guy, it doesn’t matter what the function and now I’m looking at the same boring walls, or I’ve got to get in my car now. And I’ve heard you say this, and we gotta get my car and make that commute into town. Whether it’s Seattle, whether it’s New York, whether it’s San Francisco name a big city, people don’t want to do that anymore.
Amina Moreau 17:13
No, they don’t. No, they don’t. And Rolando, you know, the conference that you went to that had those beautiful breakout rooms with the natural light looking out into the beautiful view, I’m betting that the corner conference organizers spent an arm and a leg for that venue. And that is one of the things that we are addressing with Radious is cost. One of the reasons that we’ve focused on activating residential spaces in this way is because they’re far more affordable. So if you compare the pricing of one of our homes turned workspaces to one of those sterile conference rooms, that you probably would spend quite a bit on our spaces are about a third of the price. And you’re usually getting five times the square footage with I mean, let me be honest, 10 times the experience
Rolando Rosas 17:32
is a huge read, go ahead and make one of those pictures. So if you’re listening to us, and you have the ability to go watch this, on our YouTube channel, we are featuring a couple of some of those properties there and showing some of those amazing locations that you have listed here. And what I want to ask is, is we’re showing some of these listing is, what’s what’s been the response? As people find out about Radious, you know, because you mentioned Airbnb, I would imagine that you’re either poaching, you’re bringing people that are in that business, or are you getting those first time entrepreneur entrepreneurs, and maybe this is an opportunity for me to get in on this.
Amina Moreau 18:53
Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. There are a lot of people who have never been able to monetize their own homes on a platform like Airbnb. Because if you think about it, Airbnb is an overnight platform. So if you live in your home, in order to accept an Airbnb booking, you’d have to find a place for your entire family to sleep for the duration of that booking. And that’s kind of unsustainable, whereas with Radious, we’re just during the day, we’re nine to five or eight to six. So we have, I would say about a third of our properties are actually lived in by families. And it’s a really great way and I frankly, I’m pretty proud of this, that we’re actually helping families with housing affordability, they’re able to subsidize their rent or mortgage with this new income stream. Maybe they leave and go to an office two or three days a week and their house is just sitting empty. Why not monetize it?
Rolando Rosas 19:53
I like that, like you know what, I’m looking at that a clap because that’s you bringing you make Do you can make homes more affordable in that, you know, I can maybe live in a neighborhood that I could not live before because I love the parks or I love the school system, whatever. And now, if this is an option where you know, part of that rent or mortgage or whatever is offset by this type of activity, you could see a more diverse neighborhood event. I remember when, when Google Fiber was being rolled out, because it was the first of its kind in laying fiber optic to the home in Kansas City. And people and businesses were buying up properties all around that that area wherever they laid up because of the need for fast internet. But I could see in some similar fashion where where people could go back into neighborhoods, they thought that were out of their reach because of this ability to subsidize their income.
Amina Moreau 20:57
Yep. Yep, absolutely. It’s, it’s, it’s a huge problem. And, you know, not to not to bang on Airbnb too much. But a lot of times as a platform, they are accused of stealing away housing inventory. Because a lot of properties are then earmarked for short term rentals as opposed to long term housing. And so they get a bad rap. And and look, I do think that in some cases, they can help with housing affordability, too, if you are renting out, say just a room in your house. But it’s much more difficult to do. And you know, the two social environmental things that we’re really excited about with Radious, is that actually really three is that we help with housing affordability, we help also to make workplace tools more accessible to people by being right in their neighborhoods. And then on the environmental side, reducing carbon emissions, because, again, because since we are focused on residential properties, residential properties tend to be in residential neighborhoods, precisely where people live. And so if you can walk or bike or drive five minutes, instead of 15 minutes to one of our workspaces, instead of commuting long distances to a city center office, then a you’re saving a whole lot of time that you could otherwise be spending with family or in other more productive ways. But then also, we’re taking cars off roads, and that has so many
Rolando Rosas 22:39
no doubt, let me just boy, agree with you. You know, the, there was an interview that Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary gave a while back ago, and he had cited that the number one reason that his employees would reef would leave the workplace would be over the green reason, because if they were forced back to return to Office, as you know, some companies and we’re going to get to this in the moment are doing, they would rather leave than stay. Because Because they say it’s the one thing they can control. They can control what they do during the day, if they have to drive one way, you know, an hour like you’re saying, and an hour and the other way, and having to run around all over the place during the week they because they can’t do the things they need to do if had they worked from home. So that is not a little thing. When some shark is telling us that his employees of all the companies he runs, it’s the number one reason they would leave if they had to leave because of return to return to work or return to off.
Amina Moreau 23:53
Yep. And he’s not wrong. If you look at national statistics, the biggest barrier to returning to the office as companies try to force people back is the commute. And part of it is an environmental argument. Part of it is a time and cost argument. There’s so many people who have barriers to commuting. And so working remotely, whether it’s from home or from other places that aren’t the typical corporate office, alleviate a lot of those pain points. For
Dave Kelly 24:24
sure. And you know, you’re alleviating things for the employee and also for the employee for the employer. Yeah, I think as an employee, we’d like to bring our teams together. But if we can keep them local, and not have to travel into the city, well, hey, I’m bringing my team together. We want some collaboration, some on site collaboration, and you the employee, you don’t have to drive into the city. We’re going to do this right in the suburbs. Everyone can come here don’t have to pay for parking. It’s gonna be easy in and easy out. Your leave mediating some of these issues on all sides of the equation, which I think is a great thing.
Rolando Rosas 25:06
Ya know, Dave, I want a backup of what you’re saying with what Professor Nick Bloom put out today on LinkedIn. And I would love to take your I would love to hear your take on this Amina because you plugged into a lot of this. He put out five things about hybrid and remote work. He says the average grooming time saved by work from home is five minutes for men and 12 minutes for women. And for women on a hybrid schedule. That’s at least a day per year. That’s one number two. Oh, there we go. That’s the one right there that already has on the screen number two for women the big time savings is less makeup. For men, it’s less shaving. Number three folks get more sleep when they work from home up huge health benefits sleep is so underrated but there’s a lot more people Huberman and Doctor a TIA all these guys are talking about sleep. Demon Bartlett. They’re all talking about sleep because it is affecting us as a society. Number four, teeth brushing. This is a cool one. teeth brushing is down for folks that work from home. I don’t know if that’s that’s crazy. And the last one, the best reason only 95% of people brush their teeth, when they work from home. 89% were fresh clothes in 88% use deodorant when they work from home. So five reasons work from home is so good.
Dave Kelly 26:39
Oh my goodness, teeth brushing thing. The teeth brushing thing doesn’t necessarily make sense to me. My dentist wants me to brush my teeth after every meal. I’m able to do that here. I was once caught brushing my teeth in an office years ago. And it like everyone was talking about it. Dave, I heard that you were brushing him like you haven’t heard of brushing your teeth after lunch, please. So the judge that was judgment zone for sure. But I’m surprised that people are brushing less. No.
Amina Moreau 27:11
That is surprising. But I mean, the other stuff kind of makes sense, right? I mean, look, and here’s a little TMI for you. But you know, tomorrow, I have an all day event that’s in person. So I’m actually going to be at a Radious space. And we’re doing a really fun pop up co working day with our community. And so you know, I’m going to be I’m going to, I’m going to be nicely put together, not so much more than I am now, right? Because I am talking to you guys. And I want to look presentable, but let me tell you, I’m going to spend just a few more minutes on the hair on the back of my head tomorrow than I did this morning. Because you guys aren’t seeing the back of my head. So what does it matter? I’m going to save myself the extra 90 seconds that that takes, you know, I’ve got better things to do. What
Rolando Rosas 28:01
does that do? Tell me? You know, from the female perspective, I would love to hear that. What does that do mentally to you, when you have that ability, rather than it’s 7:30am? I gotta get up, you know, I know the commutes coming, I gotta rush out of here. Do all this stuff. Does it do anything for you? Or no?
Amina Moreau 28:21
Yeah, I mean, certainly, certainly it does. And, uh, you know, I don’t know how big a gender difference are really is. And it also depends on the individual. I’m not an ultra high maintenance person, I don’t spend hours in the bathroom, you know, getting ready in the morning. But you know, I do like to look nice. And there’s something also to be said, for putting yourself together, even if you are working from home and not having any meetings that day because it puts you in a certain mind frame that, you know, it’s like during the pandemic when people weren’t commuting because they were stuck working from home, a lot of them did fake commutes where they would just walk around the block pretending like they were going somewhere just so that they could get into the right frame of mind and also create a little bit of a work life separation moment where they were getting themselves in gear and then after the day was over, they would walk around the block in the reverse direction and then come back home. And so having these little rituals I actually think helps from a mental health perspective and a work life balance and and separation perspective. I think it’s healthy.
Rolando Rosas 29:37
No, I do I do a little bit of what you just said definitely after work. I call it the work Juju. I go out and right up behind me here and then go out there’s a park and then a little river and it just does wonders. Just a nice walk. It’s about good 30 minute walk and get my steps in for the day. And it just it’s just fun. villas being able to do that I would imagine using or using those properties that you have up there, a lot of them seem to be in just beautiful locations. And I want to go into a little different direction with you on this and talk a little bit about the aspect of it. So if you if somebody was contemplating this, we talked about that it does have some potential of supplemental income. And I saw a video where you were talking to some investors, and that this is very different from an Airbnb in that you can monetize the offseason. And I didn’t even realize this was a thing. Like if you’re on Airbnb, the vacation season is hot, right? If you’re in one of these cities where people are traveling, right, and you’re gonna get a lot of that traffic. But during the offseason, I didn’t even realize that this was a problem for folks that are doing Airbnb. Ah,
Amina Moreau 30:52
it really is. So like you said, it depends on the geography you’re in. And there are some geographies that don’t have vacation seasonality, because they are popular destinations in the summer, but maybe they have mountains, and you can go skiing in the winter, etc. But I live in Portland, Portland, Oregon, and it rains here about five months out of the year. And yes, we have a mountain and good skiing, but it’s 90 minutes away. So if you’re going to get an Airbnb, it’s going to be over there, it’s not necessarily going to be in Portland. And so Airbnb hosts and hotels in general see a significant seasonal dip in the winter when it comes to tourism. And so we’re able to let them know that with Radious, there actually isn’t very much seasonality office space, is in vogue. And in demand, pretty much every month of the year, maybe there’s a little bit of a dip in August when a lot of working professionals take vacation with with their families. But even then, kids are home from school for the summer. And working parents sometimes need a place to escape to to get their work done. And so even that dip isn’t that big. And sometimes we even see a spike in business in July and August. And so it’s a really great way for Airbnb hosts to supplement their income during the slow times. And we actually have a calendar syncing functionality so that if you get a booking on Radious, it’ll automatically block off people’s Airbnb calendars, and vice versa. So they never have to worry about a double booking. And then in those geographies where like seasonality is not really an issue, weekdays are in issue. And that is true pretty much all over the world where Airbnb business tends to be busiest Friday through Sunday, because people tend to take weekends for recreation, but Monday through Thursday, tend to be a lot slower even during the busy season. Hmm, that’s our bread and butter because we’re workplace platform and we’ll work days are when people get work done. And so we’re able to tell Airbnb hosts, hey, let’s fill in those slow days through the week as well. Just make sure that you have a whiteboard, you have a way to connect to your TV, you have the kinds of workplace amenities that a typical air b&b wouldn’t have. Because we are a workplace platform. So we have to make sure that when we’re approaching companies and saying, Hey, you can get a really solid productive day of work done with your team here. You’ve got to have the amenities to back that up.
Dave Kelly 33:39
So what’s been the reaction Amina from your typical Airbnb? VRBO style hosts? That’s now learning about your platform. What are they saying?
Amina Moreau 33:50
They love it for a few reasons. One, because eliminating the overnight component gets rid of all sorts of pain points. Airbnb hosts hate doing laundry. Time and like who doesn’t do laundry, right. But when you’re washing, stranger’s linens, and your Do you know you have to do it for multiple bedrooms. It takes a long time. It’s laborious, you have to sit there and wait for the machine to finish and then load the next machine. Yeah, you know, so it’s a lot of work. It’s it’s a lot of risk actually having overnight guests too, because parties tend to happen at night.
Rolando Rosas 34:29
They didn’t Airbnb have some hot water issues when it came to this a few years ago?
Amina Moreau 34:35
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, if you think about it, drinking after hours is a whole different beast than than day drinking, you know, a glass of wine at lunch with your team. That’s a very different proposition than if you’re there, you know, 8pm through, you know, 8am and you’re inviting people to party hearty, that your neighbors don’t want it and there’s a bigger room Property damage with overnight rentals with Radious we’re putting working professionals in your home. We know who their bosses we know who they work for. And they are there for the purpose of work, right? These are not events, these are workdays their meetings or strategy sessions, people are whiteboarding. And so it’s very calm, it’s very tame. And then at the end of the day, our hosts have very little cleaning to do. And so it’s more money with less work and less risk. It’s a no brainer.
Rolando Rosas 35:33
What I want to know is you again, you’re putting visions in my head, and I had a vision of a wine country extravaganza, overlooking a vineyard, or close to a vineyard, where, you know, we could just have you seen drink, I’m like, Oh, I would love something like this in wine country. You know, we got able to go in a day and residue and work and or overlook the scenery, and hey, everybody looks it’s it’s after hours, this walk over to the vineyard. That’s
Amina Moreau 36:07
right. And look, we recently expanded into the Bay Area, and we picked a point. And then we drew a Radious, no pun intended. and turned it into a circle of areas in the bay that we wanted to cover in our initial launch there. And that circle is pretty large. It goes all the way from Santa Cruz, all the way through Marin County. And so we’ve got wine country, both and we’ve also got the beach. And then everything in between. We’ve got San Francisco and the peninsula, San Jose, we’ve got the East Bay, Oakland, Berkeley, because if you think about it, there are a lot of working professionals that live in the East Bay, and pre pandemic, they were used to commuting every single workday into the city, they would get stuck in traffic on the bridge every day wasting time burning fossil fuels. Now, they can book a Radious workspace that’s right in their neighborhood, maybe even walk there save themselves, the time and the carbon emissions, have it be much more convenient. And then a much more unique experience than going to a corporate office
Rolando Rosas 37:22
where you just walk right into the thing I really wanted to ask you about because corporate offices in the past five years through the pandemic as well. There’s been major investments with companies like Mehta, Google, Salesforce, as well as some startups you think about what anthropic in the AI craze is set off around Silicon Valley. These cities are all ideal, but I would imagine that a lot of these workers and companies, you know, they’re they’re probably some of these are weighing their options. But when you talk a meta Google felt Salesforce. All three had been very heavy handed in some way in mandating their RTO their return to office. What are you hearing, when it comes to this, return to Office, some of the employee pushback, and Amazon has also been thrown into spotlight in this as well. When a new neighborhood you have gotten Nike as well being very heavy handed with return to Office? Where where’s the where’s the leverage point for what’s happening?
Amina Moreau 38:26
I get a lot of questions. Especially since there are a lot of headlines recently about big companies forcing people back X number of days per week. So a lot of people ask me, Amina, is remote work over? And the good news and the short answer is no, we’re actually just at the ground floor. And you’ve mentioned Nick Bloom a couple of times, and he will back this up with data that it’s just about to boom. One thing to remember is that all of those big companies that you mentioned, they have the biggest PR megaphone. So of course, the majority of headlines that we’re going to see are going to be from the big companies. But if you look at the data, they are outliers, they are in the minority 80% of tech companies are offering their employees location flexibility. So when we hear about an RTO mandate, thou shalt come back to the courthouse. For every one CEO that’s forcing people back. There are two other CEOs that are quietly stealing their talent. Just don’t hear about it, because those are usually smaller companies that aren’t making the headlines. Right. And so, what I am seeing for the future is that the majority of companies that aren’t as massive as med An Amazon etc. Those who have offices are going to pay extra careful attention, as their leases are about 12 to 18 months away from expiring. I mean, it’s hard to not call people back if you have an office sitting there that you’re paying for, and you can’t do anything about it true. And by the way, all of these massive companies, they have huge real estate holdings that they can’t get rid of. So of course, they’re going to try to get butts and seats. But over the next three to five years, I predict that we’re going to be seeing a massive wave of lease non renewals, because CFOs are going to look at their p&l as and as these lease terms are start starting to come up, they look at the numbers, they say, we’re paying for office space, seven days a week, our people are using it once or twice, the math doesn’t work, this is not financially sustainable. And instead of renewing, they’re going to let those spaces go, they’re either going to downsize, or they’re going to eliminate some space altogether. And opt for flex office solutions like Radious, and other options out there too, that allow you to either pay by the day, pay monthly or even pay annually. All of those options are much more flexible than signing a five or 10 year lease, they turn a fixed cost into a variable cost and make your company that much more agile and resilient. So I have a question I see for the future of work.
Dave Kelly 41:39
So Amina, as we’re at the basement level for future of work, we think that things are going to take off, how can organizations thoughtfully shape their culture in support of while supporting a hybrid work environment?
Amina Moreau 41:59
It’s a really important question. Because as an organization, if you have been in office, your entire existence pre pandemic, then you cannot just take your existing management style, and apply it to your remote workers and expect it to be successful. You have to learn new ways of managing in this new in these new work styles that are appropriate for remote and distributed hiring and leadership. And not every company not every leader is willing to put the time in. And we’ve seen a lot of companies just throw their hands up in the air and conclude that remote work isn’t sustainable, because it’s not working for them. But what we we don’t necessarily hear about that they didn’t put the time and the effort in to learn how to do it well. But the good news is that there are a lot of companies who have figured out how to do it very effectively, companies like GitLab, and Atlassian, for example. And they share publicly how they’re doing this. And not just on social media, but through robust documentation. They even have courses and certifications. So there is no shortage of resources to learn how to do it, you just have to want to, and there are some companies that simply don’t. They don’t they just want to go back to the before times. And that’s okay. You know, we’ll see how long they last. We’ll see how long their talent stays with them. But I do believe that it is the innovative thinkers that want to develop a new ways. They are the innovators, they’re the ones that are going to come out on top and and
Rolando Rosas 43:49
I think the I think time and date are on on your side on this, because when you when you talk to other folks that are innovators, we had on on the podcast, Mr. Sandeep from BlackBerry, he’s a former president of blackberry and he he said what one of the words you say he curious, innovative, and innovative and curiosity, as well as profits. If I were to add Professor Blooms words in there, you can’t avoid the the, the increased profitability, you can avoid? How this style of working that we’ve been used to for 70 years, is at an intersection where people are saying, hey, look, I can still do good work. It doesn’t mean I need to be at this desk that’s located in downtown, or he put up that graphic there. While we’re talking about this. These are the heavy hitters that you were talking about. They have big PR machines and because of those investments, and if you’re listening to us again, we have a wonderful infographic on some of the larger companies and investments they’ve made in real estate holdings over The past five to 10 years. And almost all of these companies have been some of the louder companies that like Mehta, Amazon, JP Morgan, Salesforce, Tesla, for sure. BlackRock have been the loudest when it comes to the return to office and being really strict. The one that’s not on there is tick tock because they’re tracking employees via their app to make sure people are sitting their butts in their seats in their offices. But like you said, I mean, I think the tide is turning. And it’s only a matter of time, when either leases expire, or the attrition rate gets too high, the talent drain is there, we featured we featured a company with Dave, you’re gonna have to help me out that we were talking about talent drain the other day that we were talking about digital, when you have a talent drain, that innovation curve starts heading downward, and it just spirals downward, the culture the management, so it’s gonna require a will to want to do new things like the CEO, from T Mobile, he came in, everybody hated the wireless industry. And he turned it around from a company where it was, was notoriously at the bottom of customer surveys, to being now one of the premier wireless companies, because he did turn around the culture, he did change the management. So it’s doable. It just requires a will and a some curiosity as this president, former president of BlackBerry had mentioned to us,
Amina Moreau 46:36
it really does. And you know, the last thing that I will say is that at the end of the day, most employees, look at the statistics, most employees want flexibility, they want to have a level of choice in how and where and even when they do their work. So if employees really want this, and it saves companies, a ton of money, to let go of their office space, and opt for more flexible work styles, and flexible office solutions where for those days, you need to be together sure you have a solution. If it’s what employees want, and it saves companies money, then isn’t it a no brainer to go down this path? No
Rolando Rosas 47:26
brainer. That seems like a no brainer to me. But you know what something I want to I want to also get your take on, we’ve got another graphic that I want you to take a look at with. And Dave, you could jump in here on this one as well. Some research done by Gallup and some of the biggest challenges when it comes to remote work, I’m going to look at, again, if we invite you if you’re listening to us on audio, we have this graphic on our YouTube channel. In terms of the five greatest drawbacks for organizations, when it comes to hybrid work they’ve met, they’ve cited decreased workplace communication, decreased collaboration, a negative impact on workplace culture, lower productivity, and five decreased creativity or innovation. And Amina you know, we’ve been talking about this how having the right space, that is, you know, with light, you know, with trees around your park or river, a sun, you know, all these things, addresses all of this because decrease workplace communication, if you’re, you know, going to a neighborhood home, that is the meeting place for your engineering team, you get that you that also addresses the decreased collaboration, impact on workplace culture, you still have a way to meet with other people. And if meeting people as part of the workplace culture, it addresses that, I would imagine it also would address the productivity issue. And professional Bloom did talk about productivity, and its impact on work when you’re doing remote work. And he had some statistics that I invite you to go check that episode out if for those that are listening, you want to hear about productivity and remote work, and the creativity or innovation, like we were talking about earlier, I loved the fact that I went to a conference and I hit they had big huge windows in Newport Beach and I’m looking at the beach as the conference is going in the breakout rooms into my frame of mind was more receptive to learning versus you know, you know, just that white light that’s above your heads for walls. Somebody’s holding a microphone. You’re sitting at a desk and writing right and you’re like, you’re like Dave said, I’m looking at my watch for lunchtime.
Amina Moreau 49:39
Yep. You know, the study that you just had up on the screen. You were saying that those were all of the downsides of remote work. I would be really curious to know how they defined remote work. And forgive me because I’m going to vent for a moment. Go. Go for it. Go for it. One of my biggest frustrations in the future of work conversation right now is that a lot of people are using the terms remote work and working from home interchangeably without even realizing it. I think we all recognize at this point that they’re not synonyms. They absolutely work during the pandemic, when working from home was the only way to work remotely, right. But they’re not the same anymore now that the pandemic is pretty much over. And the problem with not having a clear definition of remote work is that if you conflate these two terms, then you risk generalizing the pain points of working from home, with remote work as a whole. And we all know that while many people love working from home, I am one of them. Working from home can have distractions, it can feel isolating if you are physically away from your co workers. And it can cause feelings of burnout, because you don’t have adequate work life separation. But these pain points are not necessarily generalizable to remote work as a whole. And so if that study, conflated remote work with working from home, and generalize the pain points of working from home, to their definition of remote work, then all of the findings that you just presented are actually incorrect. Because what they really reflect are the downsides of working from home but not remote work as a whole. And so this begs the question, well, what is the definition of remote work, and I think everybody has a slightly different one. And the one that I would like to propose that we all align all add together as a global society, is that remote work is simply working away from a traditional corporate office. And if that is the definition, then there are 1000 different ways to work remotely, working from home being one of them. But some people define remote work as being away from people, right remote is usually away from something. So what is it away from? If it’s away from people, then yeah, it’s going to feel lonely and isolating. And they’re going to be implications for communication and collaboration and all that stuff that you just presented. But if it’s just working away from a typical corporate office, there’s so many ways to do that. So many better ways than working from home or a corporate office that address all of the pain points that you just had up on the screen.
Rolando Rosas 52:40
I love this. Language matters. Words matter. Words matter, words matter a lot. And the more you talk about communication and collaboration, and how how we do work, and the future work, it’s really all of these are new terminology that we’re putting out there in the world. And it really is something to to admire that you are really wanting to define this well, because I think, you know, we’re beyond just the early days of the pandemic, like you said, where we were all at home. And so that was the definition of remote work no more than that we’re and in that, in that era, We’re way beyond that. But you know, I want to roll the clock back a little bit. Because one of the things that is it’s a curious thing that you mentioned, was being an entrepreneur and being a chronic entrepreneur. And as an entrepreneur, myself, and starting this business a little over 20 years ago, I became an accidental entrepreneur. So I wanted to find out from you how you got that entrepreneurial bug that eventually led to where you got to with Radious. Ah,
Amina Moreau 53:48
it was also by accident. So we share that part of our history, I was going down a very, very different path. It was the family expectation that you either become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. And so for the majority of my life, I thought I really wanted to become a doctor. And it wasn’t until I was on the pre med track, that I realized that it was more of a family pressure situation than it was an intrinsic desire. And while I was good at science, and I did enjoy learning about it, I pictured myself in that field. And I didn’t have the same sort of excitement that other people around me had. And so it opened my eyes
Rolando Rosas 54:41
again. By the way, we share that, too. I was I was pre med in school and right around inorganic chemistry. I decided you know what, I’m just not that excited about that. I’m intrigued by science like biology and all the different things that brain No. But you know what another 10 more years of this? It just didn’t didn’t do the thing for me like you’re saying they did just Yeah.
Amina Moreau 55:10
Yeah. And it could have been 40 more years of it right? If you had actually gone into the field, or more even. So yeah, it’s right. And life is too short. If you if you’re in a privileged enough position to get to choose what you do for a living, then life is too short to not do something that you enjoy. And now I was lucky that simultaneously when I was going through a little bit of an existential crisis, because this thing that I thought I wanted to be my whole life turned out, I didn’t. At the same time, my my business partner at the time, we were at the same school, we decided to create a filmmaking company. And it was kind of by accident, simply because we wanted to make a documentary. Well, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have any equipment. And we were in a bit of a pickle, how do you make a documentary without either of those things. And so we ended up launching a little business, to shoot people’s weddings. And we thought, if we do this for a little bit, then we’ll make a little money, we can afford some gear, and then we can make a documentary. And 20 years later, and five Emmy Awards later, we have a global filmmaking and marketing business that has taught all over the world. And it ended up spinning off a bunch of projects that became their own startups and companies in their own right. And simply because we saw gaps in the market, we saw opportunities to solve problems for people that our original company wasn’t geared to solve. And so we spun off these other ideas, because we were just solutions driven people and wanted to, to lend a hand. And also just kind of see if we could. And so over the course of my career I have created No, I think it’s five companies including Radious, two of them actually went on to be acquired. And it’s, it’s something that was never in the life plan. But since I became an entrepreneur, I learned so much about myself. I also discovered that as a as an athlete, I am built for this. I never knew that. But there’s so much that translates from high level of thrill athletic training, to business and the kind of challenges you have to overcome and the kind of grip that you have to have and the problem solving skills, all of it. It’s all translatable. And now I love it, it’s certainly a double edged sword, because entrepreneurship isn’t easy, but that’s part of what makes it exciting.
Rolando Rosas 58:00
It’s certainly not passive income. The lot of there’s a lot of gurus out there selling passive income. And that’s a lot of baloney. You know, certainly in our field in what we do in the IT business, you know, the ones that have become successful are not the guys and gals that are looking at this as passive income. And certainly the athletic background is is a big benefit. Because you’re used to competing, you know, you know, you’re gonna get beat up by an opponent that’s faster, stronger, right? And how to come back and bounce back from that. And that’s one of the things is another fellow entrepreneur, another entrepreneur, I want to ask you, because I learned a lot from mistakes. I hear other folks that are business owners as well, mistakes are making. i We recently had a guest, James Orsini who works for Gary Vaynerchuk. And he said, Gary hired me because I had 20 years 26 years of failures and mistakes that he wanted to avoid. So I want to ask you that question. What has been a failure of yours as an entrepreneur that made you a better entrepreneur?
Amina Moreau 59:13
One that immediately comes to mind is several years ago, this must have been at least 10 years ago, by now. I had a couple of business partners in a company that we were running together. And the two of them extremely ambitious Guys really love the spotlight. And they, you know, when you get into business for yourself, oftentimes it’s because there is a craft that you love. You know, for us it was filmmaking. But a lot of people, a lot of artists, for example, they don’t get into business because they love business. They get into business because they love their craft, and they want to make it more sustainable. And that was the case for all three of us. We didn’t love business, but we loved our craft. And the two of them were much more motivated at continuing to excel and push themselves in their craft than to learn the business side. And at the time, it felt like I was the only one that was coming to terms with the fact that if there wasn’t anybody that was tending to the business, that this business simply wouldn’t survive. Like, you have to pay your taxes, you have to market the company, you have to engage in sales, you have to put a team in place to manage customer service, right, there are things that you have to do in business in order to just stay alive, you can’t just be good at the craft that you’re selling, or the product or the service. And so we fell into these roles, not necessarily because we chose them, but because we were reacting to the situation, or at least I was, and I sort of got stuck with leftovers. And what it meant was, I didn’t have as much time to pursue the craft part and to continue developing I did make the effort to, but I was intending to the business. And, you know, honestly, I felt I felt pretty better about it. Because I didn’t love that. Sure. But because I was sort of forced into it, it taught me a heck of a lot about what it takes to build and manage a sustainable business, how to get to profitability, and how to grow. And so while in hindsight, I wish I had been a little bit more forceful in demanding what was going to be right for me, as a human, I’ve learned that lesson. And now I apply it every day. But also I have learned the lessons of what it takes to build a successful company. And now I’m able to replicate that with Radious and who knows whatever other companies I create beyond. But like you said, there is tremendous value that comes from learning from other people’s mistakes and other people’s failures. So it’s so important to have mentors, advisors. And I didn’t always do that either. And we reinvented the wheel many times over as we were creating our first businesses because we actually didn’t want to look to other people, because we wanted to just create our own thing, we’re a little stubborn about it. And on one hand, it worked really well because we were able to differentiate because we weren’t just looking at what other people were doing. And then trying to force differentiation, we really looked within and asked ourselves, if we were our own customer, what would we want and what brings us joy and fulfillment in how we build this company. And we just did that. And it happened to differentiate us really, really well. But it also slowed us down in some ways. Because we did make a lot of mistakes that probably could have been avoided. And so now I have surrounded myself with amazing advisors and mentors that I talk to every week, and can go to for advice, but also for just personal emotional support. It’s incredible. Yeah,
Rolando Rosas 1:03:22
the journey or entrepreneur is can be very tortured at times. Because, you know, you value yourself through the lens of your your venture that you you’re working on your business, and you ride the wave, you know, things are great. It’s a party, then what’s happening, what’s happening, and you’re like, What am I doing wrong and having those folks that you can go to for, you know, counsel advice, personal as well as other, it really is helpful. And I have a few a handful of folks that I go to when you know when I get that that wave? Oh, yes. And then Oh, yes. And oh, no, he’s just, it’s hard for people to understand that when you’re, you’ve got all those things on your back. But it’s great to hear that you’ve also surrounded yourself with with the crew. We’ll call them a crew. That’s this there for you.
Amina Moreau 1:04:17
Village. No, one person can do this alone, Michael No,
Rolando Rosas 1:04:22
no, you got to have you have you got to have a good team. And you got to be ready and prepared. And you knew, since you’re a tennis player, we’re gonna do a rapid fire segment where we’re shooting hard and fast at you to see and this is just fun. Again, nothing here where you know, it’s super serious. We’re just gonna ask you a series of questions in whatever hits your brain whatever hits your mind. You tell me what you think. When When Dave and I give you this phrase. So you ready for rapid fire.
Amina Moreau 1:04:51
Ready?
Rolando Rosas 1:04:52
All right. I’ll kick it off. Walmart versus Amazon. Oh, neither, you know, we’ve never had that response before. If you want it, we’ll go back and forth. You want to take the next one? Yeah. favorite
Dave Kelly 1:05:12
social media platform. LinkedIn. Okay. Favorite piece of tech? Probably my camera. The one that you’re using, right, your camera, the mirrorless war. Okay, the
Amina Moreau 1:05:30
mirrorless camera that I’m using right now for this conversation, but that I also use when I’m on vacation to take photos that I use for marketing, collateral, you name it, this thing is by my side all the time. And
Rolando Rosas 1:05:43
that’d be this the Sony mirrorless cam, one of the one of the versions of the Sony I’ve got. I’m using a Sony as well on on my other end of the equation as well. We have a lot of things in common we got we got to keep the conversation going after this. This taping.
Dave Kelly 1:05:59
All right. Amina, what’s the first thing you reach for in the morning?
Amina Moreau 1:06:07
I don’t want to answer this one. You take the fifth phone. It’s my phone. Of course. It’s my phone. I have an addiction as most of us do. I got a really let back.
Rolando Rosas 1:06:19
No doubt I you know what I’ll fess up to versus the bathroom, then the phone and or the phone into the bathroom in the morning? That That seems healthier. Last question here. Now you can mention. Wait, what are where we reach them in the morning? Yes, we’re in favorite podcast, right? Yep. So what is it doesn’t have to be What The Teck? would be any podcast that you absolutely love and can’t miss. What is your favorite podcast?
Amina Moreau 1:06:56
You want to know something is that I typically listen to podcast episodes when people send them to me when they make recommendations. I am not loyal to any one particular podcast. Okay, part of the reason is because I don’t have a long commute. And, and I find it hard to multitask. Like if I’m emailing, it’s really hard for me to even just listen to music, even if it’s just ambient, I have to have have quiet so the only time that I would have to listen to a cop podcast is if I were commuting and I don’t have a commute anymore. And so I listened to podcast episodes when people send them to me and say, um, you know, you gotta listen to this, you’re gonna love it. But otherwise I don’t have a go to but open my mind because if you think that I should, then I
Rolando Rosas 1:07:45
was one that I’m nerding out on right now. I really and I shared this with with our team as well is Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO. He’s a British citizen, and he’s on the British version of Shark Tank called Dragon’s Den. And he’s had a number of different guests, you know, some professors some doing Break, break, groundbreaking work in the field of of nutrition and health and all different types of business. He’s had celebrities, he has musicians, but he’s really tapping into something, you know, podcast, and you know, having all these different leaders thought leadership and people that are leaders in their business or industry, and then sharing either their stories and their successes and failures. And then you know, you take away you know, what, you learned a few things. That’s what I love doing. I love learning and so anything that’s gonna give me a leg up or teach me a little thing or two, so dyers seal is one for me. It’s a lot. A lot,
Dave Kelly 1:08:46
you know about him, not just with the content that he puts out, but how he puts it out and his production. Thumbnails and yeah, The Diary of a CEO Steven Bartlett.
Rolando Rosas 1:08:57
Hold on. Big props. Big props to Steven Bartlett and Diary of a CEO and Grace Andrews, who’s the head of marketing over there. I’d love to talk to grace or Steven. So come on down. I got an open microphone for you. And the
Dave Kelly 1:09:13
last question in our rapid fire. What’s a what’s a book that you’ve read? That was just game changing for you? Huh? Got
Rolando Rosas 1:09:23
a bunch of them behind you. Yeah,
Amina Moreau 1:09:25
they’re it’s hard to pick just one. But I really loved Grit by Angela Duckworth. She defines grit as the combination of passion and perseverance, which CEOs need to have. entrepreneurs need to have athletes need to have frankly, I think it’s it’s great for anybody to have. But it was a fascinating book that taught me a lot about myself and where some of the traits that I have in my personality came from.
Rolando Rosas 1:09:57
That I’m gonna have to check that out and Lastly, here’s not a rapid fire question. But if folks want to follow you get in touch with you. What’s the best way they can do that?
Amina Moreau 1:10:08
I am quite active on LinkedIn. So connect with me there. Send me a DM, certainly by email. And if you’d like to check out the Radious platform, you can find that at radious.pro.
Rolando Rosas 1:10:20
Awesome. Well, thank you, Amina. I really appreciate you coming on today given us a wealth of information. And if you’re curious to learn from other company failures, and want to avoid big mistakes, check out our previous episodes where we reveal several missteps from companies like Compaq, sunbeam, and Sports Authority. I love that one Dave with your story from Sports Authority, which is hilarious. I won’t give it away. So if you haven’t heard that episode, go check that out. And thanks for joining us today and we will see you in the next episode.
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