Picking Up the Guitar, Building Startups & Thinking in Decades | Sam Reti

Sam Reti: for a long time was like, man, this thing is not taking off. It's not doing what I need to do. But then when I stepped back and looked at it in the scope of years, I was like, wow, we've gotten so far in the last couple of years that, you know, it's, it's kind of crazy.

Carmen: Hey everyone, this is Carmen Devat and I will be hosting today's episode of Behind the Founders. Joining me here today is Sam Reti. Sam, welcome. Can you please introduce yourself?

Sam Reti: Hi, yes, thank you so much for having me. my name is Sam Reddy. I am a musician. I'm also the founder of a couple of software companies, Musi.live, which is a music education platform, Hive, which is a business video conferencing service, and BloomHG, which is a app for complicated pregnancies. So I do quite a bit of different things, but I'm really excited to be here and

Carmen: Yeah, very, very excited for us to jump and dive into this deeper as well. So to get us started, Sam, obviously you have quite a range of different business or platforms that you're developing from music, from health, from the digital world as well. But let's talk a little bit about your life before you started founding Hive Bloom and Musie. So tell me a little bit about your journey before you started to build your first software company.

Sam Reti: Yeah, I I guess it started when I picked up the guitar for the first time. my family, my dad was a professional drummer back in the 80s and he turned us into a software developer. So when I grew up, there's always instruments in the house. So I picked up a guitar when I was about 12 years old and started playing. And that was one of those moments where I was like, okay, this is the thing I'm gonna do. And I played every day and it was really cool having him at home because he played drums. So we used to jam every afternoon. I'd get home from school and my dad would jump on the drum kit and I'd play the guitar. And that kind of spiraled all the way out to college. I went to Berkeley College of Music.

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: and so I was I was hell bent on being a musician. You know, I I was in a band, we were touring and making records and all of that kind of stuff. And so

Carmen: Okay. Very cool.

Sam Reti: I thought I was taking that traditional musician path. but

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: as many things go, it kind of crumbled. and I needed to think of, okay, how do I actually make a career in music? And so I started thinking about what kind of technology might be useful. And as a at the same time, I got really lucky because in school there was a new class that just got launched and it was called the Startup Lab and it was in partnership with MIT. So Berkeley

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: and MIT are right across the road from each other. So I actually took that class and that was where I developed my very first product. And that was the thing that jumpstarted all of this madness that is still going on today.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Wow. first of all, I just wanted to say, I mean, I I have like a lot of different questions as well, but you have a band that's really cool. What kind of music did you guys play? what happened to the band?

Sam Reti: Yeah, we played so w it was progressive metal, so it was instrumental music, so we didn't have a singer.

Carmen: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Reti: and it was guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and we we played and toured a bunch. the band was called Zombie Frogs. so so you know, I

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: it's a silly name, but we did take the music very seriously, just not the names.

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: And and

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: anything, it it actually it started to grow pretty aggressively. We played our first show, and then like four shows later, we were already booked on a cruise to go play a festival in the Bahamas. And

Carmen: Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Sam Reti: so it it was one of those things where we were young, you know, we were 19, 20 years old, had never really run a business, which a band very much is a business, and things

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: just got out of hand really fast. We wrote some really cool music, put out some good records, and got booked

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: on a bunch of shows, but it was almost too much too quickly. And I think that

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: was actually the biggest issue for us is we almost weren't prepared. And so we started getting record contract offers and then different deals and different tours and different promotions, and that kind of started the inner conflict of nobody really knew what we should be doing. So we were all arguing

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: and And eventually, one person left and then another. And then it just fizzled away. And so it was a bit of a shame, but it was

Carmen: Okay, okay. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: a really great learning curve because that was definitely the first company I've ever run was, being in a band. but

Carmen: Mm, mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we just w I just think we didn't know what to do with ourselves at the time.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: if it was one of those things, if it had happened five years later or we had at least had a little bit of time

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: to be a band.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we started the band in September and by February we're already getting booked on these pretty big shows. Really fast. So we

Carmen: Okay, it happened really quickly as well. Yeah.

Sam Reti: we just didn't have time to meld as a unit.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: and I think that was really what kind of messed things up. So it's it's almost ironic

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: that like growth too quickly was the problem. so it was a

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Sam Reti: bit of a crash and burn, but I'd pivoted onto the technology stuff and was able to take the energy and and push it forward elsewhere.

Carmen: Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I think it is quite interesting what you mentioned about sometimes, contrary to what a lot of other discussions you hear about the entrepreneurship world, is that sometimes it's best to scale or progress at a slower pace rather than progress really quickly because obviously you wouldn't have the time or capacity to be able to structure, align whether it's in communication, whether it's in strategy, whether it's in planning, or who is responsible for what. so that's definitely quite an interesting

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: learning curve that I can imagine that you had to go through too.

Sam Reti: Yeah, absolutely. And it it it absolutely applies to where I'm at now. And I I very much do

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: take the opposite approach. I'm very I wouldn't say I'm very cautious, but I I take

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: my time with things and I really do think it through before doing something.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: There are times where you have to make a snap decision and just get going, but

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: those are That's the point is you spend the decade learning how to make those good decisions when you need to. And so I think where

Carmen: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I'm at now is is almost a response to what happened in in the band.

Carmen: yeah, absolutely for sure. And have you ever considered whether getting

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: back together with the band again or restarting a new band? What are your thoughts around that?

Sam Reti: Yeah, honestly, I don't have the time anymore, but every

Carmen: yeah, it makes sense. Yeah.

Sam Reti: so often it floats back into my head. I'll like write a song or something and I'll pick on my

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: guitar and start playing. And I'm still really close with the other guitar player that was in the band.

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: And so, you know, I'll send him a text message and I'd be like, All right, what do we do in this and you know, it's always yeah, we really we should, we should, but the nowadays it it is a full company. So it really is like if you're gonna start a band, you're building another product, you're doing a whole new marketing, you've got to really treat it

Carmen: Absolutely.

Sam Reti: like a business, or you just treat it as a project and you just have some fun with it. And I think for us, we can't treat it like a project because

Carmen: Mm-hmm. yeah, that makes a difference. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: it would almost underserve what we were doing. And so I

Carmen: Course.

Sam Reti: think we're sort of stuck in this position where it's almost like we can't do it again because it's gotta be bigger and better than it was before. And we just haven't we haven't yeah, it's an all or nothing with that.

Carmen: Of course. It's like an all or nothing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I I do think there will be a point where we do do something or I write some new music. I've written songs here and there on my own, just

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: to put out, but not to sort of the level that we used to do it at.

Carmen: Mm, yeah, for sure. I kind of resonate what you mentioned about, you know, the when you start a band, it does take up a lot of

Sam Reti: Uh-huh.

Carmen: commitment as well. Like I remember in one of the previous companies or startups I worked with, we also formed a band as well, and it's called Dead Buffaloes. It's called Dead Buffaloes. Yeah, yeah. It it's a funny story how the name Exactly, exactly. Sometimes, you know, you come up with the weirdest names as well. And

Sam Reti: Yeah. Awesome. That's great. Zombie frogs and dead buffaloes, that's great. Yeah.

Carmen: we we were just doing We were just doing some covers of different rock music and everything like that. And we would perform at different company events. But even that, it was really hard for us in terms of tying capacity because at the same time we all had full-time jobs.

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: So I completely understand what you mean when it comes to the commitment, capacity, either it's something completely big or whether it's a side project, depending on capacity and commitment and so on.

Sam Reti: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And and I honestly all the other businesses I run are like that too. whenever

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: I start a new thing, I have to categorize it as side project or real company. I've got like twenty side projects. You know, I've things that

Carmen: Mm, mhm, mhm.

Sam Reti: are almost companies, but I just can't devote the energy and time to them. So they end up staying in the side project folder.

Carmen: Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I also believe that sometimes what I find is that if the side projects were to turn into something full time, probably you won't enjoy it as much as you would like because it won't be like a

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: hobby versus actually turning it into like a full-time job or something like that.

Sam Reti: Yeah, that was actually a really interesting learning curve that I got when I went to college because for

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: me I had been playing music for the love of playing music. And I was

Carmen: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: playing with my dad, I was playing in local bands like in high school and recording friends and doing all that. And then I get to school and we start this band, and now it's not a hobby. It is

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: It's not not that it was like we're making tons of money or anything, but it was very much a job. You had to show up to rehearsal. You had to know your music. You there was no yeah,

Carmen: Mhm. yeah. Absolutely. Especially the rehearsals, yeah.

Sam Reti: there was no option to be like, we'll just do it some other time. It was no, we need

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: to do it now because we have obligations. And so I really do like I say, I think playing in a band, anyone listening that's a musician, I think will get it that like that is A business and how you structure it too. there are bands

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: that are structured very corporate, There there'll be bands

Carmen: absolutely, yeah.

Sam Reti: where the there's like a leader who hires the rest of the members, but from our

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: point of view, we don't notice that. We just think they're one unit. Then there's other bands where they're like all partners and they all share

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: ownership. And so it's really interesting how parallel those two worlds run.

Carmen: Absolutely. And also that even when you show up to rehearsals as a band, you're also outside of the band rehearsals, you're also expected to rehearse or practice individually

Sam Reti: yeah.

Carmen: as well. That is something that is really key, in order to be able to see what it's like once you merge together as a band.

Sam Reti: Definitely. Yeah, yeah. It's it's like anything really. It's like even like regular work, I you know, you you

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: you put in your days at the office, but with a band, your office is you practicing in your room

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: by yourself. And then it's like When your project's done that at a work thing, or when you have a big event or a showcase or something, that's the rehearsal or the performance.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: so it it is very much the same thing. And I do think one good thing about doing all of that is it really builds the mental model for you for sitting down and understanding that if you want to get from A to B, there is no fast path other than dedication and practice. And I think

Carmen: Absolutely.

Sam Reti: Learning an instrument as a kid is probably one of the best things you can do for yourself as

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: a way of teaching that that is how everything else also works, you know?

Carmen: The discipline. Yes, hundred percent. I'm with you on that. I remember that as well when I I started to play the piano when I was, I think, five or six, but there were so many times where I'm just like, I want to quit. I don't want to take the

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: piano classes. It's boring. I don't enjoy the piece or the song that I'm learning.

Sam Reti: Yep.

Carmen: But I think part of it was infused,

Sam Reti: But you just push through.

Carmen: yeah, you push through, you have parents, you have the teachers, and of course you have to take certain exams to pass and everything like that. So

Sam Reti: Yep.

Carmen: I completely relate as well. There are certain aspects where you just have to push through, which of course is also relevant as well when you do business, right? There's gonna be some h lows, there's gonna be some setbacks, it's gonna be a roller coaster, but you really just have to keep on pushing and then you're gonna bear the fruits.

Sam Reti: Definitely. Yeah, no, I g I completely agree. And that that really is how I feel that my business life has been. I've been

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: doing this for probably ten years now and

Carmen: Hm.

Sam Reti: I've had the setbacks, I've had the roller coasters, I've had the quick snap decisions to change things, I've had the long haul of feeling like this is going nowhere, and then all of a

Carmen: Course.

Sam Reti: sudden this like big break that happens and

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: and you hear about all these things from other people and you're like, man, when am I gonna get my big break? Or when am I gonna and honestly

Carmen: Mm, mhm.

Sam Reti: it's it's there, but it's just keep going, it might be further

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: down. So yeah.

Carmen: Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's gonna be the light at the end of the tunnel as well. So what I'd love to learn is if you could just share and give a little bit of a deep dive about all the three different businesses you found. Starting from Musie, I did check out your website. You are founding it together with your father as well. So for the listeners, maybe they're tuning in this episode for the first time, they've never come across this music lesson platform. What is it that they can expect to find?

Sam Reti: Yeah, yeah, Immusi is the the linchpin of everything we do. it started as a college project, and which is why it's me and my dad, because at the time I was just working on it as a school thing, and he being a software engineer and a professional drummer, was like, Well, hey, I can I can help build you a little prototype. And then that prototype took on a life of its own and then ten years later we're still running the company together. And so Muzie itself, the best way of describing it, is like Zoom, but for music teachers. So that's really the thing that we specialize in is providing a service that allows people to host high quality online music lessons. So We're really big on audio quality, video quality, and providing tools in the lesson that make it feel more engaging than a typical like Zoom call would be. The biggest thing is the audio. If you try to play a guitar on a Zoom call or a piano, you the other person can't hear it. It just gets filtered out and it makes it almost impossible to do a music lesson on something like Zoom or Google Meet or you know, FaceTime or anything like that. So Muzie's main thing is we designed our own audio video infrastructure specifically to handle that that problem. And so that's why Muzie is sort of successful, is because we've found a an issue that music teachers were having and we've we've solved it with our own tech. And the cool thing is it is sh is it worked, you know. We we actually just

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: hit the other day one billion minutes of music lessons on our platform.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: So for us,

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: it really shows that teachers are on there hosting lessons, students are showing up. we've had users on our platform for s seven years, you know, you know, that have never left. So, and we get new users every day. so it's really it's really cool to be able to give back to the community that sort of made me who I am as far as a musician and everything. and then from that, Hive was born because Hive is taking all the technology from

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: Uzi. And packaging it in a couple of different ways. The first is we provide. Yeah, Hive and Muzie

Carmen: okay. So they're both connected. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: are very connected. mu it's funny because Muzie came first, but Hive is like the back end of Muzie.

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: so Hive is the infrastructure, it's the video calls, the recordings, the tools. but more importantly, it's a a developer SDK. So other companies can come in and use our SDK to build their own video conferencing services for their own products. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we might have like a a fitness platform might come in and you take our SDK and add video calls so you can do like virtual fitness classes, or you could do like telehealth, or really

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: like whatever you can think of that might require a video call, a podcasting platform. all of those things can be built using our tech. So that was the idea and the reason we did it is we started getting approached by our competitors in the music space. There were three or four companies doing the same thing as Muzie, but we kept beating them out because we were the only company on the market that actually built our own video and audio technology. So they all came to us and were like, hey, can we use your video and audio tech inside our own platform? And at first we were like, why would we help you? You're literally our competitor. And then we started

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: thinking about it. I'm like, well, hold on. I was like, if we sold this technology to all our competitors, then it wouldn't matter what happens to Muzie, because even if one of them beat us at the end of the day, we'd still win because we'd be the t the back-end technology for their platform as well. so that's how Hive kind of took off. And Hive

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: also has its own standalone platform like Zoom, which is for businesses and for sales calls and for things like that.

Carmen: Okay, going beyond the space of offering music classes and so on. Okay. Yeah.

Sam Reti: Exactly. Yeah, Hive Hive tackles the corporate world where Muse doesn't. so

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Sam Reti: that was our play to sort of move to compete with Zoom and Teams and Meet and and kind of just offer something different. And that's very AI driven. That platform

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: is like what would happen in the next generation of video calls if you started with AI and then went from there. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: A lot of other platforms are bolting on plugins that might take notes or do a meeting summary or something like that. Hive has all of that stuff, but we we integrate it at a much more foundational level. So the platform is fully agentic. So while we're talking in a call, it can float things for me. So s say this is a sales call. It will monitor the other person, track their mood and engagement levels and their responses. And then it will float suggestions to me to navigate the conversation more effectively.

Carmen: Okay. So that's what makes it very different from the other different video platforms. Okay.

Sam Reti: Yeah. Yeah. So it really has a brain. And things like if I said to you, hey, let's meet again on Wednesday at five o'clock, the system would hear me say that and it would just go book that meeting for us automatically.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: so things like that make hive sort of what I think of like the next generation of video calls.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: and then Bloom is totally different. Bloom is a good example of one of those side projects that accidentally turned into a company. With Bloom, my wife was pregnant and it she was having a very complicated pregnancy. She was suffering from something called hypermesis. And it's uncontrollable vomiting that doesn't stop and it doesn't go away. And it's usually ho all the way from day one till the baby showed up. and

Carmen: during the pregnancy she was like vomiting a lot. Okay. wow.

Sam Reti: it can it can be fatal to the mother, it can be fatal to the baby, it can be it i is hospital inducing. We we spent months in hospitals. so we built a platform that allowed us to start tracking everything that the doctors were asking about the symptoms and about the medications and everything. so sh but sort of part way through her pregnancy, she ended up with a feeding tube and a PIC line, which is like an IV permanent like IV medline.

Carmen: yeah, mm hmm.

Sam Reti: And doctors were asking us at every appointment, you know. These are the meds you need to take. This is the regiment you need to do. And these are the other things we need you to track. And for a while we just had the craziest spreadsheet of all time. so I sat down one day and I was like, all right, I gotta put all of this into an app, because I cannot keep track of this. So I built Bloom just for me. And so the

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: idea was build a platform so I can track all of this stuff so that when the

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: doctors ask me what's going on, I have an answer. And so we did that. And then my wife was in a support group and she she just sort of said, Hey, my husband built me this really cool app. It's, you know, we're using it to track all our stuff. and then 500 women reached out and were like, Hey, we need

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: this too. And we were like, okay. so I was like, Let me do some research because there's obviously like legal implications with medical and stuff like that. Luckily my dad actually has a background in medical software as well. So he doesn't work on Bloom with me, but it was very helpful to have someone to ask questions to. Yeah.

Carmen: Mm, to give you guidance. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And so we built Bloom and we rolled it out to the public. And literally in the first four days or something, four hundred people had signed up. And so we're like, no. I was like, I guess we've accidentally turned our hobby project into a business. And

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: so That's now running and we're supporting women all over the world that are fighting hyperemesis. so it's is a niche thing, but it it does impact about one to three percent of all pregnancies. most

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: just go undiagnosed. So we're gonna be working with foundations now to see if we can get research, use some of the information we're collecting to get better research to maybe find a cure. Cause right now there's no cure for it. You just kinda have to suffer through.

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: so yeah, that's kind of how Bloom happened. And but yeah, so it's a bit different, but that's one of the side projects that sort of took off into a business.

Carmen: Okay, okay. Yeah, and I can kind of see that through all these different businesses that you have developed and built, it's all about really it's also it's about solving a problem, but also like address something related to a really personal story as well,

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: which I think is really really inspiring. And of course, I have so many questions to follow up. I I don't even know where to begin, but first and foremost. just wanna say, I can't imagine what your wife had to go through, throughout the entire pregnancy, because I have heard that sometimes you can really feel like you are actually sick because of all the symptoms that you have to deal with. I had one friend, she also experienced something really simil similar where she was always constantly nauseous, vomiting until she gave birth, then everything went away as

Sam Reti: Yeah, I that's a good

Carmen: well. So I think I should definitely tell her about this app as well. So more people would know about it too. Yeah.

Sam Reti: Yeah, I think that well and that's the problem is most of the times it goes undiagnosed because people just say, it's morning sickness. It's just morning sickness. But it's it's not. It goes and there's

Carmen: undiagnosed. Yeah, it's normal. Yeah, yeah. It's not

Sam Reti: obviously ranges of how bad it can be. Unfortunately

Carmen: Course.

Sam Reti: for my wife, the doctor here told us that it was the worst case he'd ever seen. So that was obviously not great. So but

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: yeah, I mean think for business you do have to hit sort of two things. Like you have to

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: solve a problem. has to be a real problem. It can't just be something that you've decided is a problem. You've got to see the problem and it's best if you've lived the problem. Cause that's really

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: the only way you're going to know how to lead that company. And

Carmen: Mm. absolutely for sure.

Sam Reti: Muse and Hive are a great example of we had a problem and it was a personal problem because I wanted to teach at the time I was teaching guitar lessons and I couldn't teach online. So then we solved that problem and then found there were thousands, tens of thousands of teachers out there who were like, hey, I have the same problem. And

Carmen: Experiencing the same problem. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: then for Bloom it was the same thing. It was super personal. And we had no intention of making it a a company.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And then I because I didn't know that this was that pro big of an issue. And then all of these

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: people came out of the woodworks being like, Hey, nobody helps us. Finally someone is helping us. And then it

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: felt, we couldn't not provide it. I felt like It was almost an obligation to give it to, make it available to people. Yeah. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm. To give back to the community as well. Yeah.

Sam Reti: yeah, I I think that's crucial to b running a business.

Carmen: Course, yeah, absolutely and also believing in the solution that you have to provide or that that you with the problem that you have to solve as well. So one of the questions I wanted to ask is with Bloom, how many users do you currently have using this app? Because I can imagine it really exploded exponentially as well with the number of people who are interested and investing in this app.

Sam Reti: Yeah, a bloom's really interesting because it has a very weird life cycle. It's a product that's only used while you're pregnant. So it's

Carmen: Yeah, that makes sense.

Sam Reti: it's this really interesting, like the total number of users does just keep growing. But the active users almost stays the same in a way, because

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: it grows and it's it's actually it's the funniest thing with Bloom is it's the one app that I would love if nobody ever needed to use it ever again. And

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: so it it was and we're partnering and working with foundations and we're working now to do some more of that stuff. So it's growing into the thousands of users. but the funny thing is, is like every f month or so a whole bunch of people drop off. And that's Good news. usually

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: that's a that's a good sign, which is, hey, they've had their baby or they've overcome the issue and they're they're feeling good

Carmen: Mm-hmm. They've overcome the issue.

Sam Reti: again and they, you know, can continue on. so it's really

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: funny because like if I look at hive and newsy, I'm spending all my time thinking, how can I get more users? How can I grow this? How can I,

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: you know, perpetual motion machine for for them. Where with Bloom I'm over here being like, Okay, how do we make it accessible to people? How do we get everyone who needs it to have access to it? But also, how do we make it so nobody ever needs this thing? And that's

Carmen: Mm-hmm, for sure.

Sam Reti: a really weird problem to have. And that's why we're gonna start partnering with foundations,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: because then we can work with research labs to actually get that

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: data into the hands of the researchers who can then figure out if there really is a cure. and how we can handle that. So yeah, it's it's funny because Bloom grows, but almost in a way where I I almost don't want it to, but it it's good that people are finding it.

Carmen: Yeah, because of the issue. Yeah, of course.

Sam Reti: Yeah, but it's almost like disheartening to see that there's this many people that are having this problem. so yeah, it's a it's an odd situation to be in as a as a software founder, you know?

Carmen: Of course. Yeah, absolutely for sure. Because in a way it's like, if you have less users, then of course it's a good sign because that means they resolve the issue. But if there's more, of course, it is beneficial in terms of the the use of the app as well. Yeah. So okay.

Sam Reti: Exactly. Yeah. So so yeah, it's a it's a weird one, isn't it?

Carmen: Yeah, absolutely for sure. I I want to go back to and talk a little bit more about Musy as well. So what I love to know is that so you are providing essentially an online platform. Where music teachers are able to offer music lessons to students. So from the statistics that you've gathered, what kind of music lessons have they provided? Are they a lot of guitar lessons, piano lessons, singing lessons? I'd love to learn a little bit more about

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: this.

Sam Reti: Yeah, it's really interesting. I as a guitar player assumed that the majority of lessons were gonna be guitar lessons. But naively I didn't think about the fact that piano outs numbers guitar ten to one. So piano lessons are by far the the largest number by like five times as many. Yeah.

Carmen: The most popular one, okay.

Sam Reti: so many more piano teachers than anyone else. The cool thing there though is we got teachers in ninety almost a hundred countries. So they're the what they teach is all over the spectrum. and what's really interesting too is there's instruments on music that I've literally never heard of. and we don't have an instrument specific

Carmen: okay.

Sam Reti: platform. Like you can teach any instrument. That was a big part of what we wanted to do. But you know I remember meeting a teacher in Ireland who was teaching the Ulean pipes, which is like a type of bagpipe. we have teachers that teach whistling

Carmen: Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds like a Irish bagpipe.

Sam Reti: Yeah, exactly. And we have we have teachers who do whistling lessons. and like really,

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: really impressive, like I've heard them like do it and it's like, whoa, okay. You're like that's not the whistling that I do. You know? So

Carmen: Okay. That's quite unique. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Sam Reti: the the obvious ones are the at the top. It's you know, piano, guitar, voice, bass, drums, like like you'd expect.

Carmen: Drums, okay.

Sam Reti: but then a lot of string teachers, lots of violin teachers, cello, all of the all all of the orchestra instruments are are represented. We have quite a few orchestras that use the platform too to do orchestra rehearsals. So and then we have public schools as well, so a lot of like

Carmen: Okay. Okay.

Sam Reti: band instruments like trumpets and horns and things like that. but then yeah, I I find the most fascinating is the instruments that I'm like, I have to like Google what it is. I'm like be like some really interesting multiple stringed instrument,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: a a a harp or a hurdy-girdie or something. And I'll I'll be like, Whoo, what's that? And then I'll go listen to some music and I'm like, whoa, that's cool.

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: so it's really interesting seeing what people teach and how they teach

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: is even more kind of wide spectrum. Is teachers will do private lessons, they'll do group classes, they'll do pre-made courses that they offer to to people, they'll do webinars and events and recitals and a a whole slew of different styles of teaching. and and it's fun 'cause I talk to a lot of the teachers that come onto the platform. I stay very involved with music. pro being a guitar teacher at one point helps a lot. So I know what it is they need and what they're looking for. So I like to get in the weed sometimes and put my head around. Yeah.

Carmen: Of course, of course. You have the background knowledge as well. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And so it's really interesting hearing

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: what people are working on or what, what they're trying to do. And with Muzie, we just rolled out a new version of our product. it's been on the market for seven or eight years, but we just rebuilt the whole thing from scratch at the beginning of this year, and we just launched it in August. And the crazy thing is since launching in August, we've doubled the number of users on the platform from the entire time of having Muzie. So the last two months have

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: been absolutely insane. so it's it's

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: pretty cool to see that online music lessons are not going away. One thing we hear a lot is, hey, do you think after COVID no one wants online lessons anymore? And the answer is the total opposite. Is yes, COVID forced

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: people to teach online, but now we're seeing

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: so many new teachers show up, especially

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: younger teachers. I mean, you gotta think if you're coming out of college, you don't have a space to teach students. You might live in an apartment with three or four other people. And so the best option

Carmen: That's true, yeah.

Sam Reti: for you is to have a computer and your instrument and

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: offer online lessons. And now the quality is good enough that you can you can provide that to your students. what's really fascinating is all the different instruments that people are teaching. We see people from all over the world teaching things that I've never even heard of. So it's really quite fascinating to have them come on the platform and use it for teaching their lessons. Same we got teachers that teach whistling. We have teachers that teach different kinds of bagpipes and stringed instruments I've never heard of. Again, the typical instruments are the most prolific. Of course, a lot of piano, guitar, band instruments, things like that, as I was saying. But you'd be surprised how many instruments are on there that you have no clue what they are. So you go and look them up and listen to some music. Yeah,

Carmen: Mm-hmm. It just bronze your mind. Yeah.

Sam Reti: it's fascinating. And music's expanded all over the globe. We have teachers in countries that we never expected to be reaching. so it's really quite cool to see how much it's grown.

Carmen: Mm. Yeah, for sure. How many countries or how many currently, how many teachers do you have accessing using that platform?

Sam Reti: Yeah, there's something like 100 countries I'd have to look to see. We have a cool map actually that shows you all the countries lit up as people like log in.

Carmen: Okay. that's amazing. Love it. Yeah, very international.

Sam Reti: And there's 30,000 something teachers and students using Muzee right now. So

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: it's pretty cool. And I saying, we've grown almost double the company like

Carmen: Yeah

Sam Reti: the user size in the last couple of months. So it's

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: been a really interesting journey to see the new platform take over and

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: people clearly responding well to it. So

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: yeah, we're in the long haul now of seeing what we can do for people and providing a platform for teachers going down the line in the future.

Carmen: Yeah, for sure. I wanted to ask you. So you mentioned that this new platform enabled you to double the amount of users as well. From your perspective or, you know, your analysis, what do you think made it possible that there was more, I would say, awareness or visibility that kind of dro drew other people to use or have access to this platform?

Sam Reti: Yeah, I actually think this is an interesting situation where it's the product itself that made the difference. We did

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: not change anything about our marketing strategies. Muzee is a very organic product. The music teaching world is big but tight. So when a teacher finds something they like, they tell other teachers. And so I think with the

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: new platform is it just worked so much better than the old one. And it was providing lessons that were just such good quality that we were able to have teachers come on for the first time and be like, whoa, this is amazing. I got to go tell everybody. And teachers

Carmen: Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

Sam Reti: who have been using music for the last seven years went,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: wow, this is a huge improvement. And they went and told everybody. And so

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: from a marketing point of view, we actually didn't do anything different. actually haven't been running any ads or anything. We've just done occasional emails here and there just to let people know what's going on. And we'll do maybe a podcast here and there to kind of reach out. But

Carmen: Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Sam Reti: yeah, we've not actually changed anything. So normally I would say the product is usually not the driving factor for your marketing, but we already have an established business. We have an established audience. So I think for us, making the product that much better was actually the thing that reignited that audience to be like, wow, these guys are doing something pretty cool. And also sort of reinvigorated the energy around the online teaching space for teachers that maybe do a little bit to be like, you know, I could probably do some more of that. Or teachers who were maybe on the edge and they were thinking about doing online teaching, then dip their toes and see what's possible now. go, wow, okay, this is way more than I thought. And because I think everyone compares what we do to their experience on Zoom during the COVID pandemic.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And a lot of people had a really, really bad experience using Zoom during the pandemic for

Carmen: Course.

Sam Reti: a whole bunch of reasons. But I think not only the technology jump, but the seven years of understanding the needs of teachers, our learning

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: as a company, all of that has sort of come together to push this whole thing forward. And so the momentum is pretty crazy right now. So we're kind of riding that wave. It

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Reti: feels honestly a little bit like the first couple of weeks of the pandemic where people were just flooding into the platform and we were trying to figure out how to handle all of the new users. But luckily we've already done that once. So we know what to do. Yeah.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. You had that experience as well. Awesome. Yeah. So, Sam, what I'd love to learn a little bit more is that because you are, I can imagine, you know, have a lot going on. You know, you're you're now a father, you're running all these three different brands. in terms of whether it's Music, whether it's Bloom or Hive, how does your team look like? Do you have second or third, fourth sets of hands to help you support to make this possible.

Sam Reti: Yeah, yeah, we do. mean, most major decisions are still made if it's Hive or Muzie or me and my dad. I mean, we

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: own the company outright. So we

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: got very lucky and were able to bootstrap those businesses

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: and never had to take investment. So for

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: Muzie and Hive, it's still the end of the day is the two of us making a decision. It's nice to have other people around that can go and do

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: some work that we normally, you know, don't want to do ourselves. And then Bloom is my wife and I run that one together. So

Carmen: Okay. Yeah.

Sam Reti: and obviously, because she understands that quite well. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: she's obviously a very good partner there. And then honestly, and I know people are going to hate me for saying this, we've replaced and I don't mean replaced by like we have a fired people. We've replaced the need for more people with AI.

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: And we've done that quite aggressively because we're a

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: lean team. We're able to each person with an agent is now three people. So that has made a big difference in how we're moving forward. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we can scale these businesses to a volume that most people don't think is possible until you see

Carmen: Hm mm.

Sam Reti: how capable a person. especially someone who really understands how to utilize AI,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: can be. So like, as an example, I think this is like kind of the most obvious example, our support line is always human support, and we still offer human support. If you say, hey, I need to talk to a person, a person will answer. If you phone our phone

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Sam Reti: line, a human being will pick up the phone. But

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: for all of the relatively mundane questions and the things that aren't urgent,

Carmen: Course. The generic ones. Yeah.

Sam Reti: We've just filtered them all to an AI model that we trained ourselves. And so

Carmen: Mm, mm.

Sam Reti: we've taken our own custom model. It's kind of cool because we have a model inside Muzy and Hive that's our own thing. So we kind of took that and trained it on our help guides. And that now answers 95 % of our chat support questions. And so

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Sam Reti: we're still there to help when we need

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: to. But the nice thing is now we're not bogged down with spending 90 % of our effort on pretty mundane stuff that really we should be focusing our attention elsewhere. almost probably back to the question about kind of scaling and growth is that in the last six months or so, we've also optimized the business to a point where a couple of people with AI have become so efficient that we now operate like a team of 20 when there's really only four or five of us, you know? So

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: that's really one of the things that has allowed us to do what we do. so yeah, I know I obviously there are people out there who will be like, Hating this part of the conversation. Cause there's a

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: lot of people that don't, you know, want to see you hiring more people and growing your business that way, which is fine. And there are areas where that is totally the right move. But for a

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: lot of what we do for things that are relatively menial task based jobs, we found that we can get our own AI models to do those at a 90

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: % of, you know, efficiency rate that. if we just need to check in on them every so often, that's a hell of a lot better than having to hire a bunch of employees to do something that we pretty much

Carmen: Mm, mm.

Sam Reti: could do automatically. So, yeah, we're a small company. There's four or five of us that do everything. And again, Karl and I are still the main decision makers for all of the big projects. So we're very hands on with the business. like I said, I think we've scaled these businesses to a point where a lot of people would be surprised that you could do that with such a small team. So yeah,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we got kind of lucky and it's been very, very interesting.

Carmen: Yeah, for sure. I think it's always the question about okay, when looking at the business, when scaling the business, there are definitely aspects to it where you can automate the process to save up a lot of time to make things more efficient so that you can really prioritize other things, whether it's business growth, whether

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: it's getting in more clients and everything like that. And of course, you know, I I always find these the discussions around AI very interesting. You know, everybody has such different perspectives, different

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: ideologies about okay, what is the role of AI, right? Some people are very pro AI, some people are really against AI, but it's really down to what exactly it is that you could do that you could

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: pass on and automate the process where whereas trying to maintain the human element of it too.

Sam Reti: Yeah, absolutely. like I said, we still have humans. We value... One of the things I think is interesting about our business is as much as we automate support, we still actually have a full human team there to talk to. And that in itself is... Because that's usually the first thing that gets fully automated. It's just you end up with an AI bot that you go in circles with for hours and hours. For us, it's like

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: after two questions that you don't get the right answer for, it forwards it to a person and the person starts talking to you. And so

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I saying, that combination I think is what makes this stuff so interesting is, they're how our platforms themselves actually work, is we don't believe like the next generation of music lessons is not an AI teacher. It is a teacher enhanced by AI.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And that's the next generation of sales calls is not you talking to an AI persona that is trying to sell you something is you talking to a real person who's enhanced with AI. so that kind of fits a lot of what it is that we do, both internally and externally. So,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: you know, I think that's, that's really the methodology and we're working on some really interesting sort of future technology for video calls using wearables.

Carmen: Hm. Okay.

Sam Reti: for how do you do a video call wearing a pair of smart glasses. So we're trying to solve some of those problems and AI will play an

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: even bigger role in that sort of stuff too.

Carmen: Yeah, yeah, absolutely for sure. So looking at all the different ongoing projects you have going on, would you say there are any aspects where you're like, Okay, I'm spending a lot of time on it and I would like to pass it over or delegate it for somebody to take over? what would that be if there was such a case?

Sam Reti: Yeah, I definitely am guilty of being almost too hands-on sometimes and needing other people to almost tell me to go away and let them just do

Carmen: Ha ha.

Sam Reti: their job and work.

Carmen: Course.

Sam Reti: I tried not to be overbearing or anything, but I just get excited about all of it. And

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: so I find myself tinkering with things all the time. to me, it's the grunt work, the... answering a million chat support questions or doing tons of demos for the product or the

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: stuff. I'm not a good salesman. So like I don't love the sales side of business.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And as the CEO, I probably should be, but that is where I'm the first person I hire whenever I can is a good salesperson. Because that's like,

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: thanks. You do those calls now and you bring the clients through. Cause I just, I just, I'm not good at it. It's funny cause everyone in my

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: family works in some kind of sales otherwise. So they're all great

Carmen: Okay, yeah.

Sam Reti: at it, but I'm terrible at it. So

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: sales is definitely where I'm like, I got to delegate this out because I think I do more harm than good there.

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: I just, I don't think that's my skillset. I'm quite a good designer. So I'm pretty

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: good at like designing products. So one thing I've leaned into more, when I, since I've given away a lot of the sales responsibility is more product design, because I really enjoy it. And I, and it was something that I learned over the years of building. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: it's allowed me to not focus on the selling of the business and focus more on building the best product that the business can offer. Like I was saying, I think

Carmen: course designing the product and everything. Yeah.

Sam Reti: that was the solution to our, our problem with Newsy, which he wasn't like falling apart or anything. but it wasn't growing nearly as fast as it is now. And I think now

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: we have the combination of good sales and a really good product. So I think my

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: effort is best spent on the product side and delegating

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: out any of the sales work is my best use of energy and time.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. I think it's definitely very interesting to reflect and evaluate, okay, and utilize the different strengths and also I would say the I don't really like the term weakness, but I would just say, you know, areas where

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: you don't really feel so confident in as well. And that

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: way, you know, you're able to really function as a team, as a unit as well, to be able to continuously ensure that there is growth in all the different areas as well.

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: Okay, so Sam, tell me a little bit more. I know you mentioned a little bit about you have you recently launched a new platform for Muzie. besides that, besides that, what's next for you for Bloom, for Hive that you're planning to solve?

Sam Reti: Yeah, the big thing I think that we're working on right now, and this is, it's like technically an R &D project right now. We haven't shown anybody this publicly, but I sort of briefly mentioned it, is we're working on figuring out what does the future of video calls look like when the medium is not a computer or a phone. And the amount of smart glasses that are being produced is doubling every year. And I do strongly believe that they're not going to replace phones completely, but they are going to become a meaningful segment of the technology

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: market. And so our thought is if you're wearing a pair of glasses and you want to video call someone, how do you do that? Because the glasses are here. They're right on your face. They can't point a camera at you and you'd this weird close-up view of your face, which would be really strange. So we're working on technology that creates avatars of you in real time that you can then do video calls with. And the video call, so when you're on the call with someone, you see a 3D hologram of them and they'll see a hologram of you. So it's really

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: like hologram technology is kind of the next

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: evolution. And we've made some really interesting

Carmen: Yeah, in Star Wars as well. They have those holograms too. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: Literally that that's the idea if you watch any sci-fi movie at some point in the movie someone puts on a pair of glasses not a VR headset, right? it's got to be just a regular pair of glasses and They can see like a floating head and they can talk to that head or they can see like a whole person As if they're right there in front of them. So that's

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, as though they're in the same room. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Reti: basically what we're building is So like you and I could have this conversation and the cool thing is I could be sat over there not having to stand next to the camera I can just have my glasses on and I might be sat in a chair. And

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I don't have to, you know, I might have a messy hair and whatever, but the hologram you're seeing is me, photorealistic

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: version of me, not a cartoon, not like

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: some ghostly creepy, you know, thing, not an AI avatar either. You know, the thing

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: that's different about what we're doing is we're not generating something that kind of looks like you. We are generating

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: a photorealistic version of you. And then

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: you control it almost like puppeteering by what you say, how you say your body movements. We can track all that information and stick it on the avatar so fast that it's instant real-time communication with

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: somebody anywhere in the world and as many people as you want. So that's

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: an interesting market because it's not quite a problem yet, but it's a problem that we foresee coming down the line. And it's something that we're really interested in because there's companies, Facebook is working on it. Google is working on it. Apple has sort of shown a demo with their vision headsets, their FaceTime thing. But again, ours is not VR. It's all about like projecting into real space. So, yeah, that's really where the kind of crazy tech is going. And that's

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: the big project that we're working on under the hood.

Carmen: Yeah, it's always fascinating to see the evolution of how what tech can actually do as well. So I'm always genuinely excited or curious to see what it's gonna be in ten years' time or five years time and everything like that. It's always very interesting to see as well.

Sam Reti: Yeah.

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: Yeah. I think I spend a lot of my day thinking about that exact thing is what does this all look like in 10 years? Because 10 years ago, I don't think I had a good image of what it looks like now. And so

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I think now, you know, when I sit down and think about where do we point these companies and what are the things we can be doing and how can we enhance like with Muzie, we're about to roll out another product called Muzie Go. And Muzie Go is a for a lack of a better description, is like Duolingo for music. So it's like a self-paced,

Carmen: Okay, like an app. Okay.

Sam Reti: yeah, an app that's a self-paced learning platform for music theory and ear trading and rhythm studies and sight reading and all that kind of stuff. And so that kind of stuff is where we're like, okay, where can we take these businesses and expand them and reach in? With Muzy, the objective is how can we get as many people playing instruments as possible? when that number is millions of people, then I've done my job. Then for Hive, the objective is how do we make communication with other people in the future feel more genuine and real? And that's

Carmen: Hm.

Sam Reti: a problem we're trying to solve over there. And then Bloom is just,

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: we cure this disease? And that

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: one's pretty straightforward. It's like a yes or no, it's pretty black or white.

Carmen: For us.

Sam Reti: If we can't cure it, then we just want to be able to help people while they deal with it. But the objective is to... collect as much information as we can, get it into the right research hands and see if someone

Carmen: Hm.

Sam Reti: could actually figure out a cure for this problem.

Carmen: Yeah.

Sam Reti: So yeah, there's a lot to do and it's gonna take years. And I think like we were talking about with the music stuff is I think having that background of understanding that these are not one year projects. These are not gonna be done next month. This is the next decade of work.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And I think being able to look at things in that timeline is a huge advantage to us to be able to say, okay, if we hunker down now and we work for 10 years on this problem, then we might see a light at the end of the tunnel where I think there's too many founders out there who are like 10 years, I want my paycheck now. I want to raise

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: a VC round and I want to sell my business in 18 months. Cause I saw on TikTok, yeah.

Carmen: Yeah. Everything's gotta be quick and fast paced.

Sam Reti: And so I think that those companies are fine and some of them work, most of them don't. But if you stick in it and really grind, I think that's the only way you build something that's actually gonna outlast you. Yeah.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Something long-term, something sustainable as well. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm really loving what you're building across all these three different businesses because it's promoting learning, it's promoting solving the health aspect and of course improving communication overall as well and having more accessibility. So, Sam, there's one final question that I always like to ask for every single one of the guests coming on to the podcast. If you could pass one advice or message or if you have multiple that you want to share to the listeners out there, what would it be?

Sam Reti: Yeah, I think I live by two things. The first is what we were just talking about, which is understand that if a problem is worth solving, it's probably not something you can solve in 20 minutes. So if you're okay with that, put in the time, put in the effort, and understand that you'll get there. But you do, you know, think of things in years, not weeks and months. And then, and then your expectations will also serve you much better and you'll be much happier doing it because you won't constantly feel like you're failing. I definitely for a long time was like, man, this thing is not taking off. It's not doing what I need to do. But then when I stepped back and looked at it in the scope of years, I was like, wow, we've gotten so far in the last couple of years that, you know, it's, it's kind of crazy. And then the other, and it's kind of unrelated almost is, I've Muzie has been five different products before it finally turned into music. So as

Carmen: Okay.

Sam Reti: much as I believe in hunkering down and really taking a task to the end, there is also something to be said about knowing when it's time to move on from something. And so I know these two

Carmen: Okay, that's interesting.

Sam Reti: things are completely contradictory opinions, but I do think they firmly live together, which is if you've, you know, it's like the gambler fallacy. Like you don't have to keep working on something if it's actually not working.

Carmen: Mm.

Sam Reti: It's okay to push it to the side and pivot it and move it around. Don't just quit because you're frustrated. But it is okay to stop doing something if you can validate that your energy is better spent somewhere else.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: so like Muzy is a great example. Muzy started out as a practice app for college students. Then it turned into this like weird little widget that never even got released. Then it turned into a marketplace for teachers. and then finally it turned into Muze. And it would never have made it there if we didn't, first of all, that path that I just described was five years, right? So it's five years of trying different things until we finally

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Trial and error. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: figured something that was right. And then even within Muze itself, we were constantly wiggling it to fit where we wanted to go in the future. So as much as I believe you need to hunker down and really take time and work on things for... for the full sort of fruition of the project. I also think it's really important to understand when that project is truly not gonna go anyway, and that it is okay to put it aside as long as you're putting it aside for the right reason. And you're not just putting it you're frustrated about something. So

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: I know they're contradictory points, but I think those two, if you can balance them, I think that will help.

Carmen: Hmm. Yeah, I think that's definitely a very refreshing reminder as well, because at some point, you you will know when you know. It's it's not about it's not like a sign of defeat or you're giving up. It's like sometimes you're trying

Sam Reti: No, not at all, yeah.

Carmen: different things. If one thing works, maybe it like you said, it's better to invest that energy and time into something else that would work and that is also more sustainable as well.

Sam Reti: Absolutely, yeah. mean, and it can even be within small things like with Muzie, we thought that we were going to build a marketplace for teachers, but then COVID happened and we realized we needed to pivot the business model a little bit. And it wasn't

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: that we were quitting and giving up on this thing is that we were realizing what's the ultimate goal. And the ultimate

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: goal from the beginning has always been get more people into music education and make music education more enjoyable. And

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: so we've bounced around to make that thing. It's never a straight line. And I think if people can accept that and

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Never linear. Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: you're not a loser or you didn't fail, you're just trying the next thing. And so I think we need to get rid of that stigma of like, you had a project or a business and it didn't make millions of dollars, therefore you failed. It's like, no, that's not true at all. It's like the success is the fact you even tried. yeah.

Carmen: Yeah, definitely I really love this reminder as well. And at this at the end of the day, it's it's not linear. And it's also a little bit about humbling yourselves that you know, it's like there is also this I forgot who said this. You probably know it's a saying that insanity is about trying and trying again without expecting the same result. Yeah, yeah, something like that. It reminded me of that quote too. Yeah.

Sam Reti: Same thing without, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so true. I mean, that's how I view it is that if it really isn't working, it's okay to move on, but don't quit because you're frustrated. Like, that's not a good reason. You have to actually have evidence to show that it's not working. But also

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Exactly. It's about adapting. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Reti: know that you put in the right amount of effort to see through the project. or the business or whatever it is. And making millions of dollars is not the benchmark of success. To me personally, the benchmark of success is the fact that you even bothered to try in the first place, regardless

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sam Reti: of how far the thing went. I build widgets

Carmen: Let

Sam Reti: and projects all the time just because I'm curious to see where those things might go. Most of them don't go anywhere. I failed more than almost anyone listening to this. It's like a daily ritual of trying and failing at something.

Carmen: Mm-hmm.

Sam Reti: And so getting comfortable in failure is also another thing that will really help if you want to stick through and if like entrepreneurship is the thing you want. Like for me, I don't see a world where I'm not creating and building. So I'll just keep trying things until something sticks and luckily, you

Carmen: Until something sticks.

Sam Reti: know. I think Musee and Hive and Bloom are doing that, but hey, who knows? They could all disappear next week, but I'll just start something else, So, I just, I kind of addicted to the process almost.

Carmen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. Well, Sam, I really, really enjoyed this conversation with you. And I'm pretty sure that the listeners tuning in, they're going to benefit from listening to this episode, from taking a lot of different learnings as well in the creative space, in the health space. We'll definitely include all the websites, the links, the tools, the platforms. You just send it over so that people can check it out, whether they're interested in learning the music, interested in the video infrastructure, also the health app for all the women who are. who are in need or struggling as well. I think that's very, very what you're doing. It's so, it's very meaningful as well. So Sam, thank you so much again. This is Behind the Founders

Sam Reti: Absolutely.

Carmen: and be sure to stay tuned for the next episode.

Sam Reti: Thank you so much.