Episode 35: Elad Schaffer, Co-Founder and CEO at Faye

[MUSIC] This is so much fun, having you here. Thank you, El Adchefer, co-founder, CEO of Faye. It's such a pleasure having you here as our guest. >> Thank you for having me. >> We're going to have so much fun together. >> I know. >> And let's start with telling us a little bit about Faye. >> Sure. So Faye is building the most lovable travel insurance in the United States. We're there to protect travelers wherever they are in the world. Looking after them, not just from an insurance perspective, but also from assistance and information. So we believe that our role as your travel insurance provider is to look after you when you travel and not just be a reimbursement service. >> Wow, I loved how you said the most lovable service. It's only available in the United States for now. >> That's right. So insurance is highly regulated. You actually need to be licensed, in fact, multiple licenses per state in which you operate. >> Wow. Each state separately. >> 100%. >> Yeah. >> So we now have over a hundred different licenses to operate selling insurance, handling insurance claims across the US. And we're going to be nationwide by the end of this quarter. So we're now live in 48 states. >> So exciting, that's amazing. And when are you coming to Israel? I want to have you guys as an insurance. >> Well, we believe there is such a big opportunity in the US. So we're probably going to stay around and focus on that geography first. But we certainly have global aspirations. >> That sounds really inspiring, but before we dive into Faye, I want to dive a little bit into an ad. I would really want you to share with us a little bit about the story of how the entrepreneur that you are came about from the child that you were to the grownup that you are today. And all the things that served you along the way. So let's start from the beginning. How did it all start? >> Sure. So Amalad was born in Jerusalem in Israel. And I grew up pretty normal life, probably until the age of 15 or 16, when I joined different delegations on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Doing what you would probably consider diplomacy on behalf of the country. That's unusual being 15, 16 and being picked as a person to represent Israel on both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Different entities. How did that happen? >> So originally it started when I was selected to join a summer camp called Seeds of Peace that brings together Israeli and Arab youth into a summer camp in Maine in the US. To live together, spend time together, and I guess I discovered a lot of my passion for geopolitics and politics as a whole. And I had reasonable English. So they took me out and had me speak to different media outlets and write and participate in different programs to represent Israeli youth. I guess at the peak it was being the Israeli youth rep in the UN, which was a lot of-- >> What an honor. >> It was great. I really enjoyed it. And I guess that's sort of what segwayed into an almost six year military service at the Israeli intelligence corps. >> Before we get into the service, it's interesting because you're being a bit humble saying, having a reasonable English. I'm sure that we're other people with reasonable English and your English is way beyond reasonable. Was there anything that prepared you to the capability of being a speaker, public speaker, being able to stand up for beliefs and protecting some very challenging positions that Israel was at during those days? >> So I guess I was the first child, so my parents really invested in my education and spent a lot of time with me. >> Well, the other ones are saying, okay, there's a momentum that's just going to follow us. >> I have fantastic siblings, they're doing amazing stuff in the world. But really, I feel pretty fortunate to have had parents who really invested in my education and growing me up. But really, when I started just learning about the conflict and spending time thinking and shaping my own beliefs about what a better world could look like, and where do I stand on a variety of political issues? That's where I guess I discovered my passion for it. I don't think that I was ever a good public speaker, in fact I'm pretty nervous right now. >> I don't love it. >> You're doing a great job, so you really shouldn't worry about it and it doesn't show that you're nervous at all. >> When you're younger, you just don't have that fear of what you would look like. So when I was 16, I was speaking at Carnegie Hall, probably in front of thousands of people. >> Unbelievable. >> And if I had to do it today, I would probably be shaking. But yeah, that was part of the journey growing up. But you never lived abroad, you lived in Israel. >> So I lived for short periods of time in the US, I guess six months each, I guess twice. When I was six and I was 13, my father used to work at Intel, the cheap company. So we relocated twice for short periods of time, probably also helping with the English side of things, and getting some more global exposure. And that I think served as well growing up and then building companies. >> Wow, so, okay, you become the national youth spokesman in the UN. You speak in Carnegie Hall in front of thousands of people and you're not even 17 years old at that point. So from there, you go on to a path into military intelligence and the IDF. Tell us a little bit about what that taught you, which capabilities that added to your arsenal of skills. >> So I think it actually added some interesting skills. Don't always serve you as a founder of a startup. But working in the research and analysis division of the intelligence course, you're really about analyzing different topics and you're often expected to show both sides of the picture. So this is the case for why there might be a war, and this is the case for why there would not be war. So you're always taught to think about both sides of a certain question. >> It actually sounds like a fantastic skill for an entrepreneur because I think often, you need to be able to see a situation from different perspectives and understand the interests of one side and the other side. It's definitely for situations of negotiations, definitely for situations of building a product that is suitable for these kind of people and answers the needs of the investor, of the company. It, they're often not aligned and you need to bridge. >> Yeah, so you're very right in the sense of being analytical, certainly helps you in a variety of aspects around building a business and starting a startup. But I guess where it doesn't always work is you're often expected as a founder to be very passionate, to have the right answer and to sell an idea. And I guess for me, oftentimes even when I'm experiencing the quite, but honestly, a fantastic growth that Faye is enjoying today and I'm updating my board members. Hey, this is what we've done. It's so amazing and immediately I'm drawn to say, but this part is not exactly working as it should. This could improve. I really want to see this in the product and so on. >> And do you, do you present the other side to the board? >> I do, I do. And oftentimes when you're required to raise funding, then sometimes you're really expected to just be a-- >> Show just the good stuff. >> Yeah, just sell, just sell. And you don't need to balance each time the good with, hey, this could be better. And they believe, if you want to channel when you're better at the time, you got to channel your inside Adam Newman and be like this visionary and so. >> And interesting name to follow. >> You know, certainly amazing traits that it does have. And for me, it's a bit harder because I'm oftentimes drawn back to being very analytical and pros and cons of each topic that I'm facing. So I think that's something that I certainly took as well as leadership because over time, you know, you grow and I became the subject matter expert in my specific field and manage. >> Do you manage the team? >> Yeah, I manage a few dozen of intelligence analysts and spent almost six years there really enjoyed it. They decided to, I guess, go to the private sector and start school. And like, I guess what most Jewish mothers would want you to do, I started studying. >> A lawyer. >> Yeah, so I say law and an MBA. Really knowing that I probably don't want to do that, but those would be really interesting skills to have. I believe they both serve me well. But second year into law school, I actually met the person who would become my co-founder. And even though I did complete all those degrees, I actually never practiced law. And second year into law school, we founded our first company. >> Second year into law school, you already founded your first company with the co-founder that you have till this very day. >> That's right. There was a third co-founder who's a phenomenal friend still. And together we started our first company. >> This is interesting because you met studying law together. And often when you're forming a team, you're looking for a completing set of skills. So here both of you are studying the same subject. >> No, no, so actually it's even more interesting. The two co-founders we had for our first startup were Australians who made the other immigrated to Israel. And we met almost by coincidence. So serendipity plays a big role in so many places around my life and I think any startups life. >> Very true. >> So we've got a lot of people who are working on the same thing. We almost ran into each other, we were a mutual friend and sort of fell in love. And I guess a month or two later, we already started working on the business and building it out. And 13 years after, the business is still live, running, profitable, doing a lot of good stuff in the world. How did you know there was a fit? I'm not sure that I knew. I think we just started. We're very young. We tried it out. It could have very well been, hey, maybe it doesn't work. That's OK. Now being 13 years after, I'm a lot smarter to know, hey, when I wanted to start my second company, Fey, did I want to work with the same co-founder? And the answer was very clear, yes. So the decision to build Fey with Daniel, my co-founder, has been very, very simple. But when we started, we did-- Quite scary. And indeed, there were complimentary skills. So I guess I'm a bit more of a generalist, more of a manager, analytical product. I guess more of the finance negotiations, based on Daniel is a fantastic CTO. He's a tech guru. And we can talk about that a bit later. But he's also a travel genius. Really? He is. Yeah. He's a travel nerd. Find multiple adjectives to describe him. We're going to listen more adjectives very soon. But to make it a long story short, he's the type of guy that can predict a flight delay before the pilot even knows. That is incredible. Yeah, but for that, you only need to interview him. No, no. We're interviewing you, and we're always happy to talk to him as well. And by the way, the whole subject matter of travel, this is leading up to Fey. But we're not talking about Fey. Right now, we're still the first company that you set up together. So second year of law, you find two co-founders. You fall in love and start a company. What was the idea? What was the mission? How did work? Yeah. So we really wanted to see how we can deliver better insights to customers around the world, around specific and more complicated subject matters. One that would usually lend themselves to, hey, let's research this for a couple of months, interview some folks, and send you a big report, it's like typical consulting. And what we tried to do, and eventually successfully did, was combine-- combining expert crowdsourcing, so taking some of the best minds in the world, but in the high numbers, hundreds, sometimes thousands of different real world experts, put them on a technology platform that enables them to collaborate in real time, infuse it with data sources about what's happening on the ground, or what's happening with their subject matter, and have them together play or collaborate for a couple of hours, or a couple of days or weeks, to generate insights on that topic. So I'll make it a bit simpler. Let's think that we're now looking at the conflict between the Ukraine and Russia. What if we brought some of the best subject matter experts in the world on this particular topic in the dozens? Maybe they could be former military generals, ambassadors, university professors, industry experts, oil and gas experts. You name it from all sides, and from different disciplines. And we'd bring them onto a platform where they can have their ideas compete. They could generate scenarios for how the conflict might evolve. They could generate strategies for how NATO might elect to respond. We believed, and still do, that by combining different disciplines in a very different, parent and collaborative platform, and by giving all those various experts on around the world who are working, as a cranniously, with the right data sources, we believe that they could generate insights that individually they would never be able to achieve. OK, this is-- I have-- wow. I have so many questions. The concept sounds brilliant. I have so many questions about the how. Let's start with, how do you get worldwide experts motivated to get onto the platform? How do you build a platform that is hands-free, without a facilitator, that allows a bunch of different great names, very busy people, interact with each other in an efficient manner that is fruitful and productive? How do you turn that into income? How do you translate it into-- and a lot of hows I have here. And we had all those hows and we had to iterate and suffer a lot of setbacks to get there. Again, this was 2009, 2010, way before collaboration platforms were so-- Popular. Yeah. --way before gig economy worked from home was such a big thing. Right. And we were there with thousands of different worlds. Exactly the gig economy, if you will, combined with real world data science. And I think as with all starts, you've got to start somewhere. So you asked about how do you recruit the right experts? Right. So initially, it's very much going to Washington, DC, in our case, walking into different think tanks and saying, hey, this is an amazing idea. What if you could work with other experts from around the world? Usually these folks would sit in the room and just think, what if you could work with other experts around the world? And for a couple of hours, in the next week, you'll be able to earn some money. But perhaps more importantly, earn recognition, work on topics that are really interesting, and be rewarded by real world customers as big as the US government, Google, main banks. And once you get that first, second, and then third, then you can go to the fourth person and say, hey, these guys are already in. Yeah, absolutely. You must be. You need to get it started, and then it must be easier. And the more time it builds a brand, then people are starting to come to us. So-- But I'm trying to understand, I think, the most important question I have hanging here, who's paying are you answering? Yeah, so we primarily served large corporations with complex issues at hand or large governments. So they came up with you. I've got this problem. I will pay an ex amount, organize this international online think tank with a result that actually makes me get reasonable value out of it. Right. So you might be a big fund, and maybe you have serious investments in the hundreds of millions in a particular country. But if that country started to lose its stability or the economy is starting to shiver, then your investment is at risk. So you really want to make sure that you have different signposts and predictive capabilities to try and assess whether that's stability or that country's stability might be in danger. And we believe that the best way to do that is to combine data from what's happening on the ground with some of the world's best experts. And that became a product that governments and funds and corporations could subscribe to and watch in real time different data feeds. An assessment of how those data feeds become a model for stability, according to different metrics. And have all those metrics analyzed in real time by experts from around the world, also with the ability of the customer to probe those analysts or those experts with questions. So yes, it is like a semi-automated data-enriched think tank that would be working 24/7 for you. This is mind-blowing. Again, I've got so many questions. Starting with, this is your second year in university. Right. People with so much money, so many interests, big corporates, you're answering needs of very serious institutions. How would they trust you guys? Three students, not even fresh out of university, still in university. How did you build a trust? You know, I think it's probably teaching because we do that also in other startups. So you try to surround yourself with the right credibility before you're able to have that credibility on your own. So the more experts we were able to onboard, some of them were former ambassadors. Eventually we had the former director of the CIA on our advisory board. So all of a sudden you start to get those names that help you with the credibility. Because in the end, I'm not the one writing the analysis. I'm not the one saying, hey, customer X should do this or take that strategy. It's the experts and they have their own credibility. I'm just there to build the platform, to infuse them with the data, and to facilitate this activity. But the reason to trust us would be the experts that we're bringing. Right. And when you think of it again, because here we're in the service of startups, right? Oftentimes startups in the very early days do the same. They would say, hey, I'm working with this person as an advisor. And they help you get some of the credibility that you personally might be lacking, especially in your early days as a founder. But it sounds a little bit like you remember that joke about the entrepreneur that goes and tells Bill Gates about, you know, the whole two ends at the same time. Because to get the big names on board, you need to have the big names on the other end. How do you simultaneously actually get the first great experts to build your credibility? to go and offer the big companies before even having those big companies. This is amazing. Yeah, there's a lot of trial and error to obtain that very first customer. In fact, it probably took us, let's say, two and a half years before we landed our first customer, which was NATO at the time. You're kidding, NATO, wow. We sold them over five, I guess at the time there was no Zoom, it was Skype calls, where we would be in Washington. There was Zoom, it was just not popular. It was like from, I think, 2012. Okay, that's probably roughly when we had our first sale. And I remember being in, I think it was George Washington University in one of the rooms, and over at NATO there were generals and people with many high ranking folks, and I would be like, "Oh my God, we're actually doing this." Oh my God, oh my God, is the right phrase to use it that, wow. Okay, so that's super exciting. And you start off that company, the name of the company. This company is Wikistrat. Wikistrat. Yeah, and we actually bootstrapped it all the way to profitability. Exactly, exactly, the bootstrapping. So how do you manage that you're a student, you're studying, you need to build this incredible fantastic out of this world company with generals and NATO and huge institutions that are on board, and there's no funding. Right. It's not easy. We were lucky enough that one of our co-founders was able to bring some of his own money into it in the early days, but very quickly we had to rely on our own revenues. And that keeps you very disciplined, which actually will connect to some of the next adventures with Faye, because one thing that we've learned in that first business is really how to work based on our own cash and how to make adjustments and be responsible with our growth. 2023, saying that sentence is golden, seriously, having the capability to be responsible with money is a huge advantage during these times when money is expensive. Right. And it was always, hey, this is how much we have in the bank. There's not going to be any more unless we either sell more or reduce our costs. And I'm actually very proud for the last seven years I believe the company has been profitable, stable, doing a lot of good in the world. So the bottom line you actually managed to even out the bottom line within what? I believe it took us maybe five years or so to be profitable. That is so impressive. Bootstrapped in such a colossal scale and within five years reaching a positive bottom line, that is very admirable. Yeah, thank you. But as you can imagine, it was never like this, right? It was like this. And there were months where we were going to be able to fund the next month, right? And there were times where we were amazed at the age of probably 24, 25 to see many millions in the bank that are effectively ours. That's not VC money. That's net revenue for the company. And having that same money then being used to fund the company through harder times where we did not enjoy the same level of sales that we would have wanted. It's such a crucial point that you pointed out and we really need to stop and emphasize it. Often people that don't come from the industry have this fictional view of A to B in a straight line just going up smooth ride. It couldn't be further than the truth, right? Or is it just me? No, you're 100% right. I think one of my hardest days in this career was when we had to lay off about 50 folks. Some of them parents, some of them way older than I am. And that was super tough with all the tears that you would expect because we had to adjust the company's size at the time. But truth is that even as hard as it was, there was another lesson in it. We actually did it way too late. We weren't probably two or three million dollars on trying to keep those folks in because they were so talented and we loved them so much. But from business perspective, we had to cut costs way earlier than we did. This is so hard because you cannot maintain a serious successful company without this feeling of a family actually loving the people in the company. And once you do get that attachment, it is so hard to make the cold cut decisions that are hardless. And as a founder, usually are an eternal optimist, right? Absolutely. So you're sure that the next big sale is coming and that the customers will not turn. And therefore, we have every reason to believe that you should keep those resources. Yeah, wow. Because the big growth is just around the corner. And sometimes that's not always the case. And certainly it wasn't the case for us. We had to adjust at the time and then grow. Down size. Again, that was probably 2015. I want to say, and ever since then, the company has been growing and back to profitability. And I believe it might have even brought back some of the employees that we had to let go. So. Oh, that's nice. The advantage to bring those people back, the ones that you already knew and were attached to. That's really, really cool. So again, all that is to say, you know, it's never a-- smooth ride, right? Even if the end result looks impressive and you have this company that it again is now profitable and doing a lot of good stuff in the world, it doesn't mean that it's always being a smooth journey and tons of cars along the way. Hmm. Absolutely. So you have a company that already is successful, that is making millions, that is doing impactful things around the world, but you're hungry. This isn't enough. So what happens then? Yeah. So, I guess between Daniel and I, after nine or ten years of-- Daniel is the co-founder, the Australian co-founder from-- Right. So Daniel, a grain is my Australian co-founder. After nine or ten years working on the business, we believe that we both have hit some glass ceiling that the company perhaps needed a new leadership. And we also wanted to make sure that we build something that is bigger. So yes, we were hungry, yes, we had the passion. And we effectively wanted to combine some of our expertise around data with personal passion around travel. Hmm. And now we're-- Right. Going back to the point you mentioned. Exactly. Exactly. So we effectively handed the keys over to the second-ever employee at our first company. He's now the CEO. He's been leading it very well. What an unbelievable story. The second employee of the company has become the CEO now, and he has been for a while. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Successfully leading the-- He's doing extremely well. Super talented guy. Very glad that we entrusted him with leading the company. It's also, by the way, a very impressive skill being able to recruit super-ciestly. Yes, recruitment is something that I certainly believe I've learned a lot about. I've made tons of mistakes along the way. And I think the one thing that we are doing now in our company is that we're really making sure every higher is a top talent. It's critical, especially on the first highers. You know, if you're already 100, that's okay if you have some A- players, but your first one have to be A+. And it's been my mission now to surround myself by folks who I believe are either smarter than me or know what they need to do much better than me. So I don't want an HR person who I will need to teach how to do HR. I don't want my VP of growth to need my guidance and growth. I want them to teach the company how to think data, how to think growth, and educate us. And my role would be to inspire, to get the right talent, to make sure the company is capitalized, and to also be the spokesperson for the company. Thank you for pointing that out. The whole concept of not being humble when you start recruiting, you're saying, "Oh, I'm a small company, I'm going to get somebody who's okay for the job. No, you're thinking big. I'm going to get the top of the top. He's going to take us all the way to being a unicorn and taking over the world." So it's thinking big from day one, and that's crucial for the A team of the beginning. Yeah, and I know we've yet to talk too much about Faye, but just to give you an example, in the insurance, you're handling insurance claims. And we had to hire the first person to handle claims in Faye. We actually poached the number one traveling insurance claims person in America. Unbelievable. Into Faye. It's a guy that used to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in claims a year to customers, and now he's coming to Faye, which is still a start-up in paying a few thousand dollars here, a ten thousand dollar there. How do you approach the top number one person that deals with so much, poach him from such a shiny position, and get him to put all his faith on this obscure, risky start-up, and go along with your path? You know, now that you mentioned that, I think you can see some connecting lines between the first start-up and Faye, right? Having those former heads of the CIA professors top talent to join our expert network in our first start-up, is very similar to trying to attract the right talent into Faye. So yeah, there's some degree of selling a vision. There's some degree of showing, hey, there's some real subsim's here. Come, see the technology, see, meet the people. But a lot of it is really about personal connection. And I guess between that and really having a company that brings a different vision to the world and a different technology to the world, it attracts the right talent. So I can't say that it's been necessarily tough. In fact, when I was interviewing for that particular position of the head of claims, not only were we able to bring the number one person in the entirety of the United States for this person, we had lined up the number two, three, and four all year long to join. So we're pretty fortunate at the time to be able to access that level of talent. That's really, really impressive. You started talking about mistakes that you made with recruitment, that you actually applied lessons learned in Faye. And I think that's fascinating for all other entrepreneurs to learn from the mistakes you can share and the lessons you've already learned. So can you share some lessons in general? From the whole recruitment issue. So I think one is indeed just any high. I think that the ability to get top talent early on is critical. And you pay for bad hires. That's probably the other lesson. If you have rotten fruits, that can impact the entirety of the company. It's really important to make sure that you build the right sort of culture. For us, it's been an opportunity and a challenge at Faye. So Faye is very, very diverse, not necessarily intentional. But we have a great diversity across religion, gender, and the other preferences. The company is super diverse. And that means that we do not necessarily always enjoy the same level of cohesion that you might have if you're bringing all of your army folks into the company. Right. Right? So I think the challenge for us is how do you take all those super talented individuals who've done amazingly well in their careers? But they come from very, very different backgrounds. And you create something that is one that is whole. How do you do that? Well, I think we're still learning. I think we were very successful in getting the right talent. I think we're very successful in getting them to work together and build a product that the world has not seen before and actually growing it over the past, I guess, 13 months since we launched into a pretty known brand in our little space of travel insurance. But they've seen a lot for us to work on in building that same culture, especially when you think of people working in hybrid and across different parts of the world and geographies. They're not all based in Tel Aviv. We have folks in Virginia and Florida and many other places. And creating that one is a challenge. I can't say that we have cracked the code on that yet. But we're investing a lot of thought, time, and resources in how to make that happen. It sounds like the first step towards that was uniting them all around the passion to make it happen, believing in the vision that you've got, sharing it. And it sounded like that started off that way. And of course, there are many other challenges, just geographically not being together, that's super fascinating to see how you guys mold the culture. But Faye is not a brand new company. You've been around for a few years. Yeah, so we started Faye about three years ago. And at the time, our thought was, hey, how can we leverage data, which is more of our heritage, to look after travelers when they're on the road? And the traveler's idea was, of course, from your co-founder or passion. It was certainly his big passion. We really enjoyed traveling together. So maybe a bit of a backstory on that. So Daniel is an average traveler. Again, he's the type of guy that can predict flight delays before the pilot even knows. I am so curious to hear how he does that. So he's really into the world of data. So you could look at what's called the "Mata Report." Yes. And see the accumulation of ice over at the tarmac at Heathrow. And know that based on the past performance over the last couple of days, a certain accumulation of ice might suggest a ground stop, meaning everyone from a certain distance cannot fly into Heathrow. And you would be able to predict that and be quite accurate with it. And really, traveling with Daniel for so many years, we've been business partners for the last 13 years, means that I really got to enjoy that degree of expertise he has. So it's always, you know, you walk into the airport and you can just walk behind the guy, because he would know every single step. Sometimes he would know the people at the counter by name. If there's any hiccup, he would know how to get around it. We would occasionally get up great. Do you hire his services out? There are so many events where I need somebody like that. So you see, Elena, it's actually related because we built a fair in part based on Daniel. We wanted everyone to have their own Daniel, their companion and protector, the person or the technology that would look after the monitor their trips, tell them about fly delays, get them out of fly delays, help them when they get injured, if they need to cancel their trip, if their bags are lost, we wanted to leverage a lot of that expertise. And initially, we started just by data. It's really fascinating because I was talking to you about the pain with your first company and here, tell me I might be completely wrong. But my personal observations and experiences, I get the impression that travel especially by, you know, through air, flights and airports. It is a highly stressful situation for people. They are always on a tight schedule. The risks are high. It's just a row of dominoes that once one thing falls, it impacts everything else. It's very expensive for many families or if it's business people, then for their business, the stress level is very, very high. And if you can reduce the stress, then that's a winner. I don't know if it's possible, I don't know if stress is something that can be measured. I would love to pick your brain and hear your thoughts about that. So I think you're spot on. I think a lot of people buy travel insurance because it gives them the peace of mind. Obviously for the big things, if I get injured, they'll need to be evacuated if there's a lot of money on the line. But also on the small stuff. So imagine, you know, I'm a father of three little girls. And if I am now traveling, say to friends, and my bags don't show up, you know, that's a really bad start for my trip. Very bad. It might not be a huge financial risk. Yes, I could buy those diapers and bottles and toys. No, but stressful. It's very stressful, right? To be with young kids and not have your gear. It's just. So if a lot of that can be alleviated, either by keeping me informed, or by giving me some money so I can buy replacement clothes and toiletries, or by spitting up the arrival of my delayed bag, that would get me back on track. That would make this trip memorable for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons. So you're really helping me get to the point that I was really aiming for. It's not just insurance. If we're talking about the edge that you have, your unique color, it's not just giving you the money back. You support the traveler with a wholesome perspective of his needs. If I am stuck without gear, you understand that I need to know who I speak with. Where do I get the diapers? Somebody to guide me through this disaster to a place of peace of mind. 100%. So, you know, traveling insurance today, firstly, let's make another point. Travel insurance is very known over here where we're filming this in Tel Aviv. Yeah. It's a very prevalent product. The technology is reasonable. Underwriting is solid. Many of us have high degree of loyalty to our traveling insurance provider. That's not the case in the United States. Most people do not buy travel insurance. They do not trust traveling. Seriously. Yeah, the assessment of that is 50% of travelers or trips are being insured in the United States. No. It's the challenge and the opportunity. Now, indeed for our philosophy, we believe that travel insurance should be very different than what it does today. Today, it's a reimbursement service, meaning something has happened. You need to file a claim, it's usually those lengthy forms and receipts and then you hope. But months later, when you're back home in Alabama, you might get a check in the mail like when in the 80s. That's roughly how it works today. Wow. And we believe that our role as a traveling insurance provider is not to be a reimbursement service, but rather be the ones looking after you in your travel, which is a lot simpler but also a lot more expansive. And yes, it starts with insurance that needs to be very clear, very easy to purchase. Very easy to file a claim and once your claim is approved, we want the funds to be available for you right here and now. Right. Not trip. Not after the fact. So you can use them to buy those replacement clothes or get it to the doctors and not be out of pocket. But that is just a 10x version of insurance or a much better version of insurance. Right. Now, what happens if you missed your connection? Insurance might give you say $200 for a missed connection, but what Alina needs is, hey, how do I get on the next available flight? That's right. Or if you lost your passport, insurance might give you $50 to get a new passport, but what you really need is a new passport. Where do I go? All those things happen to me. Exactly. And that layer is what we call a or Conscious. So we started with insurance. We expanded that to assistance or real-time Conscious. And the third layer is what we call travel intelligence or the data behind travel. So we're actually monitoring your trip. We are which flight are you taking, which airport are you going to go through? What's happening at the destination? So we can monitor the trip and give you real-time alerts about things that we believe you need to know. That could be flight delays and cancellations where you might pick your bags. How long to get to the city. COVID restrictions, entry requirements, protests, geopolitical events at the destination. That is intended for us to be proactive in looking after you, informing you about things you need to know and we can leverage all that data that we collected. No one else really collected in our business. To not just create smarter products but also alleviate your paying, create solutions for you and get you out of harm's way. So really as a philosophy we try to put a lot more emphasis on solutions over money. And if we have some time I have a quick story that I can share to demonstrate that. Go for it. So what I understand from what you're saying is like it's like your online personal assistant through any travel experience. That's right. We want to be your protector and your companion and really proactively looking look after you in any way we can. Amazing. So please share the story that will be lovely. We had two travelers going to Puerto Rico to celebrate their wedding. They've been planning the wedding for years. They were really excited to get that going. They were flying from Colorado through New York on to Puerto Rico. As they were landing in, I believe it was JFK, our system identified that their next flight has been cancelled. It has been cancelled due to a tropical storm that was taking place in Puerto Rico. We alerted them in real time. Hey, your next flight has been cancelled. We provided them with a $200 benefit. It's called a flight cancellation benefit automatically into their phones. They were able to use it like they would use an Apple Pay or Google Pay. So the money is available to them in real time. So as they landed, they went to a local bar. They were able to pay with that money. As we were working out a hotel for the night for them to stay at and looking at what another flight to Puerto Rico could look like maybe the next day. We were able to get them on a hotel, get them on an ex-appable flight. They wake up the next morning and guess what? The second flight is cancelled again. Now, reminder, they're going for their wedding. Oh my God. Second flight is cancelled. The same drill happens again. Notification in real time, reimbursement in real time. Looking for a place for them for the night as well as getting them on the next level of flight. Third day, again, flight is cancelled. Guess what? That tropical storm is now hurricane Fionna. Effectively, Puerto Rico is flooded. The hotel that they were planning to get married at is no longer accessible effectively. And these guys are not going to get a wedding this summer around. They were so frustrated. They were planning to go back to Colorado. They were staying in New York at the time. And then we did what I believe no insurance company will ever do. We actually found out that one of our team members has the license to officiate weddings. We got the folks into the city hall to get them the licenses and certificates they needed. And then we actually performed a marriage ceremony for them at Central Park. They were able to get their dream wedding with the assistance of their travel insurance company. That is an unbelievable story. Wow. That is service beyond imagination. And I'm sure there are loyal customers for life. As long as they're married, hold. Sure. We're with them. Good, healthy, and long. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. We're going to speak to the DNA of the company. And quite frankly, the interesting thing is this didn't come for me. It came from the customer experience folks who saw the issue and said, you know what? How can we go the extra mile and make sure that these guys actually have their dream wedding? But that's really going above and beyond. And we can't always do that, right? Right. I think that's the spirit and the efforts behind what faith is trying to do and how far we are willing to go for our customers. I think you've really made that point so coherent with this example. It's really, there's no question what the unique edge that you offer is. And you know, I've connected to different points. Sometimes I ask, hey, how impressive is your technology or how are you doing things differently on the data side? And there's great answers for all of that. But in the end of the day, the maker break for a company like Faye is the DNA, is the purpose is the vision. The heart and soul. All the technology, all the data is a derivative of that mission of that DNA that we're really trying to create in the company. And everything else as follows. And that it rates back to the issue of finding the right employees that would have that vision, that would have that passion, that would be that dedicated to think out of the box and bring a solution like that to the customers. So that's really unique. Right. And you know, it brings back another story. It was probably two months after we raised our seed money. Oh, we're going to talk about that. Wonderful. And I met this guy. He used to be a head of growth at a very good insurance company called Lemonade. And he was clearly a superstar. Five or so years at Lemonade doing a lot of good stuff, a very impressive persona. And I met him almost by coincidence. And I was not ready to take in a head of growth, VP of growth at the time. We did not have a product out. There was nothing to sell. We were still building the company. So I met him. His name is Moran. And we decided to part ways as friends. We said, look, this is great. I really like you. You seem to really like what we're doing. But we have nothing, we have no role for you, right? We have no product. We're just building. And then a month later, I said to myself, you know what, when you find the right talent, you got to grab it. You know what? You're quoting one of the greatest CEOs Israel ever had. And I remember him saying that when he finds a superstar, he hires him, even if he doesn't have a job for him. And he finds the job for him later on. It is exactly word by word, what he said. And you need to be in a very fortunate position to do that. You can't always afford to. But I think we identified the connection was so strong that even though we had no product to sell just yet, we realized that with that level of talent, dedication, and I guess mutual liking of one another, this will work. So I reached out to him a month later and said, hey Moran, let's meet again. Let's figure out a way for you to join. Because sooner or later, the product is going to be out. You're such an experienced individual. I want you on the management table. I want you to join us. Luckily he did. And he's been our vice president of growth since and doing amazingly well and getting us to where we are today. That's a really inspiring story. And thanks for sharing that. I want to go back to raising. Because you had a bootstrap company and you've reached really impressive results. So you come out of that with, okay, I've got a great resume. And now let's raise. Easy peasy. Yes, it was exactly, we thought it's going to be exactly like that. So then I coming out of our profitable startup, we were sure that people will just throw money at us. After all, we build this profitable company. We have all the experience we thought in the world. And we went out, we got a small grant from a white combinator. And then we went over to the Silicon Valley and spent around three months there in a very humbling experience. Because people were not as excited to fund us as we thought. And we realized that fundraising is a skill of its own and we had none of that. None of that. It was very frustrating walking in angels, smaller VCs and getting a no. And another no. And another no. Again, very humbling for folks that I guess at the time were pretty used to success. And it took time. And still such a point that we did get an offer from a micro VC in the valley. We went back home to Tel Aviv with that same offer thinking about it. We ended up meeting a local VC fund F2 capital, the venture capital they now. Fantastic folks who really saw something in us and we saw something in them. They decided to give us a small, pre-seed investment. We ended up declining the offer from the investor in the valley. And little did we know that this small investment into what was still a travel startup will meet reality when two weeks later COVID hits and everything closes and potentially travel is dead. Little did we know. And that happened two weeks after we got money in the bank for our pre-seed money. So what do you do, disaster? What do you do? I think in the early days we're pretty optimistic, COVID is probably going to pass by the summertime, you know, maybe this virus can't really withstand heat. and whatever, obviously we were wrong. And it took us a lot of time to iterate and think and try out at the time we did not have a travel insurance product. We had a travel assistant, AI travel assistant that would look after your trips and give you information in real time. And we realized after multiple iterations that the product was more of a nice to have than a must have. And actually, co-op-- Major points. --is that a very interesting opportunity for a travel insurance product. Because guess what? When travel is unstable, insurance is a lot more needed than before. Absolutely. And geographies that don't really have a lot of familiarity with this product like in the United States, where it's not as prevalent, where you can really bring in something new. But I think the other piece that COVID has taught us is that travel insurance on its own is not enough. What you need is a solution, not necessarily reimbursement. You need a way to handle that flight that we just canceled last minute in the way to feel a bit less nervous about whether you can enter the destination or not. And that is where we effectively either expanded or pivoted. However, we want to call it from building a data-led travel assistant into a fully fleshed traveling insurance product and a lot of credit to our investors who kept believing in us through COVID. I was the next question, the faith, because if an investor expects the same KPIs you've presented in their original pitch, ignoring the circumstances COVID presented, that's big trouble. Our investors could have easily written a self as a bad investment. Just bad luck. COVID hits. The travel startup. OK, that's fine. It's a preceded investment. We didn't lose too much money. That's OK. No. Instead, they actually let us work from their offices for over a year. Wow. They kept backing us. And when we decided we were going into travel insurance, they were the first to give us a check for our seed round. And then you-- So between F2 Capital and Viole Ventures, they led our seed round. Again, a lot of learning for me as a founder. How do you raise money? How do you create FOMO, which at the time was probably more prevalent than you can create today? How do you get the vision right? What additional elements you need to support that? And yes, we did that. We raised almost $9 million all in all. And that has really fueled building FAA. At the time, there was not a lot. There was no team. There was Daniel and I, and two or three other folks. Very little technology, but I guess a great vision. And a really enormous market opportunity. And all of passion and great for us to be building something big. And today, how big is your team? So today, we're about 35. We have built the team. We have to build the product, get licensed, find an insurance partner, and then launch the product into the world in April of last year. So we're 13 months in. And thankfully, unlike most startup journeys, it leasing so far as ever since we launched. It has been going like this. Amazing. We're very pleased to see what we've had. And since we've had so far. That's a really rocky and filled with excitement journey. And I'm sure the journey goes on. But on top of that journey, you mentioned that you have a family, a wife, three daughters, another company that's at the background of things. How do you cope with all those elements happening together with all the challenges that pop night and day with around the world time zones that you need to be available for? How do you do it? It's tough. I don't think I have a good solution or an answer. Yes, I'm a father of three. I have outstanding girls. I have twins for seven. My little one is almost four. I married to an amazing wife. She is a surgeon. So she is probably busy and even working harder than I am. And in between, yes, there's faith. So I think a lot of that really has to do with the age and maturity of the people around me. So we're all relatively-- I would say older, I'm 38. So we get stressed a bit less than others would, hopefully making smarter and quicker decisions as well. I'm fortunate to have a great co-founder with whom I've been for 13 years. That certainly does contribute. That's a marriage on a zone. Oh, yeah. 100%. Which you also need to nurture a relationship that you need to feed and maintain. That's not easy. It's not easy. We complement each other very well. And we've grown to the point that we can really criticize each other in a way that is fruitful and contributing to the discussion versus creating antagonism. So we work extremely well together. And we're surrounded. It's not just Danny and I. Really, we have a phenomenal leadership team, folks who've done something in the world. And are mature enough to know how to drive the company to success. So it's not just me or Daniel. But yes, it's stressful. And yes, it has its challenges. And balancing home and work comes with costs. And the cost could be cost to your relationship with your wife to your spare time, to the time you invest with friends. I can't say that I'm able to make everyone happy as I would like and to give them the right share of my attention and love as much as they would want to. But I am doing a lot with my family. I think that I'm making sure that I spend a lot of time with my kids. I think that is key. And I think the other thing to recognize how balance has changed over time. So there was a point in time where my wife was studying for many, many exams that they have in medicine. And that's where I would take a bit more of the onus. And in times where I'm fundraising, my wife is doing a lot more than regular days. So you just got a balance and know the-- said the right expectations from one another. And do it as calmly as you can. That's quite a complex challenge. It's kind of an art, isn't it? Trying to get it right. Or do we ever get it right? I'm not sure. I'm not sure I ever get it right, to be honest. It does come with challenges. It does come with stress. And I think for the founders who are listening, it's probably just important to know that you're not alone. It's everyone is doing that. And if you can find time to speak to other founders or go to a psychologist, that's completely fine. These things are more than recommended. They're helpful. You really should. And I think the more we're open and talking about our challenges as individuals, as founders, the easier things get. I'm really fortunate enough to have multiple circles of support between co-founders, even our main investors. They oftentimes are your cheerleaders and your sounding board. And I think you need to create that balance for you. Some people go and then practice yoga. I don't. I wish I will do more of that. But you've got to find your own way to cope with the challenges. Because we were not in 2021 anymore. These are much more challenging times for any startup company. Right. And you've got to be able to cope and still drive the business to success. Absolutely. I have two more questions before I actually allow you to go back to your own business. One, as you mentioned, your market is in the US. But you're in Israel. How does it work? The whole concept of having a company in Israel and a market that is an ocean away? Yeah. So I don't consider the company to be in Israel. I am in Israel. Some of the companies in Israel. But the company is an American company. With American employees, both in the US. And even in Israel, a lot of our folks are American. That's the market we're addressing. I'm probably one of the few folks in the company who have an accent. Most of them would be native speakers. So we really are building that for the market, speaking their language and coming from the US. So we very much operate as a US company, which we are. Is that a challenge? No. I like to believe that we are benefiting from Israeli technology. But also servicing a market with American talent, both on the sales side, on the customer experience side, on the claims side. These folks are born and raised Americans who know exactly what to do and how to support an American traveling. That's really fascinating. And not easy being a CEO of a company that works in America, operates in America and being away and making it happen. That's a choice with a lot of factors. And it's really admirable that you're pulling it through. You know, I think over the years, many companies have proven that it's possible. And I think there's enough talent here in Israel these days who've had the experience of working and selling in the US. Even our previous business. for. For probably a couple of years we've been in and out of Washington DC. I had an apartment in Washington DC and I practically lived some of my life over there. So you got to, you know, you may have a home, but the company has a different home. The company's home is in the US today and in the future international. Wow. Let's talk about the future. Five years, ten years from now, where's Faye going to be? So I think that we're still very early in our journey, right? We're still in new brand and are experiencing the early stages of growth and proving out that things can be done differently. This is a space that has really seen little to no innovation. Unlike many other lines of insurance where there are some great companies who disrupted auto insurance and home insurance, travel insurance is really stayed behind in the United States. Of course for us it's really just demonstrating things can be done differently. But when we talk at that level of horizon, obviously beyond say the financial goals that the company has and the growth that we expect to get to international and expanding our food hold in the US, it's really about changing the perception of what travel insurance is and should be. And we see it a lot more as a holistic protector. We see ourselves as a fintech company, on top of being a travel company. If I can support you looking after your health, your stuff, your trip investments during your trip, there's no reason why I should not be able to support you financially when you travel. And we certainly envision the tools that we've built, the data that we collected to help you financially by facilitating payments, by perhaps loaning you money when you needed perhaps by saving towards your next trip. There's a range of things that we believe that we could support you on your trip and effectively be as essential to you as your passport. So when you travel, we want you to take your passport and take pay with you. Wow. The journey of the future. Thank you so much and I'll add for sharing with us your journey up to this point and creating a new journey for all of us. I wish you the best of luck. It sounds super exciting. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much for having me. I've had tons of fun. Likewise.