Joseph Noor is the CTO of Ownwell, a company that uses technology to revolutionize property tax appeals. Inspired by his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, who fled the Lebanese Civil War and built multiple businesses in the U.S., Joseph embodies the essence of entrepreneurial innovation and resilience.
He is passionate about disrupting traditional industries with technology and creating equitable systems. Joseph and his team have raised $25 million from investors like First Round Capital, Long Journey Ventures, and Founder Collective. They currently have over 150,000 customers and are projecting $50 million in revenue this year.
Joseph always approached life as an entrepreneur: flipping golf balls, building sneaker bots, creating private MMORPGs, saving money on property taxes.
He was raised with the mentality of relentlessly chasing the hardest problems, pushing past what was initially thought possible, and leveling up in the process. In the unrelenting demand for academic excellence, he was enrolled in elementary two years early and was still pushed to skip grades.
Enamored with the iPhone, he chose to study Computer Science to build software that can scale to the whole world. It wasn’t until the PhD where he met his first real academic challenge – developing AI to self-optimize computer systems.
What you will learn
- The role of AI in optimizing distributed systems and how it was applied in Joseph Noor’s research.
- How technology, including AI, is revolutionizing property tax appeals through Joseph’s company, Ownwell.
- The challenges of scaling a tech-driven business and how to overcome them.
- The importance of explainable AI models in industries like real estate, where transparency is crucial.
- Insights into the entrepreneurial mindset, including the value of persistence, adapting to challenges, and leveraging technology to solve traditional problems.
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:03 – 00:00:31
Hi, everyone and welcome to the Jeff Bullas Show! Today I have with me Joseph Noor. Now Joseph is an innovator at the intersection of real estate and technology. And yes, it does involve a little bit of AI, I’m gonna get into that a little bit later.
Jeff Bullas
00:00:32 – 00:01:20
Joseph is the CTO of Ownwell, a company that uses technology to revolutionize property tax appeals. Inspired by his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, who fled the Lebanese Civil War and built multiple businesses in the U.S., Joseph embodies the essence of entrepreneurial innovation and resilience.
Joseph is passionate about disrupting traditional industries with technology and creating equitable systems.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:20 – 00:01:31
Joseph. Welcome to the show. It’s actually fantastic to have you here. And I’m curious about many things in that bio and also what you’re doing today and what you’ve done a bit in the past. So
Jeff Bullas
00:01:33 – 00:01:52
give me a thumbnail sketch. What you were really curious about as a teenager or a kid because I think quite often what you do later in life can come out of what you were really curious about as a child or a teenager or a young adult. So, what were you really curious about as a kid?
Joseph Noor
00:01:53 – 00:02:31
Yeah. Um That’s a, that’s a great question that actually I can’t remember ever being asked before. So, um you know, when I was a kid, I grew up the son of immigrants and, you know, there’s like an immigrant mentality, especially for those that come to the US because they’re seeking a better life. And so my father is an absolute workaholic and I really rarely saw him as a child. Um, he would come home after I went to sleep and he was gone before I woke up in the morning, like he was trying to build whatever enterprise he could and he was all over the place. Um He, yeah, he, he owned a kind of a Blockbuster, you know, movie rental store before Blockbuster came about, he,
Joseph Noor
00:02:32 – 00:02:54
uh, created crown molding for art. He created plastic tubing for trophies, like sports trophies, just like the shiny tubing. I mean, everything that you could think of, he ran a nightclub before, before I was born, before he met my, my mother. Um, so he was all over the place and, and I think that that really instilled in me or, or his personality is one that’s just very intense, very aggressive, very, just
Joseph Noor
00:02:54 – 00:03:32
um find a problem, solve a problem. And so that was the nature of which I was raised and my mother is the exact same way, right? And they’re obviously compatible. Um So I was really pushed to with any challenge, just give it my all. But I think specifically given my father’s just hunger to create success for himself, I really looked towards and I valued the importance of something that generated income, whatever it was like, if you could create money somehow, that was like the world telling you that there was some value in whatever you were doing. And so everything that I tried to do at some point, I would ask myself,
Joseph Noor
00:03:32 – 00:03:57
Can I make this pay for itself or at least pay for my time? And if I can, then I’ll keep doing it and if I can’t, then I’ll just give up on that and work on something else. And with few exceptions, obviously, exercise is important just for your mental, mental well being, insanity and things like that. But, yeah, aside from that, you know, as I was, I think, seven or eight years old and I lived on the golf course, my parents had a house that was, they had like a small hill and on the other side of it was a fence and a golf course
Joseph Noor
00:03:58 – 00:04:26
and people that just, you know, you had a bad swing or weren’t very experienced in golf would kind of swing balls over on my side and I would collect them and I would clean them up and I would kind of organize them by type and by brand and so on. And I’d kind of present them to golfers and they would pay for their own balls to have them back. Um And that was, I was super young and then, you know, it kind of just evolved from there. Um And so, yeah, that’s, I’d say like, ultimately, I always ended up asking myself, can this pay for itself in some way?
Jeff Bullas
00:04:27 – 00:04:54
I think what you describe in terms of you capture the essence of what it was to become to be immigrants, I suppose is that um and this is what’s really cool about and we have the same thing in Australia is that they bring an energy to a country that is um because they’ve gotta make money. Um You quite often find a taxi driver that’s got a phd driving your cab or in your Uber. Right. And they’ll do what it takes. Right.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:54 – 00:05:23
That sounds like your dad was doing what it takes. And I think, you know, I think reinvigorating the blood and oxygenating, you know, the archery of, uh, a country uh, with migration is, and it’s a big topic in America, obviously and, and around the world. So, um, and it’s a challenge, in other words, managing it, but also uh allowing it. So it’s really fascinating. So, which country was your mum and dad originally from?
Joseph Noor
00:05:23 – 00:05:44
Yeah, they’re from Lebanon. Um So my dad left during the war. Um you know, there was lots of violence and he didn’t really want to be a part of that. So he went to school in France and then he went to England and ultimately learned English and, and decided to come to the US because he just saw that that was the best place for, you know, creating success for yourself. It had the most economic mobility out of, out of anywhere that he was aware of.
Jeff Bullas
00:05:45 – 00:06:36
Right. Yeah, it was um yeah. Well, basically it’s the American dream which is actually, you know, raised by and promoted by Hollywood. Um So, uh and yeah, I, I remember watching, you know, Disney Disneyland, you know, it was a Disney show on Sunday nights, right? And it was just, and I had an American friend that had all these toys he can make obviously with his parents and he had all these toys and went. Gee, um, it is true on Disney. Like that’s so, look, I grew up in a working class family. My dad was a plumber. He ran a quite successful plumbing business. And, um, we’ll be called like a, you know, middle class tradesperson. Dad was and we were so, um, but yeah, it’s the American dream. Um, is something that is certainly a
Jeff Bullas
00:06:37 – 00:06:42
thing that’s being promoted through Hollywood a lot, which is actually fascinating to watch. So, look, I’ve been to America on
Joseph Noor
00:06:42 – 00:07:07
me. I, I definitely embodied like the idea that if I worked hard one day, I’d be able to own my own home and I’d be able to have the white picket fence and I’d be able to have the wife and the kids and I would, like, live this perfect idyllic life and it was just like that was the goal. And if I could, you know, scramble my way to achieving that, that was kind of the whole objective from really, as, as young as I can remember, that was the goal.
Jeff Bullas
00:07:07 – 00:07:31
Yeah. Well, it’s good to have that. I think being, uh the trouble is there, motivation doesn’t rise out of comfort. It actually rises out of hard times and sometimes, and I reflect on it is that motivation for me has risen out of tough times every time, every time. And uh so you gotta be careful of comfort.
Joseph Noor
00:07:31 – 00:07:32
That’s Right.
Jeff Bullas
00:07:32 – 00:07:41
Yeah. Once you have enough money to sort of sit back and go, oh, we arrived.
Joseph Noor
00:07:41 – 00:08:13
It’s such an interesting thing that, like, you know, these folks that are at, like the absolute, you know, let’s say the, the wealthiest people on earth there is something fundamental that motivates them, that is not just pure, you know, money at that point because they’re never gonna spend it. So, like, what keeps them going? What keeps them continuing to hustle and push themselves and, and place themselves in the line of fire, time and time again. It’s, it’s something I I’m not even sure if that’s something that I, that resonates with me because it’s just like such an extreme life that uh it, it’s, it’s an intense thing, like you said.
Jeff Bullas
00:08:14 – 00:08:54
Yeah. Yeah. I’m fascinated by that as well. And uh one of the things I am intrigued about, but I’m curious about is where does drive come from. And uh because sometimes it arrives and it happened for me when I started my website and started writing the blog back when blogs were cool back in 2008 9. And I was like a man on a mission. You know, it was, I was curious about social media because I thought we talked before about, you mentioned that when you got the iphone or, you know, in your hand, you went, wow, this is going to change the world. Um So for me, I’ve had, I suppose
Jeff Bullas
00:08:55 – 00:09:46
a journey which started when I saw, like I was involved in the PC industry that I saw, was significant because a computer was on everyone’s desk and, and everyone’s home. Is that what it became? Um But for me, one of the first aha moments was when, when I actually fired up the internet and downloaded Netscape and started browsing the web in an ugly slow way. I went, I no longer need to go to the library. This is gonna change education. That was 1995 right? Yeah. Then, then the social media showed up and then the iphone showed up as it reached critical mass. And I believe those uh that, that was a perfect storm. The intersection of both of those technologies, social media and the phone together. That was a perfect storm of making all of us publishers that can reach the world
Jeff Bullas
00:09:47 – 00:10:19
and do things at scale. And that excited me and now we have a I and we’ll talk about that in a minute, but we, we live in very exciting times and I, like you said, you’re excited for the next 10 years and I, I I’m excited for the next generation as well. So for me, it’s fascinating. So let’s go back to school. You’re obviously an overachiever you are being, you know, put a few classes up. So you decided though and go and do a Bachelor of Science degree. Is that correct?
Joseph Noor
00:10:19 – 00:10:41
Yeah. That’s right. I was in high school and, you know, I had to go, you know, when you apply to college, they force you to declare a major and I didn’t really know what I wanted at the time. Um So I remember, I actually, you know, kind of going back to what I was saying before. I literally fired up my search engine. I think I was using Yahoo back then. Or maybe it was Google and I typed in top paying jobs and I hit enter
Joseph Noor
00:10:42 – 00:11:01
and I clicked on the first link, I clicked on the second link and I was like cross referencing links and I was just looking and I was invalidating them. So I think the first one was like an anesthesiologist or something like that. I was like, I don’t want to do that. I think the next one was like a lawyer like II, I don’t want to do that either. I don’t wanna like comp on M to, you know, make money with a dentist. And I was like, uh I don’t want to look at people’s mouths
Joseph Noor
00:11:01 – 00:11:24
day and I just kept going through the list until I think software engineer was like seven or eight. And I was like, oh yeah, I could, I could do that. Uh, I took a computer science class in school. I really liked it. I um I think you tried the acronym. I don’t even know how I would pronounce it. Mmorpg. It’s a massive multiplayer online role playing game. It’s a video game. And so I hosted my own video game server with a friend of mine.
Joseph Noor
00:11:24 – 00:11:48
Yep. And we had to come and play. And ultimately, I was able to, like, I always ask myself, can I make this make money? Um We ended up making some, some money. But, you know, back then I was like really basic programming. Like I was changing just the image of some boss to make it look a little bit cooler. I was creating some custom devil wings that were some like special armor, you know, things like that. It’s really basic programming. Um
Joseph Noor
00:11:48 – 00:12:11
but it worked and people were paying me for it and it was awesome. Uh And so I thought, hey, I can, I can do software engineering and, you know, if, if my code fails, you know, the only thing that happens is people can’t play their video game for an extra hour. So it would be ok. You know, nobody’s life is in my hands. I’m not, I’m not compromising anything fundamental. And so I thought, um that, that’s what I’ll do. And so I decided to pursue a Bachelor science and computer science.
Jeff Bullas
00:12:11 – 00:12:31
Wow. Ok. Yeah, it was interesting you mentioned about, you know, online gaming. In fact, the online gaming industry now is bigger than the whole, I think. Entertainment Hollywood. Um Really? Yeah, it’s double the size of it. Sorry.
Joseph Noor
00:12:31 – 00:12:37
It’s more, it’s like the, like, online gaming, basically the, the industry is bigger than, than Hollywood.
Jeff Bullas
00:12:37 – 00:13:14
Yeah. And, and the rest of the media. Yeah, it’s just, it’s enormous. It was a niche. Um, so I interviewed a Swedish guy recently and, uh, he actually worked for Nokia and created the first online games for phones, I think, back in the early two thousands and so on. Um, back then it was like a niche. Now you have huge events and conferences where in 2030 40,000 people show up to these, you know, these conferences that are all about gaming, online gaming. So it’s fascinating that these things have happened in, in one generation. Yeah,
Joseph Noor
00:13:14 – 00:13:48
absolutely. I mean, I, I get to, you know, from my lifetime growing up with things like the original Game Boy and things like that and the advancement in graphics and the actual gameplay and the storytelling. I mean, it is incredible what moderns can do and what they’re going to do. And I can only imagine when I’m, let’s say, in another 50 years, right? And you know, let’s say, II I don’t really have the energy to, to go hiking and go, you know, travel the world, but I can put on some headset or I can tap into some system and really like drop into this world physically and feel the world and be able to experience the world. I think
Joseph Noor
00:13:48 – 00:13:59
I understand some people think that’s dystopian. But for me, especially, like, as I approach the end of my life, being able to do that and be able to basically be a superhero in this world I think is going to be absolutely incredible. And I look forward to that.
Jeff Bullas
00:14:00 – 00:14:33
Cool. Um, yeah, that’s interesting because I just tried the Apple Pro Vision, uh, headset recently that it was just put on, had a look through it. I really didn’t get into it. So I’ve got a lovely uh friend of mine who’s a venture capitalist and he drags them around to restaurants. It’s rather embarrassing. He turned up at the restaurant where he’s provisioning and wanted me to wear it. I go ok, looks, you know, I’m going, uh this is maybe not the place to be trialing this, but it’s ok. So, um but there’s, there’s a question, there is
Jeff Bullas
00:14:34 – 00:15:04
the Apple provision uh device which uh Apple released a year ago and basically started selling, I think six or seven months ago, uh has not sold that. Well, in terms of the scale, it’s also very expensive. Um What’s your view on that immersive world, you know, virtual reality with headsets? Where are you, is it too early? Um In other words, good idea, but too early at the moment and technology, you know, too, not there yet.
Joseph Noor
00:15:04 – 00:15:19
Yeah. So, first of all, I purchased the Vision Pro. Um, I played around with it. Ultimately, I decided it’s too heavy, it’s too uncomfortable. I’m gonna, I’m not gonna use this. So I ended up returning it and when I look at the device, I think that it’s,
Joseph Noor
00:15:20 – 00:15:50
it’s trying to bridge the gap between where we are and where Apple wants to get to, which I, I think is an inevitability we’re gonna get there at some point in the next, let’s say 20 years, it’s gonna take some time because most of this is going to be processing power that they’re trying to get as light as possible to be as comfortable as just a pair of glasses and that device in particular, I put it on and I, I could, I can imagine that future there, they had a really great demo in the store. And if you haven’t done the in store Apple demo, highly recommend that because you really do get a sense of where this is going.
Joseph Noor
00:15:50 – 00:16:29
But no, this is right now. It’s really a device that’s marketing towards developers that they’re hoping will be inspired by these devices and will create content for them. So at some point in the future, they’ll release an actual consumer friendly device at an accessible price point that people will, will purchase and use. I think it was a very, I would say like arguably a bold move for them to release that the way that it was because it, it definitely felt unfinished. Um But it’s coming. II I think that I’m not as bullish on a RVR as I am with the modern large, large language models and what they’re going to do for human productivity over the next 10 years. But it’s coming, it’s definitely coming in by the end of my lifetime. I think it’s gonna be amazing.
Jeff Bullas
00:16:29 – 00:17:18
Yeah, I don’t think maybe that, that vision that Mark Zuckerberg had with the Metaverse and even changed the name of Facebook to Metaverse has been put a little bit on hold. Um, as he leans now into a I because something that can be used and uh it’s very interesting to watch. He spent about 40-50 billion uh trying to make Metaverse work and it sort of wasn’t. Um what’s interesting too is, well, the other thing that’s interesting too is we know Facebook have brought out their Metta glasses, which are ray bans, which I actually have. So it’s in their little box here. It goes again, I think it’s a great idea and actually they’ve sold quite a lot of them. Um, but I think when they get the vision pro into something like that,
Jeff Bullas
00:17:19 – 00:17:55
that’s, that’s, yeah, that’s when it’s gonna play. So it’s basically making it light enough, small enough, powerful enough to be put into something that who’s gonna walk down the street like with a headphone like that. And I won’t, I won’t either. Alright, so let’s lean back into the past so we can lean into the future. OK. So you eventually started A phd in 2015 and uh it involved A I as part of that. Can you tell us a bit about that? Because then that will lead to um what you’re doing with your own world? So tell us about that.
Joseph Noor
00:17:56 – 00:18:15
Yeah. So I was doing applied machine learning for optimizing distributed systems. So, you know, machine learning is a very similar thing. Um I think when people reference A I nowadays, they’re referencing like the modern large language models which you know, were not something that we were really using at the time. And it wasn’t really the use case that I was looking to optimize for anyway, I was so distributed systems are
Joseph Noor
00:18:15 – 00:18:35
We have a bunch of different computers, we want them to work well together to mesh well together. And specifically our research was funded by the army research lab and they were looking for kind of a like a mesh network system that would allow us to connect multiple devices, whether you have laptops, you have vehicles, you have drones and you want them to all be able to communicate well and be able to accomplish a mission together.
Joseph Noor
00:18:35 – 00:18:53
And so for example, one of the early projects that we worked on was being able to use drones to map out a building. Um The use case that we, that we actually published was that there was a fire in the building and we wanted to be able to deploy drones to look for the fire in the building and actually do like a 3d reconstruction of the building and find the fire and then you would wear in a
Joseph Noor
00:18:53 – 00:19:11
not a VR so an augmented reality headset and you’d be able to see through walls and be able to actually see where the fire is. So there’s a lot of really cool research that is involved in things like localization mapping, being able to basically see the space and reconstruct the space and then be able to control the drones and make sure they don’t crash into walls and things like that. So that was a great project,
Joseph Noor
00:19:11 – 00:19:35
You know, eventually I ended up working more towards optimizing data systems. And so that’s basically we have a sea of machines and they all have data on them and everybody’s accessing, storing, updating, needing to optimize, you know, um for whatever their application is, they, everybody needs to access data at some point. And so the question is like, what’s the optimal placement of that data? And so I built a little A I tool, um
Joseph Noor
00:19:35 – 00:19:59
a machine learning tool that would essentially look at how the system was being used and reconfigure and optimize itself. Um So it was kind of not quite what people think of when they think of modern A I, but it was like applying machine learning towards computer systems problems. So that was the research that I did. And uh I don’t know if it directly maps to what I’m doing in my own world. But certainly we have lots of data management, a lot of data optimization and we certainly use lots of machine learning and A I today. Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:19:59 – 00:20:47
It’s very interesting if you look at the human brain and the fact that it’s so densely filled with neurons and we look at neuroscience, then we look at A I. If you want high performance, you need to actually have not only the processor near the memory but also near other computers. I believe in Texas. For example, not actually in Las Vegas, there’s one data center. It’s one of the biggest in the world and has a one mile backbone which connects all the computers together. So it’s really interesting in terms of look, the explanation for me. I’m trying to remember the book I was reading about it, but the fact is that we’re trying to densely pack computer neurons as close together and that sounds like you’re sort of working on something like that.
Joseph Noor
00:20:48 – 00:21:02
That’s right. Yeah. Ultimately, when you start to get into a very large scale systems interconnects become the bottleneck and that becomes the critical path. So if you can optimize or minimize the amount of interconnection, the amount of communication that you have to swap back and forth between machines tends to lead to much more efficient systems.
Jeff Bullas
00:21:03 – 00:21:35
Yeah. And I found that fascinating that uh neuroscience has made a big impact with large language models in A I. So, um and that was fascinating. So, um so you doing the phd? You’ve done it? That sounds fascinating. But you want to do something that more was applied A I or applied technology um rather than just you want, in other words, you wanted, you thought, you know, your phd was complex and then you decided to go and start a company and discover that actually that’s even more complex because it involves humans. Um
Jeff Bullas
00:21:36 – 00:21:53
You try and you’re trying to work out whether they want to buy anything that you actually think they will buy and you discover that maybe they don’t. And then you’ve got to work out pivot to something else and then you’ve actually gotta do marketing, then you’ve actually gotta manage people. So there’s this, uh the dynamics of humanity are messy and um,
Joseph Noor
00:21:53 – 00:22:23
absolutely. Um I remember like, you know, as a researcher, it’s just you, you know, sitting in essentially a corner thinking of problems, you know, think like you, you’re reading all the literature, you’re reading, what like the current state of the art is you, you’re looking at thinking about where are the gaps and what are the problems that currently exist in this space that haven’t quite been addressed? It’s like a very, um it’s very pure in that sense, right? And, and it is very personal, it’s very individual. You have your advisor who’s constantly giving you advice and kind of steering you in the right direction. You have your lab mates who,
Joseph Noor
00:22:24 – 00:22:49
You know, we bounce ideas off of each other. But like at the end of the day, it’s just you and whatever you can think of whatever you really want to work on totally different than, you know, building a company where the, the customer, the, the user, the person who you’re building for is everything and they steer everything and, and you will live and die by what they say. And so it was a complete 180 from the P I took some lessons and some learnings and some
Joseph Noor
00:22:49 – 00:23:16
really more like mental fortitude lessons I would say is really what the phd taught me is just like to slog through the challenges. Um But I didn’t even experience challenges or, or there’s a brand new scale when you’re building for, for actual people that they have needs, they have demands, they have expectations and, and you have to meet those and if you don’t, then they’re going to go to somebody who will satisfy their needs. It’s not you. Uh And so it was a completely different um, completely different world.
Jeff Bullas
00:23:17 – 00:23:30
OK. So where did the inspiration idea come from to start down? Well, which is helping manage the complexities of owning multiple real estate,
Joseph Noor
00:23:31 – 00:23:31
right?
Jeff Bullas
00:23:33 – 00:23:46
Was it a problem you saw? Was it a problem someone mentioned to you and said, can we solve this together? Where did the inspiration come from? The, aha moment going, I reckon there’s something here that is a problem we need to solve, obviously.
Joseph Noor
00:23:46 – 00:24:06
Absolutely. Um, so, yeah, I started the company with my, my, my partner and it was his idea. Um, so he actually was an asset manager at a family office. So, you know, they were managing a billionaire’s portfolio and they were trying to create returns on that, on that, on that money. And um real estate was obviously a phenomenal investment
Joseph Noor
00:24:06 – 00:24:44
vehicle. And in order to maximize the ROI, they wanted to minimize their tax burden. And so they had an entire team that would appeal the entire real estate portfolio every every year. Um to appeal the portfolio essentially means you can test the assessment that the county assessor sets the value of the real estate and you pay your property taxes as a percentage of the value of that real estate. Uh And so, you know, they were trying to minimize that in order to maximize their ro I and Colton was there. And he was thinking it’s crazy that a billionaire is taking advantage of this system that most Americans don’t even know exists, don’t take advantage of certainly. Uh And and there’s a bunch of reasons why that’s the case. But ultimately, it’s, it’s,
Joseph Noor
00:24:45 – 00:25:18
it’s very difficult for the traditional providers to be like an accountant or like a lawyer that would uh you know, appeal your portfolio for you. You can also do it yourself but that requires real estate knowledge, real estate expertise and to have the authority to walk up to an assessor and say your number is wrong and my number is right. And here’s why. Uh and so, you know, he had this idea. So he went to business school at UCL A. He was doing his MBA. I was completing my phd. I was um I was like roaming around campus one night thinking about a problem and uh I saw an ad for a pitch competition by the law school, uh the UCLA law school.
Joseph Noor
00:25:18 – 00:25:34
And I had this idea from my sneaker bought days. I had this idea that I could fight fraud. I could fight online fraud uh using A I. And so I, I assembled a little pitch deck and I went to the competition and I pitched my idea and it didn’t really resonate with people because A I was not hyped at the time like it is today.
Joseph Noor
00:25:35 – 00:26:10
Uh But uh so I sat back down and then Colton went up and Colton pitched this business model of the fact that there is a, there are simplified models that the assessor uses to set the value of real estate every single year because there’s millions of properties. And there’s only a handful of assessors that have to set those values. It’s way too complicated. So they use these, you know, off the shelf models that you can basically purchase. You plug in some values that spit out stuff, right? Like every square foot increases the value by a certain number of dollars. And so he pitched the idea and it completely resonated with me. I loved it. Um And so, yeah, that’s how we got started.
Jeff Bullas
00:26:10 – 00:26:46
Cool. That’s interesting because uh the actual being able to challenge the valuation by the authorities is not something we have in Australia. So, um well, I don’t believe so, maybe we do, but I have heard that a lot of times that local councils set the valuation and good luck with trying to get that back, like trying to get that lowered, you know, pandemic prices went up. Councils are now left, the local governments left it at that level. The valuations have come back down. Good luck with actually changing that. So in America, you actually are able to challenge the valuation.
Joseph Noor
00:26:46 – 00:27:17
That’s right. Yeah. So, uh I’m not exactly sure how the system works in Australia. Maybe one day we’ll do some research and we’ll consider expanding. But, uh but yeah, here, every one of the 3000 counties in the US is responsible for levying the assessments and there and then the property taxes for each of those properties. Um And so they all have their own systems and their own way of doing things and some of them are sophisticated shops that really, you know, nail it and some of them are, you know, just a couple of folks, a couple folks in a federal building or a state building, you know, that are just, um,
Joseph Noor
00:27:19 – 00:27:48
You know, they’re just, they have to assess the values every single year and they don’t necessarily know exactly how because there’s lots of properties. And so, um, yeah, they, they use these models and you can, there’s a formal process by which you can contest those models. Um You can contest the assessment, uh depends on the jurisdiction. It’s called various things, property grievance, property appeal. Um Tax protest here in Texas. Uh And so yeah, you can basically, you file some paperwork that says, I think your value is wrong. I think that my value is better. And here’s why
Joseph Noor
00:27:48 – 00:28:15
uh oftentimes that then leads to some sort of negotiation process. And if that doesn’t go well, you actually go to a formal hearing. It’s almost like a traffic court hearing, like it’s kind of, it is formal, but at the same time, it’s, it’s fast. It’s fairly expedient, anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. You go in, you present your case, the assessor presents their case and then there is essentially a board of judges that render a verdict on what the actual value should be.
Jeff Bullas
00:28:15 – 00:28:55
Ok. So you saw the problem. It’s complex. It’s messy. It basically can save people money by getting the valuation lowered. So did you start and create a minimal viable software platform to help you with that first? And just targeted that. And did you add anything else on top of that? In other words, did you start with an MVP? Which is that particular problem? And then have you added to that? I’d be curious because sometimes you build a model going, I think people want ABCDEFG and they only want A and B or they want X. Right. So, how, what did you do? Did you build a minimal viable product?
Joseph Noor
00:28:56 – 00:29:27
Yeah. So, um first of all, I wanted to validate this is a real problem. So Colton said it sounded nice. I love the idea, but let’s prove it. So, the first thing we did is most of this data or at least, especially for like the larger metro cities. Um It’s, it’s online public record data so you can just download it. It’s, you know, it’s a large data set, it’s complex too, it’s difficult to manage. But, you know, that’s my specialty. So I knew how to handle that. And so I would download these data sets. I’ve loaded in my system and I started writing algorithms that would essentially analyze the assessments and look for gaps.
Joseph Noor
00:29:27 – 00:29:45
Rather, let me try to summarize how these models work. So imagine like a plot right where you have like the, the size of the home and you have the value of the home. Now, now, generally as you get bigger, the value is gonna go, right? So it’s like, generally you’re gonna see a trend that goes up into the. Right.
Joseph Noor
00:29:45 – 00:30:13
And so what these, you know, more sim simplistic models will do is they’ll just slap a best fit line on there. Right. But that’s not actually how real estate works. Right. Like a slightly bigger home might not be worth that much more, it might not be worth exactly the same amount as a smaller home. And so by doing that, you end up having dots above the best fit line that are brought down to that best fit. And so those are going to be under assessed and you have dots down here, they are going to be brought up. So they’re going to be over assessed. And I was basically just writing algorithms looking for those guys. And as it turns out,
Joseph Noor
00:30:13 – 00:30:42
yeah, there, there’s definitely gaps uh especially if you look at, you know, more fine grain analysis. I was analyzing property by property and trying to look at things like that neighborhood, those property characteristics, nearby properties, recent sales, things like that. And I would find that, yeah, there’s definitely properties that are being over assessed. And so, ok, there’s a problem and there’s a system that theoretically can solve the problem. Why aren’t people doing it? It’s a pain in the butt, right. And the services out there, the services out there that will do it for you will charge more than you’ll end up saving.
Joseph Noor
00:30:42 – 00:31:21
And so our thought process was that we could use technology to essentially automate some of the underlying processes involved in, in, in the actual bureaucratic appeal and be able to streamline it. So that way we could charge a much more affordable rate and still be able to service, you know, whether you’ve got a mobile home or whether you’ve got a mansion, we will be able to service you that, that was like the dream. But we were very um uh the opposite of efficient at first, right? So we did everything manually, so I threw up a Wix website. I didn’t even bother making a website. We said, hey, let’s see if people will even sign up for this. I did my analysis. We had our, we had our list and we were basically marketing to those particular individuals saying
Joseph Noor
00:31:21 – 00:31:56
I have analyzed your particular property, your particular property is assessed by the assessor at this. I think it should be this. Uh You could go contest it and if you, you should please please contest it. Um But if you don’t want to, we’ll do it for you and we’ll just charge a flat contingency 25%. And that’s how we got started um that we were just, it’s pure contingency based and, and the idea there is, you know, I think there’s less friction from, from an individual that it is like, oh, like you’re only going to get a piece of what you save us. So if you don’t save us anything, you’re not going to charge us anything. And from my perspective too, I just, that business model resonates with me
Joseph Noor
00:31:56 – 00:32:35
because it feels like it’s, it’s either a win, win or there’s no downside. Uh And so I, I love that. And so, um I will never try to change that model. I will push that. We will always run with that value proposition of pure contingency. Uh If we don’t save any money, we don’t charge anything. And so, um, even when we had a lousy Wix site, and even though we had never filed an appeal before, well, Colton had when he was at that family office, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. Um People were signing up, uh like I was sending out that, that marketing material and people were, people, people were signing up with us. Uh And it was awesome. Uh And so then we had to figure out how to actually do the thing. So,
Joseph Noor
00:32:36 – 00:33:01
so we were, I was figuring out all the paperwork, you know, what do I need to file? Who do I file it with? You know, do I need to get it certified? We need to get all that information notarized, um, file it with the county, then there was this whole process of back and forth for scheduling and so on. We had to assemble our evidence and we had to file the evidence and then they would send their evidence and then we had to go to hearings and we had never gone to hearings before. And so we’re shown up to these hearings and we’re trying to argue and this assessor has done this
Joseph Noor
00:33:01 – 00:33:33
500 million times and I am there for my first time and I’m trying to say this property is assessed too high. Uh, and they’re trying to tell me how, I don’t know the neighborhood and I haven’t walked the neighborhood and they’ve walked the neighborhood every single year and so on and so forth. And so, you know, there’s tricks and so we learned the tricks and we probably bought a few, especially early on. Um we learn those tricks and now we know how to counter these points and we train our people like this is how this is the argument. They’re always gonna try to use this argument. That’s an invalid argument. Here’s why then you can reference appraisal theory and, you know, and, and over time it, it built and it built and it built and we got better and better at what we do.
Jeff Bullas
00:33:33 – 00:33:39
Cool. So do you just um do you apply to commercial real estate as well as residential?
Joseph Noor
00:33:40 – 00:33:42
Yeah, absolutely. We’ll, we’ll appeal all real estate,
Jeff Bullas
00:33:43 – 00:34:04
right? Because what’s interesting is that uh around the world and especially in America I’ve seen and valuations in L A I’ve seen for commercial real estate have plummeted. In fact, in New York, I saw one high rise building that was actually sold for uh 95% less than it was valued at. So
Joseph Noor
00:34:04 – 00:34:06
I remember reading about that, that building in New York.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:07 – 00:34:08
Yeah. Yeah.
Joseph Noor
00:34:11 – 00:34:45
So commercial real estate is much more objective because people don’t, people buy a home when you buy your home, it’s a very emotional decision. I want to live in this home. I want to raise my family in this home. When you buy commercial real estate, it is a pure, like this is an investment, what is the investment going to return? Am I going to pay for it or not? And so it’s much more tied to the markets. And so when interest rates go up, right? And when vacancies go up, uh commercial real estate really plummets. It’s much more variable. And so it, benefits much more greatly from an appeal than your home. But if I can save you $1000 that’s a win no matter what.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:46 – 00:35:02
OK. Yeah. So, yeah, I was just fascinated about whether you did commercial as well as residential. So, so you, you, you’ve done a test site, you test the model, you get people signing up. Now the challenge is scaling this, isn’t it?
Joseph Noor
00:35:02 – 00:35:03
Yeah, that’s right.
Jeff Bullas
00:35:04 – 00:35:05
So I have to go with that.
Joseph Noor
00:35:06 – 00:35:49
So uh we took, you know, you could argue whether this is the right approach or not. And, and we did uh but ultimately, this is what we ended up doing. Uh we, we did our analysis, uh we analyzed the market, the market size, we analyzed kind of the number of properties that were over assessed. And from our initial tests, we ballpark, you know, this is what our conversion looks like. This is how much it’s gonna take to appeal and so on. And so we roughly estimated that we could about ad X if we, if we wanted to just like really just kind of take the market based on our analysis that we could roughly a from where we were, which was like, you know, three of us just trying to do things ourselves, you know, like four or five maybe at the time.
Joseph Noor
00:35:50 – 00:36:18
And so we said, ok, let’s raise some money and we’ll tell them that it’s purely for marketing to these individuals and trying to grow and, and uh my co-founder, he actually had some connections to VC. He’s, he’s amazing. He’s got all these skills that I certainly don’t have. Uh you know, my skill set is I always thought about going very, very deep and very specialized in my expertise. And he’s much more like he can, he understands so much more and he’s much more broad in his, in his business knowledge. Um So, and, you know, part of that was raising, raising money. So he went, and he raised some money
Joseph Noor
00:36:18 – 00:36:59
and then we, we did that and customer, it resonated with customers and then we blew the lid off of any of our expectations with who was going and how people were going to sign up. And, uh it was the, by far, the most challenging time in my life, uh when we hit our goal and it just, we just smashed through it. We were completely unprepared for how much it resonated with, um, our market. And uh we were drowning and I was literally up every single night. We hired a few people, thankfully, we hired, you know, a number of folks that were helping us, but like there was only like 12 of us and we were,
Joseph Noor
00:36:59 – 00:37:21
and I was up every single night, late at night, scrambling trying to write code to automate some of these processes, you know, bureaucratic processes because ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to solve for is, you know, when, when we’re actually attending a hearing, that’s a, it’s a different game and that’s a game that, that we can build for and we can prepare for. But the actual, you know, filing paperwork, scheduling paperwork, going back and forth, you know, responding to emails.
Joseph Noor
00:37:21 – 00:37:42
So on, that’s, that was exceptionally challenging. And so I was spending all day, all night automating processes and building software that would basically do it for us. So because there was no way that we were going to be able to handle the volume and the demand that that came through and it was, it was, you know, a blessing. Absolutely a blessing. Um I definitely lost some hair. I lost a lot of hair during that year.
Jeff Bullas
00:37:44 – 00:38:03
Yeah. So the scaling involves good processes. Obviously, that was what you had to really work on. The other thing too is that would be the drive your business, the oil for what you do is the data total. So are you able to use publicly available data or did you have to go and scrape it or what did you do?
Joseph Noor
00:38:03 – 00:38:25
Yeah. So, so I, I would say that I’m having the most, the highest quality data lake is really what sets you apart in this business, right? Like, like you said, um there’s that and then there’s actually knowing, having the expertise and being able to walk into that hearing with confidence and, and argue with the data. Um But yeah, from the, from the start that that was something that I knew was going to be a long term investment. It’s not something that comes immediately. So
Joseph Noor
00:38:25 – 00:38:50
anywhere that I can get my hands on quality data, I’m gonna do it. If I have to buy it, I’ll buy it. If I can. If it’s online, I’m gonna take it online. If it’s, if it’s, you know, free, free public record data and so on and so forth. I’m taking it and whatever I can get and I can clean and I can prepare and, and, and, and essentially um have redundancy in place so I can cross reference and I can make sure and have confidence in my data. Uh, always, always going to do that. And so
Joseph Noor
00:38:50 – 00:39:26
If there is a way to get real estate data, we have done it or tried to do it. And, and ultimately, that’s, that’s what allowed us to, to prepare for the, the high volume that ended up coming through. I wasn’t so worried about that because I knew that was going to be a problem. And um that’s the nice thing about, you know, building software systems is that they inherently scale, right? If you, if I had, if I didn’t know who was going to, you know, sign up for my own, well, then I knew that I had to essentially build it for the entire jurisdiction or the entire county or the entire state. And so it was already prepared at that point. It was really like the bureaucratic pipes that I was not prepared for at all. But yeah, no, the data lake is everything here.
Jeff Bullas
00:39:27 – 00:39:43
Cool. So making sense of data though uh requires um other technology and A I is one of those other technologies. So do you apply A I in terms of pattern recognition, uh making sense of the noise? Do you use A I for any of that or, or more
Joseph Noor
00:39:44 – 00:40:19
so, yy, yes and no. Um what I would say is that I could build a model that takes input data and spits out an accurate assessment and I could walk into a hearing and I could say, hey, my A I model says that this property should be this, not that. And, you know, they’re going to laugh me out of the room. And so ultimately, you have to have explainable models. And so I’m not using black box systems, right? I’m not using neural networks, I’m not using large language models that just take an input and spit out output. I’m building explainable systems. And that was like a whole part of my research in the PhD was building explainable models. Um
Joseph Noor
00:40:19 – 00:40:39
And so, yeah, so, so ultimately, you know, I’m I’m assembly when it really comes down to it. Uh on, on the end of the actual building of the case, uh We are using explainable, basically rule based um models as opposed to kind of more sophisticated A I models that those models are used really everywhere else in the business. Um Like somebody sends an email,
Joseph Noor
00:40:39 – 00:40:58
We want to understand the email, we want to make sure to classify it. We want to see if we can auto respond to it, we can update our system based on that. Um You know, let’s say some county representative says, hey, can you change your, can we change your hearing date from, you know, the 14th to the 18th? You know, I want to be able to check and see if it’s fine and then be able to basically give the green light and auto respond or things like that.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:58 – 00:41:41
Yeah. Ok, cool. And not you building, what is one of the big, um I suppose issues with uh A I models, large language models of that. There are black boxes, there’s very little, very little transparency and you know, a simple part of that is, and we’re seeing it now come into being more transparency is creeping in, in terms of uh if you go to chat GPT and go. Ok. Uh I’m here’s a question or here’s give me an outline or what’s the answer to this, this and this and then you go, but please provide the sources, right? Yeah, because you’re going well, I want to check the validity of what you’ve told me because it will
Joseph Noor
00:41:41 – 00:41:51
hallucinate, right? It will lie to you because it’s like taking in so many different sources and conflicting sources and it has to come to an answer and it wants to give you the most, you know, satisfying or compelling answer. So,
Jeff Bullas
00:41:52 – 00:41:58
yeah. Yeah, it’s, it is really quite fascinating to watch this and uh we’re seeing uh
Jeff Bullas
00:42:00 – 00:42:30
The challenge with I think the number so far is that some calculations by and I think Sequoia capital was saying that 600 billion has been spent the last two or three years on infrastructure, especially software platforms, data centers, processors, right? Um Data. Yeah. So it’s a big money I’m going, oh, everyone’s nervous because where’s the real savings? And you’re going well, hang on. We are two years in it is wild West at the moment
Joseph Noor
00:42:32 – 00:42:41
and right, like it’s an arms race, right? This is essentially like the Cold War nuclear arms race. Like who is going to get to the best model first because they’re going to just be able to dominate everybody else.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:42 – 00:43:24
And I look for me, I wrote an article recently, which is, where is the money going? In other words, where is the investment money going in A I? And it was fascinating uh just I wanted to get a, a bigger, I wanted to stand back and look at the landscape and go, where is the money being spent? Um And part of that was looking at like looking at investing in some, what I call A I ETF S, you know, EFTs um that what we needed to do was I, I just wanted to go and because I was talking to a financial advisor and looking at, and I went, I just want to get a sense of the beat of the street. In other words, we’ve got wild valuations. I think Navidi is 90 times, you know, earnings, right?
Jeff Bullas
00:43:25 – 00:43:47
That’s possibly a bubble. But on top of that, we’ve seen Tesla fall and rise and rise and fall. Um I still think Tess models maybe I think China’s gonna blow it up. But that’s another story um in terms of subsidized TV. S. So there’s a lot, the whole investment game and the future is good luck for predicting the future. Totally.
Joseph Noor
00:43:48 – 00:43:57
Yeah, the investing game is not one that I’m good at, right? Like II I am just buying into the index and just letting it ride. Like I, if I’m gonna make my bets it’s gonna be on my own company.
Jeff Bullas
00:43:57 – 00:44:44
Yep. Yeah. And exactly. So um my investment strategy is very much just index funds. Uh this is not advice, financial advice guys, by the way, this is just personal experience being said, but the reality is that yeah, index funds set it, let it go and passive investment has been shown to beat active financial investment and the active financial investment managers are going. Oh no, no, I’m going uh the data till something else. So it’s very, very interesting to actually watch that. So anyway, um and I’ve got a little investment in a startup out of New Zealand, which has proved to be very, very good. Uh But that’s almost more good luck than good management again. Um So it’s fascinating. So,
Jeff Bullas
00:44:45 – 00:45:05
so you guys raised more money. What’s the future look like for you? It sounds like you’ve actually blown the, you said you blew the lid, blew the lid off what your projections were. So, what’s the future look like for you guys? Are you gonna do more with what you’ve got? Are you gonna expand the market? Um What does it look like for you guys? And what’s the size if you, if you, if you’re willing to share that,
Joseph Noor
00:45:05 – 00:45:24
Yes, that was a few years ago. So we’ve grown quite a bit over 100 in the team now. Um You know, we, yeah. So, you know, ever since then, you know, once I lost all my hair and I realized that I needed to invest in this and that it really did resonate with the market. I essentially just started building the pipes and saying, I want to create the most robust system in the world for automating this bureaucratic process.
Joseph Noor
00:45:25 – 00:45:52
And so, you know, nowadays, somebody signs up, we essentially do all our checks on our end. We do have humans looking for, especially like looking at our case, making sure that we have the best possible case. My thought process is, essentially , I want to supercharge our best people with, you know, technology to enable them to do even more. And that’s really my whole thought process with how technology should work. And even A I it’s not here to replace humans, it’s here to supercharge us. And so,
Joseph Noor
00:45:52 – 00:46:16
and, and so that’s what we’re doing here. Uh you know, building for, for many years now, um things are going well, you know, continuing to try to expand the market and see if there are new folks every single year, new folks buy their 1st, 1st home, every single year, new folks become over assessed because the model ends up deciding that they become over assessed. And so there’s, there’s always going to be a market to grow into. Um, but if I think about the future of the company, it’s the reason we called ourselves our own. Well,
Joseph Noor
00:46:16 – 00:46:39
um, instead of appealing your property taxes is because our, you know, forward looking, what we really want to do is help people. We want to be like that financial advocate for your real estate. Right. Everybody’s out there telling you how you should optimize your stock portfolio. Um, but nobody’s out there really taking a look at your real estate finances and telling you, you know, here are the gaps, here’s where you can improve, especially for, you know, the everyday American homeowner.
Joseph Noor
00:46:39 – 00:47:19
And so the way that I think about this is I want to build a really smart assistant that’s going to essentially put everything on autopilot. You know, you give us the core information that we need to do our analysis every single year and we will just make sure that you’re optimizing that asset. And if we ever think there is an opportunity for you to save or for you, you know, to turn it into a AAA more lucrative financial asset, we’ll offer that recommendation. Um So for example, most recently, we just launched, actually, just a few weeks ago, we just launched our insurance agent where uh you can put some basic information about your home insurance and we’ll constantly monitor in the background with a number of different providers, dozens of different providers and see if you have the best rate
Joseph Noor
00:47:19 – 00:47:52
on the market. And if we see that there is another provider that could offer you either a better premium or a better deductible so on and so forth. We will only in that situation surface that recommendation to you uh without compromising any of your contact information. So you’re not getting spammed with email and phone calls and all this from all these agents trying to sell you on their policy. Uh And that’s kind of the way that I’m thinking about it. So I’m just thinking, you know, can I really just put everything on autopilot and make your home a perfectly optimized financial asset and that’s really the direction that we’re hoping to take the company,
Jeff Bullas
00:47:52 – 00:47:57
right? So that’s in terms of the costs of managing the asset, is that what you’re talking about more than anything else?
Joseph Noor
00:47:58 – 00:47:58
That’s right.
Jeff Bullas
00:47:58 – 00:48:35
Yeah, yeah, because the other one, the other valuation, you know, places to buy like Austin, Texas, for example, is, you know, the real estate prices are going up more than, you know, somewhere in the mid midwest or whatever. Um And you know, it’s got basically a lot of industries moving into Austin and Texas and so on because of various things like less taxes. I believe that’s why people go to Nevada, right? But this goes on. So it’s messy. So, yeah, that’s an amazing growth story, you know, Joseph, in terms of 100 people now, um, are you still raising capital needed to or is it basically becoming a bootstrap now and you are profitable and got good cash flows?
Joseph Noor
00:48:35 – 00:48:59
We’re in a very advantageous position where we don’t have to. Um, you know, I think that it’s always a conversation that we have, like, can we, you know, put some more accelerator into the business with some additional capital and I think that we are probably looking, um, but it’s not, it’s not essential, right? We could always, we can continue to boost up the business, uh, from this point forward. And, um, yeah, it’s, it’s like a win, win scenario. That’s, I guess, the best place to be.
Jeff Bullas
00:48:59 – 00:49:04
Yeah. So did you, when you started doing it, were there any competitors in the marketplace and have any arisen?
Joseph Noor
00:49:05 – 00:49:15
Yeah, definitely. But yes, to both. Um, so there are some traditional providers and, and there are some new guys trying to, they’re trying to replicate us
Jeff Bullas
00:49:16 – 00:49:18
the ultimate form of flattery.
Joseph Noor
00:49:19 – 00:49:22
I’m not worried about it. Yeah, I know when. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:49:23 – 00:49:28
So you think you’ve built a big enough moat to actually make yourself quite protected?
Joseph Noor
00:49:28 – 00:49:59
I think if you want to be really good at this business, um, it requires special skills that take years to invest in. And, uh, especially, I mean, if you look at the traditional providers, uh, you know, if you have a certified appraiser, you know, certified commercial appraiser, analyzing a particular commercial property and he’s spending, or if she’s spending an hour analyzing that property, there’s walking the perimeter, they’re looking at neighboring comps and, and, and so on, they’re dissecting the financials, like they are going to do a phenomenal job. They’re just
Joseph Noor
00:49:59 – 00:50:22
going to charge you a fortune to do that. And so, you know, there’s obviously that traditional provider and then, you know, you’ve got these kinds of young upstarts that think they think that it’s just a marketing play. It’s not a marketing play. There’s so much under the hood that you have to build to make this system work and, uh, good luck honestly, like, let’s let, let’s, let’s fight on fair ground. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:22 – 00:50:34
In other words, they’re bringing a, uh, a knife to a gunfight as we say. Um, so, so essentially you’ve disrupted what was a very traditional industry with technology.
Joseph Noor
00:50:34 – 00:50:45
I’d say that’s roughly accurate. Yeah, I say real estate in general needs to be, uh, needs it. It’s one of the more resistant industries to the surge of technological innovation.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:45 – 00:51:39
Yeah. And there’s a lot of industries that are very entrenched and actually have been around. No. Yeah, let’s say 50-100 years even longer. Education has been around forever. Um, technology has threatened to actually disrupt education and it has in a way, but on the other hand, the school systems are still very much the same Um, so it’s, it’s fascinating to watch, uh, the rise of technology that challenges the status quo but it, it takes generations sometimes to change things. Um, and, yeah, it’s, it’s just interesting to watch. I was an ex high school teacher so I, you know, a bit like Waltz. Really? Um, but the reality is, what is that? Education is a very traditional industry. Um, then you have a look at higher education that’s almost even more. Um I suppose not calcified is not the right term, but
Jeff Bullas
00:51:39 – 00:52:16
still very much centuries and centuries of, of actual processes and approach, you know, how dare you, you know, do it this way because it’s been done like this for 300 years. So, uh yeah, so just to sum things up, um what, what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned along the way as an entrepreneur? And also I’ve got another question too, who are some of the mentors and resources that have helped you along the way? Maybe do that first. And then the last one is one of the few tips you could give to people that want to start their uh start their start up.
Joseph Noor
00:52:17 – 00:52:55
Yeah, absolutely. Um So, so the first, the first that I’ll say with regards to mentors, uh I take inspiration from lots of people. Uh And, you know, at the end of the day, I think that like the best mentors are the ones that I can, I can read about or read from, right? So, you know, when there’s a really phenomenal book written directly from somebody that, you know, has achieved the kind of success in the kind of industry that I’m looking to do that. That’s why I can’t imagine where I could get more insight and more knowledge. So, you know, thinking off the top of my head, uh Love Mark Andre, I think he’s an inspiration you’ve mentioned. Escape, right? Like one of the true innovations of the last
Joseph Noor
00:52:55 – 00:53:44
I know, 200 years, like truly the internet was phenomenal and, and the web browser, right? The visual internet was phenomenal. You know, Steve Jobs. I mentioned the iphone, the iphone blew my mind when the iphone came out. I was like, oh, this is gonna change everything forever. Like I’m laying in bed, looking at I’m connected to the world, laying in bed, this is, this is it. Uh And so that I, I was so captivated by that. Um You know, I think that also if you look at leaders like Andy Grove from Intel. Absolutely. And so yeah, there’s, there’s, there’s a long list and I pride myself on, you know, being able to the fact that like we have this library of books of all these incredibly intelligent, successful people that are just openly willing to share their knowledge with us.
Joseph Noor
00:53:44 – 00:54:07
And from my perspective, I also love podcasts. Actually, I listen to tons and tons of podcasts because it’s just so convenient. I’m in the car, I can just, you know, gain some for the next 20 minutes. Um, in terms of, uh some advice, I think, you know, you mentioned it first, which was, uh, you know, you got to be uncomfortable in order to like, push yourself in order to unlock something, right? And, and ultimately,
Joseph Noor
00:54:07 – 00:54:35
if you aren’t where you want to be, then you have to unlock something that isn’t there today. And so the only way to do that is to, is to create some discomfort, right? To create some opportunity for you to um be challenged or to push yourself something that requires you to push yourself. Uh That, that, that’s the best way I think to really level up in life. And uh I think people often get scared of those challenges, right? They have their system. But if you continue to do the same thing that you’ve always done,
Joseph Noor
00:54:35 – 00:54:55
you’re gonna continue to be the same person that you’ve always been. And if that’s what you want to be great. But if you want to achieve something new, it fundamentally requires you to do something different. And to lean into that challenge, Mark Anderson talks about the four types of luck. I highly recommend that essay to anybody that’s trying to create success for themselves because he’s right. Uh I got lucky 100%.
Joseph Noor
00:54:56 – 00:55:20
I got lucky and it’s not blind luck. Like I walked into a bag of cash. It’s a different kind of luck and it was really the, the, the 2nd and 3rd types of luck that ended up creating some success for myself. The second being, keep trying stuff like stir the pot, the more you, it’s, it’s like the primordial soup of life, right? You’ve got so much activity happening that eventually something will pop, right? So that’s the second type of luck. The third type is that um
Joseph Noor
00:55:21 – 00:56:00
you become so knowledgeable in something you have such specialized knowledge that when the opportunity arises, you can capitalize on it. So somebody who really understood Cryptocurrency, who understood the Blockchain who was invested in Bitcoin early on, they got lucky, but they didn’t get lucky, right? They knew that that was an opportunity that was going to come. And then the fourth type of luck is somebody who is so, so good at something, just the absolute master in it that whenever the opportunity arises, people go and pursue them. And that’s, that’s the hardest type that um yeah, those are like the, the special people in the universe, right? The absolute unicorns. But I think the 2nd and 3rd are very practical and, and um I continue to try to embody those and continue to try to be lucky in, in the company.
Jeff Bullas
00:56:00 – 00:56:03
So it sounds like you do a lot of reading. Is that correct?
Joseph Noor
00:56:03 – 00:56:08
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, reading and, and podcast, right? Which I think is just an extension of that. How else are you gonna learn?
Jeff Bullas
00:56:08 – 00:56:41
Yeah, exactly. And what I love about a book, I’ve been a big book reader since I could, ever, since I started, you know, reading, uh, I think about six or seven and I became a librarian as best friend at lunchtime. Uh, I love sports too. So I was both, I was both. I suppose I am an introvert and an extrovert in terms of playing sports. Plus I hid in the library occasionally and would just read at night until, you know, I would read under the covers because curfew was 8: 30 right? Or going to bed time. But I was in there
Joseph Noor
00:56:41 – 00:56:42
with my game boy. I’m not gonna lie.
Jeff Bullas
00:56:43 – 00:57:26
Yeah. So I did a lot of reading late at night when my parents thought I was asleep. Um I would wait for him, mom and dad down the corridor actually go, go quiet and go, ok, I can turn my lamp on now and grab my book and read. Um And what I love about books, especially the ones you mentioned, which are, you know, stories and insights by successful people, famous people is that they’ve in just a couple of 100 pages have distilled their insights and it is decades and a lifetime of insights. And one of the most interesting books I read recently is Poor Charlie Charlie’s Almanac by Charlie Munger,
Jeff Bullas
00:57:27 – 00:58:07
where he talks about the 90 to 100 mental models he’s developed over and he died last year at nearly 100 years old, at 99 less three months, 100 years, less three months. It was fascinating to see his generalist approach to investing because he said that a company is like a human organism. So you’ve basically got to apply psychology, economics, math, neuroscience. You know, it just goes on and on and it was fascinating, one of the most fascinating books I’ve read for a long time and, um, that’s 100 years of his life, put into a book. But I, you’re gonna find wisdom.
Joseph Noor
00:58:08 – 00:58:28
Absolutely. Each of these folks, you know, they’re obviously not the same. They’ve each developed and honed their own strategy to life. And I think it’s so interesting that like there’s all these different ways to be successful, you don’t have to adopt a very particular mindset or a very particular strategy. But each of these folks has their own and maybe taking bits and pieces, you can create your own strategy.
Jeff Bullas
00:58:28 – 00:59:13
Yeah. Yeah, it’s, and uh, one of my favorite t is the, uh, is, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Um, and uh part of that story is where they all go into the forest alone where there is no path. And I think out of that there is we’re all gonna find our own path and create our own path because we are not anyone else. We are who we are with our own skills and experience, our own passions, innate abilities and your challenge in life. I think it is actually trying to find where that lies and write and create your own path and that’s where the adventure lies. Totally agree. Yeah. So
Jeff Bullas
00:59:14 – 00:59:44
Joseph, thank you very much for sharing your learning and insights and uh I find it fascinating and uh good luck with the future. It sounds like you’re on a, on a fast train uh to being bigger and better and offering, you know, value to the world, which is you’re solving problems. Um And that is just awesome. So, thank you very much for sharing your expertise and passion. I can see it shining through and thank you very much. It’s been an absolute joy.
Joseph Noor
00:59:44 – 00:59:46
Thank you, Jeff. I had a great time.