0:00Reunion intro

Welcome to Give It A Nudge everybody. We have an extremely special episode today. Anyone who has been following the show will remember episode one, where we had Dan Hakim, who was at the time the founder of CUB. He is still the founder of CUB, but now he is back, and I think this is about episode 98, to talk about his new venture Boa. Welcome back, Dan.

I know, I thought it was going to be at least 100. It has been two years. And we had the launch party last night, which I thought your speech showed a lot of humility. I really liked it. We have generated so much press already from it and the app is exploding, which is a bit scary because we are still very much learning.

4:00What is Boa

In short, it is a social media that is exclusively for entrepreneurs and business owners. It is going to simplify the way we connect and support each other as a national business community. Our goal is to build the world’s largest network of business owners. I believe that every entrepreneur on the planet should have access to a network of like-minded individuals that can help them navigate the very difficult journey of business.

6:30How COVID created the gap

When COVID hit I thought CUB was done for. We are a networking company, we bring people together for a living, and we were not able to do that. But very quickly I realised members did stay and in fact we started growing faster than ever. They were more engaged than ever before digitally helping each other. And that made me think: how are the other 2.4 million business owners in Australia at home right now? Who is supporting them? The answer was there was no major platform for business owners to simply connect with each other on.

9:00CUB vs Boa

CUB is a premium brand which means it has a premium price. It is also restrictive by eligibility, geography, and time. There are a lot of factors that restrict someone from benefiting from the CUB community. Boa’s goal is to democratise the ability to access a powerful network to help you succeed in business, to help you make your impact on this world. There are business owners in regional areas, new parents, and people who cannot get to networking events. I want to make sure every entrepreneur has access to a network.

11:30The Boa experience

The first thing you are going to see is a very different type of content and conversation than you will see on any other platform. The communication on Boa is truly authentic and far more supportive and honest. Right now Boa is kind of like a national advisory board of entrepreneurs who can ask a question and receive answers, opinions, and thoughts from thousands of others almost instantly. I want when someone gets onto the platform for them to feel like they just walked into their grandparents’ house. You make your first post and everyone welcomes you and shares advice.

14:00Conversational versus promotional

On other social media and platforms we always have to look perfect, like we are always killing it, nothing is ever wrong. That is the fantasy of business. The reality is that business is challenging and being a business owner is a lonely journey. Boa is where you go to ask is it just my business or is it the economy? How are you all doing at the moment? People are asking for recommendations and tips on technologies and service providers. Right now it really is a national advisory board.

17:00Following the river

When you start a new business you do not actually know what it is going to become. You have an idea and a vision but business is like a river. You have to follow it. If you follow it well enough you dodge the boulders and the fallen trees and you get to the ocean and you find your market. I just want to build something valuable to business owners. I do not care how I do it. I am going to evolve the platform to best serve business owners as they show me what they need.

19:30LinkedIn versus Boa

Facebook was the social media and LinkedIn was the professional network. That is how they sold it. But LinkedIn is very much the employee network. The profile is a CV. It is a recruitment platform and a promotional tool but it is majority employees. We are just the next iteration. We are the business owners network. It does not mean your social network or professional network is not relevant anymore. But now you have a business owners network where you can discuss the things that matter to you with people who get you.

22:00Product vision

I believe it is going to look very much like Twitter because I like the simplicity, but it is going to have a lot of the functionalities of Reddit because Reddit lets you tap into all these different relevant communities. Right now Boa is basically one community of business owners. But it will not be for long. I believe Boa is going to be thousands or millions of communities across the world of business owners. So if you are in a particular suburb you can find that local business community. If you are a mumpreneur you can meet other mumpreneurs. If you want marketing tips you can join that community and have a feed of marketing content.

25:00Events and global vision

It is also going to have event functionality. If anyone wanted to host an event with an audience of owners or entrepreneurs they could create that event on Boa, promote it through Boa, let say it was an event for startups, create it, and Boa users can see it, RSVP, and purchase tickets if it is a paid event. And when the platform goes global, think about travel. You arrive in a new city, you get on Boa, and you find who is around. That is already in there in an early form.

28:00Building tech for the first time

For me the problem with tech is there are so many little things that can go wrong. In real life, if a staff member serves someone incorrectly, the customer often does not know. On technology, when a button does not work the way it was supposed to, the user knows it is a bug and they let you know immediately. All technology has bugs and the more you build the more bugs come. You just need to get it good enough to function correctly for most people. The other thing is that you are dealing with large numbers of people very quickly. We might bring in 25 new members in an entire month at CUB. At Boa we could bring in 25 users in a minute. So the induction process needs to be built and automated into the technology itself.

31:00The biggest risk

You would be crazy not to have the ability to tap into the collective power of thousands of other Australian entrepreneurs for anything you need. The biggest risk you can take as an entrepreneur is being on the journey alone. Find your tribe, find your community that can support you in business, and your life will change. Mine certainly did. I was 23 when I started CUB and I was not the person who could run a company. But because I built this network I was lifted and helped by so many people. My success is because I had so much help. I want everybody to have that.