He Left Robinhood to Build an App to Barter | Mehdi Taifi

All right, we're back with another one. And this one got another counterpart of ours. Julie's back in the in the in the hot seat. In the host seat this time, you know, you're not in the hot seat. And uh we got a clear he said host seat. All right, guys.

See, host seat. He's uh this is an innovative one. Uh these projects I love. Um I've had the pleasure of meeting our guest Medie uh before and he's very bright, smart guy. I like what he's doing. Uh Medie, for those people who don't know you, explain to them a little about yourself and your background.

Well, thank you. It's good to be here. You know, this is one of those podcasts I feel like just just before I even hear anything, if I just like see you guys talk, I I want to know what you guys are talking about. You know, if like you scroll through Instagram and you see like a couple guys talking and it's muted,

I want to actually like unmuted like what, you know what I mean? So, but I'm a fan. I appreciate you guys inviting me to this. Uh yeah. So, uh Medi Ty, I'm the founder of Za. Uh so this is obviously one of the reasons we're here and uh talking about the app and uh what we're doing in Miami. Uh but you know my background before we get into the app is um I am a Moroccan American. I grew up in Orlando. Um yeah I uh was in Wall Street and then went to uh Silicon Valley. Joined Robin Hood early on back in 2017 when it was a small little startup. Um and uh yeah did that for about six yeah about six years and then I transitioned to kind of you know on my own. I launched a couple of startups prior to ZEA and now I'm fully focused on this um on the tech on the tech side. I think that's the future and u you know it just that's basically it.

So you got to tell me a little bit how was it working at Robin Hood?

Oh it's amazing.

Can you speak about that or not?

I think I can or can

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I I think I can I can keep it high level. Give it to me. To me, that's extremely industry interesting. It's one of those apps that blew up, I think, overnight. They did a good job. And now, I don't even know what the valuations at. It's probably in the billions.

Uh 120 billion.

Yeah. So, so not a lot of people get opportunity to work for a company like that. Yeah. You know, how was that process? [clears throat] I mean, how did you start? You know, how did you end?

I think well, for for me, again, back in the day really no one knew Robin Hood, right? So, I was at Deutsche Bank, which is an established investment bank uh in New York. And um I heard about Robin Hood. I I looked them up. There wasn't much really, but I got a chance to interview with one of the co-founders. And when I learned more about the, you know, the founders and and the mission, um I thought it was worth the risk. You know, it was uh a lot of people thought I was crazy for leaving, you know, Wall Street investment banking and going into a smaller fintech um in California. But again, that's part of the risk you take in life, you know, to say, "Hey, if it worked out, great. If not, I can always go back to Wall Street." Uh, but it definitely worked. It was an amazing journey. I mean, initially it was very uh scrappy, you know, kind of just trying to build. There's a lot of great ideas, a lot of things that the founding team wanted to do and it's just a matter of, you know, is it realistic? You know, because what we're seeing in front of us is we're a small team. were, you know, ambitious, but there's a lot of stuff that we still needed to do. And little by little that we were accomplishing these goals, you know. Um, but yeah, I mean, when I I joined the Rob the the Orlando office initially, uh, because they were building a second office at the time. There was about five of us. We were taking turns to get snacks. Uh, you know,

you programming or

uh, no, I was a project manager manager. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's kind of been my my background on a project management space. And, uh, so that's what we did. we just kind of just go with the flow, whatever needed to be done, you know, we're building the operations space. Um, so we started, you know, we went to a bigger office, we started hiring, we started growing.

You were there during the whole GameStop.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Give me a little behind the scenes. How's

the the GameStop thing was really kind of it came out of nowhere honestly. Um I I remember the day of I was getting text messages from people saying this and that Robin Hood is going to stop trading and um I didn't even know about it at the time, right? So I think the the company had to react quickly and and you know the the aftermath obviously we all know what what happened and just let's say you know I've had few sleepless nights during that time trying to just clean up everything and it was it was crazy you know it was crazy how also I think public perception is interesting right because a lot of people can go from being the hero to being the villain overnight because of just stipulation like a lot of people then they they don't know what happened right but they sound somewhat intelligent they they would analyze it in some sort of way in social media and people just eat it up, but it's not necessarily, you know, what happened.

Yeah. And I also feel like the decisions you guys made in those next couple days, it was either going to kill the brand or or, you know, take off in order like, you know, preserve it, you know, take off.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I I think that's a good example for me again like as I'm trying to build my own brand is that sometimes you have to go through some high and lows and some of these lows are really low, right? Yeah, that's a very rich

and yeah, a lot of people at the time they thought Robin Hood was not going to make it after that, right? because we're all about that public perception where like the again the democratizing finance and and you know for that perception to change u you know a lot of people think you know thought we're not going to survive it but uh we did you know and Robin Hood is bigger than ever and I was there I saw them go IPO when they went public that was a big that was a really big day for for Robin Hood and

it was exciting it was exciting

stock in the company or

uh yeah

okay good can't complain huh I I can't complain. As I said, it's one of those things where you just have to take a risk, right? U because again, a lot of people at the time when I joined them, they said you shouldn't. You know, it's a small little startup and it's not going to go anywhere. But I think that's the beauty of especially our time is is the opportunity that we all have.

You don't have to be the brain behind it, but also just being at the right time in the right place. Uh you know, we've seen these startups, you know, the these examples are happening more frequently. You know, back in the day, you'd hear about the was it the janitor that worked at Facebook that got some stock.

Yep. Yep.

And and Evil 2 and all that, too.

Right. Right. And it was less frequent, right? So, it's like you hear that story, it's like one of those like legends, right? Um but now it's very it's common, right? A lot of people invest in these startups and and they believe in the mission, you know, it's a very missiondriven environment. You know, it's like you believe in it, you're passionate,

which it comes to the leadership.

Yeah. to have major leadership, people have a clear vision, the top top, you know.

Absolutely.

So, what what makes you want to leave a billion dollar company and go start up your own app?

What drives you for that? How did the idea of the Z app come about?

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I I think ultimately that's that's part of just building a legacy, you know? um you you you get inspired by these people and and to me I think overall I I've been obsessed over like the we were just talking about that earlier the origin story and and how some of these guys um you know took a leap of faith and you know they went in allin uh with an idea that they had and it's basically the same thing you know if this could be the next Robin Hood but I have to put in the uh the effort right

so I mean I'm not going to say too much but I think the purpose of the app is bartering,

right? Which is the oldest form of transactions that exist, you know, like our ancestors, you know, way ancestors. That's how they used to operate. Yeah.

And even in some countries, you go to Cuba, people still barter a lot.

And honestly, even here, people barter services for food or something. So, you see it a lot with the influencers and the foodies online.

Yeah.

Um, why create an app? Like, what did how did the idea come about? Were you just hanging out and saying, "You know what? I'm going to create a marketplace for this." Like, kind of guide me through how that process was for you.

Yes.

A good party and a couple good drinks. [laughter]

That's exactly right.

One of those those are the expensive ideas

that that's how you know every fun story begins, right? Uh yeah, it was it was really a conversation I had with one of my you know, one of my best friends. I we were you know uh having uh just a conversation about how well one uh it it started talking about um yeah bing in general right it it why is it not a thing we understand you know the introduction of currency how that's changed everything you know from back in the day um but ultimately this is something where we can really leverage because it's it's something that's common people know what it is but you don't really have a lot of tools that allow you to do it today. Yeah. Right. And that's part of just the innovation 101 type of approach. You know, if you want to create something new, create something that well, you're going to have to educate people on it, but it's not something completely foreign. Yeah.

And then do you have enough competition? Is it already done? Because if if people are already doing it, then if you're going to do it, are you going to do it differently than them? Like why is it something that people should even care about?

Yeah. I think too,

people don't mind bartering. It's that first step of like awkwardness like do I ask for money? Do I ask for barter? Do I? So it's like if you introduce with that first step like hey you put a platform like you guys are doing now where it just pops up and you just get to click on something you know then at least it opens a conversation and it can lead to even further transactions. You know

that's where the swiping comes in, right? It makes it less awkward when you just swipe right. Correct. And then you match with someone. And I think that's again going back to the origin story that was the second part of the conversation is why is swiping predominantly exclusive to online dating? Why are we just swiping on girls right or girls swiping on guys or guys on guys whatever services you can swipe on anything right? And uh it's a it's an addictive type of mechanism that you know if we leverage that and we leverage shopping two addictive ways to you know and and you're doing it for free right you're not shopping by spending money. So we thought it's basically the the perfect combination to create an app like Za.

Yeah.

No, I was just saying we live we're living in an age of sustainability and recycling and everybody's so this app I think goes hand in hand with like you know with that where people are

point you know they can go they go on this app and they could instead of having to throw things away they could trade it for something else that they want. And you know, again, in this age that we're living in where everything's green and sustainable and everybody's trying to, you know, keep up with things,

right?

He says that and it's a very good point because I remember seeing a documentary recently about all this stuff that we we're just we're we're we just consume consume consume consume at least in the States.

Yeah. Mount Trashmore the highway

and all this stuff that people just buy and you know single-use plastics obviously or single use things

and we just toss out you know just toss out and toss out and then

I don't know if you guys have noticed this

but you see all these little sub companies popping up now that are these bids these bins bins companies have you seen pop up

they're popping up everywhere now right so what's happening Amazon Walmart everyone's going online right so you're buying stuff you're returning it to them, it cost them more to restock the product. So, they're packing it into containers and selling it off to these little stores that are then selling these containers in mystery boxes to the public.

Yeah.

So, you'll show up at these bins places, right? And it's a bunch of boxes that are unopened.

You got to bid on it.

No.

Mondays everything's $2. Tuesdays everything's $12.

Oh, so it might come up or you might lose.

Exactly.

You're not losing too much.

You get what you get. Get you get what you get. And then they have these little mystery boxes for like 60 bucks.

I've gone through them, right? And I've gone through many stores. I was actually I was thinking opening one, but that's going to that's a bubble for sure. They're going to figure something's going to happen there. But it goes back to the reason why your app is happening. But

brother, what you get in the boxes is the most random thing ever. It'll be like three phone cases, a pregnancy test, uh two suits for like hazard mats, uh a Halloween mask, and it's just like, what do you do with this? You know, so we have one next door to a puppy shop that we have,

and I had a lady go in, buy one, and she just comes out, she goes,

"This is just trash here. Just, you know, yeah,

just giving this to you guys." And just leaves it on the table for us. And I'm like, "How funny." I go and I rumage through it and I see all these little random things and I'm like, "Okay, now what do I do with this?"

Yeah.

Do I just store it? Do I keep it? Do I give it away? You know, so hence

I I I think there's some it's it's an inherent nature in us, right? To just try to find some sort of a deal, right? Like back in the day, people would go in to find treasure, right? And they would they would spend their whole life trying to find it and they can't. It's the same thing here when you think about finding a deal. I mean, I I grew up I I know my parents used to go to garage sales a lot, right? Or you go to antique shops or you go to thrift stores. It's the same concept, right? It you're trying to find something that is undervalued, right? That you that you can leverage or people resell it or or whatever you do with it. Um it's just part of the thrill, right? And I think this is an interesting app for for people that want to just see what they can find because at the end of the day, what we're doing is we're opening up people's closets and garages and and things that you own, right? And we're putting it out there so you see what your neighbor has because you can be living right next to your neighbor. You never know what they have. They might have something that you want and guess what? You might have something that they want. Yeah. So, this is a very easy, seamless way to have an app that shows you all the the type of inventory that you might be interested in and that you can, you know, just trade for something else, right? So,

that's a good point. Right. So, I remember when I was browsing the app and I'm just curious on how you can handle this or how you can maybe even resolve this problem.

I see someone with a jet ski.

Yeah.

And I have I don't know,

you know, an old car,

you know.

Yeah. Obviously, there needs to be two mutual parties that want to come into an agreement, right? But do you see people like stacking stuff up or like do things do do how many [clears throat] I guess a real question is how many people actually trade one thing for another or how often? And I am assuming they usually trade at a value of the same or how do they work that out?

Because I really want that free jet ski, you know, but I don't really have anything to offer. Is there an option for me to buy it if I want to?

Yeah, all good questions. I think first of all, you know, we want people to believe in the vision and to see where this is going. And bear with us right now because you may not have exactly what you might not see exactly what you want or you might see something that you're not going to be able to trade cuz right now what we have is a onetoone, right? You give me something, I give you something. It has to be similar in value. But what we're building is something that's going to change the game for good. What we're building is something that's going to allow you to leverage all your inventory. You put it, you know, you basically we're going to call it a stash. This is an exclusive, by the way. Okay. This is the first time we're we're we're mentioning

newa app update.

Yes. Dun, you know, with the edits, we should have a little cool little, you know.

Hey, Ben, you got that?

Yeah. Uh, but we're we're calling it a stash. But this is where people are going to add all [clears throat] sorts of inventory to the app. The moment I have like an exclusive update, I get a little throat, you know.

Go for it.

Yeah. So, so, so what we're doing is we're really redefining the whole concept of value where like you can you can put anything that you own and eventually also your skills. So, anything of value that you can provide to someone else. I like that.

You can put it on the app, you can put it on your account profile. And so, when someone sees, let's say, your your old car, right, but it's not the same value as their jet ski, you still need to add like an extra, let's say, a,000 bucks, right? Or $500. They can go in and see what else you own. Or when you make an offer to them, you can say, "I'm gonna give you my jet ski. I'm gonna give you a pair of sunglasses and I'm going to give you my watch and it's all going to be worth $1,000 and you I'm going to get your your jet ski instead or your car." Right? So, this idea of, you know, show us your ZA stash, right? So, everyone is going to have their ZA stash with all the inventory of things that they can trade and then you can you can, you know, make uh an offer, right? You can say, "Hey, I'm going to give you these three items for your one item." Um, and if there is a gap, you can add cash. If you have a cash option to add a cash to get the deal done,

you will. Yes. This is something in the works.

Now, can I straight up put a car for sale? No trade option.

Uh, we want to remain authentic to this idea of bering. So, just to do a pure like sales, you know,

that's offer up. That's the other.

Exactly. There's And that's what makes us unique, right? Because the moment we do something that other apps are doing it again, why would they go from offer up to ZA if we're doing the exact same thing?

No, you have a different audience, you know, and inherently people do want deals all the time. You see it, you know, it doesn't matter how much money you have, you want a good deal.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um,

regarding I was Okay, so correct. Yeah, I was that's my train of thought.

So, the services that's really interesting to me. Yeah. Okay. So, for example, let's say I'm a photographer.

Yeah. I can go in and offer videography and content creation services in exchange for whatever else is on the app.

Exactly. Okay.

Exactly. Yeah. So, what we're going to do is it's going to be a combination of products and services either combined or separate. So, meaning I have a couple of items I want to trade. They're worth $100, right? I have a a bag and and a pair of shoes and you're going to give me a a jacket. Okay, that's pretty standard. Or I can have a couple of products and I can also throw in a service, right? Um let's say somebody, you know, like somebody's going to do your nails and you're going to give them a purse, right? Um that type of situation. So it can be product to service, service to service or product to product, right? So we're going to add all of them together because the whole point what we're trying to do is completely change this concept of value. What you think about value, anything that you see in life, there's value in it. you know, things that you own, things that you can do yourself,

leverage that. It doesn't always have to be just about cash.

Brother, did you see the other day the Elon Musk talking about in like 20 years, we're going to live in a currencyless society?

Yeah.

Did you Did you see that? Or

when I heard that, of course, I'm going to be biased. I'm thinking about my app.

That's That's what I'm doing right now. [laughter]

I'm talking about your app right now, too. You know, so he was like, "We're going to live in a cashless society at one point in life,

you know, things are just going to be, you know, I don't know,

with robots or whatever, you know, like

Yeah. Well, think think about the circular economy, right? There's like even though we're so global, but there's more for like hyper localized communities, right? That are just trying to kind of keep things, you know, you talk to people like, "Yeah, I'm in a quiet neighborhood, right? Like there's this concept of we're building smaller communities within this bigger ecosystem, right? Even in Miami." And so that's a part of it too, right? So within your community, you can be self- sustainable. You can you can just see your neighbor. You know, they they have they have some orange trees in the back and you know, you have some some avocados.

See a picture of his handsome. Hey, you want to barter?

Why not? You know,

download the app.

Download the app.

I thought you um is there a possibility? I'm not sure if if it exists at this moment. Um it does it have to be a personto person or can it and a business enroll and a business can have its profile and offers a service you know like for example let's say I have my little restaurant

and I want to offer you know a free golada on the on the app you know can I do something there or a free you know $25 gift card in exchange for you coming to do content is that a possibility in the app it is

absolutely because at the end of the day there's no limits right it's just a matter of having the business will have to have their own account and somebody managing.

But there's a business profile option right now.

It there's no business profile. You're just going to create a user profile, right? But you can name it whatever you want. And you know, so that's that's up to them. There's nothing that says you can't be a business to use this app, you know.

That's a good idea. I like that a lot, too.

Final day in Miami on the Z app, guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I'm going to be giving for free, but in exchange. Yes. You know.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Can I go? Can is there an opportunity? Cuz I get a lot of these things. I see it a lot. And I it's funny because I think you can be kind of your app is like a I see it as like a Frankenstein of like could be Eventbrite um OTH offer up you know [clears throat] Craigslist you're kind of like bridging all those a lot of those components together which those are all really you know big platforms

big platforms

but they're not tackling things the way you are.

Yeah exactly. Uh is there a possibility to like set an event like hey we have a free event you know to come to or anything like that like is that an option or something that you see down the line?

Yeah I I think like you know like we were talking about that earlier I think having more events to uh to just do like swap events right where you plan ahead of time. you can see a a swap group, right? Um that that tells you, hey, you can upload your items here. And then when you go to the events, you already expect to see some of these items that you can swap with people.

We want to sponsor that more. Again, I mean, we're a Miami based company, right? We want to build a community in Miami. We want Miami to be the trends setter, you know? It's just like think about how Uber started in San Francisco, right? We have an Uberesque type of setup where like we go by local communities, right?

I think that swap idea is actually a good idea. Yeah, maybe we'll do it right here in the office.

I think we're too little, but we can do We could do it in Riverlanding. We'll do it in Riverland. They have space there, too. There you go. They have this space called Capsule that has a lot of those like little knickknack type of places, you know.

Okay.

A marketplace.

Miami, get ready. You heard it.

Bizarre.

Okay, we're going to do it.

Yeah.

Oh, like a bazaar. I like that.

Bizarre. Perfect.

Yeah. It's like that's how that's the feeling of it.

Yeah. Um, I just I'll be curious to see how you show up, you know, like with their stuff. That'll be a good one.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think I think after a few times of doing it consistently, I think people will start showing up with stuff. You know what I mean,

bro? Because you see these like swap shop um TV shows, no? Yeah.

And people go crazy for, you know.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's been like tested in the Miami market, like swap style, you know.

Yeah. I don't know. That that's something we can do. Maybe we'll have Julie have like one of his boxing gloves.

Yeah. Swap swap it with, you know,

you have a company like Haiti that really does promote like they say they do. We can have a lot of people show up.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I like it. JC plans come to life right here on camera.

I exchanged my service for the watch. [laughter]

It's a lot of services, you know.

It's a lot of services. I see that from here.

Really need a contract for that. Listen, [laughter] um, Tik Tok shop has taken off. I don't know if you've been seeing that lately. It's been amazing. It like people are really like turning into, you know, buying heavy now on social media. Right.

Right. Um, are you guys seeing that down the line too? Like do you guys want to give creators or operators within your app the opportunity to like sell their own merch or do you see things along like coming down the line or sell their own products or

Yeah, we definitely want to do something like that. You know, we talked about a few ideas like doing a live on Tik Tok where, you know, content creators or anyone really that's just into this whole space. They're able to upload their items live and say, "Hey, this is what I'm willing to trade. What do you guys have?" Right? And people can join in and say, "Hey, I actually have this." And

like an auction,

like almost like an auction. It's like, you know, I'm again like joking around, but like like again like Julie's like boxing gloves. Hey, what do you guys have? and then people are making offer offers directly on on like a Tik Tok live type of setup, you know. Um, we definitely want to do that. We want to leverage a lot of these, you know, social media outlets to to just make this as seamless as possible. That's the whole point, you know.

Well, you know what? I was just thinking now what what would stop somebody from saying, "All right, I want what you have. I'll trade you it for 500 bucks." You know what I mean?

Yeah, I know. I know.

I mean, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Well, when we when we add the cash component, you know, I think the only thing we're going to do is have a minimum, right? So, it's like you can't not have an item, but like if the item is worth $10, I don't know if I'm supposed to do say this. I feel like I'm giving I'm giving it away, you know? I'm getting a look over there. Well, the reality is we can't really stop people from doing that, right? So, like again, you have something that's worth $500 and I'm going to trade you something that's worth $10, right? But the rest of it, I'm going to give it to you in cash. The idea is that you have to have a product that you're swapping and then add the cash component. And people are gonna, you know, find ways to do it, you know,

and and how how how are you monetizing the app then in this case right now?

Because are you charging a transaction fee? How does that work out? Are you charging a

It's all it's a free app. It's free. It's completely free. Um it will continue to be free regardless. I mean, that's the whole point of, you know, we want to build this new kind of sustainable type of circular economy. Um, and if we're charging people to get involved, then it kind of goes, you know, against like our whole mission. But obviously, we're not a nonprofit, you know, and so there's ways very typical to different types of apps like ours, you know, uh, ads, you know, ad placements eventually.

That's a good idea. You know, monetization problem.

Yeah, exactly. Doing some monetization setup like that. How many viewers or what do you what do you what's the traction on the app right now?

So as of today

metrics

yeah uh as of today we have close to uh close to 40,000

Oh wow big

downloads you know I think we just yeah some I'll have to double check but close to that number

in just a few months it doubled.

Yeah it was it picked up

and do you see a correlation of obvious I mean I assume you do people downloading and then more products being put in. Yeah. Uh that's yes in in a way that like there's definitely more products being added but it's not necessarily matching with the number of downloads meaning you have a lot more downloads but less products you know.

Yeah that's normal though. That's normal. But and and do people like

do they go in and and what's the typical behavior? Are they immediately going and putting 10 items or or do you do you see any type of patterns from users?

Usually you know people are a little bit more kind of reluctant at first. you know, they'll just kind of create an account and upload an item because a lot of times people have an idea already what they want to trade. And so again, with over time, I think the people that have uploaded one item, let's say a couple months ago, at least now it's it's more kind of in their mind, right? So the next time they want to get rid of something, that's what they're going to do first. And then they're gonna start thinking about whatever they want to acquire. They're gonna have to, you know, look at the ZA app to see if they can find it. So, you know, because you can type, you can search something, right? You can just type in bicycle, right? And you can look at the bikes.

Yeah. I mean, I honestly was looking for a bike and I typed it and I I found a few bikes that, you know,

and when when you do have a match with somebody, you could communicate through the app in order to go meet them.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's a messaging thing that pops up. You talk to them. Hey, send me more pictures or any questions about the products and then you can either choose to meet up in person or you can do delivery, right?

Okay.

So, you can have somebody come in, pick up your item, deliver it to them, pick up their item, deliver it to you.

Nice.

Yeah.

What What items do you see?

There's got to be a little Sorry, go for a trust factor there as well.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So,

it comes to that part because if you meet in person, then you know, hopefully both people have the item.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. both people have to have the item. Um, with the delivery, it's basically, you know, it's like Uber delivery type of thing. Well, like you you somebody will pick it up and then the other person will pick it up. So, it's, you know, makes sense.

Um, but yeah.

All right. So, I'm looking through the app right now so you guys see. Actually, the app the design is very nice.

You you've put some nice uh time and money into this. You can tell.

And one of these days, I'll show you the initial version of the app. Yeah, you'll have a good laugh.

I like it. It looks super nice. And we see here a Dyson air purifier. Okay.

We see a classic car, a guitar, shoes, Wilson, a rackets, statues, leather bags, pianos. It's amazing. Pickle ball, golf.

This is amazing, man.

I'm about I'm about to go home and start adding a bunch of stuff in here [snorts]

to see what we get. This is super nice. What items do you see the most in here, actually?

Uh, so

what do you notice that people upload a lot?

I think there's a lot of um women's clothing. I think is number one. So like purses, right? So I think for girls for example, you know, you you you can have a purse every other week without spending money, right? You just put your purse on the app and you see what else you can get from it and then you can just keep exchanging it.

You know, that's Yeah, that's a that's a good point because you can go in and just change all the time.

Yeah. Like uh I think one of one of our content creators, you know, this girl basically started the video by saying, "Hey, if this actually works, I'm never buying a purse again." So let that sink in for a second, you know.

That's crazy.

So

you could always have different material, you know, you have different a different style.

Yeah, exactly. Every other week

groups that's like you said we should group. So we have groups on the app. So

I saw Yeah.

You would be able to meet like let's say we're always trading within each other. You would have a certain group of just purses and then everybody just keep trading purses. So that's a good feature put in there. It would be our groups.

Yeah,

I love this. Yeah, I love it. Man, you have the the cate the category set up. [clears throat] I was It's telling me to upload an item.

Yeah,

I'm going to put that watch in there. Let me see. [laughter]

I got all bunch of requests.

Yeah,

let's see here.

Make sure you authenticate

with the box face, black jeans, hanging square chair, shirts. Yeah, there's a lot of Yeah,

that's a Zara shirt. Yeah.

Oh, wow. There's a nice card here. What is it? Is this here?

It's one of the baseball cards, huh?

Wow. Oh, yeah. It's one of the baseball cards. A frigid air. This is really interesting. Damn. I used

Can you put Can you put animals to have one of those? Yeah, I ended up getting rid of it. But

you could put Can you put animals in there?

I don't know about that.

Do for your dog.

We have that once.

What would you say is the most expensive product you've probably seen here? Like what the or give me the most expensive and give me like the the r the oddest product that you've seen people trading.

Yeah, I think the most expensive actually you swiped by it already. It's the It's that classic uh Benz like 1964 classic. Um so I don't know if the guy would Yeah,

because a lot of people swipe on it cuz what you're seeing is the uh the trending items, right?

It was a Mercedes- Benz.

Yeah,

I didn't know it was a Mercedes. Oh, yeah, it is. Wow.

What was it called?

This guy just put 1929 Mercedes-Benz. Bro, let's get this traded. Somebody out there has to want this.

You know, let me see. I'm putting a little heart here.

Yeah, there you go. This is amazing.

I I think that's one of the most expensive items that I've seen on the app. But

yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's probably like what I got,

you know.

He put I mean, he put here $1,000, but that can't be possible, man.

No, it's probably Is it from a,000?

Or is that 100,000

or or 10,000? I'm not sure.

Yeah,

that's incredible. And like the oddest item you've seen?

Uh, yeah.

Used sex toy. For real? [laughter]

No. Like

that would have surprised me in Miami though, bro.

That that's that's why I left. Like can I say that? No.

Anybody want to, you know, want to one up this one?

Yeah. [laughter]

I don't think they can.

A lot of Pokemon swaps and trading cards, huh?

A lot of trading cards. A lot of trading card guys here.

That's the new thing. And I always told uh medic we met that I think this app would do uh great in colleges and universities

for book trades for things for for the kids do for them for for the students dorms for all types of things you know what I mean and and they're in close quarters

where it's easier to trade and you know they they kind of feel safer as well

right

because it's it's within their group Miami Dade was huge

you should about the partnership

are you doing a partnership with Miami Dade

yeah no we're excited about that I think this is also So good. So let me try one again.

Yeah.

Partnership with Za app and Miami date college.

Talk to me about that.

Yeah. So we're excited about that partnership with Miami date college. We started at the Kendall campus. So shout out to everybody in Miami Dade. Uh honestly this is really exciting for us because we're again we're trends setter. We're starting something. It's it's basically a um you know it's for us it's a cultural change and what better place to start that kind of cultural change than in college campuses right because early adopters usually you see a lot of students a lot of younger you know the Gen Z the you know the millennials and so for Miami date college it's a great campus very diverse a lot of students um so we worked with uh with with the dean with the staff to basically promote uh the app and and basically get the students to start, you know, swapping and being sustainable on campus.

Yeah. I see you have like a books a books um

Yeah. There's a few things, by the way, too. We have a ZA corner where people can meet and swap items on campus. Um and I think that makes it safe, that makes it easy for people to meet. So when you're swapping with other fellow students, you literally have a place where you can meet

signage to let you know.

Yeah. Okay. Definitely. There's a corner. And you know the idea is eventually we can replicate it. You know the the Miami day college you know the Kendall campus is kind of like the pioneers we started there and we we see that it's a successful model we can replicate it in other campuses.

So yeah shout out to Dr. Stewart for that. You know he makes great burgers too by the way.

Yeah Texas guy.

Yeah that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah.

You got your headquarters in Miami.

Yeah. Yeah.

You got a Miami legend. I could. Yeah. I mean, Mr. 305, right?

You know, he knows everybody.

Oh, I know.

I'm sure already been aware of that.

I I mean, you know, I'm realizing it every day. Like, this guy's, you know, kind of pull is is insane.

He works with one of my buddies, Joseph from AMG. And and he tells me, he goes, "Bro, by far." The guy who's gotten me like the most clients like physically people come to the door. He goes, "By far."

We got to introduce the legend, man. Like, he's got to do the same for

Well, our C our audience for sure knows him very well.

Yeah. Julie, tell me about the partnership with Za App.

Uh, man, first off, it was, you know, thanks to a great friend of ours, great friend of the show, JC.

Um, he he brought it along and as this before I even met, he was kind of telling me what the app was about

and my first picture, which we spoke about later, was like the university thing. I'm like, damn, it sounds great.

I remember the first thing you do.

Yeah. He's like, no, you know, this is kind of just getting off the ground. And

I'm like, man, I think this is dope. This is huge. I would love to talk to Medi and meet him, but I think this is like bigger than just Miami Uli than anything, you know? It's like bigger. Um, met, we hit it off, you know what I mean? Uh, and we just we've been working together, man. And and thanks to like, you know, how you open the show. I I do know a lot of people. I've been great with a lot of people throughout life and they're they're great back to me. So being able to open doors and just make introductions and trying to just blow up the ZA app in any shape, form or fashion that I can just like I do for AMG, you know what I mean? Things that I believe in, people that I like to work with. Um that where it's it's not work to me. This guy's like, "Fam, I'll call him up. Let's go get dinner," you know what I mean? And or let's, you know, something for the Za app.

Yeah.

Um so I think that what that's what makes it work really well.

They're the new tech spot and crypto spot and everything is Miami. Everybody's, you know, moving over here to do the the, you know, all this new technology that's coming out.

Yeah. Ever since Francis Suarez put that that question out, you know, how can I help? You know, we said it again. A lot of people out here.

Yeah. Exactly. And the Za app, I feels like very uh in a sense, you know, the Latins love the bartering. You know, we grew up with the with the flea markets and the hustles and the stuff like that. So now you have it at the the you know, your fingertips. Um, and I I just love what what they got going on, man. So, you know, we've been trying to trying to get in the right places at the right tables like this one and just put the word out for the app and get as many people on it as possible. So, that way just like an Uber when it first came out like I'm not doing that. And right now, you don't find a person without the Uber app on on everything, you know?

So, that's everything starts like everything starts with zero.

And listen, I'm the eternal optimist. I see the best in everything, dog. There's no there's there is no no to me. Even if if uh seems like a no, there's the door's not closed to me, you know, it just everything's about timing and consistency. So, as long as we keep working together, he does his part on the app, which is the more important part, and I keep pushing my app and into places I can,

this thing's just bound to go somewhere.

Can you tell he's media trained? [laughter]

That was the best part.

Always work, bro.

Always. Always. Yeah. No, I couldn't have said it better. Like for me, listen, he's, you know, Yuli is the embodiment of of of what the Miami community is all about. You know, vigor, you know, diversity, optimism. It's just a it's a it's a brilliant community. And that's why, yeah, I consider him a friend more than anything else, right? Because at the end of the day, that's what we're building. We're a small family. We have a vision. We're all building this together, right? But I'm I'm I'm obviously equally as excited to be in Miami, though, right? because a lot of people said, "Hey, you might want to consider, you know, going to Silicon Valley, right? Going to San Francisco." Uh, cuz that's where a lot of the big apps kind of, you know, get created. Um, but, you know, Miami is the new tech hub. You you see this energy that I think you don't really see it anywhere else. And we're not just building tech, it's a community aspect, right? So, if the community doesn't believe in it and doesn't actually start using the app, um, then it's it's useless, right? It doesn't matter how good the technology is. And so for us to build it here and to have these community events and to keep bringing you know more and more kind of you know light to what this app is doing and then from Miami we replicate this everywhere else right we're already in New York City we're in Texas we just la we have a team now in Paris we're trying to go international um yeah Denver is is huge in Colorado in general but really the main hub is Miami this is where we started you know this is obviously where we are and uh yeah so we're happy to be here you It's good.

Miami's always been Silicone Valley, too. Just a different type of silicone. [laughter]

Good boy.

All right. How long you been in Miami for?

Uh, three years.

Three years. Yeah. You feel like you got like

He's in Bickl. He's in the heart of Miami. He feels every heartbeat over there.

100%. Yeah. I I love him. I'm not going anywhere. You know, you can

city every You can't get me out of Miami now.

I'm biased. I was born and raised here, but I love it. I've been around the world and and you know, nothing compares. Nothing nothing.

I won't disagree.

There's nothing like Miami. You you come back here, you kiss the floor, man.

Amen.

You really do. Every time you get out, you leave for a few days, you come back, you're just like, man, this is where we live, you know? It's a it's a blessing.

So, talking about that, I'm going to give you the hardest question of the day.

Uhoh.

Okay.

Oh, boy.

The hot seat.

I didn't sign up for this.

You got him right here, though. I see your boy.

I already know his. I already know his.

Okay.

You got to tell me your top three restaurants.

Okay.

Okay.

In Miami.

Okay.

All right.

I want to go again, too.

You want to go again? Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] And I And I remember yours. You had L Yao. You had Lya.

Yeah. Yeah. That's in there, too. That's That's still in there.

Yeah. Still

I got to take him. We're supposed to go and I had to cancel dinner.

You had Shadow Wagu. I think it was another

Oh, it's in there, too. Yeah. I might not do my three then.

Your biggest one. I forgot what it was. But I watch those things a lot.

Yeah.

All right. So, starting with number three. Give it to me.

Uh, number three is going to be Zuri. Uh, Moroccan restaurant in Winwood. Great spot. I know the owners. fantastic, you know, vibes. If you like hookah, good food, good drinks, uh, you can have some Moroccan tea. Yeah.

Damn, I haven't been there, man.

Missouri. Windwood. It's a good spot.

I feel like people talk about Winwood now, not like they used to anymore, you know? People now, they call it the Windowwood, you know.

Yeah. It's all windows on the first floor now, you know?

I was I was there yesterday for Basil and True.

And I don't know, man. The thing is I don't I don't hang out there anymore. That's not like my crowd anymore. I'm not like a late nighter anymore.

You know, I might go do a dinner here and there, but

that's it. Like Winwood kind of turns me off now because the parking and just the mission there. Like I like to go smooth pull in. Let's go eat, have a good time, and then go home. Kills is the best.

We got to keep it hidden like this, you know, like even though they got that article that came out saying it's the next Beverly Hills, but

yeah,

I think it's been like that for a long time. It's like very Rodeo Drive right there on Miracle Mile, you know.

Just chill, you know.

All right, number two.

Uh nothing fancy, but paper fish if you like sushi.

Hey, look at my people, man.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Very well. the ownership group and everything. Good people.

Yeah, you can't go wrong with that.

What do you like about Paper Fish?

I mean, just the the sushi that they have, the sake, all that. It can't go wrong.

They're good. They're very good. And uh the chef I know um he puts out like a very unique menu, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

And number one,

man. Um I This is I don't know, man. I want to say uh Jaya, you know? Uh

oh. Hoya Beach.

Yeah. Hoya. The Paraja Classic. That's a classic. Uh the parro one or the one on

No, I'm I'm talking about Lincoln Road.

The one on Lincoln Road.

What is it? The the the J the Satai. The Satai.

Oh, Satai.

Satai. There you go. That's the one. Yeah. The food is good.

Satai.

The Satai. Jaya. The Satai or something like that.

It's like a restaurant. I mean, it's all it's all in a hotel.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But what do you like about it?

Uh the the fish is excellent. They have the sea bass. It's it's ridiculous, man.

So, you're like a seafood guy.

I like seafood. Yeah. Seafood guy.

Yeah. I mean, steak, too. I love I love me a good steak. You grew up in in Morocco?

No, Orlando.

Orlando.

I was born in Morocco.

You were born in Morocco. Yeah.

And how was that?

It's fantastic. I go, you know, at least once or twice a year, you know, you know, flight direct Miami, Casablanca, you know, go all around Mediterranean, Tangers, Marrakesh is like the Miami of of of of Africa pretty much. Morocco is a fantastic country, man. There's a lot

love to go over there.

Yeah. A lot of tourism.

Africa.

Yeah. Yeah. It's northern Africa. It's, you know, you you go to Tangier, you can literally see Spain on the other side.

And it's mountainous. You like California vibes. You can see literally the split between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

It's good vibes, man. And you got you got different cultures. The food is amazing. People are friendly.

I would love to go together. We do aa

offite staff flight. Go ahead. 100%. It's of course.

Very safe. Very safe. And you have different, you know, climates, too. You can have the mountains like right now it's snowing

from Egypt. Uh, pretty far. Pretty far.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it's on the other side. Morocco is right next to Spain.

I was trying to book a trip to Egypt and then they tell me I need to get like six different types of shots.

Oh, really? And and really?

Yeah.

To Egypt.

To Egypt. You get like some vaccines and something like that.

I didn't know that. I know. Yeah. It depends on the country.

Worked here. Jesse, he was a Brit.

His aunt went

passed away.

No [ __ ]

And vacation over there cuz she got sick.

Wow.

Yeah. She had sto virus. How crazy.

That's insane on the podcast.

The camel the camel HIV.

Yeah. [laughter] Crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't need no shots in to to go to Morocco.

No, I don't know if it's because you know there's the sickness or whatever it is.

You're going to think he's an antivaxer. [laughter]

I don't care.

I'm not antibaxer.

I just [ __ ] go dead.

That's insane. How was your trip? Like

she was probably dying before she got there. You know what I mean? She got there and it didn't help. I was really excited. He called me. I was like, "How random is that?" You know,

that is random.

But I have had I have heard, you know, you need to get like certain uh vaccine and shots and stuff before going over there.

I love that.

There there's some countries like that obviously, you know. Um but yeah, no, Morocco is not one of them. And it's it's a beautiful place. Um we got family, you know, they have a small little hotel up in the mountains. It's very quaint, nice,

beautiful place. So, you know, uh it's it's nice. You go there, you kind of reset, come back refreshed, you know.

That's good, man. That's good. Yeah.

You want to give me your three?

My three? No, I got the Yeah. Yeah. Shadow. I am consistent. And you know what? The thing is like, first of all, the food's great with these places, but even if the food's mediocre, but you treat me well and I and it's it's a good time every time I go, I'll go there all the time.

Yeah. But shadows, I mean, that's there's nothing better than that, you know. Those guys top.

I haven't been to Lunga yet, but I see it. It's right here on the corner on East Street.

No, it's on seven Yeah. 17 and 8 Street. It's like and it's all like, you know,

it's a tiny little place with with uh with Thai techno going on the whole time.

Okay.

But the food is

eat inside.

Yeah, there's Yeah, it's not it's it's not really so much inside. It's funny cuz it's like under a little tarp, you know, and then the kitchen is all inside and they come out

and you could only order once.

Correct. Correct. Wow. I drive by it. Yeah.

It's very very tight. The the owner, Bash, Shout out to Bass, he's he's you know, he's an OG. He's been doing it a long time and it's very authentic. Great. The people are amazing, the drinks, everything. It's just great.

But it's a place to go eat and leave or go eat and hang out.

You can hang out. They serve they they got this luchi martini there. That's one of the things you ever had. Or not li Yeah, something like that. But it's it's you know, it's amazing. You can hang out there.

It's the carrot.

It's Was it They're not Somebody told me they have a carrot martini or something.

They probably do. I haven't tried that one, but

Somebody told me something about a place.

No, the place carrot martini.

Me neither. They say it's like the only place that they do it.

No, this place is amazing. Yeah. And and and it's small and if you don't get there on time, you'll be waiting an hour, but it's worth the wait.

Damn, man. But when you get there, they let you in.

Yeah. Yeah, they got me. They got they got me. Yeah.

Yeah. I got my table there and everything. [laughter]

Hey, you you talk about food is great, but also coffee. I got to give a shout out. Right next to my place, there's Latin Cafe.

Oh, yeah.

They have these cortaditos, man.

It's the best thing in Miami.

Good guys, man. They have B Cuban, too, you know.

Oh, they own B Cuban. I saw him at the E1 event son. Yeah. And we had a good conversation there, man. Big fan of the boat racing event, right?

The boat racing one.

What I love about those ladies though is that they ask you if you want like milk and sugar. They don't ask you how much or they already know.

And they make it exactly the right way,

which is fantastic.

Yeah. Put the sugar in there.

Yeah. No, but it's beautiful though cuz you you know you just tell them I want you know milk and sugar and they know exactly how cuz a lot of places they're like how much you want you know. No, they they they are they don't ask you twice

that's what you want and she gives it to you exactly the right portion. So shout out to Land Cafe too.

All right. I want to tell you a day in Miami. Thank you Eddie my brother. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh it's always great to be here in front of the people

you know especially from our community. We're trying to push um not push it but you know help spread Za and and you know and push it in a good way where people can get the downloads and and find things that they want and and things that they could you know barter.

So influencer opportunity, you know, we're always taking care of the community. How can influencers and creators be a part of the app and make some money or exchange and trade with businesses or other people that that you have on the app? Yeah, I think that's an exciting opportunity for influencers, content creators, people that see the vision, you know, we're brand new app, we're growing tremendously in Miami. And so for them to come in right now to be part of this movement, there's a couple of things we have. One is the affiliate program, right, where they can get involved and, you know, we'll make it worth your while. There's there's ways that we can get you to refer um other users to the app. At the same time, we're building this whole network for content creators to provide services in exchange of specific things, you know, other products or whatnot, you know, that we're also building into the next wave of of the products and services that we have, which

is great for businesses to then go in, have a profile ready, so when other creators go in, you merge them together as well.

Absolutely. So, we're going to do some vetting. So, the main thing is reach out to us. We're building a list uh of people that would qualify to to be on our initial kind of like pilot phase. Um so we'd love to talk to anyone that's interested.

Brother, a real pleasure, man. Absolutely. Love what you're doing, man. Thank you again for having us and other things we could go. Beautiful. Check it out.