Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Why Obie Risk Is Changing the Way We Insure Rental Properties

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Ryan Hanley interviews Matthew Sutika, Chief Insurance Officer and Ryan Letzeiser, Co-Founder and CEO of Obie. Matthew and Ryan join the podcast to talk about power mergers, partnerships and changing the way independent insurance agents find coverage for rental property owners. Don't miss this episode...Episode Highlights:Matthew mentions why Ryan Hanley is the coolest guy in insurance. (6:16)Ryan shares his insurance background. (8:59)Matthew shares the process they’ve built for Obie. (18:42)Ryan shares the benefit of designing policies from the consumer side. (24:11)How does Ryan manage variables that have traditionally been disqualifiers? (27:22)Ryan explains the admitted products process. (29:29)Matthew mentions their main focus. (31:40)Matthew shares what they’re currently working on in the company. (36:56)Matthew and Ryan give some advice to the agents who are listening. (42:33)Key Quotes:“I wanted Obie to be in every brokerage. I wanted everybody to have us as a carrier, even if they only use this once or twice a year. At least, it'll be fast, easy. And it'll be nice, right? Some of the bigger brokerages that love to have space will use us, day in and day out. So, that's really what we focused on.” - Matthew Sutika“I think just having a math background has allowed us to work in the right direction, basically from the bottom up rather than the top down. And yeah, I think that's a huge differentiator in making sure that we at least have a product that we know we can sell right out of the gate.” - Ryan Letzeiser“At the end of the day, your program efficiency comes out of somebody that's kind of been there, done that. And, then you exclude the things that you don't really like about their program, and you hopefully can supplement with things that you do like from other programs to make it more comprehensive.” - Ryan LetzeiserResources Mentioned:Matthew Sutika LinkedInRyan Letzeiser LinkedInObieReach out to Ryan Hanley--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Crude Laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. We have an interview with Matt Sudica, the former founder and CEO of Skylight Insurance who just recently came out with an announcement that Skylight was merging with Obie and as we would have it we have the co-founder of Obie, Ryan Letzizer on the show

as well and Ryan and Matt I wanted to talk about a few different things. Why, what was it about Obie that made it different? Why did they choose kind of this investment property, rental property market as a target. Where did they see the opportunity there? What did Obie actually do? What was their value proposition? And then I wanted to get into a little bit about the partnership of pulling two companies like this together and having it be successful, how it was successful. And just tremendous conversation, Ryan and Matt are both tremendous guys. This was actually the first time I had ever spoken to Ryan, but Matt and I have talked many, many times over the course of the last few years.

Have tremendous respect for everything Sudica does. And just think OB is onto it. You know, I think they are dialed into a solution that is going to be part of the insurance ecosystem for a while. And just pumped to have them on the show, pumped to share their story with you. And I know you're going to learn a lot from this episode. Before we get there, I want to give a big shout out to today's sponsor, Tarmica. Tarmica, I've been telling you guys about Tarmica for over a year now, the commercial lines rating

platform in the insurance space. There are other platforms out there, but all of them look up at Tarmica. T-R-M-I-K-A dot com. Go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. T-R-M-I-K-A-com. I was on Tarmica before anyone was on Tarmica because I saw this technology. I saw what it could do. I met Ragh-F, the founder.

And I was like, these guys get it. They knew how to speak insurance. They had respect for the industry, respect for carriers, respect for agents. And they weren't approaching anything from anything other than an additive solution for independent insurance agencies to grow their small commercial business. And, you know, they have been an enormous, an enormous piece of roguerous success. The piece. If you had to say I had to give up every other piece of technology, except for one, I wouldn't

give up Tarmika. I just think it's that good. And if you're considering something else, just understand you are choosing a lesser solution. Go to t-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com. I also just want to give a quick shout out to Podium, Who, additive, additive, seven new leads to our consistent average of website leads, which were around eight to nine. we had seven additional leads on top of that just from the web chat form this week. If you go back to the episode we did with Cam, just I think it was either last episode,

a couple episodes ago. You can learn a little bit more about that, but podium's doing a great job. And finally, I just want to give a quick shout out to Chad Eddie at Indium. Indian is not a sponsor of the show. I just, I've had some conversations with Chad Eddie from Indium recently and I just think the world of the guy I just do I think what they're doing

there over there at Indian is awesome I am proud to be a member of Indian and I think that there are very big things to come from Indian if you're interested in Indian go to goindium.com again they're not a sponsor this is just an unpaid shout out to a friend an organization that I have enjoyed being a part of. But if you're looking for something more the network access, a community, I don't know, just big fan. And I think the world to chat, Eddie, so I want to give a big shout out to him

because we need to support the people that support us. That's how communities grow. So with that, let's get on to Matthew Sudica, the Sudica, as he's known on the socials. and Ryan Letzizer from Obie Risk. Here we go. What's up, dude? Hey, what's going on?

Not much, man. I was getting that. Is Ryan Letzer? You know that guy? Yeah, he's jumping on. He's our CEO, so he was going to answer some of the product side stuff and figured give your listeners a different voice than just mine. and he's and you'll find out real cool that Ryan's about 10 times smarter and cooler than me.

You mean you want to, you don't want them to just hear the dulcet tones of Matthew Sitica coming through the, coming through the airwaves. Yeah, you know, everyone's probably, you know, everyone's going to get that nice Memorial Day nap in anyways this weekend. So I don't really need them to necessarily hear my voice and go to nap early. You know, Ryan, Ryan, I'll get them, uh, rocking and rolling. And then you always, you always bring the hype.

So I could see, Ryan, I could see, I could see, like 2 a.m. pack of cigarettes. Like, and here is the latest jazz hits from, you know, just taking, he's got that, that voice for, you know, 2 a.m. jazz radio. You know, I, I've always said I got the face for radio, but it's nice to know I have the voice for it. Ryan, nice to meet you, man.

Hey, Ryan, also nice to meet you. Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. No problem. So Ryan H is like the coolest guy in insurance. I love this guy. He's done everything. He's now rocking out his own brokerage. And so when I knew we were doing our announcement,

well, it was even before I knew it was coming out officially, I was texting him saying, hey, you know, want to get on, you know, want you to be the guy that kind of, you know, ask the questions, delivers it. He's like the, I don't know, who's the big talk show host? nowadays like in the world that used to be like Oprah or whatever. I guess you're like, you know, the Jimmy Fallon of insurance maybe. I don't know.

Jimmy Fallon actually went to college in Albany, New York. He went to St. Rose College. So he's got like a little cult following up here because of, because of his college connection. But no, man, it's awesome. Meach. I've been following along with the success you guys are having and all the announcements and obviously talking to Matt every once in while and getting the lowdown on, on, you know, kind of, I think we, we started having regular conversations before,

uh, before the partnership and then, you know, kind of you hinted at some things and then, you know, all that. And I think it's awesome. It's, uh, it's been cool to watch and see the rollout and very fun. So I'm, I'm excited that you guys came on here and then we can talk about this. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, we're excited to be on and, uh, you know, it's been about a year in the making, you know, the Rony Rona didn't help some situations. And anytime you form and merge and have acquisitions and then you're also trying to do a series A and everything like that, it just, if Ryan looks like, you know, he could use a nap due to my voice. It's, it's because he's been putting in 100 hour weeks for, you know, I believe that year straight. So, so Ryan, so it was one,

I'd love to get the, the backstory as far as you're willing to go on, on Obie and, and all that and just talk a little bit about it. And then I want to talk through, I have some questions around how do you, how do you merge companies and do a funding round at the same exact time, pretty much. And then I want to talk a little bit about the future and where are you guys? Because I feel like, you know, for Rogue, I kind of look at. what you guys are doing. We have our own version, but I very much look at you guys as as as kind of plowing the road for companies like my own to to play in the space and the way that you're doing it. So as far as you're willing to go back, I'd love to hear a little bit about you and just share a little bit about the company itself. Sure. So I'll be the first to say that

I'm not by trade or training an insurance guy. Matt, you know, we're fortunate to have him here he slowly, you know, was able to download some of his tribal knowledge that he's acquired through, obviously, generations of, you know, insurance agency ownership into my brain over, you know, the period in, I guess, the last 18 months. But my journey begins in the real estate investment world. So I came out of grad school with the degree in architecture, but immediately shifted gears to what's known as the dark side in architecture. Everybody kind of goes into school thinking that there's this happy path that you get to design whatever you want. The reality is that a real estate developer kind of dictates the terms and most architects

coming out of school are stuck designing stairwells on AutoCAD for the first few years of their career prior to getting their exams and testing done, getting their licensing. So I immediately switched gears. I went to work for a real estate development group in South Florida. Pretty substantial in size, everything under one roof. And we had access to the aons, the Willis's, the hubs of the world because the volume and the amount of premium that we were basically paying for on an annual basis. And subsequently, I saw the downturn of the retail markets.

I switched gears and moved over to multifamily, there in which I was introduced to the independent agents of the world. And just the smaller mom and pop real estate owners or investment shops or hobbyist investors all are kind of plagued with a similar situation in which there's limited product availability. And I would say sometimes limited domain knowledge and placing risk in the right location. And sometimes I can get folks into challenges when it comes time to acquire premium and get a deal closed, et cetera, et cetera. So I just saw a lot of third-party providers associated with the real estate assets and originally came out with a tech solution to kind of help them manage their assets and those third-party party vendors a little better.

and insurance was going to be our core component for, you know, monetizing the business. This is when Zenefits was really hot and they were selling, you know, payroll benefits and health care insurance through the HR platform. We figured we did the same thing. Turns out the real estate market still, I think, to this day, is not ready for a tech solution. They're very happy managing things in Excel. but what we had found was that there was this large faction of folks that were really interested in trying to figure out a way to get better pricing, better transparency.

So originally we had a partnership with Hub International, and we were trying to place business with them. And one of the buildings that we were getting through were ever big enough for them to handle. We started poking around. and my brother, who has known the Sudica family for going on two decades now, reached out to Matt's Uncle Joe and said, hey, we have a problem. Hub is not really able to take care of a lot of this stuff. Where do we place the premium? And our relationship with Matt then was born and really found that the types of customers

that we were bringing in were more appropriate for. I would say the smaller or middle market independent agencies rather than the super large ones. And frankly, Matt just moved a million times faster than everybody else. And we started off real slow, sent Matt leads. So what kind of volume we're getting? And then Aaron and I and Matt, I think, together all collectively decide. that the small HAB market was just missing, missing some product availability

and started poking around that space. And now within news of the Series A and some of the public stuff, we have a product finally coming to market that I think is gonna be sufficient for what I think a lot of folks are asking for, especially in the independent agency space, which is something very fast and cost effective and easy to place for small

habitational risk, these smaller investors or hobbyist investors. So, and I appreciate that very much. I actually have a few different questions that are come out of that. But the first one is, are you, just so I'm clear, are you guys carrier, MGA, retail, some version of all three? So, yeah, at the end of the day, it's. it's retail because we have a limited risk appetite for our internal product. And then we are an MGA.

So product availability coming live towards the end of Q2, beginning of Q3 of this year, with a very large tech-focused reinsurer that operates internationally. So you could probably take a wild guess who that might be. We can't disclose that right now, but there is a product that we have developed internally in concert with Matt, myself, you know, actuarial team, and then just outlaying kind of the problems that plagued the market, you know, with folks either getting themselves into HO3 policies or an inflexible DP3 policy and really wanted to create something that had, tons of flexibility and kind of was a jack-of-all-trades type of policy for, you know, 99% of the folks out there. Yeah, I love that. You know, it's, it's so interesting because, and this is one of the things that when I really,

when you really get nerdy into an insurance, and I'm sure you're starting to realize this, Ryan, that like, at face value, insurance is the worst. It's so worried. Like, it just is. And then you start to get into it, right? and you start to, you know, if you have that disposition, and I would have never thought this of myself in my younger days, right? Like every little boy's dream, like all of ours is to be an insurance professional

when you're growing up. But I am and little girl, I get, you know, whatever. But, you know, you start to get into the nuances of the idea like you don't live in that home, but you have an HO3. So what you don't realize is even though you're paying premiums on that, you just opened the door wide open for the carrie to go. completely deny that claim. And your agent may have the best intentions, but doesn't have the capabilities to stay on top of whether you live there or don't live there anymore and how much

you live there. And all of a sudden, that policy that was perfectly fine for the two years you lived there, you didn't notify when you moved out, you know, like that kind of inflexibility, rigidity and lack of, I'd say widespread, widespread, widespread, attention to these types of policies, especially because, you know, on a one-to-one basis, it's not like anyone's getting rich off any of these things, right? A $1,500 homeowner's policy or renters, you know, DP3 or whatever you say, like, no one's getting rich off of it. So it's not like you're waking up every day going, geez, I wonder if Tom Jones moved

out of his house this week, you know, like I, you know, I got a little idea that he was. But, you know, so, so that's, that's really cool. you know, I'll be super interested and I don't know what you can say like and what you can't. But, you know, when you, what is it like to see a problem like that, an inflexibility in policy form and in language. And now you're going to craft it. I don't necessarily want to say from scratch, but you're essentially building your own policy. I mean, I've never done that. I'm just, what is that process like?

What do you, what do you have to think through? what are the questions that you have to ask yourself to come to put something together like that? Well, I think I'll let Matt kind of take over and, you know, this is where he can allude to, you know, what folks are really asking for. So Matt, you start there and then I can give you the rest of the journey. Yeah. So actually, first, I don't, I want it on record that Ryan stated Matt Sudica and his team better than Hub International. Yeah. No. A time stamp it. Yeah. If anyone's making, if anyone's, if anyone's doing a little video widget capture, you know, now's the time.

Hit record. Yeah. Like, whatever minutes we are into this, like, yeah, this fast forward to that section of Ryan thing. You're better than app or than hub and that's, that's all I need. But, you know, I, everyone that knows me, I'm not like the details guy and Ryan, you know, deferred to me on the high end of the insurance. But, you know, we have people that we've hired on the consulting side that are putting together the actual policy language. I'm sure that there's people like our buddy James,

you know, that's in the space that can, you know, read a policy back and forward and everything like that. What I was really concerned with was a couple things when we were putting this product together. One, you know, fixing a need that my own brokerage had had, right, which is like this weird space. You mentioned a little bit like going from home to rental, but really there's not anybody in the rental space in the country that's not vacant sometimes. Sometimes they have a tenant. they're remodeling it, sometimes they're major remodeling it. Sometimes they don't know what they're going to do with it. They're going to put it up for sale. And so we know we needed flexibility in the space. You know, the other thing here with this, you know, the big holiday weekend coming up

is that I was always the tech forward guy. You know, Ryan, you see it in the Facebook groups. I'm always post tech and everyone doesn't like it. But now they're kind of starting to like it. Right. And so I wanted to get involved with a company that was in the insured tech space that could be like the company that's like for the people, right? So there's all these insured texts that are getting into auto and getting into home. And that's great. You know, I like a lot of them. But there's major competition and they're not a fit for every brokerage out there. You know, where I felt like in the rental space, you know, we really are a fit for every brokerage in the country, right? Because there's really not a good carrier in the space. You know, anyone will tell you that. And so I,

even though there's less rentals than there is homes or less rentals than there are auto, like I wanted OBE to be in every brokerage. I wanted everybody to have us as a carrier, even if they only use us once or twice a year, at least it'll be fast, easy and it'll be nice, right? Some of the bigger brokerages that love the have space too will use us, you know, day in and out.

So that's really what we focused on is, you know, and for me being a captive guy than an independent guy and now getting an insured tech space, like I felt like I was kind of carrying a torporated. that way too of like allowing people to see that like you can go from state farm to independent to the insured tech space it's not that bad and it's actually there is a lot of you know good in it uh i know ryan you and i are big uh crypto guys or at least uh in our facebook chat and it kind of

feels the same way right i you know we might be still a little early but we are building some really good stuff that we're going to see down the line everyone kind of eventually adopt yeah i'm i'm big on salana right now there you go It's a lot of summer, man. It's a lot of summer. Yeah. I'm all over it. So we won't go down to crypto rabbit hole right this second.

So you said a couple of things in there that make me that I'm super interested in. One, what was the idea? So I guess I'll go backwards. I think you're, this is one of the things that I've been thinking about as my own company, Rogue, evolves. because the things that you and I were talking about back in whatever over a year ago, I'm not going to say we're nowhere near that today, but we're way different. The way that Rogue is moving and operating is much, much more like an insure tech. And to be honest with you, some of the things that you're doing and saying are on our roadmap today.

and, you know, because we're, we're, we're on the path to going out and potentially doing a, like, I don't know if you'd call it a seed or an A, I get lost and all that crap. Going out and finding someone who's going to give us money to throw gasoline on the fire, right? So I think backwards into, well, you know, what's going to make us successful, who are the type of people that we want to involve in this project? And when I think about, you know, and I'm sure Ryan is aware of this and is why he wanted to partner with you. but when I see somebody like you who've lived all these different lives, you said it's not that bad. To me, it's a positive on a positive on a positive.

Because what it shows is that one, you're flexible, two, you're adaptable. And three, man, all that history of being able to, what's the right word, like kind of boil down the best pieces of a captive and then the best pieces of an independent and then always having your hand in all these insured tax and working with the hippos and the clear covers and the openlys and all these people. And then that to me is like a superpower in our space because the tribalism that that happens is so it's so it's such a handcuff to so many really smart people that that limit their upside because they're they have this tribalistic nature to one set of one structure or another. And it's just not the world we

live in anymore. Certainly not where we're going. And again, a lot of people think you and I are nuts because because like you see an advertisement for hippo and you and I are like, oh, that shit looks cool. You know, and everyone else is like, F them, you know, they went direct, whatever first. And then obviously we nerd out on crypto all the time. So I think I see that as a positive and really if you can, if I could advise any, anyone having different iterations of your career, I think is tremendously positive. And I think to Matt's point, designing the policy from the consumer side first allows you to alleviate a bunch of mistakes that you're going to make that I think folks don't really see behind the scenes of the policy administration system door and the rating tables and the filings with the State Department's of Insurance and all the regulatory factors that if you make tweaks,

Guess what? You're going back to the state. You need new approvals. You need new rates. You need new forms. And if you don't design it the way it should be at the outset, you're putting yourself in a position where you might have a product that doesn't sell because it doesn't meet the needs of the consumer. Or you're putting yourself in a weird position where you might be looking at attritional losses that are extreme.

And I think just having Matt's background has allowed us to work in the right direction, basically from the bottom up rather than the top down. And I think that's a huge differentiator in making sure that we at least have a product that we know we can sell right out of the gate. And then we can fine tune and make adjustments on the pricing and the rates and the structures over time. that don't require us to have to go back to refile with the states every time. I think that's a tremendous point. I really do.

I think that that is a lot of the policies that we sell today were built the other way. Almost all the policies we were sold today were built the other way, right? You know, maybe some of the new cyber companies like Corvus Coalition EvolveMGA have built some of their products that way, maybe a few of the insured techs, like a clear cover or openly, but very, very few. And to me, it's exciting to think that, you know, habitational rentals, multifamilies, that type of product is going to, to be able to get that in the hands of an agent force and your own direct.

And I'm sure partner channels as you, as, you know, where you go look for volume. I mean, that's, I mean, thinking that way from the outset, it's going to be a huge win. So my, my question, my next question for you is, you know, you mentioned a whole bunch of things that disqualify people from writing with certain carriers. Right. You said there's not really a good, solid, consistent product. Well, I would, I think that's probably on a on a macro basis, that's probably a fair statement. On a micro basis, probably unfair, right? Because because there are carriers in Western New York who are awesome at habitational that doesn't have a wood stove, right? They just crush that market. So, so understanding all those different factors that you

just discussed, how do you, or what, what did you consider? What were your thoughts around the ideas of the consistency of pricing and of ultimately being profitable, managing all those variables that traditionally have been disqualifiers for rental property carriers? So the great thing about admitted products with the state is that you can go and rip through what everybody else is done that is basically par for the course right now. So if you like a little bit of this, travelers policy, okay, I grab the surf filing for them. If I like this Erie, you know, DP3 policy for Ohio, okay, I'll grab little tidbits here. And basically, you know, kind of going back to the original point, you grab the things you know you need ahead of time. And then you're able to kind of boil

that down and do a comp survey or rating comp survey of how those products are competitive and how they are not and you start to move the dials in ways that that makes sense for everybody. And then from that point, you can take probably your most comprehensive filing at that point and take the majority or the bulk from there and then make your adjustments that you need to make from that point forward. So really at the end of the day, you know, your program efficiency comes out of somebody that's kind of been there, done that. And then you exclude the things that you don't really like about their program and you hopefully can supplement with things that you do like from other programs to make it more comprehensive. Okay. And I'm just going to ask you a follow

question only because I'm a little ignorant on this particular topic. So when you, let's say you're, you're building it out for Ohio just because you mentioned Ohio. And with the admitted products, the carriers who have admitted paper in that state, you can actually go in and because you have their filings and you know that they've already been approved by the state in the in the way that they're currently written you can almost um kind of like like a buffet choose in place together as as maybe like a baseline as a starting point for what you like you can kind of I'll take some of this some of that pieces together and then start to have someone work through how it how how all those pieces work together is that just just so I'm clear right so you know for for us I will tell you

who we grabbed but we had a boiler plate and And that's called a Me Too filing. Okay. So generally when you have a bunch of things inside the forms or inside the rates that have already been approved by the state, the departments of insurance and the actuarial teams there tend to not give you nearly as much kickback of, hey, this might be, you know, a rate that we would deem borderline inadmissible or it seems too low. we're not going to back back this filing for one reason or another, or this particular thing that

you are rating on might be prejudicial. There's a million factors. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the roots of the world have done this with telematics and using your cell phone as an indicator of how you drive. So they had to go through and basically prove to the state that, hey, the way this person takes a turn or accelerates actually is a component of risk and here's what happens. Well, if you take some of the larger carriers that have already done this, you can utilize their information, their rates in order to say, hey, this was good enough for Erie or Travelers or, you know, CNA. You've already approved this and for this particular policy, you get, you should just approve it for us. And they basically give you an opportunity to push a bunch of things

forward and only have to fight or make amendments on very small things. Yeah, that's cool. You know, and Ryan is way more in the weeds on this stuff than, you know, me. I get the clip notes of this stuff from from Ryan. But my take on it is, you know, and I said we want to highlight some sections, if this next section we want to remove if Ryan doesn't like it. But, you know, we're not trying to rewrite policies, right? Like there's been smart lawyers and everything like that and carriers that have wrote these policies.

And as we all know, They're all come from this almost like boilerplate type of, you know, coverages, right? What we cared more about is, you know, combining these things that are already out there. These endorsements for vacant, these endorsements for builders' risks, they're already a thing, right? So we cared more about making sure that we had those available and that we had this all-encompassing offering. And really, you know, I think and, you know, I guess comment below or whatever. Maybe I've been watching too much YouTube here. but if you disagree, but really for the space, especially the rental for a broker, you know,

you want it just to be easier to provide this policy to a client, faster, easier. As you mentioned, it's very low margin, very low, you know, premiums, etc., right? And so we really been focusing on that. We didn't want to spend all of our valuable resources on doing everything from scratch, where we'd end up probably almost like the same thing. as, you know, just what's already been out there. We've been spending a lot of our time making sure that we found the right endorsements. We were going to offer the right endorsements.

And then really the, you know, the ability, like you mentioned, the one carrier in upper New York, right? Well, if you're up there and you're upper New York and you're doing habitational with that carrier, you're golden. But if someone calls you from Florida, you know, what do you do? So we're kind of, so we might, you know, you could argue we could get on a micro basis and get beat out in an individual small town like I'm from. but in the big space across the country,

we're going to be able to work with, you know, brokers so that they have a consistent feel, consistent offering, consistent pricing, you know, to offer to their clients. And that's really what our main focus is. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show.

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Peace. Let's get back to the episode. I think you're right on it. And there's a, there's a, wow, you can tell it's Friday before holiday week in my brain. The words are not coming to the brain today. There is a- I made you do this thing two weeks early. No, it's good.

Yeah, no, no, it's all good. So, yeah, well, hey, when Sudica calls, I answer. You know what I mean? You said, hey, man, we're doing it today. screw the fact that I set the meeting for two weeks from now. Yeah, we're doing it today. I thought it was today. I said, looking forward to doing this today at one.

You responded with one question mark. And I was like, oh, man, I got it wrong. But it's good we're getting it out there today. We're getting a ton of questions. And my inbox has been crazy on LinkedIn and Facebook, you know, special things. I got to thank James Jacobs. He was really pushing us out. So I know he'll appreciate that.

But due to him also pushing us out. out the other day. I've been just getting bombarded with, you know, when are we starting? Where are we going? You know, what's the direction of our company? Can we, can we work with brokers? All these things. So either now or before you end, I, you know, I'll address that. I figure it would be a good. No, dude. First of all, I'm busting your job. It's all good. And it is true. When Sudica calls, handly answers. So just I know how the game is played, man. I don't want to, I don't want to disrupt, you know, the ecosystem that you work in. But no, it was all good. It's, it's fun. So I guess, you know, what I was, wherever my brain was trying to get to is there is a,

a macro trend that is happening in our space right now, which is as agents digitize, right, like as they start using social more, using, you know, creating more blogs, YouTube, you know, whatever, email. And just people move and their connections aren't just in their hometown anymore. Their connections are spread throughout the country. The inevitable result of that is that you get opportunities in states that you're not licensed in. Like, that just happens. And you get, or states that you don't have expertise in or that you don't have markets in.

So I, that's why I see, like, what you're doing with OBB. I see, I look at it, I'm like, this is, this is obvious, not obvious in creating the solution, but an obvious answer for agents who are sitting there going, geez, you know, this great client I have, has a, as a rent, you know, I'm in Kentucky and they're in, they have a rental in Iowa where they grew up, I can't ensure that. Well, you know, before what you would do is, you know, maybe just do nothing, say, hey, find someone up there. Or you would maybe, maybe you had a buddy or a friend or you'd go in one of these Facebook groups and say, anyone write rental properties in Iowa. And to me, all those solutions, unless it's a good friend

and you're referring to a friend, all those solutions don't, aren't, aren't real. They're not, they're not what you should actually be doing because you're the one that has the relationship. Now with solutions like what you're providing, you can say, I got you. No problem. You know, we'll get you taken care of. I got the perfect market for you. And that keeps the boots on the ground agent, the connection. It keeps everything right there.

And to me, it's, I'm, to me, this seems like an obvious solution for everyone listening. It seems like, you know, the next thing you should do is go to whatever website you're about to tell me. they should go to and sign up. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So I'm glad you brought up that point. It's actually, I feel like you might have been a fly on the wall in some of these conversations I've been having with Aaron and in Ryan, you know, and I'm always a clearly pro broker.

And so you mentioned this Facebook post, and that's what I always see. The, hey, I have a friend that has a rental in Missouri. I don't write there who can help me. And then you get a thousand posts. You never know who really is good or not good. And then sometimes you're offending people because you went to the first comment or whatever. And so we are working on, you know, we'll have people who are, you know, appointed with us and, you know, that are writing a lot of business. But we're also trying to work

on in the background right now of exactly that. How do we just create this Facebook post forum, if you will, right, type thing where instead of going to Facebook, you know, and maybe it's backed by a couple brokers, but it'll be the licenses will be taken care of, right? And you're a licensed broker. You'll be able to go and in some fashion either intro your client right through this portal that allows the quote and you can still be kind of part of the journey and then maybe you're able to see your your policies outside of your book type of feature. You know, a lot of this, I'm probably making Ryan cringe because he's just thinking about how many engineers he's going to have to hire on all these ideas I have. But this will happen in some fashion because once again,

the rental market, we know this is it's not home and auto. It's not, you know, 100 policy a month type of thing. It's one z, two, z, you know, three is for the average broker, right? even like you're running like, I know it's not your main book, you know, but you probably still getting a couple here and there. So if you have the ability to just, hey, someone wants a rental in Florida, go to our site, you type in maybe six things of information. It shoots out a quote with an email that you're ced on that says, you know, this is our partner at Obie. They're helping you out with your rental in Florida. You can still see it's going. And then, you know, a year down the road after you've been doing this, you can look in your portal and see all that

you've done 30 referrals and how much premium that is. And, you know, you're going. You know, you know, maybe that will inspire you to get a license in that state or those states and then actually be a broker with us or, you know, permanently. Or maybe you're just like, you know, I love being able to see who I've referred over. I can answer quick questions still for my clients about policy number or whatever. And, you know, that is, you know, the core of OBB, which will always be there is we were brokerage return insure tech, right? Or at least a good part of us was, right? And so everything we built, I think we'll be solving these problems that I'm constantly seen, you're constantly seeing. Even now I consider Ryan and Aaron insure tech nerds like me, too,

or insurance geeks like me. So they're seeing. So that's also what we get to do with, is it, yeah, we're going to have a product. We're in the rental space. But ideas like that can be multiplied. So like let's say you get into your space like you talked about with Rogue, right? That same technology for those instant referrals all over the country might be something that you're calling me up like, hey, Matt, how do I get the IP for that over at Rogue to do workers' comp or whatever, you know, you're going to focus on, you know, type deal. So I think we're, OBE will start out with one direction in the rental space, but I think you'll see our company, uh, overall solving a lot of just, uh,

IA channel type problems as well. And, you know, we're able to do that while growing a, uh, a rental business. It's awesome. Well, you know, I think, I think more, more solutions in my opinion is always the answer. because, you know, I'm writing, like 10 minutes before we jumped on this call, I just got an eight unit quote back from a single state mutual company who just came in with a ridiculous rate because I wrote them an email and sent them all these pictures for the unit and said, look, you know, I know this isn't your target.

It's super clean. Great. You know, I wrote them this big, long story and they come in $1,000 less than the next highest quote in the market, right? So like that's really difficult to beat. However, that also took me a couple hours, right, to put all the information together, to write the story, to call the underwriter. You do the quote in a Excel spreadsheet that you then email them, right?

So there's like not, it's not scalable. So that's great. That's a great solution. On the other side, if I have a simple, two family that flies in and the guy's ready to go, why would I just punch up OBB and go, blah, okay, here's your rate, boom, how's it sound great, boom, closed, good. Here's your, let me get your payment information.

All right, you have coverage, rock and roll, right? So I don't think, I feel like sometimes, and again, this goes back to my comments before about tribalism, I feel like we are in this place where there are still, there are still a lot of agents. And it's not a negative. I understand that they're riding the horses. that got them to where they are. But I guess my only point is like you can ride the horse

and have the motorcycle and the Elon Musk rocket ship. Like you can have all those things. And in different situations, they all make sense. And that and that's really I think why I love having you guys on here telling these kind of stories, talking about these kind of solutions and making them tangible for agents is because it's, I don't think any one solution is the answer anymore. It's really about finding for this particular moment, this particular client, what's going to get this person what they need. And it's not always a mutual. It's not always a national. It's not always an insure tech. It's not always a captive or whatever. It's, it's having access to all of them. So I think you guys are right on it. And the more that you can

facilitate that, I think, I think the better. So yeah, absolutely. I agree. Yeah. And I think, Brian, you know, to your point on having all three, you know, you said horse, you know, motorcycle, you know, rocket ship, right? Well, a lot of these agents that are maybe listening to this that are like, you know, still a little anti-insured tech or just maybe they just don't know, right, or whatever, is I want to remind all of them, go back five years, 10 years, 20 years. I don't know how long they've been an agent, right? But there was a time when yellow pages was scary. There was a time when Google ads was scary. There was a time when, I don't know, maybe using the phone and calling people, right? There's always been, even in everyone's career that's listening to this, like, there's been something that was scary as a new marketing or a new tool.

You know, how many people probably listen to this, like, were scared the first time they had to go from like the fish film to like a computer and a monitor, right? Or, you know, from one monitor to two monitors or let alone like work remote on a laptop, right? So I think, you know, what I'll end with here on that, that subject is that, you know, you're 100% right. Keep what's comfortable for you, but give five percent, give 10 percent to this new journey, right? So you can stay, you know, going down on the same career path that you've always done. And I, once again, I think one, as individuals, Ryan, myself, you know, I know you are Ryan as well. like I can also take phone calls and stuff like that about like just insure tech in general like what's happening how to like get involved just as much as talking about being a partner with ob because we might not be a fit sometimes but really just I want to more than anything to say that like this insure tech space is not here to take anybody's careers jobs like move people out of the way it is just a new tool a new thing in the woodshed a new rocket ship and like we we couldn't be more pro broker we couldn't be more pro broker we couldn't be more pro. wanting to be part of the space and not like and not take over the space like we're here to

you know make all these brokers these channel partners lives better faster and easier and you know and have some you know a crap ton of fun on the way out you know yeah yeah we you know you said it took you hours to put together stuff for an eight flat you know at the end of the day we're trying to take that burden off your hands um so you could spend that time prospecting and getting more customers. I mean, you shouldn't be like, you know, we have data enrichment solutions now that will calculate replacement costs on your behalf. It'll furnish all of the data. We, we scrape, I think, 15 different sites now, and we have over 1,000 data elements that we can plug in to help enrich data, and you'll see that starting to go live here in the next 30 to 60 days. All you have to do is enter an

address and it's going to pump out a quote for you. Spend your time being an advocate for your customers and you don't have to worry about whether or not their relationship's going to an insure tech because they love you for going the extra mile, getting them a quote extremely fast, making it competitive, and then being a risk advisor to them rather than, you know, just being somebody that sells a commodity because it's occupying so much of your time to have to put all that stuff together. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that that is what we are, we're helping speed up and we're helping empower the agents and the brokers of the world and trying to be an advocate for them

so they can be an advocate on behalf of their consumer. Amen. I completely agree. I mean, I know this is the first time you and I have ever spoken, but Matt knows this. The first two words I wrote down when I started mapping out my agency was human optimized. So, you know, the whole construct or, you know, whatever, the window, the, the, the lens that I use to view every decision that we make in our agency is how do we take the best aspects of the traditional model of connection and relationship and compassion and caring and all those things that make, make a traditionally run agency amazing. And how do we, how do we make sure that they're placed into the transatlantic? and into every every interaction with a customer in the right moments, right?

So instead of, it's, you know, and this was like my vision was I remember sitting in my, in my wife's family agency, listening to the CSRs and a phone call will come in and they would want, and this isn't a negative because they do a great job, but they would be trying to get that customer off the phone as quickly as possible because they knew whatever that customer was asking them to do was then going to take X amount of time to get done. And what my thought was, there has to be a way to make it so that that actual transaction processing time can be reduced so that that same 20 minutes, right? So instead of, so if I'm going to spend 20 minutes on this particular thing, whatever it is, instead of five minutes on the phone with the customer in 15 minutes transactioning, I can flip that and go 15 minutes on the phone, building relationship, connection, finding other things to cross. asking for referrals, making sure everything's okay, double checking, you know, data points in our

database, and then only five minutes transacting, right? So how do we flip that on its head? And, you know, that's what that's what we're working on every day. And it sounds like you guys are on a similar journey. So I couldn't be more on that path. So hey, guys, I want to be very respectful of your time. And I have some questions about, and you don't have to get into details. So that's not what I'm looking for. But what I'm super interested in is, Just this process, right? Like you found each other. We heard a little bit about that.

And then decided, hey, this is going to be something that makes sense. Lighthouse, right? Skylight. Skylight. It was skylight, but, you know. Skylight, I'm sorry. I knew there was a light in it. It's just like apartment names.

They all have park, light, sky or something. So skylight and Obey come together and you're going to form this partnership. and then go out and get some capital and there's a whole process. Just talk me through. I don't care about the details of, you know, this and which part. Just how do you manage through that? I mean, that's a moment where there's a lot of moving parts. If you're not on the same page, if you're not communicating, working well together,

a lot of things can fall apart, right? And I'm sure it wasn't perfect every moment. That's not the picture I'm trying to paint. But the idea, you know, you obviously. have done something right as a group, a leadership group and as an overall company to get to this point where you've combined, you've raised money, and now it's go time. Like, how do you navigate that? Like, what are some, did you learn anything? Or does there any advice that you can give people when they make these kind of connections? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening

who either are erring the early stages of a partnership or are considering a partnership or a merger or whatever. I'm just interested in what you learned from that whole process because it's, there's so much there. You said one word that I think will ring true and it doesn't matter whether it's friendships, family, your spouse. Um, the word was communicate. Um, and I think just ongoing, uh, Matt, myself and my brother, Aaron all had a really good open line. Um, from, from the day that we got started. And I think Mac can probably speak to this as well. But, you know, we, we dated, I would say, before we got married for a while. Matt proved to us what he was capable of. And I hope we were able to prove to him

what we were as well. And at the end of the day, I think your communication, your level of integrity and doing what you say you are going to do and evaluating that over a period of months and even, you know, over a year allowed us to form a more meaningful bond and feel a lot more comfortable about the direction we were heading rather than us all feeling like in somewhere or another Matt was a cog in our wheel or we were a cog in his and, you know, and the reality is that that wasn't the case at all. I think we formed mutual trust along a period of time that I think was paramount in where we're at now. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think communication is always number one in a marriage, you know, everything, right? And for me,

I'll just speak like personally on it. I've been in quite a few partnerships now. And, you know, to be honest to the viewing public, like most of those didn't go as, as you first dream it up when you, you know, because everyone meets, it's just like that first night we met, you know, you talked about a relationship. Everything's all exciting that first drink and that first date and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, you tell yourself little fibs and little things or you, you know, you maybe like agree that, oh, I like, I like going to the art museum too, right? And when it gets down to it and kids come and, you know, you're buying a house and someone loses a job and all and when hard stuff happened then you really see what comes out and so i think to ryan's point like we did get to go through some hard stuff in the

dating face which helped but and and really for me it was when like i had just an unbelievable for the first time like respect for my partners you know i've always been the hardworking like guy like you know or felt like you know sometimes there was you know where i was holding up my end and not there and every turn, you know, Aaron and Ryan were putting in just as much ever, if not more, you know, on things. And the other thing with the partnership was I love for the first time being able to get rid of two-thirds of my workload, right? Ryan and I are actually really good friends, like outside of work and get along really well and have personal interest. But from a work standpoint, you know, him, Aaron, and I couldn't be more different. I still remember we

this was kind of the solidify period. We did this whiteboard activity, right? And it was, and I just knew this was when it was perfect. We drew these three, like, columns, right? And we wrote up on a spare thing, like all the stuff that like someone as a CEO, right, like Ryan's our CEO, but like, you know, we were trying to, like, what does someone as a business owner have to handle, right? And we started going through them of like hands up, hands down, you know, like real simple

kindergarten style of like, who likes doing that or who thinks it's good? And when every single person almost like kind of took their own third and was like happy with their third and super pumped more less about what the third they got, but super pumped, they didn't have to do the other two thirds of the stuff, right? Like I love that, you know, Ryan's brother Aaron handles like the HR legal like, like, you know, write ups and contracts and stuff like that. That stuff used to make me sick.

And so to me, that is another strength of a good partnership is that you're all counted on, right, to do certain aspects. And everyone's kind of in their wheelhouse, right? And we've all been entrepreneurs, probably 90% of the people listening to this here are probably top of the flagpole, right? They are the boss. And it's tough. You know, so that is the advantage of having a partnership is that if you get it right with all those other things, communication and everything, you really can be able to work on the things that you are the best at, right? Like I see, gosh, what's his name from IAOA is now doing that big marketing gig for a better agency, right? And it's like, what?

Yeah, he was always his wheelhouse, right? But he had his own brokerage and he was, you know, probably getting distracted with other things. And now the guy's just, you know, every time I see him, he's on fire, right? Because he's in his wheelhouse because he's probably got a couple other partners with that company doing the other couple things. And that's just, you know, to relate to the audience, I guess, I'd give Nick some props. But yeah, I think that was our partnership thing is communication, trust, and trust when things go bad, like, and, you know, a little date before you marry. And then

honestly, being able to get rid of the things you're not the best at and concentrate on the things that you are. I mean, so that's probably a longer answer than you wanted. But I actually think partnerships are probably the most important decision you can ever, you know, make. They're harder than starting a business scratch. Yeah, I get that. I get that. I, uh, I, I, I, I, I fantasize about having a partner sometimes because I've become keenly aware of the aspects of this business that I just at horror. You know, I just can't like just to do them makes me like sick a little bit. Like I just don't even like doing them at all. And but at the other time, you know, that's the other thing too.

Then you're counting on someone. You have to hope that they do it. You have to hope they're as bought in as you are. So that that's wonderful. I'm very happy for you guys. I think it's great. I think what you're doing is tremendous. I think the product that you're bringing to the market, there's an absolute need.

And I just wish you guys nothing but success. Where if someone's listening to this, I know, I know you think you said it's not available yet that agents can start writing, but where do you have like a beta list or a place that they can go put their email in so when it does open up, they can get contacted or how do people just find out more so that they can be aware of when it does open up? Yeah. Matt, that's the guy.

Yeah, so they can reach out to maybe, you know, my email, which is Matthew at obirisk.com. And really, this is actually a topic that came up about 30 minutes ago or 40 minutes or right before this call. We're going to be doing some social media posts here over the next few months with some hopefully like some contact type forms that people can fill out. Because what we do want to find out right now is yeah, who's in the states that we're first launching with who's interested in it,

create this kind of database. So then that way we can have agents start to as we get closer and closer to launching. their state, maybe get on for a test pilot, you know, or we can start to work with them. So one, see social media posts. And then two, if you are super eager, like some have been, DM me, I guess is what the cool kids say on slide into the DMs, right, in the social media or email me. So the CMO in me says, pay one of this, pay one of these army of engineers that you have to create obelisk.com slash beta with a simple gravity form. that allows people to fill out information,

and then you can just collect it all right there. If you want, just send me your WordPress login, and I'll create it for you right now. It's like killing me that you don't have a contact form and you can send people. But no, so Matthew at obirisk.com is the best place or slide into Sudica's DMs, which is just the subtle sexuality to that statement.

I'll just, that'll never get old. for me. People will stop listening to, you know, the three of us probably about 15, 20 minutes. That's what I think that we're saying now. They're like they've already stopped. They're like they got done with their Peloton ride. They're done they're done listening. But no, we're going to have that gravity type form. Honestly, you're smarter than me. Ryan is part of the thing. I'm I hit up our CTO before this call and it's like, hey, I need I need a form or whatever. And I think we have contact form for like regular contact, but we're trying to build one just for this. So you're just, uh, your questions as always are just,

a little always ahead of the game. So your ass, we will take care of shortly. Just, you know, by the time you post this video, I bet we have something. Sweet, sweet. Awesome. Well, hey, guys, I appreciate it. I appreciate you spending the time sharing your story.

I very much look forward to what's going on. And I'm sure the next big thing that comes out, love to have you back on and talk about it and share with the audience. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for having them. Yeah, thank you, Ryan. Appreciate it.

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