Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Catching Online Predators With David McClellan From Social Catfish

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

David McClellan is the CEO and founder of Social Catfish (@socialcatfish), a website that helps people to find out if they are being scammed or catfished. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how his website helps to stop online scammers, his craziest story of catching an online predator, his thoughts on the Mante Te’o Netflix documentary called “Untold”, how to protect yourself when you are on a dating app, books that you should read and much more! For more information about Social Catfish visit http://socialcatfish.com For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet CVV CLIPS: youtube.com/CVVCLIPS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blin. Oh, man, welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I am CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being with us wherever you are and whatever you happen to be doing right now. And is it just me? Is it just me? Or has this year just flown by?

You blink and summer's over. Now we've got three months until Christmas. and they were actually putting up Christmas decorations when I was in Costco the other day. And then boom, just like that, it's going to be 2023. So this is just a little reminder to make the very most

of every day, every week, and every month left in the year. Because it's up to you. Do you want this to be the best year of your life? You still got time to make that happen. Or is this just going to be, just another year of your life? And every single day,

you can make the decision to make that happen between now and December 31st. So just a little something to chew on as you listen to this. Really, really interesting conversation today. I'm sure you've seen the MTV show Catfish, or you've heard of the term getting catfish when someone is pretending online to be someone that they're not. Well, David McClellan is the founder of the website, social catfish.com, where they help you figure out if the person you're talking to online,

is actually who they say they are. And they've stopped a lot of people from getting scammed. And he has some great stories about it. He's also going to help you out if you're kind of like feeling this right now, if this situation maybe that you're dealing with. They've been featured on ABC, NBC, Dr. Phil, and more. So if you're listening right now, snap a screenshot.

Let us know that you're with us on this journey and tag us. At social catfish is the best way to get David and social catfish. At Chris Van Fleet is the best way to get me. And let's do this. It's me and David McClellan on Insight. David, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm just so interested to talk to you,

especially with the newfound popularity of catfishing coming back into the news after this Manti Tao documentary came out on Netflix untold. So I feel like if there's anybody to talk to about this, it's the guy who runs the website, social catfish.com. Yeah, we know a lot about catfishing. You know, there's, there's, when we got into it, you know, we thought it was very innocent, you know, just people on the internet trying to pretend to be other people, which that's for sure

what catfishing is. But we actually realize like a lot of this is like malicious or has to do with like scamming other people. And so that's what we've devoted ourselves to. And I think it's really important to make a differentiation between, I think there's a lot of people that do online dating and go, oh, man. I got catfish. They didn't look like their photos.

Like, you're taking this like several layers deeper. Yeah. So, I mean, we want to be the site that allows you to protect yourself online. Like, that's our, that's our goal. That's why we do what we do. And so, you know, if it's, you know, making sure that you're talking to somebody who's real, you know, or somebody that's, you know, using their real pictures so you're not wasting your time, that's a mission of ours.

If it's finding out, you know, that weird phone number that called you who that is, that's something that we do. If you are talking someone in line and you are trying to do your due diligence before giving money or between, you know, from doing business or you think they've gotten a whole of information, that's what we want to do. And so anything that deals with, you know, like, you know, the internet and online safety, like we're pretty much involved in that at this point. So like the original term catfish came from that movie, about a decade ago with Neve,

who actually did get catfish. That's where the term came from. So it was his story of like thinking he was dating this one person. It ended up being someone completely different. Do you have like a catfish story that was the genesis of social catfish.com? So I all joke around that I'm probably the worst person to have started social catfish. So my wife and I, we were high school sweethearts. You know, we've been together for, shoot, 19 years at this point.

I've never dated online. You know, but when we started social catfish, you know, that was. the perception that we had is that like it's somebody pretending to be somebody else, you know, it's people dating online, what did the case be? And so, you know, I'm an internet entrepreneur by heart. And so like my, I have a background in enterprise SEO and driving traffic. I've built, you know, websites. And, you know, it's, it's not easy to start a business. Like, you can get a website going and up and running and making a little bit of money, but it takes effort. And one of the interesting things is when we started socialcavash.com,

I had a business partner at the time that it took off right away. And so, you know, I created a bunch of content for the site, and we started getting literally hundreds and hundreds and what turned into thousands and thousands of people commenting, asking us to help them out. I didn't know a lot about catfishing at the time, but I knew a lot about online research, being an SEO, being an internet marketer. And so my business partner at the time, we're like, well, what do we do? And we're like, well, let's just put a $5 PayPal button on the site. And then, you know, if we can convert, we'll just figure out what we're going to do.

you know and so we did that we put a PayPal button on and literally you know I left his house and two minutes later my phone goes off it goes toching you know that little chiching noise for the PayPal notifications at the time and you know at that time we're like okay well what are we going to do and so you know we started doing reverse image searches and and you know for about six months every single search was manual so we would go you know somebody would email so information we would manually look that information up and we learned a ton about like the industry and what happens and what people are needing and what they're wanting. And so it really allowed us to build tools. And so, you know, we built our first automated tool, you know,

shortly after that. And, and we had a case that in probably about eight months in, we were featured on the news in Australia. So the show of Kernan Affair in Australia, we had worked with a woman who was online dating as a teenager. So she was 17 years old. She was talking to this AOL chat room. And, you know, as she got older, she kept in touch. But she was, She had, you know, dated this one guy in the chat room that she was talking to and sent nude photos and all this. We'll come to find out this was like a 65-year-old college professor in the UK. And so we found that out that he was using his son's photos to Catfisher to get news. And so that's, you know, where the first attention that was drawn on us came.

And, you know, we didn't have an office at the time. So I got an executive suite. You know, the show was coming in the next day. So I got an executive suite the day before. So we had an actual presence for them to come. So that was essentially the start. So this is kind of like the modern day. The big scam in the late 90s, early 2000s was like you'd get the email.

Actually, you still get these emails from the Nigerian prince who has $12 million and it's all locked up and he just needs your bank account information to transfer. Like this has taken it like a little bit further. Yeah. So I all say that this is the evolution of Nigerians print scam. Right. So like we all make fun of it. But if it didn't work,

they wouldn't do it, right? And so, you know, social media, especially and all the apps that are out there have made it so much easier for like criminals to target innocent people. And so, you know, especially with the pandemic as a new social media comes out, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, you know, all these apps that we're using, you know, it's like a breeding ground for criminals and for, you know, essentially romance scammers and all these different people that are trying to scam people out of money. It's really crazy. So when you say romance scammers, that's people that are on dating apps, they get people to fall in love with them and then send them money.

Yeah. So originally it started on dating apps, but like it's evolved. The majority of romance scams don't happen on dating apps anymore. They happen on sites like, you know, TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and those apps like words with friends. And so what these scammers do is they'll message thousands and thousands of people day and they just want to talk to one or two people. You know, if they can get a hold of 10 people, one of them,

will talk to them and every 10 people that actually get a conversation going with, they make money from typically. So, wow. So what should someone be looking for? Like I feel like from the outside looking at, it seems kind of obvious, but what should someone be looking for? So the average, like if we're talking specific romance scam, there are tons of scams out there. Oh, bring them all.

Let's hear them all. The envious stuff is like, look, don't click on links that you don't recognize, don't give people your personal information, don't give people, people money. That will, that will prevent you from being scammed in most instances. Like, but with romance scams, the average romance scam lasts for, for six to nine months. So, you know, like, it's not just somebody getting you to click on a lane or seal in your identity. Like, people are being scroomed over a six to nine months period for these scams. We've literally, so we have a YouTube channel called Scam Fitch and we interview, we do 52 episodes a year.

And we interview and we do an investigation on 52. individuals each year. And we go into their case, we look into crypto, we do all the stuff, we try to get people arrested. It's fun, but it also challenges us to like continue to level up and like what we're doing and how we're trying to protect people. But these scammers, they contact random people and, you know, they start telling them things they've never heard. And so you got a lot of people that maybe they've been out a bad relationship or, you know, they're struggling with confidence issues or maybe they're just lonely. And especially during the, the pandemic and this one person is there day and night every day messaging them saying hey good

night babe love you good morning how are you doing and then eventually they groom them into getting money out of them and we've we've talked to people who've lost like two million dollars it's insane it doesn't seem like a red flag that you know their facetime just happens to never be working or their zoom webcam is broken like just every time i watched catfish the tv show i'm like come on people Yeah, like, look, like I said, I'm the worst person have started the company, but I've really built like some empathy toward this because you talk to these people and you understand, like I've talked to doctors and lawyers

and people with PhDs that have been scammed out of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so like when you're on the outside looking in, for sure, it's easy. And in most cases, there were red flags with these people, but they ignored them because they were in love or thought they were in love. And I mean, these, Like, most these scams happen and the money gets sent overseas. And so, like, Chris, if you understand, like, the economy in, like, say, Nigeria or, like,

Russia or Philippines, you know, like, especially poor areas where, you know, if they get $250 from you, that's a big deal. And so they'll spend day and night talking to you and grooming you for weeks, months, or even a year plus before even asking for money. And there's some new trends where they're not even asking for money anymore. They're getting you to offer money. And so there's a lot of like, I don't know if you've studied any psychological principles, but like one of my favorite books is a book called Persuasion.

And, you know, there were so many aha moments when I read that book because, you know, all these psychological principles of like persuasion, these scammers use, you know, so they make you feel like you're part of their family. They literally tell you, hey, look, you're my wife. So like, you'd be amazed at how many people they're scammed, like either believe that they're married, like to these scammers or believe they're engaged. know, it's like, you know, it's a constant mind, you know, I don't know if I can cuss on this, but it's- Sure you can. It's the internet. Yeah, the perfect mind-fuck. Like, you know, when,

you know, when dealing with these people, they're constantly trying to manipulate you. And, you know, they even build playbooks. So a lot of them use playbooks that are handed down. So we go back to the Nigerian Prince days where, like, people would, you know, send out these emails, like, those were templated emails. And I'm sure, like, if you've been around marketing or podcast or whatever, like, you've heard people say, oh, if you do this. this, this will help you out, do this. And so the same way that like marketing and like works is the way that they run scams. And so they tell you like, oh, use these types of gift cards because they're not traceable. You know, here's this playbook. You know, here's the backstory that typically works.

And if, you know, so like as an example, they'll meet you. They say they're there are widows, you know, that their closest relatives have passed away. So when they first asked you for money, then and you say, why can't you get money for friends or family? You say, oh, I work a lot and you don't remember my mom passed away. I don't really have anybody in my life. So you end up feeling bad for them. So I mean, it's a constant evolution of this scam, you know, as technology evolves and as what, depending on what works and what doesn't. So what's been like a huge case or huge story that you keep coming back to that you just can't believe happen? I have like a lot. Um, especially now, like, you know, one thing has been interesting

with the YouTube channel where when people come to our sites, we have about 300,000 customers a year. But when people come to our site, you know, sometimes they're private. They don't want to talk about it. You know, for sure, we have people calling every day. But with the YouTube channel, like, people are very like forthcoming about like what they've gone through or what they're dealing with. So we just, we're dealing with the case right now that we actually already put up on the YouTube channel. But it's a lady named Laura. She's in Southern California. And basically, she was scammed out of $260,000 in crypto. And we are able to actually trace the actual scammer back to Accra, Nigeria.

And so there are a lot of new laws that are coming into play. So one of them is called KYC, it's know your customer. And so banking institutions have always had to do this. When you open a bank account in the United States, you have to show your ID and prove who you are. Well, like, if you have any crypto or any type of investment accounts, you know, they're under the same guidelines in the United States now too. And so, you know, we're able to track down, like, crypto addresses

and actually trace it back to the individual accounts. and get access that information using law enforcement. And so this case, we actually traced the scammer down. He stole $260,000. He has probably six or seven other people involved that they've been laundering money through. And I recently talked to the EFCC, which is basically the FBI for Nigeria that deals with financial crimes. And they're most likely going to go arrest this guy, which is really cool. Wow.

I feel like you should personally go and knock on his door. Yeah. You're like, I figured you out. So it's pretty cool. It's very gratifying because, like, you know, one thing that people say all the time is like, look, you know, these people are stupid. They deserve to be scammed or they deserve to lose money. You have to think about it on the flip side. Like, these are criminals that are meeting people online with intention to steal from them, right?

And that one person that you thought was stupid, there are probably 150 other people that have lost maybe smaller amounts that aren't as is goable. So only about one of every three people actually report these types of scams. There's something about an internet crime that just, I think maybe it's easier for them to pull off because you're not face to face with another human like seeing their emotion. Like they're kind of a nameless faceless. It's a nameless faceless interaction kind of. Yeah. I mean, like the scammers, they even call these victims their clients.

Like they literally call them clients. And so with like a, you know, from their. and, you know, there's like a mental perception and how to justify what they're doing where they don't feel bad. And also because it's the internet, they have very little fear of actually getting caught until, you know, over the last few years, we're seeing more and more of these criminals get, get busted. So if we take this back before Social Catfish, what kind of businesses were you working on? So a lot of the stuff I was working on, it was just like, I would build up websites and I would sell them either on FlipBarr, I would just sell them for, you know,

Not small amounts of money, but like, you know, we're talking like sub $10,000. And so I was doing that on the side. And then I was also working for CBS, the CBS Interactive. And so, you know, at the time when I was there, we were Comscore top 10 site. You know, I ran SEO for like CNAD.com and CBS Sports, CBS.com, you know, even, you know, Metro lyrics. I don't know, they were at one time one of the world's largest lyric sites and, you know, TV guide. And so I got, I had the, I was lucky enough to just really get my hands on a lot of this stuff and be able to test things out really rapidly.

And, you know, when you deal with 300 million, you know, monthly visitors, you can test and learn like way faster than, you know, dealing with, you know, 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 people. And so I learned things very quickly. And so that's what I was doing, you know, while I started social catfish. before that I actually sold cars back in the day, believe or not. And so, you know, my wife and I, like I said, we got married early and we had our first child, you know, our first year of marriage. And so I got a job and, you know, started selling cars. And the local economy, well, I mean,

naturally, like the economy took a dive in like 2007. And we literally lost everything we had overnight. And so, you know, we were on a homeless program for even 30 days. And, you know, from there, started like a boutique social media marketing agency and, you know, started picking out with few clients and started really learning about like internet marketing. And one of our customers got bought out by CBS. And so that's when I actually came on to work with them full time. And so I was there for about eight years before leaving and coming on full time, you know, with social catfish. You want to talk about like learning from experience and like and the art of persuasion. You probably learned a ton from selling cars. Oh, yeah, 100%. You know, um, it's,

it's really interesting because like when I got in the car industry, I was 18 years old and you hear like all the negative things about the car business, you know, and there for sure are. But like I took a lot more of like a relationship approach. So I would send out like birthday cards and I would send out Christmas cards. And so like when I left, you know, I remember I was like the top salesman and I literally quit the next day. And, you know, like I just built up this like big customer base of like people that I had good working relationships with. But I learned a lot, like at 18 years old, when you learn a lot about

finance and money and, you know, negotiate, I mean, you're negotiating with all sorts of people. And so, you know, people that are like 18 years old up to 60, 70, 70, 80 years old. And so, you know, have to get strong real quickly, you know, with, you know, the way people talk to you and treat you in different types of personalities, like type A personality. So it was an amazing learning experience. You know, I definitely don't miss the car business. But it for sure, like, At 18 years old, I learned a ton about finance and negotiation and just people skills and just hard work. Like I worked my ass off, you know.

So when you were buying these websites, building them up and then selling them, I imagine that was your original plan for social catfish.com. That's just great SEO. Yeah, 100%. For me, I had like a decent paying job. And so this was like a side gig. I had, you know, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And like I'm constantly coming with ideas and writing.

things down. And so when we started Social Cowfish, it was kind of one of those things like, well, we'll get it up and going, you know, and then, you know, probably build it up and sell it. You know, another thing, too, I, you know, I think, you know, as you become an entrepreneur and you get further down that journey, you build more confidence and you learn a lot more. And so I, even at the time, I didn't, I don't think I had enough confidence to be like a real entrepreneur, you know, like, you know, so like to build a company and hire team and, and, and, you know, take the plunge and to, you know, I was willing to put in the work, but, you know, it's not hard to, you know, build up a small site to make, you know, a couple grand a month,

you know, but it's really difficult to take a business and hire, you know, build it up to 50 staff and, you know, millions of visitors and build like a real brand. And so, I mean, it's been an eight-year journey, but I've learned and grown so much. And, like, I'm not even close to being the same person I was eight years ago. I think there's a lot of people that are in the position that you were in as you were starting this. And they have a job right now. They'd love to be an entrepreneur.

They'd love to start a business. But I think it's the first step that they need to take towards that. Just do it. Like make mistakes. Like fuck up. Like, you know, like people are so scared to like make mistakes and screw up. Like my son, for example, he's like really into the guitar. And so he wanted to create like a TikTok account.

And so he was like trying to perfect the, you know, different, the lighting and everything else. And I'm like, like, like, nobody cares. Like just get it out there. Like even now today, like I look at social catfish and there's so many things we're not doing right. And it's like, look, I mean, we'll do like, you know, we'll do about $10 million this year. And so, you know, for all the things that we're not doing right, you know, I'm just imagining like, okay, when we can get those things right, like we can really take it from 10 to, 50 million to $100 million. Like,

I'm very confident. But the hardest part is starting and being consistent. You know, most people, they want the instant gratification. And so, like my superpower is like consistency. Look,

I may not be smarter than you, but I'm going to outwork you and I'm going to outwork you consistently. And that will get me ahead 100% of the time. And so that's the approach I take. And if anybody can take that, and I think so many people are looking for that motivation. They're waiting for motivation to happen to them. And it's like,

look, you just got to get up. You have to make it a routine, a habit, and you just got to get things done. And if you can do that consistently at, like, a decent level of execution, you can be pretty successful. Yeah, people are always waiting for the perfect time or the perfect, I'll use podcasting as an example, the perfect microphone, perfect lighting, the perfect camera. It's like, just start. Like, I say this frequently, but nobody was listening to the first 50 episodes of the Joe

Rogan experience. In fact, nobody was listening to the first 150 episodes. of that. It's just like start, learn from your mistakes and be better today than you were yesterday. And then next month, you'll be better than you were this month. 100%. You know, I say this to my team all the time. Like, look, 1% better every day is 30 times better of the course of a year. How good is that book, right? Atomic Havocke. Yeah, yeah, I love it. That's one of my favorite books. So it's like, it's such a simple concept. Like, I've taken that approach and like every single thing in my life. It's like I read two to three books

every single month. I treat it like school. So anything that's a challenge or that I want to work on personally or professionally, you know, I read books about it. I take notes just like if I was in school and I print them out and I review them. And, you know, like I constantly am building habits. You know, I was 80 pounds heavier three years ago. And I'm like, look, I'm going to like prioritize my health and do that. So I started working out every single day. And I wasn't worried about like the way. I was worried about building the habit and making it something that can consistently that I do. And I've just taken that same approach to everything I do. And it just works. I love that. So I'm just behind you. I read like one to two books a month. Give me some of your

best book recommendations for this year so far. A lot. So I'm going to write them all down then. Yeah, I read books that solve my problems. So Scrum is a by Jeff Southerens, a really good book. So if you're not familiar with Scrum, it's basically like a agile like project. you know, management solution. And so, like we've, at my company, we've combined two things. And so we've combined Scrum Agile mythology and with what's called Kaizan. And so Kaizan is a Japanese principle for continuous improvement. And so if you know anything about the Toyota Assembly line, you know, they're super famous. And what they do is they approve things on the fly. So they don't go and like do things and they're difficult. And then they're like, oh, we'll, let's just do it. And, and then we'll

figure it out later on. If things become difficult and they can find a solution right then and there, they do it. And they continuously do that. And so, like, we've implemented Scrum across my entire organization. Every single business unit uses it. So, engineering, where it makes the most sense, uses it. So we do weekly sprints and we, you know, we have, you know, tasks that we know we can get done. We estimate those tasks in advance. And, you know, we focus on what can actually get done in that week. So, you know, sometimes you can't get everything done, but you can get a portion of it, right? So if we're trying to build this, like, massive project, maybe we can only get 10% done this week, but that's what we can actually deliver. And so we focus on what's deliverable

at the end of the sprint versus like the entire project. So we stay on board. If we ever fall behind, so we have daily meetings, the entire team works together to figure a solution on how to get ahead. You know, so for example, you know, fortunately, we've had two employees in the company that their family members have passed away in the last three weeks. They're crucial members to our team with design and engineering. And so, you know, we got together and said, look, like, obviously, let's give them as much time as they need to mourn and spend time with their families, but we have to keep the business going.

So how do we do it? So we plucked somebody from the team that knows a little design. So they're helping out with some designs. We outsource some designs. And now we're staying on track where, like, if we were to sit on our hands and wait for things to happen, it would just never happen. my executive team does 30-day sprints. And so I list out business problems that we're running into

or just objectives for each quarter and for the year. And the executive team, they go through there and they come up with solutions. So every 30 days, we do this. And then we meet every week to go over the tasks they've committed to completing over a 30-day period. And it's been extremely efficient. So scrum's a really, really good book. Persuasion. And there's also persuasion by the same author.

Those are like awesome books. if you're into any type of marketing or business, you know, that just really truly gives you insight into like, you know, building a community around your brand or, you know, like working on sales funnels. I mean, every single person should be focused on sales if you own a business. And so those are like great books. Atomic Habits is another one. What's another one?

We've come up with quite the reading list here. This is amazing. I'll give you one more to that list, which I'm reading right now that has to do with marketing is made to stick. I don't know if you've read that one yet. I have it, but I have a, so I have a library. Oh my gosh. So anytime anybody makes a book recommendation, I buy the book. And so on my phone, I have a kind of like a library.

So as I bring them in, I put them in alphabetical order. And as I read it, I check them off. And if it's something I want to reread, I put a little flame emoji next to it so that I can go back and reread it next year. Made this stick is a fascinating thing. Actually, I think you'd love it. it's the idea of like, why does some ideas stick and what are some ideas that may be better just kind of fall by the wayside and we don't remember them. And it talks about like the fundamentals that make an idea stick in our mind. Yeah, it's like I love that stuff. Like I'm just totally

nerd out about that stuff. Me too. I'm like halfway through and I'm like, I wish I had read this earlier. It actually starts off with the urban legend of the guy who wakes up in the bathtub filled with ice and realizes that the drink he drank earlier from the attractive woman was actually drugged and they've taken his kidney. And turns out that never happened. That's just an urban legend that everybody has heard and it has some stickiness to it. And like what are the components of that story that we can apply to other things in our business or in our life?

Very cool. Have you figured out how to implement that in like your life or business yet? Trying. I'm getting there. But there's definitely some things like they break it down like step by step where I'm like, okay. All right. Like if I were to start to take this approach instead of whatever I'm doing.

right now. And I think that that's a big thing to get this back on track here is I think a lot of people kind of just flounder going, well, this is the thing that I've always done. And I, you know, if you do the thing you've always done, you're going to get the results that you've always gotten. And when you look at what you've built, David, it's like, all right, well, you've taken different approaches to take a different path. Yeah. I mean, I graduate high school with a 2.3 GPA. Like, the guy that graduate high school is not the guy that's running the same company now. And so when I make goals I look and not just look at the goals and the things I have to achieve, but like who the person I need to be. Like, you can't be the same person you are today and have like very ambitious goals

a year, two years, five years or 10 years down the road and be that same person. It's be very difficult, you know, especially if you want to wake up early every day or you want to be healthier, if you want to, you know, have a better relationship with your spouse, you want to run a more successful company. You have to change and be different and improve, not just hit those goals. So do you set goals for yourself every day? then like medium term goals, maybe every month and then longer term year or five year goals? So I'm constantly setting goals. I don't have a cadence of like when I set goals. But when I come across things I want to do, I break them down and try to figure exactly how

I'm going to do them. And I try to implement things right away, you know? And so, you know, like at the beginning or the, was it November of last year? So like I hate New Year's resolutions just because I think it's stupid to wait until January 1st to do what you really want to do in life. And so in November last year, I was like, look, like, I love to read. I'm not reading enough. And, you know, like, I would feel so energized, like, when I would read. And I would notice, like, my public speaking was increased slightly. And, you know, like my thought process and, and different things that I came up with, like for the business increased substantially, not just a little bit when I would read about things that I was interested in or, you know, try to solve problems.

And I'm like, look, like, I wonder if I could take this and really turn it into and treat it like school and treat it like continue education for myself. And so in November last year, I'm like, look, I'm reading maybe five books a year right now. Let me try to read two bucks a month. And so like November, I read like almost a full book. And I was like pretty discouraged because I'm usually like right on point. And so like going back at atomic habits, like if you can find times to fit it in and piggyback some of the habits you already have.

And so I just, you know, I was committed to just continue doing it. And so now, you know, I usually read like one to two books at a time and then I'll listen to like an audio book a month. And so, you know, between that, I get through about two and a half books a month right now and make notes and everything. So it's been a really great journey. I love that. I want to break down the fundamentals of how you lost the weight because I think there's a lot of people that that's been a lifetime goal for them. And maybe it's five pounds here, 10 pounds here, but then they just end up putting it back on. What did you do to lose the weight and keep it off?

Yeah. So, you know, I had yo-yo dieted a lot. You know, I had lost 40 pounds and gain weight and kind of dealt with that. And, you know, one thing I just really realized is like, look, like I kept making excuses like, oh, I don't eat that much or, you know, whatever. And, you know, I don't know why. Maybe my metabolism is low. And then, you know, I just decided like, look, doesn't matter what the issue is. Like, I have to change what I'm doing. Like going on a diet, like, I know that I'm disciplined enough to lose weight. But like, a diet isn't permanent. And so I realized like, okay, what do I need to do to permanently change my lifestyle so that I can live healthy and long lifestyle? And I'm like super into longevity and stuff now. But so like three years ago, I said, look, let me just figure out the way I want to eat the for the rest of my life. You know, the way I was eating fast food. I was drinking energy drinks. I was, you know, for me, the challenge was is I was such a busy person that I would just grab whatever's easy at the time. And so I changed it. I'm like, okay, well, how can I shift

the way I'm eating and just make better decisions on a continually basis that are permanent? And so, you know, I changed my diet to paleo and just committed to doing that. And I lost like, you know, 40 pounds that way. And then I'm like, okay, I hit all these plateaus and I kept getting discouraged. One of the biggest things that helped me out is like tracking food initially. So I committed to tracking food for 30 days just to really figure out what I was doing wrong. And I realized, like, I was eating, you know, different things that were like high fats, high calories and that would just throw me over real quick, you know, things that you don't think about like, you know, chips or, you know, you go and eat like buffalo wings or you eat, you know, different things that, you know,

it's like 1,200 calories, you know, and like, you know, buffalo wild wings, you know, like. So, you know, like, and that's just one meal. You can eat really well, like, the rest of your meals. So I started cutting those things out. And, you know, when I was tracking my calories, I was realizing, oh, you know, late at night, I would start eating. So I cut that out. And, you know, for me, I didn't want to create pain. And like the way I ate, I didn't want to, like, feel like I was suffering and dieting.

But I wanted to feel like I was, like, controlling, like, the way I was eating, you know. And so I didn't, I decided that it would just be something permanent that I did. And I didn't put a timeline on. I'm like, if this takes five years, I'm just committed to the next. five years in doing this. And so I think that's what helped me out the most is that I took a mindset where like I was committed to changing my lifestyle and not doing things over a short period of time because like anybody, I could show anybody how to lose weight in 30 days, but doesn't mean you're going to be consistent about it. You know? And what's interesting that

I learned is the more weight I lost and the more I exercise, the more of my body craved that. Like if I go and I don't, I work out four or five days a week and I'm active the rest of the days of the week. If I don't work out, I don't feel good. If I eat like shit, I don't feel good. And so I don't do those things. And so I'm, I still drink alcohol. I'll go out and have a pizza. But I know how, you know, food works and about calories and your macros. And I don't stress about those things. And I focus on more of a weekly, like intake of food instead of daily. The problem is people get obsessed in the daily and then they get discouraged, where if you focus on like a weekly basis like okay look if you should be eating you know 20 200 200

calories a day you know over the course of a week it's okay to go over and hit 3 000 calories in a day i do it you know and i'm in pretty good shape right now and but i'll make adjustments you know maybe i'll eat a little less over the next three four days so that i'm not suffering the next day and like not in missing meals and whatever so it's just a healthy balance of food and then the you know, exercise. This has really helped me, you know, build a physique that I'm working toward. Yeah. I mean, it's impressive. And I think the most impressive thing about everything we've talked about here is your commitment, like your commitment to reading two to three books a month, your commitment to losing the weight and being healthier, your commitment to building social catfish.

Maybe it's, you know, your commitment to your wife, which, you know, you talked about very early on the relationship. You didn't have to, you know, go on dating sites like I actually met my fiancee on Hinge. I don't know if I've said that publicly, but there we go. I didn't get catfished on there. Yeah. But commitment's like it's the, it's the thing, like the common thread in your life. Yeah, 100%. I'm a, I'm a pretty disciplined person. Like I have the ability to be pretty disciplined. I live a pretty flexible lifestyle, though. You know, we travel a lot. We prioritize family, you know, we go out with friends and do things. So like, you know, but I have certain things in my life that I just, like those are non-negotiables, you know, like I know I'm going to build a hundred million dollar

company. I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind. My team knows that. They believe in me. They believe in themselves. You know, but I'm committed and it's something that I practice every single day. So if I'm a user and I go to social catfish.com because I've been messaging with someone online that it seems a little, pun intended, fishy. Yeah. I have a name and I have some photos. What happens once I get to the website? So once you get to the site, you can input that information.

We are an aggregator of public records. And so we have 17 different data sources that we purchase data from. So we scrub this data for accuracy. And so once you input that data, we run it through our algorithms and we spit out the information we have. And so, you know, part of our commitment to online safety is that, like, just the images, for example, you know, we go every single month and we collect the images we've seen in scams and we'll actually alert you. So, you know, if it's something we've seen out there

and it's been using scams, we'll let you know. We'll even let you know, like, if it's a celebrity or pseudo famous person, who that person is when you run those images. And then with name information, you know, we'll give you an overview of like where the, you know, the person's public information, you know, maybe possibly where they live or, you know, their social media presence so that you could do your due diligence and see. So a lot of people that come to us, you know, we have about 40% of people, our users, come to us because they're dating somebody online and they want to verify somebody. So, you know, whether the person's married or whether, you know, they're going to meet a serial killer, if they're going on their first thing or, you know, or somebody that has

asked them for money as part of a romance scam. Those are, those are use cases for dating. Yeah, I could see a lot of people going on there. This is like the new version of hiring a private investigator. Yeah, absolutely. So we even have a service called Search Special. where it's a $300 service where you can come to us, you give us all the information, and we do all the investigative work for you. We don't just use socialcapture.com, though, and our investigators, like, we do a lot of training for things like crypto scams and all sorts of things. And so a lot of times that information we hand over, it goes to the law enforcement

to try to make their lives a little easier when working on these types of cases. But we even have a service like that. I could also see employers wanting to use this. Yeah, there are some, like, so, you know, as an employer, we are not under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. So like the use case there is there's somewhat of a great area where like employers shouldn't be using it just because there are certain things that come up. So as an employer, if you're going to hire and you know, you know, the race of somebody and you don't hire them, it can open you up for a lawsuit. So you

have to be really careful with that. But for sure, like if you're going to do business with somebody for the first time and you want to know the type of person you're dealing with, there's nothing better than like, look, checking somebody's social media. And I can guarantee, like, everybody's done it in their life, you know, like, you know, where you're going to meet somebody or you're talking to somebody, you want to know who they are. Like, I guarantee your fiance did it on you. We both did it on each other. There was a lot, she found a lot more info about me. I was like scouring the internet. I found like, I don't know, a Facebook account. That was it. Yeah, that's like my wife. She's very private. Yeah. It's like, well, this doesn't seem very fair.

You know everything about me. Yeah. I don't even know what you sound like. you know David this has been this has been really interesting it's been fascinating I love that we started with untold on Netflix which I think is a very interesting like that that is on the complete other end of the spectrum of how crazy this can be but I think that there's a use for this for pretty much anybody yeah in fact we just launched a new service called privacy lock and so a lot of our tools are very reactive and so we've really realized that over the last few years where, you know, people come to us if they need to run a search, you know, they don't, they don't think about like, oh, let me, you know, have this in my back pocket just in case.

And so, you know, what we recently did is we built a tool called privacy lock. So if you think about it as so much like a credit report for your social media, we show you what's out there, why it's out there, you know, we'll show you how to control it, you know. So a lot of people don't care their information's out there. They just want to know where it is or even why it got out there and how they control it if they really need to. And so that's what you do with that tool. Congratulations and everything you've built, by the way. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. Although you're probably like, I'm just getting started, Chris. Come on. Yeah, I mean, for sure. Like, I think about three years ago, I struggled a lot with,

like, feeling content with the success that I was having. And so, you know, I'm like a very ambitious person. So for me, it's just never enough. Like, no matter, like, even my team knows this. And I And I also talk to them and I say, look, I mean this in the nicest way. It's fucking awesome what you've done and built. We have to celebrate it. But like, just know that it's just the beginning. It's where we're headed. And so like I look at my life in a similar way with work too.

And, you know, a few years ago, I finally was able to come to peace to be able to enjoy the success that I had instead of just being so obsessive about, you know, like the next big goal. Right. So I end every conversation with the same question. I will ask us of you because gratitude is a really big part of my life. And I wake up every day and I say out loud three things I'm grateful for. I do it before I go to bed. What are three things in your life, David, that you're grateful for right now? Yeah, I'm grateful for my family.

Like, I'm a big family man. I love my family. The support my wife and kids give is incredible. 100% I would not be here without the support for my wife. I mean, even when we are homeless and broke, you know, she always supported me and, you know, told me to go for it. My team, like, you know, one thing I've learned about building a business, and we have about 50 people now is that, like, I cannot do it by myself. And so, you know, like the how smart my team is and how hard they work. Like I'm super, super grateful for that.

And I'm grateful for an opportunity to be whoever I want to be in life, you know. And, you know, we have this amazing life that we, we have the potential to literally do whatever we want to do. And so I'm grateful for that opportunity. And I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to work my ass off. So those are the three things I'm grateful for. I love it. David, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me. There we go, my friends. So, so interesting. Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Big thank you to David for joining us. And thank you, as always, for being with us. Because otherwise, it would be, in this case, just me and a microphone and a laptop with Zoom open. But you make it a podcast. So I appreciate you. Go check out social catfish.com to see

everything that we were talking about. And if you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening right now and take a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening. Tag us both at social catfish or at Chris Van Fleet. And I'll leave you with this amazing quote from John Mason. You were born an original. Don't die a copy. Be great and be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock,

but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987.

I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.