The Future of Building Relationships - with Lior Illouz, Co-Founder of HeyBonds and ex-Meta
Welcome to Coffee with Curtis, your home for quality business conversation. Welcome to Coffee with Curtis. I'm Robert Curtis, and joining me on this episode today is Leo Ileuz. Leo is the founder of Bonds, a love tech app that we're going to talk all about today. It's an AI powered relationship coach, but more on that soon.
Speaker 1:Leo is also ex Meta. He was a manager in the global partnerships team for Workplace by Meta, which is how we know each other. And we've got lots of, war stories that some can be shared and many can't. So, Leo, welcome to Coffee with Curtis. I'm so excited you're here.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's great to be here, man. Always great to talk with you.
Speaker 1:I want to kick off and just give our audience a sense of who Leo is, and tell us what we need to know. Give us the goods on who you are, what you've been up to over the past few decades in a condensed version, to give a sense of Leo Iluz.
Speaker 2:Of course, of course. I'll do my best to be as succinct as possible. You know me. So I think first of all, the biggest thing about my life is that I got married about eight months ago. It's been really exciting and I'm very fortunate to have such a brilliant partner as Yael.
Speaker 2:And from a professional perspective, I started in venture capital. I worked at Intel Capital where I was initially scouting and identifying potential opportunities to invest in as well as existing investments that we've made there. Then I worked at two startups. The second one is a company called Trax, which is an image recognition based retail company. I moved with them to Singapore within six months.
Speaker 2:Big move, big change in life, really exciting time and I was fortunate to be there with a company from 30 employees to about, I think four or 500 as they became a unicorn, helped to build their APAC operations team around their business operation, team of 20 people in China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and all these very exotic Asian countries. Really, really fun experience. I was getting geared to go back to Israel, but then I was offered to join Meta to launch Workplace, which you mentioned. Really interesting product. We're probably going to talk about it a bit later about how amazing it was when it came to the impact with clients and how passionate people were, not only the clients, but also our partners, one of which you are working with me.
Speaker 2:Really cool time, spent our two years, moved with the company to The UK to help advance our reseller partnerships where I got to collaborate with you. Then I moved to Israel with the company as well and two years in Israel something clicked. I realized that all life when I had challenges, personal challenges like wanting to lose weight or a final date. I had technology helping me when I wanted to lose weight, I used MyFitnessPal and I lost 24 kilograms. Oh, I
Speaker 1:need to talk to you about that as a side issue. I need that. I need that in my life right now.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you, I think now that I'm a founder, I'm gaining the kilograms again, so I'm going to need to install the app and use it again. The second one was all about, you know, finding a partner and dating and I realized as I got into a relationship with my partner, Yael, I realized that I was having a lot of challenges. I was having a hard time understanding myself, was having a hard time understanding her, I was having a hard time understanding how to approach specific topics or challenges. I don't know how to approach finances or plans together. And I didn't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to remember to get better and to take actions and the things that I knew I had to improve. And that's when I realized there wasn't really a modern platform to help with existing relationships. And that's why I decided to build bonds. And that's me in three or less minutes.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, a very career already, and you're still only about 23, right?
Speaker 2:21. No. I'm 39 years old.
Speaker 1:So so a question that comes to mind is you've actually worked in three different cultural regions, Middle East, Western Europe, UK, and obviously in Asia. How do you view the differences between those three cultures when it comes to doing business? And what were the challenges that you had? I mean, obviously, there's the notorious stereotypes from each of those regions, which may or may not have played out. But I'd love to get your take on the cultural differences of doing business, because it's something that, as a sales leader, I've been doing a lot of work with companies on in terms of understanding quality set and having self awareness when you're speaking to another person, selling to that person.
Speaker 1:We all sell as individuals and we present our own personality, but sometimes you need to tweak that to meet the needs of the person you're selling to. They might be a more detailed person, they might be a big picture thinker, and you have to adapt the way that you're selling to them. And these are not any cultural differences, but skill set and self awareness differences. What's your experience? Take us through that.
Speaker 2:It's a good question. I think, you know, for me, it was a personal journey of evolution. In the end, when you move to another country and you need to adapt and you need to integrate, there is a self realization process you need to go through there because in the end, each culture has its own values and different things that matter to it. And I think there are two things that required me to adapt quickly. The first point was that I was doing business in these countries as a business development person, always aiming to build strong trust and strong relationships with people And the second thing, if I'll be honest and vulnerable, I was single.
Speaker 2:And as a single guy, you need to learn the mentality and understand how to interpret what people are saying and also how to convey messages in a way they are able to understand and relate to what you're saying. So, I think the obvious suspects when you think about the differences are that of course in The Middle East it's all about being direct or being tachless, truth to your face, very quickly jump from talking about your name and who you are into the meaning of life and politics and filth and the challenges that you are encountering both in your personal life and in your professional life, people jump into the nitty and gritty very, very quickly in Israel and in The Middle East in general because I got got to work in Dubai and in other countries. It's very direct, very quickly and on the surface it's as if everything is open, even though it's not of course, but it's more on the surface open. I think in APAC, it's hard to try and encompass APAC as a whole because APAC is very diverse. You can't say Australia or Singapore or China or Japan are the same, right, so every country is very unique but I think there is more of a, let's say, community and kind of a collective perspective of things as opposed to the, more of a capitalist world where it's all about results and numbers.
Speaker 2:I think in many of the Asian countries that I worked at, it was a lot about how you can contribute to their society, to their community. In Australia, you can't do business if you don't have a local Aussie working with you that knows the culture and knows how to influence them. In Japan, it's all about being respectful and understanding their business model and seeing how you can integrate with it, but also never being too direct, always being very, very slow and measured in the way you talk. And even in the body language you have, it's adjusting to things like how close you talk with someone or how frequent you look in their eyes when you make that conversation. These were things that were very instrumental to making sure I was building strong foundations and relationships in those countries.
Speaker 2:And in Europe, I think for me, I got to work mainly in The UK and also in The Nordics. Of course, two different kind of cultures. But I think for me, for example, in The UK, it was a lot about understanding that as long as you're in the office setup, in office surroundings, the conversation is very professional, you have to come very prepared and you need to be very clear and eloquent in the messages you have to portray. Even if you have feedback, it's all about phrasing it in a way which is understood softly enough but also clearly enough and also maybe the biggest realization it took me a few months to get to and some people that listen to this may laugh but I think that was my realization was in The UK there's so much importance to get people out of the office. So you want to build a relationship with someone, get them out of the office, go for a beer, go for a walk in the park, do something outside the office and then you're going to open up other aspects of their character, of their perception of things and you can really expedite the discussion and the conflict or challenge resolution you may need to do whether it's a partner whether it's a client, or whether it's even a colleague.
Speaker 2:So, I don't know if that resonates, but that's my take on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, resonates. It's funny, actually, I had a call this morning from an old friend in England who's thinking of moving to Israel, actually, and he's in the sales and marketing world. And he he asked me a really interesting question, which was he said, you know, you probably don't realize it, Rob, but I see a lot of your content. I follow what you say and do. I don't necessarily always like or comment on it.
Speaker 1:But I want you to know that I listen to you, and actually I admire the journey that you've taken in your career and the way that you're so flexible to jump into new things, try out new opportunities and, you know, immerse yourself in things that, perhaps you weren't naturally going to do when you lived in England, because I knew you when you lived in England, he said. He said, do do you think that's because you're in Israel or would it have happened anyway? So I said, look, I don't know how I would have been had I stayed for the last fifteen years in The UK. You know, it's an unknown question. But what I do know is obviously how I have been here.
Speaker 1:And there is an audaciousness, I said, to Israeli society, particularly in business, that is admirable, that is, you know, for native Israelis, is almost in their DNA to some extent. And I said to him, I probably got like 30% of that. I can't be I can't claim to be full blown. But but even 30% more of that that act I won't call it attitude in a negative sense, but in an audacious mindset of saying, well, no, actually, we could do it a different way. And I can do that.
Speaker 1:And I can jump into things that I'm perhaps not used to, to have that creativity. And he he loved that answer. And I said, you know, and that's how you have to maybe train your mindset now whilst you're in England to enable you to make that switch, because it is different and those cultural differences matter. You know, if he'd asked me fifteen years ago, would I have done business with Israeli B2B tech startups? I would have said, no way.
Speaker 1:There's no way I would have been doing that. Whereas, you know, most of the fifteen years was doing that. And, you know, whilst I'm certainly not native and my Hebrew is diabolical, obviously English is a, you know, a key business language here that everybody understands and knows, I acquired, as I say, a little shlish of the audaciousness. I'd be interested to know from you though, having worked at the same company, Meta, in three regions, did the culture trump the company culture, or was there some kind of symbiotic nature of how they balanced?
Speaker 2:First of all, I I I totally can agree with your self observation about, you know, being a flexible professional. Also, in in your mindset, I think what I've seen is how when I work with you in The UK and later on when you were in Israel, you're very adaptive in the way you perceive things and I think for me it kind of a similar experience. When I moved from Israel to Singapore, I didn't start at Meta, I started in the other startup I mentioned but I think when I came to Meta, you're right, I had a very audacious perspective of how things could be done and it didn't always land well and some people didn't like that and I even had a colleague in the beginning that came to me, I remember it was a bit more experience, I'm still in touch with him to this day and he said, look, be careful, you want to do a few things that are a bit more risky, it's a big company, it's a big brand, you just need to be a bit careful and on one hand I agreed, on the other hand I was like, okay, but you know what, we're trying to do something really big here, I think if you don't try, it all fell and you may end up uncovering something that's really exciting.
Speaker 2:I have one cool story about this actually, when we started Workplace, we had a lot of really passionate clients that really loved our product and the brand. And we wanted to uncover additional growth strategies that would be efficient, but also would be a part of our DNA. And we had this crazy idea. Again, doesn't look as crazy today because I think more companies are doing it by the day, but we had this crazy idea. I think the first company we did was with a company called Vaoviet.
Speaker 2:It's an insurance company in Vietnam. I think they have approximately 150,000 people in their team, insurance agents and also full time employees. And we said to them, you know what guys, you're such a great insurance brand, you're doing such great work, so much innovation, and we knew, by the way, that they really wanted to be perceived as innovators as well, right? So, he said to them, you know what, why don't you host an event about innovation where you talk about the amazing things you've done with Workplace and we'll bring other Workplace clients and you'll be able to share the automations you've built things to Workplace. And we'll do it as an event where we share with the community about how amazing of a brand you are, but also how much impact you've been able to get to with Workplace.
Speaker 2:As a side note, I'll say their revenues increased 38% after implementing our product, right? So that was pretty insane. So we did that event. People in Facebook sometimes they were a bit worried about doing an event where we're not leading it and our brand is there, but you know what? That chutzpah, that Israeli out of the box thinking was beneficial back then and I was really considered as this guy that comes up with really creative ideas and like you said, in Israel it's less like that because so much more people have that mentality, but when you move to other places, as you integrate, you can come up with these random crazy ideas in their eyes that in Israel would potentially have been less dramatic.
Speaker 1:For everyone who doesn't know workplace, essentially, Facebook at the time, alongside a trend of needing platforms for internal communication within businesses, said, well, most of the world knows Facebook. They use Facebook every day on their phone. The user behavior is is embedded in people's, you know, natural DNA to some extent now. And they said, that's that's make a play in the in the in the work workplace arena and essentially copy paste the workplace, the Facebook infrastructure and build it out for workplace communications. You know, it's a very simplified version of it, but essentially it was it was it was it was a gorgeous platform to use.
Speaker 1:Everyone knew how to use it instantly because of the adoption rate so high because you know Facebook. And it was it was a bit more sexy than actually some of the other platforms out there. It had a more of a social feel by nature in terms of the way you could share internally. I mean, you can run projects on it and all the things you'd expect from, you know, the other competitors, Slacks and Teams and all the rest of it. But, it was a wild journey actually, being involved in that in just a small way, and I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1:So that's Workplace. Let's dive into a little bit more under the hood and unpack working at essentially the world's biggest social media company. Now, obviously, we all know it as Meta, I guess it's a bit like, you know, national security classified level. So we won't ask the deep, deep, dark questions or there'll be a knock at your door. But what can you tell us about key I won't take the chance.
Speaker 1:The the the what are the key lessons that you could share with us around the learnings that you had at working at a mammoth mammoth organization like that that we can take into our day to day businesses as small business owners, startup owners, or even in our day to day jobs in the companies that we all work for?
Speaker 2:It's a great question and I think when we spoke earlier, you told me about this question and I love it because it made me kind of look deep inside and really think with myself, you know, what are the things that I've learned the most, and I think, you know, Meta is a great company and of course, there's a lot of criticism about things it can do better, but I think me on a personal level, I relate with its mission, bringing the world closer together, helping people connect and now, of course, when you take such an ambitious goal and you try to achieve it, you're going to uncover a lot of different challenges and risks and areas of concern and I think it's important that we as a society make sure that the companies that we have working adhere to specific standards, but overall, I really do love Meta and it was a great and amazing chapter in my life where I've developed a lot of basic things that I try to follow even today as I build bonds and wherever I'll go. And I think as a company, they always made sure to have clear values that they were interviewing based off when you were trying to join them, but also they have all these posters across their offices and the posters represent specific values that they believe are company values you should follow.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm not going to talk about the values specifically when I share these three specific lessons learned from Meta, but I will say they definitely influenced the way I perceived and behaved every day because when, I won't say the word brainwashed, but when you see posters that represent values like being bold or like focusing on impact or bringing value to the community you're a part of or asking yourself what would you do if you weren't afraid, these are great posters and statements to have in front of your eyes because they subconsciously make you scratch the surface on things that maybe are a bit less pleasant to think about or a bit more challenging to uncover and untangle with our daily lives. So that was a pre phase. I think the three lessons learned, I'll say them succinctly and then I'll elaborate if you want. The first one is feedback is a gift and it's not enough to say that. You need to make sure you get feedback and you ask for it.
Speaker 2:The second thing is the fact that vulnerability within individuals and teams builds stronger teams. And that's true both for the leaders in the teams as well as for the individuals within them. And the third thing is that failure is a part of the momentum of organizations. And if there's no space to fail, organizations are going to have a hard time reinventing themselves and staying ahead of the curve. So I don't know if you want me to elaborate, but these are the three biggest lessons learned of Ad when I was at Meta.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's massively interesting. I'd love to unpack them a little bit more, particularly that last one, which is around failure and having the space to fail, which is something that we were just speaking about, Israeli startup culture. There's a big you know, build and fail mentality because it's built into how you succeed. I don't know if that's always available at different tiers of the business world. When you're a big beast, there's perhaps more more, fail safe on some of those things, and people are, you know, just trying to get it right.
Speaker 1:Everyone's trying to get it right. When I've, you know, led sales teams, you know, the CEO wouldn't have much patience for failure ultimately. If people aren't hitting targets, you know, there's a real emphasis on it. Must be a bad salesperson without looking at the 50 other things that it probably was because you hired that person in the first place based on values and the skill set. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fine. You can sometimes get it wrong. But, how do you how did you see that manifest itself in day to day life, that that mentality of it's okay to fail. And also, I presume that first point about feedback lives within that same, loop of fail feedback, fail feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good point. Look, think as businesses, it's imperative that businesses have different people, individuals and managers, and regardless of the role, work with KPIs and have objectives they need to meet and numbers they need to chase. It could be, if you're a product person, KPI numbers of retention or acquisition, and if you're a sales guy, it's going to be numbers about the dollars you're able to bring in, or if you're a BDR, maybe it's valuation of the pipeline that you brought in. But I think when I talk about failing, I'm talking about a mentality of being able to have a culture of not only having the space to make mistakes and fail, but also to have the space and have people celebrate when someone is standing up and saying, not only that they failed, but what they learned from it and I think that's a super important mentality and you're right, if someone continues failing day after day, not learning from the mistakes, never reaching the numbers, yeah, that's a concern and of course that needs to be attended to and maybe you can help them and maybe they can reevaluate their approach with things.
Speaker 2:But when I'm talking about failure as a mindset, think it's a lot to do about experimenting and then stopping for a second to measure whether the experience was successful. So I don't know, have this one example when I went to speak in a C level event in The Philippines and I was standing in a big stage and it didn't yield any short term results. And I think the salesperson I was working with back then, we went to the team and we said about this event and it didn't yield in very short term results. But then three or four months in, some of those people that attended that event ended up converting because they were so touched from that event that they actually became such strong champions internally of the platform, a lesson learned kind of ended up changing. So the lesson learned ended up being okay.
Speaker 2:So these kinds of events aren't that useful in short term impact, but actually when you think about this kind of impact with CLO executives, we not only created impact with them, but one lesson learned is that maybe we should have followed up earlier specifically with those individuals, making sure we set up calls. So I think this is something I try to adopt wherever I go. And it's not just about being able to fail, it's also about having a mentality of learning and celebrating the learnings from failures.
Speaker 1:I think what's interesting about what you said about that event with C level executives is that the opportunity came later down the line is what I'm seeing generally in all business today, that this idea of putting on event is what I call being the media company, being the chat show, and continually doing these events at at scale, whether it's digital or in person or in other ways, that that content fountain, it could be an in person event all the way through to a blog that doesn't ask for anything. It's pure edutainment informing, educating. And the more I see companies do more of that cadence, the more I see their pipeline grow and the revenue increase because of that mentality of, as I say, I I love this analogy of put on the chat show, no one wants the commercial. No one wants the ad. You know, we do it when we're either watching television as if you've watched live TV recently.
Speaker 1:It's painful as hell because I just wanna, like, fast forward. I don't wanna watch the the commercials. Maybe the Super Bowl commercials are different, but Go on. I just wanna get out of them because we're all been trained to watch Netflix or other streaming services where we can watch it at our own speed. I listen to podcasts at like 1.5 speed minimum because everything just sounds too slow.
Speaker 1:So,
Speaker 2:It's a high paced world. You know, everybody watches short form videos on TikTok, Instagram, you need to get your message out in five to ten seconds. That's the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. It's, it's it's both good and bad. On the other hand, you know, you see these podcasters who are doing long form, two, three hours, the Joe Rogans, the Lex Fridhans, there's many of them.
Speaker 1:So I don't necessarily buy into this idea of people saying, oh, no one's got any attention anymore. We've all got ADHD. And whilst that that may be true in some sense, I don't agree necessarily. If the creative is amazing and the content is engaging, people will listen for five hours, six hours. So I think it's it's, again, it's about building that cadence of content that is creative.
Speaker 1:The creative is the variable, ultimately.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think way I agree with you, think the way I see it is the bar is just higher when it comes to grabbing people's attention. I think in the past, people's attention was, let's say, in a way, a simpler task and today there's so many different tricks being used to grab your attention. Here's a five second video of someone jumping hoops and on fire and actually it's something else, a podcast of Robert Curtis having coffees with people. Think there's a lot of really creative ways people are using today to get your attention and you're right, when it comes to long form, people want to go deep on things. It's not like people want to stay on the surface all the time and I'm with you.
Speaker 2:That's why I also listen to podcasts because sometimes I do want to listen to a more in-depth conversation in a higher level on a topic. I'm with you.
Speaker 1:I want to move soon to a love tech. But before we do that, a relationship tech is probably the more, you know, professional way of spinning it. But I want to talk about your role as partnerships manager, because there are lots of businesses that are building our partner programmes, and they might be doing that because they're moving their business to an entire sell through model, or they might be building reseller programmes alongside their direct models. Why are partnerships so important, and what did you learn that our listeners can take away as sort of key key things that can drive successful partnerships?
Speaker 2:Sure. So these are two very good questions. I'm going to start with why partnerships are so important. So I think many businesses today, actually more and more businesses today realize that an amazing growth strategy for them is through partnerships. And I think if I had to sum it up in three reasons why partnerships are so meaningful, so valuable and such a smart strategic group for so many different companies, and I wrote it here while we were talking, I think the first one is Amplify.
Speaker 2:So, when you build strong partnerships, whether it be reselling partnerships, sell through partnerships or technological partnerships, you're essentially amplifying your vision as an organisation. So you're having other organisations take the vision that you've built, that you're pushing forward and helping spread it with the world and helping other organizations or other teams enjoy from that vision, whether it be they add a technological capability or maybe they're helping you sell it to existing clients. They have as a company already selling other services. So, it's essentially tapping into the partner's ecosystem of services and clients and helping add another layer with the solution that you're bringing in. The second thing is the quality.
Speaker 2:I think in many organizations, and I think Meta was one of them, but not only, I think I saw it also in tracks and I'm seeing it with other organizations. If you want to bring in the best quality of service to the businesses you're working with, many times working through partners is the way to do that because as organizations, you have very scarce resources. So if you want to bring a high quality level of service that pays attention to each client's needs, of how big they are or how strategic they are to a business. Maybe they have a specific technical requirement that needs attention. Partners are able to pay attention to those organizations, listen to their needs.
Speaker 2:Listen, the keyword in this entire answer is listen. Being able to listen to the client's needs and adapt to them is the second reason, like I said, about quality. So, being able to listen and attend to that. And the third thing is just scale. In the end, if you want to grow quickly today and we live in a world where things are changing as fast as they've ever had, I don't know if you keep hearing about every new innovation that every second day there's like Yesterday, TikTok released a feature where they're allowing you Bydance, I meant not TikTok, Bydance, I think they released this feature where you can create commercials to every website by just adding a link of that website and then it just creates UGC content with people talking about it, videos from websites after it analyzed.
Speaker 2:The world is moving really fast, so if you want to scale quickly, partnerships are a really smart way of doing that in a way that's also cost efficient.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. The amplify, listen and scale model is really clear. And having that increased footprint in like minded companies within a network that can obviously deliver the product and service to your target audience is obviously clear. I think having run some partnership models as sort of side pieces as the sort of, you know, sales leader, you know, often I'd be called on to, right, can you build some partnerships with these people? You know, if it's not taken seriously, they definitely fail, by the way.
Speaker 1:I've seen that too many times, personally, unless it's your focus. And I think what I learned from you, by the way, just from being in that relationship and being a consumer of the partnership, well, is really the cadence of interaction, the regular relationship building moments, the pipeline reviews, the feedback loop, the, I would say, note taking that you were famous for, in meetings. But these are all things that help build out a comprehensive pathway to being successful. And you've got to have those nuggets in place, I think, in a partnership program, and it should be someone who's dedicated to doing that within an organization. If you're gonna build out a partnership program, put someone properly on it.
Speaker 1:And yet even for small companies.
Speaker 2:I agree and I think you asked the second question about what makes a partnership successful and if you didn't ask it, I imagine you did and I'll answer it.
Speaker 1:I did. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think when you asked that, I looked back and I thought about the partnerships that were successful and those that were less. I think the partnerships that were most successful are those that both sides made an intentional effort to listen very closely, very intimately and in much detail what would make the other organization and person successful. When you double down on each organization's core KPIs of success and you find where the two intertwine, maybe one organization wants to go over fast and the other wants to get into larger organizations. So you need to find that balance, that place where both interests align and then in an obsessive manner almost, make sure that you are meeting your partner's KPIs, not only your own, but your partner's KPIs. When I was in partnerships where both sides really cared intimately about the other person's success and their KPIs, that worked alongside other things, which I'm sure you know, like having the right resources, having the right executive sponsorship and having that, for example, what you said about structure, cadence, an organized fashion and ongoing tools and processes and the infrastructure to make sure this is something that stays aligned but this is the part of the machine, not the machine itself.
Speaker 2:The real oil is that trust and alignment in vision. That's the way I see it.
Speaker 1:Love it!
Speaker 2:You and I did that often, to be honest, like you and I and Adam and the team, we really made an intentional effort to make sure we're aligned about the goals and the approach.
Speaker 1:We did. We did. And talking about relationships and making them work, let's move on to what you're doing today. Because today, you are the founder of Bonds, which is an AI powered relationship coach that is delivering real insights to individuals and couples, to enable them to build better relationships and to live their best life with the people that they love. And I'd love to start off with what prompted you to do this, What's the origin story?
Speaker 1:And tell us a little bit more about bonds.
Speaker 2:Sure. So, I think I gently mentioned it, but I can share a bit more. Honestly, I did mention about how when I got into the relationship with Yael, it became even more evident that a solution like this is needed, but if I'll be honest with you, when I lived in Singapore already, I was in Singapore Twenty Thirteen to 'nineteen. Already when I was in Singapore, I started noticing this pattern of people always going into loops, having the same kind of fights, the same kind of challenges, and often just realizing that if they had a way to better understand themselves or their partners or build mechanisms to remind of doing things that they tend to forget, it could be giving their partner a massage in the morning because she needs touch in the morning and they're not a touchy person or maybe they touch in the evenings or it could be setting aside time to make sure their workspace is organized because they tend to forget that and they don't know. But it also could be deeper things like understanding what your partner means when she's always upset about doing the dishes or not spending time with her having coffee in the morning.
Speaker 2:That gap and that inability to understand where people are coming from also was consistent when I moved to The UK and when I got back to Israel. I think when I went into the relationship with Yael and I started seeing these things surface as someone that got into a relationship at a later age, let's say, it made me realize that there's a real need here. And I think when we started looking in the world, we saw that we live in a world where over 40% of people meet online, Tinder, Bumble, Hench. But the real challenge in relationships isn't about meeting. It's about making sure this thing works.
Speaker 2:Now, so many people have this desire to improve your relationship, but about ten percent go to therapy, get expert help and that's costly and there's a lot of shame and stigma around it and you don't know where to find it. And people sometimes go to books and magazines but they're not personalized and so people talk with their mom or their dad or their friends but these aren't experts, aren't people that know the full context so we started looking at what are people doing today and we saw that people are doing two things in 2024. It was in 2024 when we looked at this and okay, you want to guess what are the two things, Rob, that people in the modern age do to strengthen their relationship when they don't go to therapy?
Speaker 1:I would say that they search online, so Google, at the time, probably just before the ChatGPT revolution, and I would say that they would speak to friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're right, like online and friends are definitely things. Yeah, you're right. But when it comes to online, two things are happening. One is that one out of three young American men already uses generative AI to get help with relationship advice. But you know, using general LLMs to get advice, it's a bit like garbage in garbage out.
Speaker 2:The context you give it is what it's going to use to give you insight. It doesn't have the innate ability to understand your unique context or persona or relationship dynamics. And secondly, it's very chatbot oriented. And the second thing, and again, you won't be surprised because we spoke about this earlier, is the emergence of short form videos. So many people today, I think 60% of parents in The US report of learning about parenthood through TikTok and Instagram Reel videos.
Speaker 2:So people are really gaining value from learning about relationships and parenthood through short form videos, but they don't have a platform that's built for that. Love Meta and I love all these other platforms, but they're optimized to help you watch commercials many times. So, that's how it came about. That's when we realized, okay, there's a big need, there's a big gap, there's an opportunity with technology that's for the first time able to give people a personalized experience that's fun, that's engaging, that's cool and it's time to create and that's how Bonds came about essentially.
Speaker 1:I've got so many questions, so many questions. We're not going be able pass them all. But just give us the short version of how it works then. So, I'm in need of relationship advice. I'm feeling that my relationship needs improving.
Speaker 1:I've seen bonds. I sign up. Do I need to do it with my wife? Can I do it on my own? And how much information do I have to give it for it to really start to learn how Robert lives and interacts as a person and with his wife?
Speaker 2:Great question. First of all, Bonza platform that we are building with experts. One of our team members, one of the co founders is a psychologist, clinical psychologist. So we've built it with intent and knowledge and it's built for both individuals and for couples. It's a really, really important question because many people assume it's a platform that has to be used by the couple, but we've intentionally built it for individuals.
Speaker 2:Also, following industry and market research, we saw that many people don't feel comfortable inviting their partner to a solution like this. It's still the stigma, it's still the shame, and also you don't even know whether it can bring you value. So that's why we've built it for individuals. And the way bonds works is that we take a relatively scientific approach to really understand your specific persona and personality and your relationship dynamics from your perspective. So, for example, am I avoidant when I talk about finances?
Speaker 2:Is my partner anxious when she talks about intimacy? And by learning these items, and you asked how we collect this information, so it's a combination of gamified experiences around questions and statements that you need to attend to and insights that you receive and you need to kind of interact with so we can learn whether the insights are in the right direction and action recommendations that you get, which you can set reminders for. So these kinds of interactions help us learn really who you are. As you progress, we see what's helping you, which helps us A, help you better by understanding which stage in life you're at and what's helping you and help other users that are like you because we start seeing what's helping your of persona. And that's how we learn about you.
Speaker 2:And on the tech side, we really take the huge vast of information from the world as psychology and therapy to create a very meaningful experience that's light hearted, that's video first, that combines information both from the community but from experts, super tailored to you. If you want to eat guacamole as you talk about life challenges and have your partner hug you as you're going on a trip in Bali
Speaker 1:What a
Speaker 2:vision! A vision! It's so specific! We live in a world where we can really tailor the advice and the perspective to the way you want to see it, you want to digest it in the reality that is easiest for you to understand it from. And for that reason, three minutes, four minutes from joining bonds, you already get a personalized video experience that tells you a lot about your relationship, what you can do better.
Speaker 2:But I'll just say one last thing in this context that over time, we're helping you build a better routine. So, really improving your daily habits around how you manage the relationship because we're able to give you a bit like a Duolingo for the relationship where you have these kind of personalized tracks where you can really improve in a specific thing you can and in the future you're also going to be able even to simulate conversations about challenging topics. So, you even know how to talk with your wife about the specific aspect of your relationship. You're going to be able to role play with the app and get feedback as to how you're approaching this conversation, which will help you improve. So, it's really all about helping you build right habits, get a better understanding of what you can do and have fun while you're doing it with yourself, with the community, and if your partner joins with her or him as well.
Speaker 1:I, I hope my wife doesn't listen to this episode, and I can download the app, tell her everything, and then I can just start to become the model husband. And she'll just think, Rob, you've, like, really changed. You're you're incredible now.
Speaker 2:You know what's funny Rob? There was one week where my two co founders and I had an epiphany from bonds and it was life changing. My CPO, the FNA, she realized that she was practicing this role play feature or bubbling and she realized that when her husband gives her feedback, she's answering in a somewhat passive aggressive way and this is why he's sometimes a bit more hesitant in giving feedback. So that helped her improve. My psychologist co founder realized that he needs to go apologize because the way he communicated with his partner after an argument was such that it was not the right way and he needed to kind of recalibrate the way he was approaching and he went to apologize and for me, in the same week, and I'm going to bring an instrument to show you what I'm about to say, so my wife had a birthday and I got us a weekend away but I wanted to ask, I wanted to think what is a gift I can get her and I asked the platform it already knows me and her quite well and it said look, your partner can sometimes get anxious and when she does, it seems that when you give her a good word about how amazing she is or how much you love her, it really helps.
Speaker 2:So here's an idea, buy a glass jar, write 37 handwritten notes about how amazing she is and give it to her so that every moment that she's anxious, she can just take a note out of the jar and get some strength because you're not always around her. I gave her and she cried and I told her that it was inspired by bonds and she even cried more because of that. She's like, Oh, that's amazing! So, it's really cool, the kind of impact it can have on everyday life. Insane also.
Speaker 2:It's mind boggling.
Speaker 1:It's funny you're talking about all these things, my mind is racing. Just in the business world, by the way, when you're running a team, you're relying on none of that type of information. You're running on gut feel, intuition, yeah, you might be looking at the data and the KPIs. I can actually see, once you've done it with bonds, you'll be able to do this within a professional setting. Because let's say I'm the CMO, and I've got a team of 100 people.
Speaker 1:And actually, the way I'm interacting with all these people is not based off of real psychology, insights, and in the way that can actually develop real relationships. Think it's just incredible. Other thing that comes to mind when you were talking is, I think what you're doing is democratising relationship therapy, because let's just be honest, most people can't afford it. It's expensive. Know, whether it's, I don't know, 100, dollars 2 hundred an hour for such an experience each time, and you're not going once, Most of the world can't do that.
Speaker 1:And we're in a phase of a mental health pandemic globally. And that impacts how our love relationships, our partners interact with us. And most people do not have access to that type of, you know, therapy, psychologists, and other professionals. So you're actually bringing to everyone the ability to change their relationships in a democratized way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, you know, that's the vision, and and it's been incredible seeing some of the stories we've had. US users that we spoke with interviewed, like, you know, we've had a user that cried on the phone in an interview saying which features she wants and which features already helped change her life, so it's really like, this is why we wake up in the morning after seven years in the corporate world in Meta, one of the things that I was really passionate about was building something that I came up with together with others that can really make a huge impact on people's lives beyond what Meta is already doing and I think that's one of the reasons why I wake up with a smile every day. And to your other comment, a very smart comment earlier about potentially having this for other places and not just for the romantic world, I'm giving you a scoop so no one knows this, not the epican ade. So, the original name we had was called love grow.
Speaker 2:It's not a good name, but it has the word love. And one of the reasons we removed the word love out of bonds is because we, like you said, envision bonds becoming the relationship platform of the future for many different aspects. It's not just romantic relationships. What about a head of sales and head of marketing that don't get along? Or a daughter and dad that just aren't clicking the right way, or it could be even friends that are not meeting as much but want to have some fun as they also strengthen their connection.
Speaker 2:So, we feel there's, like you said, there's space for all kinds of relationships. And you know this as well as I do, the mistakes I make with my romantic partner sometimes are not that different from the mistakes that I make at work with people that I have other relationships with. So, there is merit in creating that consistency, but we're starting with romantic because we don't want to be average in many things, we want to be great in romantic, and then we can expand it to the other places.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited for you. And it sounds like a lot of what you're doing, obviously, is based off of the AI models, and the role of AI in coaching, not just obviously in the romantic sphere, but but generally. What what do you how how are you inculcating that into what you're doing within bonds? And, you know, just within the romantic relationships world with what you're building, how do you then see the future? What does what does it look like in five, ten years' time in terms of, you know, couples use bonds all that time.
Speaker 1:How does bonds develop within the romantic sphere using AI? I presume you'll start to gather so much proprietary data on relationships and outcomes that you can start to give incredibly guided responses to people beyond what you're already doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. It's a question we ask ourselves as we're building the vision and the plan moving forward. I think, first of all, to your first question, the role of AI. I think we're in the midst of a huge revolution right now. AI is really changing our perception around almost any kind of vertical in the world.
Speaker 2:It's helping create incredibly efficient apps. It's helping smaller teams create meaningful impact in the world. It's helping uncover the migration of different use cases into more efficient flows. And I think in the world of relationship, I think it's no different. There are already, like I said, people that are using AI to help improve the way they manage and communicate in relationships.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things we're seeing today is that using AI for relationships in a superficial way is available. You can do that right now. You can go to any generic LLM and you can use that and get some insights. I think what we are really excited about is building a brand that will really have users trust because we're not just a chatbot or a tracking tool. We're trying to encompass your goals within your relationship or what you're really aiming to achieve.
Speaker 2:And then with your help and consent, of course, collect different pieces of information that help build a very deep understanding of who you are, where you're coming from, what challenges you have, and also understanding your partner. To understand your partner is not an easy task if she's not with you. So for that purpose, our psychologist is building on models that allow getting relatively objective pieces of data. Instead of the user saying stuff like, she's illogically upset with me because I don't clean the dishes enough, you could go in the direction of saying, my partner often asks me to do more in household chores. And by finding that fine tuned area of input, we're able to understand that intimately.
Speaker 2:So I think that's when you talk about how we're perceiving AI, it's more about the specific ritual and flows we're able to build in helping you improve your habits with the help of AI. AI is a tool in our toolbox. It's an enabler, but it's not the whole essence. And I think when you talk about vertical startups, you probably know this as well. Startups that older thing is AI, that's the thing, a chatbot to solve everything.
Speaker 2:That's not, in my opinion, that's not the future. The future is tools that know how to leverage the innovation and the ongoing innovation around AI to build great products that bring value, right? Do you see it the same way?
Speaker 1:I do, and for some reason I'm thinking also about Google LM, for example. I could see a world where, bonds might actually have a I'm getting involved in your product here. I'm sorry. I love it. No,
Speaker 2:it's But
Speaker 1:I like this idea of I'm taking it from something else I did with another client in the professional sphere around blogs. Imagine writing a journal. People write journals. I've written a journal over time. I don't keep up consistently with it.
Speaker 1:But the journal, yes, is an act of therapy all on its own if no one ever reads it other than you. But imagine you could take your last, I don't know, twelve months journal entries and feed them to the bond system, And it could really then understand what I'm thinking deeply, how I felt on that day. And it can then monitor patterns over time of you keep talking about this, Rob, you keep talking about this thing that you're not doing, or this thing is really working for you and you're grateful for it. Taking all of that information, you could probably do this already to some extent without the specialist niche in Google LM, upload your journal entries. It'll give you a podcast on Robert's state of psychology and strengths and weaknesses and how to maybe go forward.
Speaker 1:I think that, as you say, the AI tool is this incredible enabler that can deliver outcomes that obviously we've just never experienced in human history.
Speaker 2:Agreeing. Agreeing. And I'm trying to carefully answer your question because it also could uncover a little bit too much of where we're going to head to. But I will say, you asked me and you were starting to tend to that when you spoke about the five or ten year plan, I think it becomes very interesting and eye opening when you start thinking about the impact a solution like bonds will have on people's lives, when you start realizing that, and again, this is a prediction, who knows if I'm right, we can look at this episode in a few years' time and see how off I was, and I'm probably going to be off in some things at least. What if we're in a world where you can identify emotion and intent through your voice?
Speaker 2:What if we could listen in to answers or perceptions we have on things and not only be able to learn from the words you say but from the emotional hints your voice portrays within it. What if we could, if you wanted, listen in to a conversation you have with your partner about specific questions that maybe can surface breakthroughs in challenges you have. What if we could analyze your body language and minute details within the subtle things and ways you say or communicate things? What if we could look into your WhatsApp or messaging history with your partner and help you gain insights on an ongoing basis and help you come up with ideas or suggestions for reminders or for actions? What if we learn from other sources like your ChatGPT or social graphs from Facebook or other places?
Speaker 2:So I think when you imagine a world where we're giving the solutions that we trust access to that kind of sources because we want to gain value from them, this is where we can start really going far into the vision we have, which is to really become your partner in building great relationships. I think we're going to move towards a world where technology is going to help us more in being better in relationships in general, just as an enabler. And I think this is why we're doing what we're doing. Like I gave you a few hints here, there's a few really exciting avenues where this can go to.
Speaker 1:I think about something that actually happened yesterday, I'll share it. I'd received an email from a colleague in my business who I work with, and she was giving me feedback, negative feedback actually, on how I had interacted with her over sort of a couple of months where on a particular project, for some reason, she said, you just haven't shown the right language, used the right language, and I and I actually feel a bit devalued from it. And she said she gave me that feedback, which is brilliant. I'm so happy that she did. And immediately, I spoke to her and said, well, obviously, there was zero malicious intent in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a poor self awareness of me that actually, because we're in touch so often all the time, I I reduced the way that I was speaking to her in in a way that she didn't feel was correct. And great, she picked up on it and shared it, and we rectified it, and we're both grown ups, and we're moving on because we, you know, genuinely love each other as colleagues. But what if AI had picked that up, and they'd said, Rob, you don't normally talk like this with clients. You don't normally talk like this with other people.
Speaker 1:Just to pick up here, you should be self aware that you should have spoken in a better way on these things. I would have picked that up earlier, and she wouldn't have felt so bad. And I think that's where we're heading in all of our relationships.
Speaker 2:Agree. And the the only thing I'll say, which I'm sure you'll agree with as well, I think the intent here is to not direct humans on how to behave. It's to empower humans with a perspective that helps them improve as individuals. I think if we live in a robotic world where everything we do is driven by robots or tech helping direct us to what to do, then this is not the vision or the future I am excited about, but I think like you said just now, if there was a way to get that small nudge and just give it a flag and say, hey, you may be not noticing, but this is actually what happened. FYI, if you want to do something about it, I think that's what makes me excited, and it sounds like that what makes you excited as well.
Speaker 1:Totally. Now, to wrap up our conversation, Leo, just want to dive into fundraising. You've worked in venture venture capital, and I presume that bonds is gonna need, you know, many millions of dollars to go and change the world's relationships. What are you seeing in terms of the current fundraising trends and atmosphere, both here in Israel and globally? And how are you gonna approach it?
Speaker 1:What's your fundraising approach into in 2025?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. I think one of the interesting things that we're seeing right now, not just us and bonds, but I think the whole world is that we live in a world where AI tooling makes it so much easier to build apps quickly, but it's still hard to build apps that truly matter. And I think when you talk with investors, they're really trying to find solutions that are more around verticals as opposed to infrastructure. Companies that are going to try and compete with OpenAI or Google may have a harder time, but I think those companies that focus on a particular vertical and becoming the best at understanding that field and bringing value to people, those are going to be the ones that win, those that leverage the innovation that's happening. And for us at Bons, I think we are built for emotional connection, understanding it, something that generic platforms won't be able to replicate.
Speaker 2:And that's the approach we're going to invest here with. Now, when it comes to the kind of fundraising strategy we've done so far, we're at a stage where we really want to partner with those individuals that can help us learn from their perspective, but can also enter in a stage where ACT, which is a platform that is already bringing value, seeing 30% of users come back for a fourth session, 40% of users inviting their partner, but we haven't yet started monetizing. So, I'm happy to say we already have a few angel investors that already confirmed their interest to join the upcoming round. We're talking with a few other angel investors. We're talking with a few VCs, although I'll be honest with you, the B2C VC space in Israel is relatively limited.
Speaker 2:So, I think we're going to start off with the angels to get moving and to move a bit faster. But what's really exciting is that we're seeing the excitement and the rush in investors' eyes when we're talking about the future that we're envisioning. So I think we're taking the right approach, which is starting with those angels in the early stages of the pre seed and building the infrastructure towards monetization. And as we progress, we're going to probably ramp up the conversation with some of those larger VCs, some of them even global that have shown interest but they usually engage in a slightly later stage. Really exciting days right now, to be honest.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I didn't tell you this. I'm in calls all day. My wife wants to kill me because I'm always on video conferencing calls.
Speaker 1:You better put that in the app so that you can manage it better.
Speaker 2:I'll tell her to ask the app what to do. So it's fun and it's exciting but it's a different world. Like I said, AI is really making the entire venture capital and investment world look at things differently, which is for us fun, you know, we're adapting to it, we're learning from it, and we're adjusting our pitch to it.
Speaker 1:Leo, ultimately, with all the talk of AI, there's still, I don't know, 9,000,000,000 people on this planet and we're growing. Ultimately, it will still come down to people and the relationships that we have with each other. And I really thank you for, a, being a friend, staying in contact over these years since we had that genesis of our relationship at Workplace. For me, it's so exciting watching what you're doing. I'm just excited for you.
Speaker 1:I think it would be great if you were able to just share with our listeners if they want to bring bonds into their life, what is the best way to get access and start to see their relationships improve?
Speaker 2:Of course. So it's quite easy if you live in an English native country or in Israel, just go to haybonds.com that's HEYB0NDS.com and you can just find the link to download the app there. Our company name is HeyBonds, but the product is called Bonds and you can just download from there. Have fun. If you have any feedback, if you have any thoughts, if you have any asks, happy to learn from your perspective and hopefully people will enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm gonna download it. Again, Sara, if you're listening, don't download it. Let me have the head start. And I really, really thank you for being on the podcast Coffee with Curtis, Leo. Thanks for being such a great guest.
Speaker 2:Amazing. It was so much fun. I'm gonna make coffee right now, but I had a great time, Rob. You're the best, and I'm so fortunate to have a friend like you, my friend.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Coffee with Curtis. I hope you enjoyed it. Please follow or subscribe to get notified when I release future episodes.
