Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): it’s been five months since episode 20 when we recorded episode 1 of this ongoing story of building mobraham every 10th episode. We’re giving you raw updates on our story of building a tech startup as husband and wife. So we want to start up first with some life updates. A lot has happened and the last little bit. I had knee surgery. So that was fun. That was back in January. Yeah, tore my Meniscus playing not at church in the church building playing basketball with me guys. But yeah and about a month later. I broke my toe. No surgery with that one followed by Zac. He actually had two surgeries. that’s our son. Yeah.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so he had a cleft lip repair and then a week later. He had a hernia repair. So poor guy he was struggling there for a few weeks, but all went really well. And we are glad to get a couple of those things checked off and he’ll be having another surgery this fall in September for his palate. So how many Doctor visits has he had to date? I need to update our list, but we’re well over 60, so We’ve learned a lot from him and our other kids we’ve got five kids from age nine all the way down to Zach at eight months old and it’s been a pretty special experience having him on in our family and a little crazy at times going through some of the stuff but very grateful. Thanks here. Yes and about

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): a couple weeks before his first surgery. We actually decided to build a kind of a ninja course in her basement. It was kind of me prompting it I have a goal this year able to do one pull-up. I know that’s not as impressive as a lot of things but for me, it’s a big thing and I just was like, okay if I’m gonna do this goal. I need to have a bar that I can work on it and then that turned into making it a whole kids being with monkey bars. And now we have tons of things the kids can swing on and not whips that one out in just a few days and then we got carpet the next week and we ended up just redoing a whole room for it. yeah. Yeah so that this was the living room, it’s true downstairs and I got two

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): two by fours 12 inch lengths and basically made a monkey bar with 10 rungs across Space 18 inches anybody’s curious there’s a range of acceptable spacing for monkey bars standardized playgrounds distances and just bolted those into the beams from the ceiling. It almost killed my drill. It was smoking putting that thing in but it was a fun little project to put that up and then put some super heavy duty. I hooks on there for the different little pull-up bar things in a little ladder and I mean it was like a budget playground inside. I think it was 350 bucks for all the supplies to put that in and the kids have definitely enjoyed it. So yeah, that was a fun one.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And in case you’re wondering I still am not able to do a real full pull-up, but I’m working there. So getting close and what we’ve been up to with mobrium. So, first couple years. We’re not quite to the two year mark of this journey, but I think as people are pretty aware of business startups can be tricky they can be a lot of up and downs emotionally and money is always tricky when you’re investing a lot in a business, but I would say the main thing we’ve learned this last year is that sales cure all ills And when we were kind of figuring out, how can we make this business successful? That’s what it came back to is that we needed money to fuel it. and that was

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): advice that we got from several people who were either part of their own startups and saw success or have done many companies and that sort of come back to and as soon as we placed our focus and sales. That’s when we really started to see some major growth. Yeah, and we’ve changed ourselves approach dramatically. sense starting that process a little over a year ago. So

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We officially were fully committed into this endeavor as of September 2022. So yeah, we’re coming up on the two-year mark. But the software took a little bit to get up in the first iteration to where it was actually sellable. And so there was a little bit of a interesting time frame where I was trying to sell but it didn’t have a product to sell exactly and so we worked on as much preparation as we could and some different things that would help us be ready and some contract Works some other project related work. But then once it live just a little over a year ago, it was go time and I look back at some of our really slide dicks and it’s crazy that we got customers signed up because they were kind of

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): they just weren’t as good but I guess that’s what you should expect because you always get better always improving. That’s right. and this is a new space mobrium is selling something that hasn’t been sold before it were and as a reminder for those who had didn’t see our laughs episodes together. Money, yeah, I’m a little so mobrium helps companies win on sites like Glassdoor in the comparatively and in her site, we help companies better systemize asking for reviews when a company asks for a glass door review, like the HR department sends out that review request. there’s an innate conflict of interest right that employee opens that up and says, Did they send this to anybody else? Am I being target Am I at risk of retaliation or discrimination? Are they going to know that that review that’s supposed to tomorrow is for me.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But mogram acting as The Trusted third party sends that review request in your behalf. And we do that via automated and algorithmically scheduled in space email. So there’s constantly review requests going out to your employees on an ongoing basis so that you can feed those platforms with ongoing reviews. so you can see what people are saying on an ongoing basis. And so yeah, there’s more to it essentially the methodology of our software is

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Founded upon a decade of research from my book companies. Yep, we’ve done this before this is in our first rodeo. However, we’ve seen it work so well and be worth the investment on a higher dollar commitment on a more manual contract basis that we wanted to make it more effective and more streamlined with technology, which is why we wanted to build a platform to do this so many companies out there that aren’t even managing their reputation or managing their online. Reviews on glass store indeed in comparably and so this is a way to get into that.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Amazing advantages that it offers without putting in a ton of work and So anyways, it’s been exciting. We’ve learned a lot. We have really made ourselves process more efficient and we’ve also been able to really get after our mobroom gives back program and that’s something that I’ve kind of had headed up here and it seems like so far we have a lot of our customers that are saving up their points. What we have is we give How did their points good? Let’s get all that so every customer they get a point per month or a credit and then you can keep earning points month to month and spend it at that time, or you can spend it immediately, but we have several different options of things that you can purchase or use your credits for.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): To make somebody’s life better in this world. and we partner with church World Service and we have several different things that benefit why the lives of families and individuals in our worlds, and it’s not just the United States, although we do have some donations that benefit people in the United States, but are different options can benefit people in Haiti and Kenya Tanzania, and we recently had one of our customers purchase a sheet for a family in Tanzania. So That was really exciting and those items are funded by mobroom. So from the very beginning of launching this company. We wanted to make a positive impact in the world and we felt that

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): This program over and gives back was a way that we could start doing that now and have it scale up as we grow. So we set aside a percentage of our profits from every client that is onboarded. And then we say Hey, you guys are using our services. Why don’t you decide where this money goes and they get to use their credits that way so Chris has done an awesome job getting it all systemized and it’s been fun saying things actually like donations start to come through and go out to people who need it. pretty neat. Yeah something that we’re passionate about and Like Matt said we wanted to systemize that from the very beginning even when we weren’t. Even really making money, so we wanted to be able to give back.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, and a couple other things that we’ve been up to, we talked about our sales Focus. We’ve been able to go to a few HR related conferences, which has been pretty cool. I was selected to go to the Bellagio hotel and fabulous, Las Vegas.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That was in April. So we did the Epic HR conference there. We’ve done the local state of Utah Sherm conference con. We’ve had a couple other incredible chapters that have invited us to come and participate. So shout out to the Bridgeland chapter here in Cache Valley and the northern Utah Association. Both incredible groups, very happy that we could library with them on some training material and we’ve also done some targeted Outreach based on some research of what companies and in different Industries and segments could

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Benefit more which ones are responding more to our offering so then we’ve been learning a lot. One of our company values is Nimble our entire company value theme is shine s h i n e service harmony integrity and enable and expertise but for nibble is challenged the status quo deciding go. So a lot of what we do is Just testing things and see what works and then learn from it try to fail quickly for Less dollars preferably and then move on with what we learned. So that’s definitely informed a lot of what we’ve been.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Doing on a sales side for Yeah, I’m sure many people would look at what we’ve done and think that we’ve made some mistakes or put our money where maybe didn’t matter and not maybe true but we have learned so much and I don’t think that you can completely avoid a spending on the wrong things. So yeah. Yeah that definitely happens and then a couple other things we wanted to hit on today was where we’re headed with the company. We’ve got some incredible software enhancements we’ve gotten into room. Yeah, that’s an ongoing thing everybody and software knows that you have a roadmap and can change you want to incorporate feedback? from users to better

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Deliver the experience that everyone is seeking but we’ve gotten into a good system of monthly and monthly Cadence of reviewing what we’ve done and to reprioritizing what comes next. So we’re really excited about some upcoming things that we’ll be able to roll out officially and then mobroom Academy. Krista you want to see what that is and remind me what I need to get done.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So Matt, he learned so much at the last two organizations that he worked at and through writing his book that was a huge learning process. And now he just wants to make that knowledge available to our customers. We want them to be empowered to do the most with their reputation. And so Moberly Academy is going to fulfill that it’s gonna provide. I think we have four different modules that were going to be putting out that will help you optimize your online reputation. Yep. So it’s the first of its kind this is an employer reputation management training and upon completing more room Academy, you’ll get a professional certificate of completion to Showcase your newfound skills and expertise and we’ll definitely have a promo when that comes out. make sure you follow mobrium on LinkedIn so you can hear about when that’s completely finished. I have finished the content and Chris’s

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Reminded me that I need to finish up the project, but what we’re doing is adding it to an online.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Coursera type software so that it’s really easy to track your progress through the material and do a couple questionnaires to make sure you’re remembering the information and it’s not super long. I anticipated it’ll be probably a six to eight hour time commitments for the whole thing. But that’s essentially learning an entire discipline that intersects between company culture and branding and so if you’re on the marketing side of things this is going to certainly give you an edge and a view into kind of from what we’ve seen untapped segment of branding that can enhance what you’re already doing. And if you’re on the HR side and this is helping you get a little bit more reach on to the marketing side of how to Showcase a stronger employer presence and reputation online which can strengthen culture from the outside. And so

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): definitely excited about Montgomery Academy Yeah, and obviously our software is designed to Optimizing your employer reputation really easy and automatic. But the skills that we want to provide you with and our customers with. are really to help them with every little piece that you’d honestly probably don’t even know about. That’s why we’re the first in this space is because it’s kind of an untapped thing about is really going to help companies. And I just want to make one point there because I’ve talked to a lot of companies and when I mentioned we’re the very first in the space, sometimes I get the rolled eyes reaction of everybody thinks they’re the first and whatever so here’s the story.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): As I was writing the review cycle, I indexed over a thousand content pieces from over 50 different reputation management companies and that helped me reverse engineer the content of the review cycle to be more Evergreens or be more.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Foundational on the principles of strategy that could apply to any type of reputation program whether it’s product reputation and customer reviews brand reputation and Company reviews or employer reputation and employee reviews. It’s all very similar with some little nuances but that practice or that study of going through an indexing all this content from all these different companies gave me a really good look at the landscape and I was able to start to see themes of different areas of focus that these different companies have and that’s where the Epiphany moment happened. I found that there was not a single company servicing the employer reputation Niche there were companies servicing restaurant reputation brand reputation product reputation, but no one will focused on employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor Indian comparatively in her site and since

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): our passion lies and company culture and helping make work awesome and reputation but those two pieces like that is the literal intersection. Yeah, and so that’s why we decided to build our business upon the foundation the research of the book but in this specific vertical, which is employer reputation.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): and what are some of the things that people can understand of I guess the end result that they get from using mobrium or from optimizing there? sites. So tons of companies are operating under an artificially throttled employer reputation their ratings and reviews are way lower than the reality if they were to Simply collect more feedback and what that does is it’s giving them less candidates per job posting then they’re really entitled to and where they would get if they simply had a better reputation and it’s artificially increasing turnover. There’s people go look up your own company on glass door in these other sites and they see a 3.0 and they say, this other company over here is a 4.4.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I don’t know what that company is. I’ve never worked there obviously, but I know what it’s like here and if this is a 3.0 then that has to be better. And they’re making that judgment call based off of the data that they have access to and that shapes perceptions and that shapes of behaviors and I hear from CEOs and other Executives all the time that We don’t care if we have a low CEO rating or a little star rating. We know we’re good people. We know we work hard and whoever wants to come here because they know they can grow with us. They’ll come here regardless of that and that may be true.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But would you buy the three-star vacuum if there’s a four-point star 4.5 star vacuum on Amazon, would you go to the three star restaurant when the one right next to it is 4.5 just think about your own consumer behaviors. It applies to this space as well. And it’s simply illogical to say we’re good. So we’re We definitely seen companies that have horror readings, but they are good companies and if you go and you talk to somebody at that company And get an honest,

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Experience others about where they work. Yeah, you can see. it’s a good company. But how many people get to have an Insider scoop every job posting can’t be filled by word of mouth and where we live in a world of people moving to fulfill jobs and having a more broad pool of candidates and hiring the best talent for each position. This is what’s gonna tip you over the edge get those applicants and not to mention more people can work remote. And so that means the ease of changing jobs is greater. And so Your talent is less secure with you if they’re really good. They could work for just about anywhere and stay exactly where there are and keep their lifestyle and just change you just give it a different employer.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So we’re already seeing some great results for our clients and we’re excited to work on some case studies that will be shared publicly soon. That’s an ongoing project that we’ve got happening right now. But if you are interested, we do a free employer reputation audit. So even in no commitments will actually do a report of how you’re showing up right now and give you a scorecard.

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And you’ll be able to see the impact on recruiting your retention how it’s impacting your profitability and it even comes with the 12 month forecast of where you could expect to see things next year. So that’s a pitch. I mean, we don’t want to get overly salesy in the podcast. This is a conversational thing for us. It’s been really fun. I think we also need to kind of celebrate that this episode 30. We’ve had a lot of remarkable interviews and have met some really cool people and we’re so grateful for every single one of our guests and for everyone that’s listened. It’s been really cool to see people are actually tuning into this and we’re just normal people like everybody else and just excited to have some conversations around company culture and trying to make work better. So

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s And it’s made possible my mow rim, and that’s why we get to be doing this and it’s been a joy to meet everyone who’s been interviewed on our podcast and we would love to hear from our listeners. So please comment on our posts on LinkedIn and if you want to leave a review and provide us with some feedback, let us know what other topics you’d like us to cover. I’ll be great. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Appreciate it. Thanks.