Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz - Founder & CEO of Cuddles: Leveling Up, Mastery, and Managing Concentration Risk

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  00:00

There are some really smart people out there, and they're hungry, and they are incredibly talented. And if you want to perform at the highest level, you need to level up.

Callan Harrington  00:12

And you're listening to That Worked, a show that breaks down the careers of top founders and executives and pulls out those key items that led to their success. I'm your host, Callan Harrington, founder of Flashgrowth, and I couldn't be more excited that you're here. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of That Worked. This week I'm joined by Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz. Tarek is the founder and CEO of Cuddles. Cuddles is a cloud-based business management platform that is modernizing the pet industry. Before Cuddles,Tarek was the CEO of HealthySmiles Pet Dental, president of FetchMyVet, and co founder of WashMyWhip. I really enjoyed this conversation. We talked about Tarek's experience losing a very large client and how he managed concentration risk after that experience. We also talked about his approach to evaluating a potential market, in particular for an early stage company, how to decide which market that we should go after first. One of the areas I really enjoyed talking about was Tarek's experience moving to New York and working at Goldman Sachs. He walked us through how surrounding himself with smart and talented people forced him to level up. And I will say that for me, this is one of the fastest ways I believe that you will improve at anything. I think it serves as such an amazing forcing function to level up. Now the part of the conversation that I loved the most was talking about the benefits of working towards mastering. I feel it's one of the best ways to remove the self limiting ceiling that we often put on ourselves. And Tarek gave a great breakdown of this in our conversation. More specifically, he talked about it from the angle of working from a mission driven company that you're deeply passionate about, and I thought it was excellent. So with that, let's get to the show. Super excited to have you on the show today. Where I'd love to start out is, tell us about Xchange Leasing and your relationship with that company.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  02:32

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Callan. So, Xchange Leasing was a subsidiary wholly owned by Uber, the car sharing app, and I was the co founder and COO of their national car reconditioning provider called WashMyWhip. So when we were like six months old with WashMyWhip, we signed one contract with Uber's Florida Xchange Leasing division. And for context, you know, Xchange Leasing is a national car dealership that Uber was creating, to be able to increase the supply of drivers, to be able to give drivers who couldn't afford cars, cars on payment plans, that would extract from their earnings, etc. So that was the goal of Xchange Leasing. And it was the brainchild of Travis Kalanick, the founder and CEO. But nonetheless, we signed one agreement with them here in Florida. We did so well, because the bar for like, car reconditioning companies was just so low that we ended up signing the Atlanta agreement. Then we went to Texas, and from there we went to Boston, Philly, and within about six months, eight months, we were providing services for Ubers Xchange Leasing in ten states with the expectation of rolling it out to all thirty that they had plans for. And this was in a very, very quick timeframe. I'm talking about eight months since we even created WashMyWhip. So it was an exhilarating ride to kind of be traveling constantly, opening new operations for them. Nontheless, Travis Kalanick enters an Uber car one day and says some not so nice things to the driver. In addition to some cultural differences that were happening within Uber, that ultimately the board made the decision to have Travis leave the company, and they brought in the CEO of Expedia to take the company public. And Xchange Leasing, given it's a car dealership, had about sixty thousand vehicles on their balance sheet, all of which are depreciating. So clearly, it wasn't aligned with the goal of taking a company public. So after investing almost a billion dollars into this division, they essentially zap it. I had kind of felt something was coming, simply because we were opening three, four different operations for them on a monthly basis. And then two months, all of a sudden kind of went dry, where they were still evaluating new opportunities, when in reality, they were making changes to their strategy. And then it got kind of confirmed in September one day when I read the news, and I realized that my biggest client and about 50% of the business for WashMyWhip kind of evaporated overnight, so it was a huge fuck you moment, you know, especially since we were early stage startup, and we were constantly reinvesting revenue to continue growing with them. And it could have been a multimillion dollar opportunity. And we were working alongside other partners, such as YourMechanic, and Dent Wizard, and other really large companies. So a lot of learnings, a lot of great experiences there. However, as an entrepreneur, you realize that these difficult black swan business type events happen, even though they're rare, they happen, and the only way you overcome them is through purpose, and through a deep alignment with the mission of the company. And we, as a company, WashMyWhip, we recovered significantly from that loss. But at the same time, I did a lot of soul searching, if you will, and came to the conclusion that I didn't want to spend the next fifteen years reconditioning cars. I wanted to do other things with my time, and ended up thankfully, transitioning into the pet space. But that's the story of my relationship with Uber's Xchange Leasing, Callan.

Callan Harrington  05:55

Man, I feel this one in my bones. And one of the startups I was at, we lost a really large enterprise client, Fortune 500 client, and that was a third of our revenue. So like, when I hear 50%, it's like, oh, my God, that is a killer.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  06:12

Yeah, it was brutal, definitely concentration risk, right? You know, one of those things that they always talk about, or Porter's five forces, the bargaining power of your supplier or your client, those things are real, they're theoretical, but they also come to fruition in real life. So, you learn.

Callan Harrington  06:30

If you're dealing with enterprise accounts, and I get this a lot, and they're like, well, okay, I want to start going after enterprise accounts. And typically, they've worked with small to medium sized businesses before then, and then they go to the enterprise. It's like, that's great, but you need to have a plan, because one, that's going to totally change your company. Your company has to change to support the enterprise. And to your point, like you just mentioned, if your concentration is really high, and your company is now aligned to support an enterprise, it's just gonna be that much more painful. And that doesn't mean you don't go after it, because it's kind of like to get two, you got to get one.  Especially in the enterprise, right?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  07:03

Yeah. So, you know, truthfully, if I had to make the decision all over again, I probably would have made the same decision. I mean, you're an early stage startup, and you go from zero revenue to multi million dollars in revenue in your first year, even though there's a concentration risk with one client, they're making introductions to other clients. Who would have guessed that the founder was going to be essentially asked to leave his own company at that specific moment? So sometimes you have to take those risks, calculated risk, but you have to take those risks because the payout is there, right. But you also have to have a plan to be able to really diversify your client base and ensure that these things don't happen and mitigate them from happening, or being at least impairing enough to potentially even close your business.

Callan Harrington  07:47

Yeah, I think that's such good advice. And I want to continue talking about this. But to back it up a little bit, so you grew up in Puerto Rico, and we talked about this beforehand, and you're like, I didn't really have that entrepreneurial inspiration to lean on and to get advice on. Where did that come from? Where did that desire to be an entrepreneur come from? And where did that really start to happen for you?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  08:11

It's a very interesting question, because I wasn't exposed, at least growing up, to a lot of very successful entrepreneurs. That happened to me after college, which I'll talk about. Nonetheless, the entrepreneurial spirit was born in Puerto Rico. When I was in high school, I actually had a promotions company. And that's kind of what kicked it off. I was asked by another promotions company to come join them and help organize these events for high school students and for college students. And I was really good at it. So I decided just to create my own entertainment company in high school and college, my first year of college, and it was definitely a roller coaster, there were a lot of learnings there. We would organize these events for two, three thousand people at a time. It was definitely my first kind of segue into entrepreneurship. Nonetheless, it really solidified for me after college. I joined JPMorgan as an investment specialist for ultra high net worth families, institutions, foundations, covering Argentina, Chile, and especially in that realm of banking, you get exposure to the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, right? And just hearing their stories, and knowing that they were able to accomplish the greatness that they did, in whatever definition you want to give that, just made me realize I wanted to take the leap of faith, believe in myself, and become an entrepreneur. So that's kind of how that got kicked off.

Callan Harrington  09:35

So you had this entrepreneur itch. And I've heard in other interviews that you were doing club promoting at a super young age, which I think is such- I'm actually kind of curious, what were some of the skills that you learned in that business? Because that's a tough business to do.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  09:49

It is, especially as a seventeen, eighteen-year-old, which is crazy. You know, the laws in Puerto Rico are slightly different, which enable a seventeen or eighteen-year-old to do what I di. Like here, this would probably never happen, or at least not to that too degree. But the skills are plentiful. The ability to organize a community and drive people to a single location at the time where there was no true Facebook, or Instagram, or Snapchat. I'm talking about boots on the ground, an army of people getting the word out there, trying to move everyone to one location for an event will teach you a lot of things on how to motivate, how to influence, how to kind of incite word of mouth, from a growth perspective. And then from an operational perspective, organizing the event, getting the bands. One of the first times a Grammy Award winning band played ever was at one of my parties in Puerto Rico. The band was called Black White Out, all right. So getting those bands, negotiating contracts with those bands, getting them in. We had kind of sponsorships also from liquor companies and brands. So just being able to negotiate that, negotiating with the location, the terms of the rental. So there was like so many things that went into this, my mom was always kind of confused as to what I was doing every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. But you know, it paid off, let's just say, from an experience and a monetary perspective at a young age. But there's plenty of skills there to apply today in business.

Callan Harrington  10:04

And one of the things I'm super curious about is, because especially at that age, it sounds like probably the most fun business in the world.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  11:12

It really was. I tell people I peaked in high school sometimes. I swear.

Callan Harrington  11:22

I totally believe that. Why stop doing that? Why stop doing it altogether?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  11:27

I knew I had to come into like a legitimate career. That wasn't gonna be sustainable. That was just like a hobby for me. I certainly wasn't planning on becoming a promoter well into my thirties where I am today. So I had exposure to some financial advisors, some big financial advisors in Puerto Rico, that got me into finance. So I kind of was very fortunate to come across through that interest Goldman Sachs one day at the University of Puerto Rico, where I had left because I stayed the first year in Puerto Rico, and I was transitioning over to Syracuse. And I just showed up to the University of Puerto Rico and Goldman Sachs was there recruiting. I told them I wasn't attending college or working, and they immediately flew me out to New York, and I worked there for essentially twenty weeks, two different internships of ten weeks, before even joining Syracuse. So I just knew that parties wasn't my thing forever.

Callan Harrington  12:21

So one of the things that I'm curious to talk about is, I've heard you say on another podcast that when you got those internships, you saw what true competition was. When you saw competition at the highest level, and it caused you to do things differently. What was that? Can you describe that? And what did you start doing differently as a result of it?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  12:42

Man, I just sighed, because I thought I saw success to some level in Puerto Rico through my parents' friends, or the friends of my parents. I wasn't exposed to entrepreneurship, but I definitely was exposed to successful people. But you get to New York City, and you're surrounded by not only the brightest minds in finance, which is Goldman Sachs, but the brightest minds across the globe, complete international team, people from all over the world on my team, the best of the best, I think, you know, the analysts on my first Goldman Sachs team ranked second highest math score in his class in China. Come on, man. You really realize how serious the world is when it comes to performance and competition and talent. When you surround yourself with that, you need to become that, right? And then you transform altogether.

Callan Harrington  13:34

I totally agree with that. And, you know, it's one of those things where you don't want to get caught- and this is just my personal feeling is like, I don't want to get caught in the comparison trap.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  13:44

Right.

Callan Harrington  13:44

But at the same time, I don't also want to be caught in, here's what some of the people around me are doing. And how do I get to this next level? Like you want to learn and start adopting, and it just causes a different level of motivation for you, just in general, is what I've found. I'm curious, was that kind of what it was for you?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  14:03

100%? I mean, there wasn't this comparison trap happening, honestly. To me, it was, there are some really smart people out there, and they're hungry, and they are incredibly talented. And if you want to perform at the highest level, you need to level up. So the comparison trap was happening with myself. Am I learning something every single day from this team that I could apply tomorrow and be that much better? And like when I got to Goldman, I did not know how to use Excel, I had truly no idea about how financial markets worked, I knew no idea about what operational risk was when I first joined, which was the first team I became a part of. So all there was was learnings. That was it. All I could do was learn. And to this day, that's how I approach every situation, constant feedback, constant iteration to become a better version of myself, ultimately.

Callan Harrington  14:55

How do you get that feedback? Where does that feedback come from for you, and how do you make sure that it happens as the CEO?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  15:01

To me, it's really ingraining a culture of feedback. It's seeking it constantly. It's being timely with it. Because it's really hard to go back six months and say this happened this way, then right? I like performing ongoing retros, or post mortems, with my team to be able to understand what went wrong. How can we avoid this? How can we make sure that we're ahead of things? So it's really ingraining it in the culture from the get go. But let me give you an example of, as an employee at Goldman, how I would seek feedback too. I would constantly go to my peers, to my superiors, when I was later more senior, to even my juniors, and ask them, hey, what can we be doing differently? What do you like that we're doing well? What can we work on? So it's just really being mindful of seeking that feedback, listening to it, not coming in with an opinion, avoiding interruptions, making sure that you're constantly giving your undivided attention to the person who's giving you that feedback. Asking about feedback of the feedback, sometimes I give feedback, and I'm like, you know, what do you think about the feedback that I just gave? So it is deeply ingrained in absolutely everything we do. And empathy is one of the core values for Cuddles. So that's the premise there.

Callan Harrington  16:10

I love that. And I think one of the main themes that I'm hearing you say is that you've built this structure for it. So people are expecting you to ask for it. People are expecting to receive it.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  16:20

Yeah.

Callan Harrington  16:20

And it's almost like you've ingrained this so much that it becomes natural, and it doesn't feel- it's always gonna feel a little- it's harder on the person giving the feedback, then it typically is on the person receiving it, but you never think about that when you're receiving feedback.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  16:38

It's a good point.

Callan Harrington  16:38

Yeah, I think it's just so important. Especially if you're wired to constantly improve and want to get as good as you possibly can. You can't avoid feedback, otherwise, you think you've already got it. And the reality is, I don't think you ever really have it, even if you're at the top of the top, the reality is you can always improve. So, okay-

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  16:48

And feedback isn't always negative, right? There's positive feedback, right? So when I see my team doing something, well, I tell them, I really liked the way you treated that client, specifically on how you handled their inquiry about XYZ. Keep up the great work. If you change the mindset of feedback is just negative connotation, then it's also going to be easier for people to just receive it and give it because it goes both ways. And it can't be vague. If you say I didn't like that you missed these deadlines. No. I didn't like that you missed these three deadlines, specifically in the last three weeks, that has a direct impact on customer satisfaction. Like if you give purpose behind it, people also respect you significantly more. So there's truly I think a whole art to also giving feedback appropriately. And there is feedback aversion, to your point, on both sides. There's people who say, it feels not that great when people say my work, which I feel very proud of, isn't at the caliber of the expectation of the other person. But the other person also needs to be clear with their expectations for feedback to be valid. I mean, it's this whole- You could go deep.  And if you want to take it one step further, I meet regularly with other CEOs outside of the organization. This is what we're doing. Give me feedback. Have you done that? Yes, think of this differently. And subject matter experts, right. Like a good friend of mine was an engineer at Snapchat, now at DoorDash, came in, helped us look at our engineering practices, and talk to our members of our team. And it's constantly also finding outside sources not to come in with this is the new way of doing things, imposing it, but more of like this collaborative, constant, iterative, improvement mindset, which is key to non judgmental.

Callan Harrington  18:33

Yeah, I love that. So one of the things I'd love to fast forward to is, you know, you mentioned in the story, as you're talking about WashMyWhip, and how you hit this moment where you lost 50% of the business. And then later you had this insight that it's not that you were okay with losing 50% of the business. It was, what I've heard you say, is that I realized I need to be really passionate about it, because about whatever it is that I'm doing, because these things are inevitable, what led to that insight? What was kind of that moment where that became the realization, and you realized I have to do something I'm passionate about?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  19:10

So when WashMyWhip was doing very, very well. I mean, I'm talking about like month over month, 50-100% growth rates, month over month, for a service based business. It's pretty wild. That clouds a lot of the purpose, because you see the cash flow coming in, you see the success, you know, everyone's encouraging you, you get approached by a lot of interesting stakeholders, investors, etc. So it's hard, when things are going well for you, to be able to say do I really, really love what I'm doing here? Right. But when things don't go so well, that's when true leadership, courage, passion become tested. So when Xchange Leasing closed, we made up as a business probably thirty or forty percent of the fifty that we lost. So we signed other national agreements with Chariot, which also was bought by Ford and closed after its acquisition, which was another interesting story. So it happened again a second time. But we worked with CarMax and Hertz and Pep Boys. So the business could have been very, very successful if we kept growing it, even without Xchange Leasing. Nonetheless, it just for me wasn't something I was deeply passionate about. Like you wake up every morning and just have this feeling where this is becoming harder. It's not as motivating or as fluid. And I do believe that you have to give meaning to things, doesn't matter what you do in life. However, intrinsically, there's also things that you're just much more drawn to. And in that exact moment, I receive a phone call from one of my former financial clients, a very, very successful entrepreneur who sold a health care company for two billion dollars, approaches me and says, I'm starting a veterinary company. It's been running for about a year, I think there's things that can be done better, I think there's a lot of similarities between what you did at WashMyWhip and what we're doing here at FetchMyVet. Would you want come and run it with me? And it's the same exact executive team that sold the business for two billion. So also a really great opportunity to what we just talked about, leveling yourself up with top caliber individuals, come in and try to do something impactful. So that call comes in, it's in the pet space, and I just thought of it this way, before making the decision. I would literally give up my car and take Ubers everywhere, if you give me two extra years of life with my dogs, right? That's a level of passion. I absolutely am obsessed with my pets, I always have been. I've had pets growing up. I had a Yorkie when I was, you know, an infant, I had two dachshunds when I was in high school, now I have two doodles and a cat. So it just became very apparent that my purpose was more in pets than it was in car detailing. Sometimes it doesn't- things don't make as much sense until you look back on them. But at the time, it certainly felt right to transition into the pet industry.

Callan Harrington  22:05

I was gonna ask that, and I think you may have just answered it, but just to ask it anyway; did you know before going into that, that that was a passion? Or was it once you- I mean, you knew that you loved pets, but once you got into it was, was it kind of a feeling of this is where I'm supposed to be? What did that look like?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  22:26

Yeah, the intrinsic value came from just the absolute obsession over pets. Like pets are my family, and 90% of the country would agree with that statement. And certainly, it's our number one value here a Cuddles. So like just the fact that I was so enamored with my pets, and they were my best friends, and this case with Paco and Tommy, they're like almost my kids. That kind of was the kickstarter. But then once I got into the space, I started learning about the space, I became just obsessed with it. It kind of also happened at the same time where Chewy was sold and then went public. So there was also just a lot of motivation about there are other really large pet companies coming in and disrupting and bringing innovation to the space. And the space was just growing astronomically. When I joined the pet industry in 2018, I may be off here by a few billion, but it was roughly like sixty billion dollars spent here in the US. Fast forward five years, six years, roughly 130 billion dollars spent here in the US, like the whole industry has doubled. And it's not stopping. There's some expectations from Bloomberg and from Morgan Stanley that that spend is going to reach 300 billion in the US, right? It's just wild. So when you have a deep, deep passion for pets, there's a space that's growing that quickly. And then from a competitive landscape, the bar was so low because what happens? The pet space was niche for the longest time before Chewy came in, before you know there was PetSmart and Petco, but I'm talking about the newer age of tech companies. It was a niche space. I think now, you know, the pet space is a huge market. And we get crazy interest from people that weren't interested five or six years ago. So it's exciting.

Callan Harrington  24:01

I think, well, even just hearing you talk about it, right, like you can hear like what you're saying, and it's like you're selling it without trying to sell it. For me, if I hear all that, it's like, yeah, that sounds really cool. And I love my dogs. What I'm hearing from you is almost, how could you think about doing anything else? Why would you want to be in any other space? Is that right?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  24:18

No, it's 100% right. And look, there are other spaces that are remarkable. And as someone who came from finance, did auto, then into even veterinary, now more focused on grooming, like there's so many different, interesting places to do good work for entrepreneurs. But for me, just again, going back to my deep passion, there are very few spaces that would excite me the way the pet space does, in general. There's this quote, maybe it was Mark Twain. I'll have to get back to you on the exact person, but like the more people I meet, the more I love my dog, right. (laughs) And I'm an optimistic person. I love people, but I definitely think that just dogs are unconditional right?

Callan Harrington  24:55

I totally agree with that. One of the things that is like I'm hearing you talk about this, what I'm really interested in is, how did you operate differently? What did you operate the same as you did, because you had a really successful company, and I can totally empathize with the- when things are- For me, it was in 2021 and first half of 2022, I couldn't miss. I didn't know if I really even loved what I was doing or not. But I was committed to trying to grow this as much as possible, because business just kept coming in. And that was really fun. And then 2023, that all changed. For me, I'm very concentrated within the venture backed portfolio companies, and when that money dried up, growth just didn't become as important. So I really started to question, do I love this? Do I love the services that I was offering? And I totally changed my service as a result of that. I'm curious from your standpoint, why Cuddles in general? Was it that you knew that you can get through anything by doing this type of business? What drew you to that?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  25:57

I think need drew me to that. As an operator in the veterinary space at the time, I was forced to use the best software, cloud based software that was available in the market. My eyes would bleed every time I opened my computer, right? Like it was just like horrible UI/UX, you could tell there was no product or design person behind those screens, and it was very frustrating. And then, you know, we ended up acquiring a business called HealthySmiles Pet Dental, which I was also the CEO of, and we went through the same challenges trying to find software for them. We even tried to use Zoho, the small business software, and trying to customize it. Horrible. They now run on Cuddles. But ultimately, the fact that there was a dire need for better technology in the pet space, it was very clear, it was very apparent, is the motivating factor behind getting up every morning and trying to make the lives of pets and their providers and the people who love them that much better. That's the motivating factor for Cuddles every single day. I just know there's a need in the market for this. And there is no one satisfying it the way that we are and will continue to.

25:57

How did you come to that conclusion? What did that process look like? Was that from customer research? In this specific space, in particular, because you're in the grooming business software, as I understand it, correct? Is that right?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  27:15

Yeah, so we started in grooming, not in veterinary, despite my background there. Because intrinsically, I felt that it required significantly less product lift. You know, these veterinary systems have multiple integrations with pharmacies, with inventory management, with compliance for medications and distributors. There's just so many different stakeholders that are connected to some of these systems that, you know, I knew we would require much more investment to get there. And then simultaneously on the grooming side, I noticed that the go-to-market strategy, I felt was also a little bit more clear, or at least more affordable to a company of our size, because groomers are all on Instagram, Facebook, social. There are very strong communities there with deep groups of thousands of people. There's plenty of amazing content creators, these are very creative people. So you know, I felt that if we started with grooming, and solved their needs, and got the word out, and made the product incredible for them, the foundation is the same for daycare boarding, the foundation is the same for veterinary, professional pet care services. But there are nuances, of course, to each. But starting with grooming would give us kind of that wedge to be able to continue scaling up to daycare boarding and then eventually vet.

Callan Harrington  28:35

What I love hearing on that, so what I'm hearing you say is, you started in grooming, because when you looked at the different markets that you could potentially go into, this one had the lowest technical lift, or at least a very reasonable technical lift. So technically, it wouldn't have been as difficult to build for groomers as it would for some of these other things like that, that required a lot of integrations. And the things that you could build for this would be necessary for you to go in any other verticals later down the road in the go-to-market on this one. Because people are so creative and everything else, it gave you a couple of these strategic advantages to be able to go in and make an impact quickly. Is that right?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  29:17

Yeah, absolutely. I think that at the end of the day, we want to be able to test our product quickly. We want feedback fast. So we felt that groomers could give us that, so that we could then deepen into other segments without having to fork the product, because meaning we don't want to create a whole separate Cuddles vet, and a whole separate Cuddles daycare, and a whole separate Cuddles boarding. The whole plan is to have like an integrated ecosystem that's end to end with pet care providers, so that when you, as a pet parent, go to your boarding facility and they ask for your veterinary records, you could go into Cuddles and just send them the veterinary records, because the vet is also on Cuddles, and you don't have to ask them to email it, and then you forward it, right? So there's definitely a plan here to deepen without forking, again, the product, but the foundation is the same. And understanding that the technical lift for grooming was less, and understanding that the go-to-market motion was faster, we decided to take that approach, because this is such a passion.

Callan Harrington  30:13

And because you're the founder and CEO of the business, and you mentioned one of the things, a key word that I hear quite often with founders of successful companies, is obsession. How do you feel when you're at this stage with WashMyWhip, and you're at this stage here? How do you feel that you operate differently as a result of that? Or do you feel you operate differently as a result of that?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  30:35

I 100% operate differently. I mean, look, I am an A-player, exceed expectations, excellence first, type of person, and I realized that again, going back to my Goldman Sachs days that that needs to be the caliber, because that's what people are delivering at. So inherently a WashMyWhip, I was also very hungry. I was definitely making sure that you know, the business was operating successfully, sustainably, innovatively. However, am I waking up in the middle of the night trying to deeply think how I could solve my problem as a pet parent taking my dog to the groomer, or my problem as a pet service professional, which I've operated as, to solve exactly what we're going through? No, that wasn't happening, right. Like I was thinking about how can I clean the car faster? How could we improve margins by 5%? What route could we take to be able to optimize our operations? Yes, those are interesting things to work on. But again, going back to the meeting, when I'm waking up, and I'm thinking, how can I make sure that Bahco, who has a stomach virus, is front and center of the groomers table when they're grooming the dog, so that he doesn't have an accident? It doesn't delay their day by an hour, because they have to clean it all up, right? Like, it sounds crazy. But that's my exact scenario right this second, because my dog ate some chicken from my countertop, and like, it was seasoned, and he- I need to let my groomer know that, be careful. He's due to do his grooming appointment. His stomach is a little sensitive. How do you communicate that through technology? How do you communicate that when the groomer is in the midst of a groom and fifteen dogs are barking behind it? Like you really go deep when you care about something. You're not doing superficial, incremental changes. You're really trying to leapfrog here with innovation and problem solving when you care about something. It's just natural.

Callan Harrington  32:25

What I'm hearing that it's almost like it switches from something that's like super goal oriented, meaning like, we've got to hit this milestone, we've got to hit that milestone, which is not to say that those aren't important. I mean, I still think that there's a place for them. But it gets more to the mission. Right? It's mastery.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  32:41

Yeah.

Callan Harrington  32:41

How can we- because you just keep thinking of different ways in which you can go, it's almost like you're going towards mastery. And what I mean by that is, a lot of times if you're in something that you really enjoy doing, but you're not passionate about, it becomes purely goal oriented. Like I've got to get to this point, to get to this point, to get to this point. But when it's something that you love, it's like: how can I learn everything about this, so I can totally master it? Is that what it is for you?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  33:06

It really is. At the end of the day, you produce better work, when you deeply care about what you're doing. It's that simple. When you feel that you're contributing, that your work is genuinely contributing to the good of the world, in my case, and to the good of pets and the people who love them, you just produce better work, because you care, because you're constantly trying to make an impact. That's what it really comes down to. With WashMyWhip, I cared about customer excellence, you know, I cared about being professional, I cared about providing quality service, I cared about all those things, which are critical to business, and you can build a very successful business by doing those things. But when you really care about what it is that you do, and everyone in the company cares about what it is that you do, right? Like I would deeply question hiring someone who doesn't have a pet. They have to truly prove that they are absolutely obsessed with a family pet, or they have grown up with pets, or they plan on getting one, or they've at least been there, because that's what we do every single day. Our team is exposed to groomers directly. Our engineers, our product team, they speak with them, they hear their stories, we tell the stories. Because when you know what the impact of your work is, you care about it more, you're more proud of it, you're showing up every single day, giving it your all. So yes, one is more execution focused, goal oriented, and it's fine. You can build great businesses that way. But for me to build a timeless business, a business that's sustainable over time, a business that has a succession plan, people need to be aligned, and really care about what it is that they're doing every single day. That's my thought.

Callan Harrington  34:37

I was listening to this talk that Bill Gurley from Benchmark gave about finding what you're passionate about and things like that. And he was talking to the University of Texas MBA students, and he said, like, look, at every one of these schools, everybody there is going to be super intelligent. But if you're both doing the same business, the person that's obsessed with it is going to smoke the person that's not every time, just because that's all they want to be doing. And to sustain the ups and downs, like you talked about, you're still at risk for burnout. Probably even more, but-

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  35:23

 (laughs) True.

Callan Harrington  35:24

But to sustain for the long term, that person that's obsessed, I believe that as well, is going to beat the person. That's not doesn't mean you can't get there. But to me a lot harder.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  35:34

Yeah, I agree.

Callan Harrington  35:35

So I know, we talked about coming up to the future of what Cuddles looks like from expanding into the different spaces that support the pet industry. What does the future for you look like? What does that next level of growth look like for you personally?

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  35:51

Oh, wow, I am so happy you asked that question. Because at the end of the day, I think they both need to be aligned. My personal and professional goals need to match. And that doesn't always pan out perfectly. There also needs to be some accommodating for either one or the other at certain instances. But your personal needs to be part of your professional journey. Like it needs to be core, because if I'm not taken care of, I can't take care of anyone else. That's an absolute fact. So there's a lot of self-work that happens. I definitely, you know, I'm a family man first. That's one of the first things that we have and how we work document, family-first. You can't take back your kids graduation or a baptism, like there's certain key moments that you need to show up for. I have a two year old son, who turns two in two weeks, Dale; and I have a three month old daughter, Violetta; I have a beautiful wife, Valentina; I have two dogs, Aqua, Tommy; I have a cat Sylvester. So my future is making sure that they're taken care of, and that their future is bright, and that we as a family can grow together. So I think that's my number one personal priority. Beyond that, I'll also say, going back to my obsession for performance, being a better version of myself. I have not always been the best version of myself. I truly think that now more than ever, I have had to, again, going back to purpose, because my family is my biggest purpose. And that's my biggest motivator to wake up, when I wake up, to do the cold plunges that I do, to do the breath work that I'm doing. It's a lot of work. But I don't miss it. I don't skip a day. I try not to. I have, but I try not to, even if I haven't had the best of days, just because it really keeps you centered. And it's needed. So for me personally, my future is just every single day continuing to become a better version of myself through all the practices that I practice every day, and making sure that my family is taken care of. I'll sum it up in those two things.

Callan Harrington  37:45

The part about- it's so easy to lose sight of your health, because when, especially when you become obsessed with it, because that's all you want to do. But if you're not taking care of yourself, one, it's gonna be hard to stay in the long run. But two, you're not going to be as sharp. You're not going to show up as good if you're not taking care of yourself. So yeah, I think that's great advice.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  38:07

For sure.  Last question I have for you is: if you could have a conversation with your younger self, what advice would you give them? And what would that conversation look like?  Have fun, but not that much fun? Like, I had a lot of fun. Doing parties at the age of seventeen is kind of peak, if you will. Nonetheless, my first exposure to Goldman gave me some perspective. When you meet the entrepreneurs that I've had the pleasure of meeting, it gives you another perspective. And when you have kids, it gives you kind of the the last perspective. So I can confidently say I have never performed at a higher level in my entire life as I am today. So it would just be: focus on that future Tarek that you want. Like you need to be present. Many times people say, I want to accomplish this level of wealth in five years, or for my business to do X, Y and Z. But like you need to enjoy every single milestone because they're not coming back. I have two kids that are up all night. Is it brutal? Yeah. There's going to be a time in my life, hopefully, knock on wood, where they're not going to want to come hang out with me or do things with me. But now I come home and they scream, daddy, and they come running, and they give me a hug, and it's all love and kisses. So I definitely cherish each milestone. So I'm happy that I had so much fun, and that, you know, I did things that I did when I was younger. But I would definitely would have hoped, and this is totally fine, because I'm here now, to have had some of the healthier habits going back on health, that I have today, that I didn't have then, in some cases because of the environment that I was in. It's not easy in college, or in New York City as a young bachelor, or in Miami, always. Nonetheless, I think that practicing these good habits early, make a transformative difference when you look back five, ten years. So that would be the conversation, it would be surrounded about better care of myself and focusing more on myself instead of others at that point.

Callan Harrington  39:57

I'll just double down on that. Celebrate those milestones as achievements. I didn't do that, especially in my career. I really did not do that early on, because I was so focused on getting to that end goal.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  40:07

Yeah.

Callan Harrington  40:08

That I didn't celebrate those until later in my career. I'm like, what are you doing? Like you don't even know if you're ever gonna hit the end goal. Use these to get the momentum to hit the big goal. So-

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  40:17

Absolutely.

Callan Harrington  40:18

I love that, Tarek.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  40:19

I'll just end with one thing. My dad, may he rest in peace, was obsessed with habits, obsessed with habits, right? Like he would come in and be like, "the habits you instill now-" when I was like in seventh, eighth grade, "the habits that you instill now will be with you forever, the good habits and the bad. The bad habits that you form now, you're going to still do them in your twenties and thirties, I promise you." And even in my twenties and thirties, I was like, oh, I'm not gonna do this in my thirties. Now in my thirties, I'm not gonna do it in my forties. Like, like, it goes by quick. So, now there's plenty of studies between Atomic Habits, and The Power of Habits, and the obsession over habits. But my dad was right. I think that going back to what I would tell my earlier self, it's just like, really focus on those key habits that- those trigger habits that some people call, that just instill other good habits and surround yourself with people that have those same habits because it's motivating and you end up making a difference over, again, a longer period of time. I love the celebrating milestones, but if I would really give one piece of advice for the younger version of myself, it'd be like just get good habits.

Callan Harrington  41:20

I can't think of a better place to wrap it up than there, Tarek.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  41:22

Yeah.

Callan Harrington  41:23

That was excellent. And thanks for coming on, man. This was a lot of fun.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz  41:26

Hey, Callan, it was an absolute pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for having me. I hope this was helpful to some folks who are listening, and check out CuddlesApp.com, and hopefully your pet provider will be using us to make your life easier soon.

Callan Harrington  41:41

Check it out.  Love what you're doing. Thanks again for coming on, man.  I hope you enjoy Tarek and I's conversation. If you could find something that you're that passionate about, there is nothing better. If you want to learn more about Tarek, you could find him on LinkedIn in the show notes. Also, if you liked this episode, you could find me on LinkedIn to let me know, and if you really want to support the show, a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify is very much appreciated. Thanks for listening, everybody, and I'll see you next week.