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[00:00:03.82] REID HOLZWORTH: Welcome to the Insurance Technology Podcast. I'm your host, Reid Holzworth. Joining me today is a good friend, Niji Sabharwal, co-founder and CEO of AgentSync. Niji, welcome, man. How are you doing?
[00:00:15.58] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, thanks, Reid. Thanks for having me. This is going to be fun.
[00:00:19.02] REID HOLZWORTH: This is going to be fun. We're going to get into some good stuff. So as always, for the listeners a lot of people listening to this know who you are, know what you've done, know what AgentSync is. But let's get it a little bit of background about you.
[00:00:32.33] So first and foremost, tell us a little about your family or a little bit about your upbringing, like, where did you grow up, what was family life like, hobbies, sports, what did you want to be when you grew up, all the great stuff.
[00:00:45.21] NIJI SABHARWAL: Awesome. Yeah, so let's see. Let's start with I was born in San Francisco. And both my parents-- I'm a first-generation American. My mom was lived in France-- or born in France, lived in France most of her life, and then was actually a sheep farmer in Corsica, and then basically moved to Frostburg, Maryland, to do a foreign exchange program, go to university there.
[00:01:12.91] And then my dad was doing the same thing. He was in India. He was actually running away from an arranged marriage and--
[00:01:20.67] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:01:20.88] NIJI SABHARWAL: --met my mom. And yeah, they got together very quickly after they both moved to Frostburg and then decided to go to San Francisco. There was more opportunity there. And so my dad to switch schools. And then he was actually a door-to-door life insurance sales person for--
[00:01:41.13] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:01:41.70] NIJI SABHARWAL: --Prudential.
[00:01:42.48] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, wow, that's pretty crazy. That's cool.
[00:01:46.45] NIJI SABHARWAL: So yeah, born in San Francisco, it's kind of long-winded background there. And then went to school all over the Bay Area and then went to university in Santa Barbara. And let's see. I actually lived in Ireland for a while as part of a role with LinkedIn and moved from San Francisco to Denver, where I'm right now about five years ago.
[00:02:10.15] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome. So growing up in San Francisco, probably a very different place than San Francisco is now. And now you're in Denver. Moving away from that. You moved not that long ago. So what was life like growing up in San Francisco?
[00:02:25.51] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, so actually, we moved from-- parents lived in the Tenderloin in San Francisco in like '85 is when they moved there. And then, yeah, my dad was going to school and also selling Prudential door to door for a few years. And then we actually moved to Alameda and then to the East Bay area, a town called El Sobrante. I was there for probably most of my childhood and then moved to Mountain View in the Bay area, more in the Peninsula, then Palo Alto. And that was in for high school.
[00:03:01.37] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
[00:03:03.40] NIJI SABHARWAL: So moved back to San Francisco when I was-- well, after I graduated, I actually lived in Oakland for a little while and then moved to San Francisco while I was at LinkedIn. And I was at LinkedIn for about four years. Yeah, four years. And yeah, it was a really fun place to be in your 20s. A lot going on. It's changed a lot, for sure. But I mean, it's still an amazing city. And the food is unbelievable. So that was the thing I probably missed the most moving to Denver is the access to just amazing food.
[00:03:36.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh.
[00:03:37.55] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's getting better in Denver. But still, no comparison.
[00:03:40.14] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, no doubt. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
[00:03:47.90] NIJI SABHARWAL: I wanted to be an architect. I don't really remember why. I think I just thought it was a cool job to just design very big buildings.
[00:04:00.82] REID HOLZWORTH: Awesome. Awesome. What--
[00:04:02.76] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, the right answer is building regulatory compliance software for the insurance industry.
[00:04:07.40] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] Yeah, we'll get into that. We'll get into that. All right. A little more about you. What was your favorite-- what type of music did you like growing up, like in high school and whatnot? What were you into?
[00:04:22.88] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, I was really into punk rock. So probably favorite band was-- oh, I got into Green Day first. I was really into Green Day during that time and then into punk rock like Rancid and--
[00:04:35.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:36.01] NIJI SABHARWAL: --and a few others.
[00:04:37.40] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome, man. What was your first car?
[00:04:40.64] NIJI SABHARWAL: First car.
[00:04:42.35] REID HOLZWORTH: Or did you have--
[00:04:43.26] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's a Toyota.
[00:04:43.84] REID HOLZWORTH: I don't know like living out there. Maybe you didn't-- I don't know.
[00:04:46.75] NIJI SABHARWAL: No, no. Yeah I had a car. I had a 1984 Toyota MR2.
[00:04:53.48] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, that's a--
[00:04:54.20] NIJI SABHARWAL: 1982.
[00:04:54.41] REID HOLZWORTH: --first car, an MR2. Wow, that was really cool, man.
[00:04:58.23] NIJI SABHARWAL: Really cool. Yeah. And I actually found it at a-- it was like a police impound lot. My buddy got into some trouble. And I had to give him a ride. And when he picked up his car, I saw this thing. I was like, oh, it's beautiful. Really cool car. And they were selling it. And it was like $800. I mean, a lot of problems. So yeah, it's actually really fun. I got it running and got it in the really good shape with my dad over that summer.
[00:05:26.65] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, so for those that don't know, the MR2 is a tiny car. Tiny. Two seat, no back seat. It's really, really small. Pretty cool. It's funny. Growing up, I had this dude that lived down the street from me. His name was Sarkis. He had an MR2 that was a lowrider. It had hydraulics on it, for real. It was in-- it was like super legit, though. It was in Lowrider magazine, legit. But lowrider with hydraulics, jumping--
[00:05:51.42] NIJI SABHARWAL: That's crazy.
[00:05:52.28] REID HOLZWORTH: --MR2.
[00:05:53.03] NIJI SABHARWAL: I can't picture that. Yeah, actually, I tricked mine out in a very bootstrapped way. I got this ram-air intake for-- it was a 1992 prelude. And these big chrome pipes. And I actually built a ram-air intake. And the MR2 has a V engine in the back, mid-engine. And so I had these chrome pipes coming. I cut holes in the hood that was in the back and then had these two chrome pipes sticking out that were ram-air intakes. I literally got pulled over because the cop wanted to just ask me what the hell that was.
[00:06:28.33] [LAUGHTER]
[00:06:31.10] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome. That's awesome. So all right. So what was your first job, your first crap job, first job you ever did? Not real job, first job, before out-of-college stuff.
[00:06:45.24] NIJI SABHARWAL: Let's see. In high school, I-- it was actually middle school I started doing this. I'd buy candy in bulk and then sell it at school for decent markup. So I just had a backpack stuffed with candy and built pretty good little business out of it. Got in trouble over it a couple times. But that was the first, I guess, hustle or first time of like, I made money in my life.
[00:07:11.75] And then the first actual job was a-- I was actually under the table because too young. But I worked at a bike shop for--
[00:07:18.87] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:19.30] NIJI SABHARWAL: --a while.
[00:07:19.62] REID HOLZWORTH: Nice. Like building--
[00:07:21.46] NIJI SABHARWAL: A bicycle.
[00:07:22.01] REID HOLZWORTH: --bikes. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Building bikes, servicing, stuff like that. That's cool. Were you super excited to ride BMX mountain? What were you into?
[00:07:30.75] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, so at that point, I got really into BMX racing.
[00:07:34.61] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh--
[00:07:35.35] NIJI SABHARWAL: So I did that when I was a kid.
[00:07:36.50] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. What did you ride?
[00:07:38.39] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's really fun.
[00:07:39.10] REID HOLZWORTH: What did you ride?
[00:07:40.30] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, I had a couple bikes, but nothing fancy. I mean, BMX is a pretty straightforward.
[00:07:45.40] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, totally. Yeah, all right. So all right. College, what did you go to college for?
[00:07:53.12] NIJI SABHARWAL: Let's see. I started as a mechanical engineer, mostly because a lot of pressure from my dad and just Indians in general to go into engineering and realized really quickly that it wasn't something I was super excited about. And so I switched to economics pretty quickly. And UCSB has one of the best economics programs. One of the professors is a Nobel Prize winner.
[00:08:19.56] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:08:20.06] NIJI SABHARWAL: So a pretty good program. It's also really fun. It's a lot of partying.
[00:08:24.75] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] So economics. And we'll have to get to this. But when I met you, you were full stack dev, right?
[00:08:37.88] NIJI SABHARWAL: No, I had a team that was-- I was doing sales operations, so revenue operations.
[00:08:42.66] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, OK. I thought-- OK, yeah.
[00:08:45.16] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, I had a team that was doing systems. So--
[00:08:47.65] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh.
[00:08:48.38] NIJI SABHARWAL: --that's where we met. We actually bought our own tech canary.
[00:08:50.61] REID HOLZWORTH: Yep, yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, so what was your first real job? Economics, you get out of school. What did you do? What was it?
[00:08:58.47] NIJI SABHARWAL: Man, that was a tough time. So graduating 2009 with an economics degree, during that just awful crash. And this is the worst time to graduate with that degree. So it was really hard. I must have done 100 interviews. And I couldn't get a job at like Peet's Coffee to save my life. I interviewed a few Peet's Coffees and wasn't qualified.
[00:09:26.22] So it was just a really tough time. So actually, I didn't notice at the time, but I interviewed at this shop stamping, engraving shop in Berkeley on University Avenue. So I was living in Oakland at the time. And basically manufactured rubber stamps. One of the biggest-- funny enough, one of their biggest customers is Peet's Coffee. And Peet's Coffee still has those rubber stamped the flavors on their bags of coffee that they sell.
[00:09:53.00] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, OK.
[00:09:53.25] NIJI SABHARWAL: And they make it a point, because they're also based in Berkeley, to buy locally. And so we were the main distributor for all of Peet's coffees for those stamps. And then that place also did like trophy engraving. And they apparently just got robbed the week before I interviewed there. And so they were just looking for a big dude to be the cashier. And I came along at the perfect time. It's like $9 an hour. But it was actually-- it was a lot of fun. One of my favorite job.
[00:10:23.83] REID HOLZWORTH: So then what? So how did you-- so you said you were at LinkedIn. What did you do after that? How did you get into the tech world? I mean, obviously, you'd be there, but how did you get into this whole world? Let's go through it and then where we met, all the way up to where we met. Yeah.
[00:10:37.87] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, OK. Let's see. So yeah, the reason I got into tech, I guess-- so my dad, when we moved from the East Bay to the Peninsula, he got a job at HP, at Hewlett-Packard. And my dad was in HR. Actually just retired last year.
[00:10:56.09] And so yeah. So moved there. I was able to get foot in the door to get an internship there. We actually built these-- we were built and marketed these really interesting like Linux computers that you could break into four partitions and have four people use basically the same computer. And then they were marketing it to basically a few countries in Africa and Eastern Europe as a means to start a small business, where--
[00:11:23.32] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:11:23.59] NIJI SABHARWAL: --you could do it at a fraction of the cost. That was really fun. So I did an internship there that actually spanned two summers. And that was my first kind of tech job. And then when I was working at the stamp engraving shop-- this is way later, after. And so that internship was in college.
[00:11:44.72] And then when I came out, HP didn't have a job. And they were-- tech was in a really tough place. And anything financial services related was also in a tough place. So got the job at Stanford engraving shop and then went to set up a Halloween-- my parents threw a Halloween party. They throw the best Halloween parties. And I met a recruiter for LinkedIn. He was a sales recruiter there. He just joined. And he was pitching me on the company. And I was familiar with LinkedIn and LinkedIn profile at the time, but I was kind of wasted at that Halloween party and don't remember much of the conversation but apparently made an impression on him.
[00:12:28.88] So started the recruiting process there. And it was like three months long, very--
[00:12:35.55] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:12:35.89] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, a lot of hoops to jump through, but landed my first real job in tech there. I was started as an SDR. So like a junior sales person. I was there-- they were one of the first companies to actually start-- or have a legit SDR program. And so we-- I was the fifth SDR on the team. End up growing that team when I left, from 5 to just over 200 people across nine global offices.
[00:13:03.63] And so started as an SDR. I did that for like six months or a year, just doing cold calls, like 100 calls a day and then saw a need for a more systems and more strategic operations role there and to pitch the role to my boss. And then basically, that day was then running the sales ops team for that team. And then yeah, I just love that. Did that for the next nine years or so before-- or 10 years before starting AgentSync.
[00:13:34.83] REID HOLZWORTH: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, that's awesome, man. So LinkedIn and then Zenefits, right?
[00:13:43.01] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, yeah. That was a bridge. So yeah. So LinkedIn for about four years. Lived in Dublin for one of those years. A lot of fun, just getting experience, basically figuring out how to sell in the EMEA markets and Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And really interesting. Super interesting setting up operations because, obviously, the language issue where you're trying to build a team and trying to build a lead gen engine where you're sending leads based on the right languages for one.
[00:14:15.64] But there's also this really interesting cultural differences, where-- I mean, I'm going to say it, Europe's pretty racist overall. And it's more of like a-- it's an open thing that people don't mind talking about. It might have changed recently. But back then, it was just a very open thing. So you'd never assign somebody with a Spanish accent to sell into the UK, for example. And so we have to design a lot of those cultural things around, not just language based, but around how you route leads. There's one example.
[00:14:51.94] But anyway. So did that for about a year. And then I moved back to San Francisco with LinkedIn and then went on to Zenefits about six months after I moved back. And so actually, I met my wife and cofounder at LinkedIn--
[00:15:06.53] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, OK.
[00:15:07.26] NIJI SABHARWAL: --and came back to-- we started dating right before I moved to Ireland. It was kind of stupid. And then she broke up with me because I didn't want to do the long distance thing. And then got back together and wanted to make a proper go at it. And then she left LinkedIn. I think it was while I was in Ireland. And so I was there for six months and left and went to a company called Zenefits. So not familiar with--
[00:15:32.37] REID HOLZWORTH: She went to Zenefits first?
[00:15:33.82] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, no, no. Sorry. So she went to Dropbox and then to Stripe before joining AgentSync.
[00:15:41.00] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, OK, OK. I got you. Gotcha. So then you're at Zenefits doing the same thing. For whatever reason. I don't know why the hell I thought you were a developer back then. But whatever, dude. Yeah, stupid me. Anyways, I guess it's just because we dealt with you a lot on the system side or whatever in that way. But yeah, that was a wild ride. Zenefits, that was a wild time. How long were you at Zenefits before AgentSync?
[00:16:08.45] NIJI SABHARWAL: Let's see. So I was there for five years-- I think a little over five years and joined to basically build out the sales operations function. And at the time, there were about 100 people as employee number, exactly 100. And just incredible story and just huge growth story. And then everything kind of fell apart. And so we grew from--
[00:16:33.93] REID HOLZWORTH: Can you tell the story a little bit?
[00:16:36.08] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, I guess.
[00:16:37.06] REID HOLZWORTH: There's probably a lot of people--
[00:16:37.64] NIJI SABHARWAL: Everything's settled. Everything's settled.
[00:16:39.18] REID HOLZWORTH: --a while ago. A lot of people don't know that story these days. I mean, I don't know, but they should. Tell the story.
[00:16:46.42] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, I can tell you, everyone I've talked to in the-- especially if you're working for a brokerage or you were on the agency side for a long time, everyone remembers. Because it was just such a-- I don't even know how to describe it-- infamous, I guess, for a variety of reasons.
[00:17:08.64] But yeah, at a high level. So Zenefits is a really HR benefits and payroll provider. They got acquired by TriNet. I don't know if the brand still exists anymore, but that was the solution. It's benefits like HRIS and payroll. And so it was a combined solution where Zenefits became your broker to manage all the really group housing--
[00:17:36.77] REID HOLZWORTH: Well, so, OK--
[00:17:37.10] NIJI SABHARWAL: --and group life.
[00:17:37.86] REID HOLZWORTH: So go on-- So Zenefits built a HR platform to manage your benefits, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it was free. It was free. And it was free if you BOR'd over your insurance.
[00:17:52.74] [LAUGHTER]
[00:17:54.56] NIJI SABHARWAL: So yeah, that was really-- that was the main method.
[00:17:57.07] REID HOLZWORTH: --what? It was so game changing. So Zenefits technically was a software company. But they generate revenue via insurance.
[00:18:04.97] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. Yeah, we did a couple new enrollments. But yeah, by and large, it was driven by BORs. Yeah, pretty genius model. And a few others actually picked it up, but-- picked this up as well. And they're still doing really well. Gusto being one of them. Really great company.
[00:18:26.83] So yeah, that was our monetization strategy. And then eventually, we changed it to be software based. But that was the lion's share of the money was the revenue was coming from being the broker of record. And so grew really quickly because it was like nobody else was using that model.
[00:18:42.34] REID HOLZWORTH: --overnight within, I remember. So Zenefits was a secondary customer. I was there. Not as long as you, but I was there pretty fairly early. And I remember, dude, it went from nothing to massive. I remember going to the office and wherever it was, Market Street or whatever. And it was so many people jammed into the offices. It was screen to screen. And Parker Conrad, CEO and founder, he's in the pit, dude, with everybody.
[00:19:05.79] It was just like-- I remember it was so many people in there. They brought in-- they had to bring in auxiliary air conditioners to keep-- just because you guys just grew so fast. It was insane growth. I mean, just crushed it. Absolutely crushed it. But--
[00:19:24.27] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it was wild.
[00:19:25.08] REID HOLZWORTH: --game changing. Because the software was good. It was a great solution. And businesses were like, hell yeah, I'll let you be my broker if you're going to give me this great thing, Generally speaking. And then you guys got it. You did P&C as well. Did a bunch of shit. And it was, I mean, huge, huge growth story. A lot of big people invested in it. There was a lot of people that were really-- I mean, that was like-- that was big, big news back in the day, for sure.
[00:19:50.42] NIJI SABHARWAL: It was the fastest growing software company of all time at that time. I think a lot of these AI companies probably broke those records, but it was just bananas growth. We went from 100 employees to 1,700. And-- I don't know-- was like a year or two. It's just absolutely crazy. Absolutely crazy.
[00:20:07.94] REID HOLZWORTH: I remember you opened up offices in-- where it was-- Arizona or something or something. It was just-- it just completely exploded. So then--
[00:20:17.44] NIJI SABHARWAL: Scottsdale.
[00:20:18.00] REID HOLZWORTH: Scottsdale, there, yeah. Thank you. Yep, yep, yep. So then what happened? What happened?
[00:20:24.98] NIJI SABHARWAL: Well, that's the end of the story.
[00:20:26.63] REID HOLZWORTH: I think this is a good story for you and your background. It [INAUDIBLE].
[00:20:30.37] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. No, I mean-- yeah, obviously, it fits perfectly. So yeah, actually, fun fact about just being so crammed in the office.
[00:20:38.07] REID HOLZWORTH: I know.
[00:20:38.42] NIJI SABHARWAL: No, no, no, I know. I'm happy to. But we were actually two to a desk. We're literally just like a very normal-sized desk. My desk here is, I don't know, this wide. And we had two people to every desk for-- it was a while until we built out another floor. It was just--
[00:20:54.29] REID HOLZWORTH: --stopping about. He's not joking. People. I've been in this office. Think about this. One screen-- one screen, and the screens are touching. And that's your neighbor. [LAUGHS]
[00:21:06.04] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, absolutely crazy.
[00:21:07.86] REID HOLZWORTH: The screens are touching all the way down.
[00:21:09.90] [LAUGHTER]
[00:21:11.60] NIJI SABHARWAL: It was wild. It was actually really hard for sales because-- for obvious reasons. Couldn't have somebody literally two people on the phone--
[00:21:19.74] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:20.36] NIJI SABHARWAL: --while they're sitting next to each other. But yeah. But absolutely bananas. And yeah, the growth was incredible. Went from no valuation to 4.5 billion within a couple of years.
[00:21:33.30] REID HOLZWORTH: 4.5 billion, I remember that. That's insane. It was less than three years, 4.5 billion. Nutso. Yeah.
[00:21:40.74] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. And so yeah, we grew just way too quickly. And I think the biggest issue is we just didn't put the right controls in place and really didn't have-- we saw ourselves more as a tech company than insurance brokerage and a highly regulated insurance brokerage.
[00:21:55.95] And so we just didn't take those regulations seriously enough-- and I'm just going to say it as it is-- and then ended up getting into a ton of regulatory issues around state licensing and carrier appointments and affiliations, because we jumped the gun in many cases, where we got folks on the phone before they got the proper licenses. And as you know, you need a resident license. And you need a nonresident license for every state you're selling into if the majority of the employees are in that state for most states.
[00:22:28.93] And so we just had a ton of regulatory or specifically licensing violations. And we're talking order of-- it was bananas. Because we had 600 licensed salespeople on the phones pretty much at all times. And we had to go back-- once everything exploded, we have to go back and document now everyone and basically do all the data work to tie when it was quoted, when it was bound, before the commission was paid on every single transaction. And it was-- yeah, the scale of it was pretty bad.
[00:23:05.56] It was just such an egregious offense because the scale was huge. And Zenefits came out of the gate with a very aggressive stance on the insurance industry and really brokerages altogether. And the biggest mistake we made was thinking that technology could replace the broker and that you just sign the BOR and then during open enrollment, you just hope that we know what we're doing or that the technology is doing everything really, really well.
[00:23:40.22] And so that was the biggest thing we underestimated is the-- at the time, I mean, that was my first intro into insurance and just had no idea how important the broker was and how valuable the thought leadership with their policyholders or the customers, how important that is and just the expertise too.
[00:24:03.01] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, I mean, from my vantage point, from what I saw is you had a business that completely exploded, freaking scaled like nutso. And you couldn't onboard people fast enough to get them licensed to be able to handle the demand that was coming in. On the other side, you had an entire industry of brokers that hated it because they couldn't compete at this level.
[00:24:34.19] So let's be real. It wasn't like-- and maybe you did. A lot of it was smaller, midsize businesses, not really super large, complex stuff. We might have had some. I don't know, but I'd say generally speaking. And so the brokers were so pissed. And they were calling the regulators like, there's got to be something here, there's a lot. Because there were just so many-- because you guys were just taking premium in so many ways.
[00:24:57.77] And yeah, unfortunately, there were some people that weren't licensed, let's just say. And yeah, you got-- and then they, because of it, completely made an example out of you guys.
[00:25:09.95] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, yeah. Head on the wall. It was--
[00:25:12.24] REID HOLZWORTH: I was a little bit like
[00:25:13.00] NIJI SABHARWAL: --brutal.
[00:25:13.40] REID HOLZWORTH: I get it. But dude, they really twisted the knife there, right?
[00:25:18.49] NIJI SABHARWAL: Honestly, we had it coming. Just looking back on the whole thing, it was-- just not knowing the industry well enough and building the relationships and entering it in a slightly different way, it could have been done a lot differently. But it was crazy.
[00:25:35.24] There was a BuzzFeed article that broke the news. It was one reporter who was-- don't love the guy, but a really good reporter. And he was able to get a bunch of-- he basically accessed the email inboxes-- we were terrible at deactivating people's inboxes when they left the company-- and found a bunch of disgruntled employees, got access to the inboxes
[00:25:55.17] REID HOLZWORTH: Whoa.
[00:25:55.51] NIJI SABHARWAL: Just basically downloaded everything and then put the story together, where there was a bunch of emails that I sent where once we started realizing the licensing requirements and where we were at with those, I'd find the people who needed to go get a license in a specific state. And so I sent a handful of one-off emails and, drop what you're doing, go do go handle this right now, in my role as in sales operations. And those emails got leaked to BuzzFeed. And then BuzzFeed published them. And it was like-- it looked like I was a whistleblower in a way, so.
[00:26:29.83] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, no, I didn't know all this. Oh, no, you're like a whistleblower. [LAUGHS]
[00:26:34.59] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. So yeah, the article exploded. It was really well-researched articles. It was pretty impressive. Hate the guy, though. And then we-- yeah, it got published. And it got picked up really quickly. And so yeah, to your point, regulators were looking for a reason to skewer the company in a lot of ways. And a lot of those regulators were ex-brokers too.
[00:26:59.29] So it's very understandable in a lot of ways. And so I was asked by the CEO at the time to drop I was doing and work with our general counsel or legal GR teams to get our arms around the issue and then work on a plan to the remediation plan. And so that took 22 months. It was very painful. Just getting punched in the face by regulators every day.
[00:27:23.41] And we went hat in hand eventually to settle the violations on big roadshows. We had a whole team put together. It was a very serious-- we were anticipating hundreds of millions in fines. And it ended up being a very small fraction of that. Still pretty significant. It was 10 million. But--
[00:27:43.86] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, it's nothing in --
[00:27:44.77] NIJI SABHARWAL: --the entire--
[00:27:45.21] REID HOLZWORTH: scheme of things. Yeah.
[00:27:46.44] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it was a really amazing result overall. And part of that was we ended up-- I was tasked with figuring out how the hell you get 550 or 600 license people, how we get them verified and compliant and have all the right tracking in place. And we had to do it really quickly without completely destroying the business and taking them all off the phones.
[00:28:12.94] So ended up building internally-- got some contract engineers and built out a integration to NIPR, but really an integration to all the state departments of insurance, to be able to pull credentials into our instance of Salesforce, our CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool, and brought that into, basically, verify transactions in real time.
[00:28:36.85] So you couldn't get a lead routed to, you couldn't close a deal, you couldn't get paid a commission unless you had the right license on file. And it was all-- had to be in the system. And we ran an integration with the State Department of Insurance to pull that data in. And so that was pretty game changing because we were able to get into full compliance basically overnight without having controls in place that you couldn't bypass.
[00:29:00.23] And so that was really successful. So we decided to open-source it to the industry to-- one, we wanted to really show regulators we were taking this seriously and that we were bending over backwards and wanted to really set a good example for what to do if you do get in trouble like this. Because a lot of folks get--
[00:29:22.31] REID HOLZWORTH: Everybody that doesn't know-- I remember. Because you guys built a free app on Salesforce with what you're just talking about. And it was good, dude. And it was bad-ass. And everybody's like, OK, we know why it's free. We know--
[00:29:36.44] [LAUGHTER]
[00:29:39.19] NIJI SABHARWAL: But yeah, we got a lot of press. We were at Dreamforce one year because David Sacks was CEO at the time. And he had a good relationship with Marc Benioff. So we got a keynote stage at Dreamforce present the story. And we were in their app book. And yeah, it actually worked out really well.
[00:29:55.20] And honestly, saw as a PR stunt. But it was very-- it worked really well. And we were concerned about adoption. Because, obviously, brokers are probably not going to want to use that tool, given the conflict or just give Zenefits any data whatsoever on that.
[00:30:16.61] Surprisingly, we saw hundreds of downloads really quickly. And once we actually looked into who was downloading, it's like mostly carriers. And so a bunch of light bulbs went off in my head. This was something that could have teeth. It could be a real product. And it was so different from what Zenefits was doing that once we got through the woods with the regulatory issues, they were gracious enough to assign the IP over to me.
[00:30:37.87] And that was the basis for AgentSync, the company we ended up building was to basically-- initially, it was mostly for very limited use case, where we were just checking licenses in real time as transactions came in, to make sure everything was compliant. And then it quickly grew to something just a lot bigger, but still having the compliance backbone in pretty much every deployment.
[00:31:03.52] REID HOLZWORTH: Talk about that a little bit. Bigger in what way? I know. But for the listeners.
[00:31:07.80] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. So I said it's my first insurance job. But looking back, it was not an insurance job. It was very, very different. And I knew just enough that I knew there was enough pain here that people would pay for software to solve it, but had no idea how big that pain really was and how widespread it was.
[00:31:28.09] So initially, we were going after companies like Zenefits. And those are the first 10 customers were Zenefits-shaped customers and [INAUDIBLE], a lot of technology companies that were selling insurance. And so we were able to get those. They're mostly group health agencies or brokers.
[00:31:48.94] And then realized really quickly, oh, this actually makes sense for MGAs and carriers and expanded it really, really quickly. And then also realized that it works just as well for group health as it does for personal and commercial and life annuity and Medicare. And so expand the scope to be really across every distribution model. So agencies, carriers, MGAs, MGUs, FMOs, IMOs, aggregators, you name it, as well as every line of business.
[00:32:19.01] REID HOLZWORTH: It's pretty wild because, to your point, on the surface, it's like, oh, OK, that's a thing that we need and we do. But when you dig in, everybody across our industry needs a solution like this.
[00:32:32.01] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's a problem-- if you're touching the distribution insurance in any way, shape, or form, you have to have something like this in order to scale. Really small shops like if you're five brokers or under a single state or two states, probably doesn't make sense. You could track that in a spreadsheet or just off the side of your desk.
[00:32:48.83] But the second you get into any sort of complexity-- because every state is-- all 50 states have-- there's no uniform standards for pretty much anything. So every state gets to set licensing requirements, the appointment requirements, the affiliation requirements, as well as all the continuing education, the new license applications, just the way they regulate it, brokers and carriers in the industry at large. And so it's a rat's nest of complexity when you're trying to manage this across multiple states and multiple distribution models.
[00:33:25.47] So what AgentSync really does at the core is normalize all that complexity. So our customers can just think about it, OK, they're selling life and health in these states. And then we take care of everything else. So we do all the mapping to make sure they have the right licenses based on the products they're selling, as well as the ability to actually just go get licenses really quickly or in an automated way from the state and then automatically submit appointments where you need to.
[00:33:52.29] And so what it turned into is more of like distribution channel management than a compliance. It started out as a compliance app. And then we realized that there was a much bigger opportunity here. Because at the end of the day, what we do is we connect distributors with products to sell. And so in order to do that-- and it sounds fairly simple to make that connection and do the onboarding. But there's actually 17 steps--
[00:34:16.46] REID HOLZWORTH: Wow.
[00:34:17.03] NIJI SABHARWAL: --that go into that process of getting producer ready to sell. And unfortunately, the burden falls on the producer most of the time to do the heavy lifting and just a lot of back and forth with the carrier can take-- on average, it's like 40, 45 days to get a producer onboarded. And that seems crazy. Something that should be able to be done in real time through APIs. And that's been our North Star the entire time. We have 200 people maniacally focused on connecting distributors with products to sell. So getting producers ready to sell.
[00:34:49.82] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, and you've done a fantastic job of that. I don't really know who else is doing what you guys truly do out there in the industry, especially at the level you're doing it at. But I mean, I don't know. There's pieces of it. There's a lot of-- I'm not going to name names, but there's others out there that are doing things that you guys do in ways but not the same. It's not the same.
[00:35:13.22] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's a-- yeah, very different. I think the big advantage we have-- and yeah, I won't talk trash about our competitors. But there's definitely a couple out there. But our biggest advantage is we built later than they did. So we had--
[00:35:27.92] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%.
[00:35:28.36] NIJI SABHARWAL: We built on the cloud. And we were able to get things stood up really quickly, scale it. And software development is a lot easier, obviously, on the cloud. So we have a massive advantage because we don't have on-prem deployments. We do everything in the cloud in a very modern way. And we're really able to think about the business process end to end and think about everything that needs to happen so that the first screen you see-- we're contemplating the last screen you're going to see.
[00:35:57.71] So brokers don't have to repeat the same information. It's not like a one-off thing. It's a true platform where you can set automation to manage your distribution channels and have that single pane of glass where you get to see everything.
[00:36:08.55] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. No, it's awesome, man. And you guys are crushing it. When did you start AgentSync? How long ago was that? It wasn't that long ago, was it?
[00:36:17.36] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah so we actually-- we just celebrated our sixth birthday--
[00:36:19.80] REID HOLZWORTH: Six years, yeah. OK, yeah.
[00:36:21.67] NIJI SABHARWAL: --back in October. Yeah, we're in San Francisco the first two years and then moved out to Denver. And it was March of 2020. It was a weird time to move. Very weird time. But ended up scaling the business out here. We started raising cash. We were bootstrapped for the first two years or so and then started raising cash once we found true product market fit. And that was in-- the first round was like June of 2020.
[00:36:48.68] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, you guys-- similar to the Zenefits story but without the ending, you guys scaled really, really fast as well. And you guys have grown tremendously, which is awesome, which is really awesome.
[00:37:03.32] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
[00:37:05.29] REID HOLZWORTH: This is your first--
[00:37:06.28] NIJI SABHARWAL: Great industry to be in.
[00:37:06.91] REID HOLZWORTH: --business, right?
[00:37:08.53] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, 100%.
[00:37:09.98] REID HOLZWORTH: First business, spun it out. In a way, it's kind of-- no, I wouldn't call it a spinout. But you took this thing, grabbed that bull by the horns, and brought it to where it is in a very short amount of time, especially where you're at. Valuation wise and everything, you guys have absolutely crushed it.
[00:37:25.67] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, I get to do with my wife too.
[00:37:28.37] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah, 100%.
[00:37:29.16] NIJI SABHARWAL: That's a really fun part.
[00:37:30.62] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, so talk about your wife real quick, cofounder. Yeah, give a little thing on her as well.
[00:37:36.68] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, so she has a very unique skill set of really combining the really solid business chops with building scalable solutions and systems. And she's done that for most of her entire career so far. And so we're able to take the experiences from Zenefits and the basic understanding of how process should be built end to end to produce clicks and just have the most efficient experience and really bring a more consumer-like experience to this process. And she makes it just work beautifully. And so design the system and processes to-- just works incredibly well.
[00:38:26.19] Her background was in a lot of business systems and architecture for these very large companies like LinkedIn, Dropbox, Stripe. So building internal tools and tying up internal tools to work as efficiently as possible. So we're able to take that experience with her abilities to build something just really kick ass and then combine that into what was now AgentSync.
[00:38:54.13] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Let's talk about everything, dude. So what's that like? So by the way, I've worked with my now ex-wife--
[00:39:02.03] [LAUGHTER]
[00:39:05.76] --for a number of years. And it can be really awesome. And you guys have absolutely crushed it. But sometimes, dude, it's tough, man. It's a little tough. You bring that shit home. It's all time. It's a little different. You tell me. I don't know. That's my experience. [LAUGHS]
[00:39:27.86] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, it really depends. When things are working well and times are good, it is beautiful. It works really well. And when things get tougher-- I mean, just in general, when things get tougher, things get tougher.
[00:39:40.93] But I think what works really well with us is having such different skill sets in the areas of the business that we're focused on, where she controls and really runs everything R&D. And then my focus is really on everything else. And then we come together on product strategy. And so we actually end up-- the times we fight about work are usually around-- those are around people issues, actually. Pretty much all only people issues.
[00:40:06.19] REID HOLZWORTH: I can see that.
[00:40:06.69] NIJI SABHARWAL: And so yeah. So it's actually-- it's worked incredibly well. And the early days, we'd say roll out-- or in bed, I'd roll over, nudge her, and be like, hey, I had this idea. And we talk about it for an hour. And that was until we had our kid. And then our daughter was born in October of 2020.
[00:40:28.17] And at that point, things are changing. I took a year of transition. But then now, we have a a safe word for lack of a better term. We just basically go like this. One of us is like, I'm done. I'm done talking about work. And so that's worked really well. And then just having a daughter and trying to spend as much time as we can with her when we're with her, that's helped a lot. We're reduced a lot of the work stuff at home. But early days, I mean, you can't avoid it.
[00:40:58.78] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. No. Oh, 100%. And like you said, you bootstrapped it early on. That's tough. And yeah, I mean, dude, this is like the American dream you're talking about here. And your wife coming together, starting this business, starting family throughout it and absolutely crushing it and bringing real product to market that people are really appreciating and using, that's pretty cool, dude, for real. And you got--
[00:41:26.77] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's tough. It's tough, though. We're so fortunate because we were both at LinkedIn when it IPO'd. Didn't make a lot of money, but enough to see the business. And yeah. So we took that cash. And she was bringing home the bacon at the time while we were getting everything set up. And we didn't pay ourselves until we raised money.
[00:41:44.00] So that was difficult, especially when she quit her job at Stripe. Had to leave a lot of fears on the table. Stripe's, obviously, very valued company. So it was a big decision we had to make there. And then also she was working AgentSync nights and weekends while running a massive team at Stripe. And so she was working 12-hour days and coming home just exhausted.
[00:42:03.12] And I was like, hey, can you build this thing out? I promised the customer. And I need it by the end of the weekend. And so that was really challenging. She was burning the candle from both ends. And having to beg and negotiate for her time was challenging. The first two years were rough. Bootstrapping and especially because it was-- we were just bleeding money. And we had a limit on how much we were OK to lose before we cut bait.
[00:42:31.32] But we also made this really bad error. We hired a contract engineer in the early days-- and she had some cash coming in-- and then built some really bad code that basically overcharged or basically submitted license transactions over and over again. There's no way to undo that. And so you just pay for it over and over again.
[00:42:50.95] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:42:51.44] NIJI SABHARWAL: We lost like 70k just on that issue because we didn't catch it for a little while.
[00:42:56.49] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, wow.
[00:42:56.79] NIJI SABHARWAL: And so we had to basically take 70k out of our bank account and give it to the customer's bank. Hey, we made a huge mistake. Here's all the money back. Hope you stay, but totally understand if this is-- it's too big of an issue. And all of them stayed. It's pretty amazing.
[00:43:14.26] REID HOLZWORTH: That is pretty amazing. Well, you did the right thing, too, yeah. And they probably knew. But you have a good product as well, which says a lot. Yeah, that's wild, dude. What a wild story. I mean, you sit back and-- I mean, to do what you did and to bootstrap and do all that, I mean, are you at the point now where you can sit back-- you're still in the mix of it, but are you like, dude, we really have done some cool stuff here? Are you there yet? Or are you just still in the grind where you're not able to like-- you're like, yeah, dude, I got investors now, I got board, cracking the whip? [LAUGHS]
[00:43:54.04] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's definitely not-- I mean, arguably, I get-- this is not really steady state. And I've got to steady state. It would feel really weird. Doesn't mean we're probably not stretching off and taking enough risks. So I'd say overall, definitely not at that time yet. I don't think it will ever be. We're being real about it because we're constantly growing, constantly trying new things. Market is changing very dramatically. We're going through a period of volatility that I haven't heard of in this space across every line of business. And--
[00:44:25.10] REID HOLZWORTH: Well, that's what's crazy too.
[00:44:26.59] NIJI SABHARWAL: Anytime, right?
[00:44:27.39] REID HOLZWORTH: We were talking what was it like? Six months ago or something. We were on a call. And you're like, dude, this is really tough because my customers, the carriers, they don't want to write more agencies. No, they're, like, stop.
[00:44:39.56] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, they're trying to get rid of them.
[00:44:40.96] REID HOLZWORTH: Get ride of them. So they're like they're in the business of getting rid of your customers in a way, I guess. I don't know if I'd say that. But yeah, right?
[00:44:50.05] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's been really wild across every vertical. It's just nuts with-- I mean, inflation rates changing so quickly and the amount of cat events, it's--
[00:45:00.68] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. Oh, wow.
[00:45:01.81] NIJI SABHARWAL: And Medicare has been like that. CMS ruling was really crippling to a lot of folks. But yeah, we were able to dynamically swing with the punches and make it work. And we have a ton of really cool stuff ahead of us. And we're just getting started. The space is so amazing because there's so much to do. You know this better than anyone.
[00:45:22.85] There's so many problems that are not being addressed. And I understand why there aren't that many technology companies solving these problems. But if you compare to any other industry, there's not enough technologists that are building really great modern solutions for this space. And that part has been really, really fun. And it's easy-ish to win--
[00:45:46.04] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, totally.
[00:45:47.20] NIJI SABHARWAL: --when you're the only game in town.
[00:45:49.47] REID HOLZWORTH: No, that's a really great point. I want to go back to one thing on the bootstrap. I bootstrapped tech canary. I raised a tiny bit of money, whatever. I pushed bootstrapping in ways for a number of reasons. I like bootstrapping. Because as a founder, if you can do it and you do it right, you end up with a lot more ownership.
[00:46:11.70] And I think, too, in the early days, it can be a bit more creative in ways, which I think is good as opposed to really be driven and pushed if you're raising money in ways. Good or bad, I don't know. It depends on the person. It depends on the founders. What are your thoughts? Going back again, would you bootstrap? Or would you have raised some capital, brought in investors? I know you got great people on your board and whatnot. Would you have done it differently?
[00:46:38.82] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, this is a really good question. No, I would definitely recommend bootstrapping 100% of time because things become like really real when you take somebody else's money.
[00:46:50.49] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%, yeah.
[00:46:52.05] NIJI SABHARWAL: And so being kind of like-- yeah, controlling all of the elements and just being accountable to yourself, you get to make-- you take risks and make decisions in a way that feel more comfortable, especially if it's coming to your bank account. It actually forces you to make really good decisions when it comes to capital efficiency and getting really creative, to your point.
[00:47:11.13] And so that helped us build that capital efficiency into our DNA. So we actually got the cash flow positive before raising cash. And then the reason why-- I think the biggest reason why you want to bootstrap is-- or sorry, raise money is to take advantage of demand that might not be there forever, right?
[00:47:29.26] REID HOLZWORTH: Totally.
[00:47:29.57] NIJI SABHARWAL: And so what we started realizing-- we were just the two of us in our kitchen in San Francisco at the time. We were bringing in probably like 300k of new revenue every month. And it was just happening rinse and repeat. It was just two of us.
[00:47:44.82] We brought on our first employee right around that time. And good friend of ours. He was actually living in Singapore at the time. And he didn't take a paycheck either until we raised cash. He was our COO. And joining calls with a crazy amount of energy like, wow, 3:00 in the morning, Singapore time.
[00:48:04.27] And so we were in this position where we can do things quickly and we can move really fast. And we can actually leverage a capital that was coming in in a way that, obviously, wasn't unlimited. But we did have funds to start hiring a couple people here and there and make investments in software and stuff.
[00:48:22.42] But yeah, really forces you to make good decisions overall. And then it becomes very real once you start raising cash. And I think the-- we have an amazing set of investors and a really amazing board. And so it doesn't feel-- I don't feel very accountable to them or to please them in any ways.
[00:48:41.59] But once you start raising cash, you start hiring a lot of people. And you're starting bet on the combo bet. And so you're taking on a loss so you can have a much bigger outcome later. And so that tradeoff is hard to manage overall. And second you hire a person, you're responsible for--
[00:48:58.61] REID HOLZWORTH: Them and their family.
[00:48:59.74] NIJI SABHARWAL: Their livelihood, yeah.
[00:49:01.04] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%.
[00:49:01.33] NIJI SABHARWAL: That's very real. It's something that-- I think it was the hardest part of building this business is having that responsibility and that--
[00:49:08.30] REID HOLZWORTH: Especially as a new founder and a business owner, you've never had that kind of responsibility on your back, like, oh, shit, if I screw this up, people aren't feeding their families. And it's that pressure is gnarly.
[00:49:23.18] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's crushing.
[00:49:24.00] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, 100%. But it's like-- I don't know. Hey, gives you that. And you push. And you get stuff done. I mean, it's not bad per se, but it's--
[00:49:34.40] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, it's a good pressure. It's just it's hard. But yeah, I'd say capturing the demand that was in front of us. That was the biggest reason. I was very against fundraising. And Parker Conrad was actually our first check-in. And he was just an amazing mentor through the fundraising process. He's probably the best fundraiser on the planet. I don't know anyone who's better than him at this. And so got to benefit a lot from his mentorship and coaching really across every round.
[00:50:00.89] And so bringing that cash on, it marked that things were different once you start bringing the cash, for all the reasons I just mentioned. And you're going to start investing a lot. And so we thought about a bunch of different ways on how we would be able to do it. If we continued to bootstrap, we could have gotten probably not to scale-- we're definitely not scale we're at today that quickly.
[00:50:21.35] But we grew-- it was like 10x in revenue in the first year, 6x the second year. It was like 4x a year after that. So it was just bananas hockey stick growth. And that would have been impossible if we didn't hire a ton of salespeople, more engineers, and more customer support people and customer success people. And it just wouldn't have-- we wouldn't have been able to do that during that time frame. And I mean, you remember 2020. It was the best time to be in the software business by far.
[00:50:49.14] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, right. [LAUGHS]
[00:50:50.95] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, so it was just taking advantage of the demand was a big one. But yeah, it changes things quite a bit.
[00:50:56.43] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah. No, it's--
[00:50:58.22] NIJI SABHARWAL: And since my cofounder's-- since we're married, we have basically two cofounder stakes in one, which is--
[00:51:08.31] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah, true.
[00:51:08.78] NIJI SABHARWAL: --a really nice effect.
[00:51:10.00] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] Right, yeah, totally. That's awesome. That's awesome, man. No, hey, congrats on all the success. I want to ask you a couple quick questions on insurance. If you were to-- now that you've been in this world and whatnot, if you were to change something in insurance, what would it be?
[00:51:31.42] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, the first thing comes to mind is make health care free for everyone. Not really like insurance problem, I guess. More of a health care problem, but that's a whole other can of worms. So the one that I'm very focused on right now is really making every broker in the country, giving them access, market access to the best products to offer their communities.
[00:51:55.69] So anyone in the broker space knows this. Unless you're a really big, successful firm like Hubbard, National, or Marsh or whoever, getting market access is a big challenge. Because there's headache. There's an unknown element where carriers might not want to take a chance on a new producer.
[00:52:14.65] And so you either have to go to an aggregator that's going to take a big cut of your commissions. Or you're relying on products that might not be the best products available, but it's the only appointments you can get. And so as a result, it creates this unfair dynamic where the vast majority of producers in the country are small shops. It's Alice Insurance Agency in a strip mall. And the vast majority of premium rent is through those firms. And they have the least amount of access.
[00:52:44.02] So just lowering that barrier to entry and making that burden a lot less cumbersome to the carrier, that's the problem we're focused on. And really, that problem, it's carrier appointments for sure on the compliance side, but really bringing uniformity to the way that carriers onboard agents and get them appointed and do all the background checks and the onboarding and making that super easy.
[00:53:09.58] So it's literally APIs in the background click of a button. And that's the problem we're focused on now is bringing uniformity to that process, especially around the carrier contracting element--
[00:53:19.33] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah.
[00:53:19.90] NIJI SABHARWAL: --making that just a nonissue or doing the carrier contracting in the background, but doing it in a way that we can make things happen in real time. And by bringing uniformity to the industry actually creates this really nice leveling where that burden becomes the compliance burden but also the risk and the overhead. Because it takes a lot of capital to run these agency operations teams.
[00:53:46.85] And so our aim is to take that spend-- well, just reduce that spend out of the equation. It creates a ton of sand in the machine. Because it's just admin work. It's extra admin work because every carrier has a slightly different flavor of the same process.
[00:54:00.20] And so that's a problem we're focused on now. We've done that for licensing and appointments. We're turning to right now, which is really exciting, is the carrier to agent or agency contracting and registration.
[00:54:14.42] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome man. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I bet it's-- and the world is changing around that too with all-- I'll just talk about the P&C side. As some of all the E&S stuff that's going on and everything, imagine a world where it's like, hey, we'll give you a quote. Oh, you want an appointment? Click. And then boom.
[00:54:35.03] And you guys are powering that stuff. That's what you're doing. You're automating all of that. It's like, OK, we know who you are. We know your lives. And we do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you are streamlining that entire process. So now as an agent, I can write that policy. And I just got appointed to a new carrier. It's wild. And it's like, to your point, why not? I mean, yeah, I get it. So it's really, really cool overall. What technology do you see having the most impact on insurance in the next few years?
[00:55:09.46] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, easily, AI. I don't think anyone knows what it's going to-- how it's going to impact things. Not really. But my guess is-- because, obviously, the use cases for GenAI are to take usually very repetitive tasks that you do over and over again, that you have to do at a high volume, that take a lot of capital to pay people literally just click or copy paste or just go through the same thing over and over again. And AI right now has the capability of taking those things that are very right down the middle repeatable and automating that.
[00:55:49.39] So I think what-- it's not going to replace people at the volume that I think a lot of folks are talking about. But it's going to turn everyone in the industry and everyone, period, into superheroes. Because they're able to accomplish so much more by focusing their human brain on the strategic, bigger problems and having software, really, AI do the heavy lifting to do all the repeatable stuff and the admin work.
[00:56:15.92] REID HOLZWORTH: 100%. We are 1,000% working on that right now. Literally, that is happening as we speak. It's going to change things, like you said, if they can focus on the things that really matter, like relationships and stuff like that, as opposed to doing all this data entry, duplicate BS that everybody likes, like why?
[00:56:33.25] NIJI SABHARWAL: I mean, our industry has some of the most manual tasks, I think, I've ever seen anywhere. There's armies of people in the background, very thankless jobs often that are back offices repeating things over and over again.
[00:56:49.97] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, think of all the companies that are out there that generate billions of dollars in revenue, providing humans overseas to do that kind of stuff.
[00:56:59.63] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, exactly.
[00:57:00.67] REID HOLZWORTH: I mean, yeah. I mean, so there's things are going to change. But I think you're right. I think it's just going to make things more efficient. I don't think you're going to see all these people getting laid off and all this. They're just going to be able to do better and--
[00:57:13.28] NIJI SABHARWAL: Do more.
[00:57:14.14] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, do more, which I think is pretty exciting. I don't think it's scary at all. It doesn't scare me. And I'm in the middle of it. We're legitimately building this stuff. And so it's--
[00:57:23.87] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's really exciting.
[00:57:24.79] REID HOLZWORTH: It's exciting. It is exciting. I think so too. Any advice you have for entrepreneurs coming into the insurance industry? This is a good one. So there's lots like yourself. You were insurance a bit. You did your stint. But people coming into this world and to build insurance technology, any advice for them?
[00:57:47.12] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, man. OK, so I would say-- I mean, the biggest thing is the opportunity is huge. As I mentioned, there's so many problems to solve. And there's so many gaps when it comes to using technology to make an insurance company more efficient or make a broker more efficient.
[00:58:05.33] And there are very few people working on these problems. Very few. It's like our biggest challenge has been-- my biggest challenge personally is not to get distracted by all the shiny objects, the things that I'm like oh, that problem looks awesome to go tackle. That looks really fun. We could provide a ton of value, but it's not within the scope of our North Star, which is to connect distributors with products to sell. And so getting distracted by those things is something you have to really stay focused in order to actually do the things that matter the most and not get too distracted by things on the fringes.
[00:58:38.85] So I'd say just the amount of opportunity here is massive. But if you're not tied to or you work for a company, they've got a lot of trouble over this or work for a company where you experience this pain personally, it's kind of hard to approach. It's been a really interesting as we recruit people. Most folks we recruit are not actually from the industry. And we're training them up. But incredibly important to have that balance.
[00:59:09.33] But bringing folks in, it's very obvious like the-- actually, the process of selling insurance and manufacturing insurance, underwriting and claims and everything that goes in the value chain is very foreign to most people. So that's the biggest piece of advice is make sure you either start the company with somebody who has that experience or from the industry. Or you have the initial team. The first 10 people have the majority of them from the industry with a ton of experience.
[00:59:40.71] This happens a lot in tech, where tech companies like to build things that they understand and works for them. That's not always what the industry needs or our customer the end users need. They need something that works for them. And so understanding that it's actually very-- it takes a while to figure that out.
[00:59:59.86] REID HOLZWORTH: It's really good advice. I hear this all the time, like hey, you got to have insurance. But I think it makes sense. You don't have to yourself. Hire the team or have some really great mentors and people around you that can get you plugged in to the right humans that will really help you, but the right people.
[01:00:17.19] NIJI SABHARWAL: Exactly.
[01:00:17.31] REID HOLZWORTH: You got to really have your people, the ones that you're going to battle with that really know this industry. They don't have to have all the relationships. I think it's just that general knowledge around it. And then I would say-- and I always say this like, don't ever, ever, ever burn a bridge with your competitors in this world.
[01:00:35.26] It just doesn't-- just don't. It just no. it's too small of an industry. You're going to see each other again in an event. Just causes bad blood. Be friends with everyone. And it will work out for you in the end. Trust me. Don't get up on stage talking shit about other people in that way. It's too small. Because guess what?
[01:00:55.06] NIJI SABHARWAL: It doesn't accomplish anything.
[01:00:56.54] REID HOLZWORTH: [INAUDIBLE] It's by the business. I mean, there's a lot of that. And so I think that-- yeah, stay away from that kind of stuff, which you guys have, obviously, done. So that's--
[01:01:08.49] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, we try to.
[01:01:09.53] [LAUGHTER]
[01:01:10.76] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, I'm going to get a couple more leadership questions. Then we're going to wrap this up. All right. What does a leader mean to you?
[01:01:17.75] NIJI SABHARWAL: So I'd say a good leader that I aspire to be, at least, is someone who really sets a clear vision and path, like how we're going to navigate the next few hurdles or years, and just be really good at removing anything that's in their way. Everyone's around you. I mean, surround yourself with really great people. But the better you can remove roadblocks and let people run, the better the company and the business is going to do.
[01:01:51.29] And I think that holds true for any-- whether you're managing two people or 1,000 people, I think that-- in my mind, that's what a really good leader does.
[01:02:01.66] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, removes the barriers, lets them run. Just get after it. Just gives them everything they need to support that in that way. I totally see it. Do you consider yourself a leader?
[01:02:14.21] NIJI SABHARWAL: I think I'm getting there. I consider myself probably more of a problem solver, but realizing that the first 20 to 50 people, when you're starting a company is-- you need problem solvers and just doers who roll their sleeves and just get things done and really getting the details. As the company gets bigger, like 200 people now, that doesn't work. You need to, not really scale yourself, but scale the business and all the leaders you've hired and just try your best to remove roadblocks and setting that clear vision without being overly prescriptive about exactly what to do.
[01:02:55.79] Because at the end of the day, every leader, every department head we have is way better at their job than I am. And that might not be true for 10 people. But once you get to 200, if that's not true, you have problems. And so I've been really working on trying to unblock them and not really rip their heads off, where I might not have all the facts or just being very, I guess, diplomatic with how you're evaluating problems.
[01:03:32.04] Not everything is a very fast solution. There's usually a ton of context you're missing. And so I think it's-- probably for most founders who haven't really managed 200-people teams, that's a challenge for a lot of us.
[01:03:47.62] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah. No doubt. I've said this before. But for me, I do definitely consider myself a leader at this point. But for a long time in my career, I didn't. I didn't really think about it. It just kind of did. But you are leading people. You are changing people's lives. You're doing a lot.
[01:04:05.12] And so it's an interesting question. It's kind of like-- I don't know. I'd say 50-50, people. And then everybody that's on this podcast is technically a leader. But it's like how you feel about yourself and how you show up in that way. And it's very humble when people are like, I'm getting there kind of thing. That's pretty cool.
[01:04:27.00] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's hard. It's really hard.
[01:04:28.51] REID HOLZWORTH: [LAUGHS] All right. How do you define success? What does success mean to you personally? I guess personally.
[01:04:36.74] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, personally. I would say figuring out how to solve something that's really hard and complicated and tackle-- just basically leaning into the hurt and tackling something very painful. Getting to the other end, but also doing it in a way that you feel good about, that you wake up every day being still very excited about it, that can be challenging sometimes.
[01:05:05.71] And so figuring out how to-- because at the end of the day, everyone's companies trying to do the same things together. And there might be friction on how you do it. But at the end of the day, you're spending so much time working on that problem. I've been doing this for over six years now and just maniacally focused on this. It's kind of like a narrow part of the value chain overall. And you have to love that complexity and also feel really good about, not just the outcome, but the time you spent working on that problem. So for me, that's what it means for me.
[01:05:42.41] REID HOLZWORTH: I love what you said on leaning into the hurt. That's good. That's really good. I'm going to steal that, for sure.
[01:05:48.78] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's usually more hurt than anything else, especially the first couple of years.
[01:05:53.00] [LAUGHTER]
[01:05:56.14] REID HOLZWORTH: All right. Few last questions, and then we're done. Aside from family-- and I say family because we all have family. We all have kids. I mean, you do. I do. Most people-- what do you do for fun?
[01:06:10.31] NIJI SABHARWAL: I think traveling is probably my favorite thing. Easily my favorite thing to do. It's a lot more challenging once you have a kid. It's also like-- I love going to remote places or places that people consider dangerous, I guess. And it's a lot harder to do that with a kid. You just feel-- even though places are probably not that dangerous, there's just a different element.
[01:06:36.30] And so traveling is a big one. We live in Colorado now. So a lot of outdoor stuff, dirt biking, snowmobiling, mountain biking, snowboarding.
[01:06:47.83] REID HOLZWORTH: All the fun... All the fun things. All the things.
[01:06:50.12] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:06:52.13] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome, man. If you had unlimited time, what would you do?
[01:06:57.45] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, easy. I'd start a restaurant.
[01:06:58.83] REID HOLZWORTH: Really? No kidding?
[01:07:00.77] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah.
[01:07:01.12] REID HOLZWORTH: Huh. What kind?
[01:07:02.26] NIJI SABHARWAL: I love to cook.
[01:07:03.17] REID HOLZWORTH: What would you-- what kind of food?
[01:07:04.56] NIJI SABHARWAL: Probably brunch.
[01:07:05.69] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, yeah?
[01:07:06.74] NIJI SABHARWAL: Brunch is my favorite. Yeah, I want to run that kind of restaurant where I'm not trying to make money. Actually, purposely losing money so that I can not get too stressed out and control variables. If I don't feel like waking up and opening one day, just don't open.
[01:07:21.14] [LAUGHTER]
[01:07:23.39] That's my dream, at least.
[01:07:24.45] REID HOLZWORTH: There's a famous bar here in Milwaukee. And it's called At Random. And it's super-- it's like, dude, it's so cool. It's time to come up here. I'll take you there. It's awesome. So it's like-- you go in there. And it's like, it's a throwback. Because it is what it is from the '60s. You'd have to go. Shag carpet, the whole night. Super cool.
[01:07:46.77] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
[01:07:48.20] REID HOLZWORTH: The owners are just like that. They're like, yeah, we don't care. If it's open, it's open. It's got 10, right? When we want to work, it's open. So I go too many times, dude, it's not open. When you go, though, it's fun. It's packed.
[01:08:00.72] [LAUGHTER]
[01:08:02.24] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah. Yeah, I want to be-- I want to be those guys.
[01:08:05.82] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, last question. What is your drink of choice?
[01:08:10.20] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, nonalcoholic, I'd say cappuccino easily. Oat milk cappuccino. When my wife was pregnant, we switched to oat milk, which I hated at the time. Now I absolutely love it. And then alcoholic drink, let's see. Vesper easily.
[01:08:29.15] REID HOLZWORTH: What the heck is that?
[01:08:31.26] NIJI SABHARWAL: It's like a martini, but it's two parts gin, one part vodka.
[01:08:36.24] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, really? Oh, interesting.
[01:08:38.05] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, it's really, really good with a little Lillet and just a--
[01:08:41.64] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
[01:08:43.44] NIJI SABHARWAL: Lillet, it's the French-- I don't even know how to describe it. It's like a-- put it in my-- yeah, it's like a-- shit.
[01:08:51.33] REID HOLZWORTH: Like a vermouth.
[01:08:51.97] NIJI SABHARWAL: How would you describe that? Kind of. But it's not bitter. It's just like a little bit-- it's a little bitter. But you just put a little splash in there.
[01:08:59.29] REID HOLZWORTH: Oh, I gotcha. OK, well, that's awesome, man. Well--
[01:09:02.09] NIJI SABHARWAL: That or martini.
[01:09:03.07] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah. No, totally. I get it. That's the really sophisticated version of the martini. Yeah. [LAUGHS] No, it's awesome.
[01:09:12.54] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, it's really good. Yeah, that's my favorite drink by far.
[01:09:15.32] REID HOLZWORTH: That's awesome.
[01:09:15.87] NIJI SABHARWAL: It doesn't have any of the other distractions in it.
[01:09:20.02] REID HOLZWORTH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm big martini guy, dirty martini. I like gin, legit martini. I'll drink vodka. I mean, I'll drink whatever. But yeah, I'm with you on that. Well, hey, dude, that's it, man. That's all I got for you. This is fun, Niji. It was good catching up, man. And congrats on all the success. And yeah, dude, thanks for taking the time to do this, for real.
[01:09:42.95] NIJI SABHARWAL: Oh, of course. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is a ton of fun.
[01:09:46.02] REID HOLZWORTH: All right, dude, well, until next time. I appreciate you, man. I will see you around, for sure. Next time, for the listeners, you see Niji out there, buy him one of those Vespers. Or if they don't do that, you're in my neck of the woods in Milwaukee. Get them a martini. Well, maybe just a beer or no. They might not even do that where I live.
[01:10:06.07] [LAUGHTER]
[01:10:08.76] But no, seriously, man, I really appreciate you. And congrats, again, on all the success. This has been fun.
[01:10:15.50] NIJI SABHARWAL: Yeah, thanks, I appreciate it.
[01:10:17.62] REID HOLZWORTH: See you, man.