Dave: Hey everyone, Dave here with another episode of the Philly Tech Connect podcast for Philly Tech entrepreneurs. I’m here today with Garrett Love. Garrett went to school for advertising, but he now works full-time as a software engineer at a startup. But his dream, for as long as he can remember, has been to be an entrepreneur, which is why he started Lifer, an app that is currently in development. It’s in the early stages, working on developing your product-market fit. It’s a community-based app for helping individuals connect and form deeper relationships. But Garrett will tell us obviously more about it and what he’s got in mind. Garrett, how are you doing today, man?
Garrett: I’m doing great, how are you?
Dave: I’m doing well. Thanks for being on the show. I appreciate everything you’ve been doing in the community and being one of the first startups to kind of pitch at a recent event. You went to school for advertising, now you’re doing software engineering. Tell us a little bit about that switch, like switching discipline and learning new skills, and finding work. I’m curious how that panned out.
Garrett: Yeah, I don’t know if I’d really call it a switch because I never actually worked in advertising. So, my last year of college, short version, last year of college, I was working on this business idea, didn’t know how to code, so I was using WordPress. I ran into an issue with a contractor where they canceled the contract on me midway through, and I was kind of stuck. I really needed what they were working on, and since I didn’t know how to code, it really frustrated me that I was so dependent on someone else’s skill set, which was an amazing skill set, obviously. And so, I taught myself how to code, and then when it came time to look for jobs, I kind of, you know, of course, applied to the marketing, advertising jobs, and I also figured, why not, I’ll just apply to the coding jobs. And you know, when you’re graduating college, you just need a job, so you’re going to take whatever comes your way first. And as luck would have it, I was given or offered a coding job first.
Dave: That’s awesome, man. Congrats. I’ve known people to be interested, obviously, in making a career switch into coding. They’ve gone through boot camps and things like that. It sounds like you’re pretty self-taught, and then you know, you kind of put yourself out there and found an opportunity. But was it difficult because, honestly, I understand probably the first job’s kind of entry-level job, you know, but nevertheless, if you don’t necessarily have a lot of experience, you’re relatively new to the field, you’re self-taught, was there a lot of rejections? What was it like?
Garrett: So, I definitely used recruiters and I definitely had some rejections. I remember going to interviews and just kind of being stumped on some of these problems because I didn’t have those courses that taught me how to think about algorithms or things like that, that are really important in the coding world. And I actually took like a few of the online education courses, like on Udemy, that’s how I learned, and that was all the education I had. I ended up just finding a company that, for whatever reason, enjoyed hiring entry-level people and giving them a shot and teaching them. I don’t know, just luck or fate, or just all around fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, I guess. But really, up to that company, they really did me a solid there.
Dave: That’s awesome, man. I’m glad to hear that. Many years ago, like 15 years ago, I went to Lake Tahoe with a group of some guys, and they invited some other friends, and like the founder of Udemy was there. But like at the time, I was like, “Hey, what are you working on?” He’s like, “Ah, it’s like this online education platform or whatever called Udemy.” And I was like, “Cool.” And now, like, it’s very well known. He’s very wealthy. That story, that story is terrible. But no, it’s a great story. Do you still talk to that person?
Garrett: I do not. Yeah, it was more he was a friend of a friend, so it wasn’t someone I knew personally. And he was out west; I live out east. And everything, but it’s just one of those things where it’s kind of like, it’s like I knew him before, you know, his thing was big, or whatever. At least I met him before his thing was big. It’s cool that you know it adds some value in your life like that. In any case, jobs aside, you said for as long as you can remember, you’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it sounds like you’ve kind of also experimented with some different business ventures. Tell me about, you know, this early interest, passion, whatever it may be, in being an entrepreneur. Where does it come from?
Garrett: I have no idea, just kind of was there ever since I can remember, maybe like first or second grade. Didn’t know what the word entrepreneur was, didn’t like, never heard of it, but kind of knew that I wanted to start my own thing in some capacity. And I think, you know, when I got to college, probably is when I really got the opportunity to try doing things. So I started, or at least tried to start like a number of things while I was in college. Like, for example, that thing I was telling you about that led me to learning how to code. And ultimately, you know, here we are now. It’s, I don’t know that I’ll ever leave that dream in the past.
Dave: Yeah, that’s awesome. Congrats on, you know, making the effort, trying to find the ways to create your own things. Obviously, have a lot of respect for that. So now you’re working on an app called Lifer. You know, I did as good of a job as I can to kind of explain it in short, but why don’t you tell us what you have in mind here?
Garrett: So, you kind of mentioned this, right, trying to find product-market fit, and so to that end, there is still some open-endedness, if you will, in what it ultimately will become. But I think, you know, there is, as I mentioned in my pitch a few weeks ago, like there’s a loneliness epidemic. The Surgeon General sees it, and that is just, it’s insane to me that we live in a world where everyone is so connected, and you can meet people with the snap of your fingers through this technology or whatever, and yet people somehow, for some reason, are still more lonely than ever and in more quantities than ever. And so, I think that’s really the goal, is to kind of solve that loneliness epidemic because despite all these different apps and pieces of technology coming out, the problem still seems to be there. And I think that the way to do that, or one of the ways to do that, is through helping people to build community. And that means different things to different people. But in any case, no matter what that means to you, I want to be able to provide, you know, you, the user, or you, a group organizer, like we’ve talked about working together with PTE and stuff, right? And so, you know, I want to be able to provide the tools to be able to build community for people in whatever way they see fit. That’s kind of the goal.
Dave: Yeah, I love the concept, and I feel like that’s kind of where we’re at, where we’re at, you know, in sort of this concept stage. We’ve definitely talked about it with Philly Tech entrepreneurs. You mentioned the loneliness epidemic, referencing the Surgeon General. I’ve heard that as well, that loneliness is equated to almost like smoking cigarettes or something, or worse. It’s one of those very unhealthy, it’s one of the leading causes of, I don’t know, unhealthiness in later years, you know, if you don’t have a sense of community. It’s an important problem to be approaching. You know, where are you, how are you kind of going about identifying the direction for this product, to kind of know where to take it?
Garrett: Well, I think in any case, when you want to start a business, you hopefully want to start that business for the people that you’re trying to serve. And so, you know, be that the general population, be that group organizers such as yourself, be that, you know, high-level executives in some capacity that maybe you come to later on, or hobbyists, or whatever the case is. You know, I think you go about it by talking to people, by listening to people, and seeing where their frustrations lie. Because I can have all the opinions that I want in the world, but they’re pretty meaningless if they don’t resonate with anybody. And so, that’s kind of been my goal and my path forward thus far, has been talking to as many group organizers as possible. Because I think I actually already launched the app. Like, the app is on the app store right now for both iOS and Android. And I had this go-to-market strategy that didn’t exactly go the way that I thought it would, and so, which you know, it’s very normal, and kind of circled back, thinking about different ways to approach the problem. And I thought maybe existing groups, group organizers, would be a good way to kind of touch in with people. And so, that has really been my go-to-market strategy 2.0, if you want to think of it that way. So yeah, just talking to people and listening to their problems, right? Like, we, we kind of talked about, well, not kind of, we very much so did talk about that. Like, we had a couple meetings talking about that, right? And there are some other groups that I’ve been talking to as well. And so, hopefully, that, you know, makes something useful. The next step.
Dave: Yeah, for sure, customer development. It’s what it’s really all about. But obviously, it’s important to kind of hone in on that customer persona, right? Because my needs as a husband and wife looking for another couple to play game night with or something is different than me as a group organizer trying to make sure that people are finding each other sort of relevant connections at events, in-person events that we do. So, you know, the needs are there, but he sort of making sure that it’s directed at a profile that they have enough overlapping and common needs to invest in the app. Yeah, I’m excited obviously about talking more about it offline as well and introducing it to PTE in the upcoming 2024 year. We’re looking at ways in which we can kind of level up the community. I think that this, you know, this could be a good one to get started with. For people that want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more about Lifer, what you’re working on, how should they do that?
Garrett: Well, you can email me, Garrett@lifer.a. That’s always an option. I’m also in the Slack for PTE, so message me. I’m there every day.
Dave: Awesome. Love it, man. And you know, just lastly, I assume you are kind of, as you work a full-time job, you know, and you’re also working on developing this product, and maybe who knows, maybe other things as well. How do you go about balancing the work-work balance? You know, I won’t say work-life balance, the work-work balance.
Garrett: That’s a good one. That is a great question. I want to give like a profound answer that sticks in people’s heads or helps people or something. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself; it could just be, you know, just do it, quote Nike or something. Isn’t that always the case, just do it? Pretty muching, yeah, it’s like drugs or something. Yeah. In my case, like, I’ve noticed one, like your reason why is really important. You should start with why you’re doing something, and if you’re doing it because you want to make money or because you want the clout, social recognition, it’s going to require a lot of willpower for you to do the thing that you’re thinking that you want to do, and willpower is finite. But if your why is because you want to, as Steve Jobs put it, I believe he said, “make a dent in the universe,” you know, it’s going to be a lot easier for you. And I think for me, like, working my 9 to 5 is great. I really love the people that I work with. I believe in the mission of the company. I enjoy the company as a whole. It’s just a great experience. But being an entrepreneur for me is very fulfilling in so many different ways because you have to wear so many different hats that, you know, it makes it easy for me to tack on an extra 40 hours of work for my app, right? Like, it doesn’t feel like work to me; it feels like play, you know. Actually, can I give you a book recommendation to everyone?
Dave: Yeah, hit me. I gotta look this up, so give me a second while you look it up. I’m just gonna say some things, as it is for my role here. But the, you know, the why part is great, well said. You know, we have different levels of motivation, different reasons for motivation. Money is a common motivator, and it has reasonable power for sure. But wanting to make a dent in the universe, wanting to have an impact, I think there’s kind of a hierarchy of motivations. And if you can really tap into that highest level of wanting to add value to a community, have an impact on society, things like that, it’s going to make the process a lot easier. So that being said, the book recommendation, I’ve never had one of those, so this would be great. I mean, you know, on this podcast.
Garrett: For sure. And actually, you know, to your point about the money, I mean, look, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to make money, right? Like, there’s nothing wrong with it, with ourselves. But okay, the book recommendation, I don’t remember who recommended this to me, but it’s, I’m gonna get this name so wrong, so I apologize, but I’ll spell it out. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. And he’s the one who said, like, it’s like this book is like, I don’t know, just like all this dude’s sayings and tweets and stuff like that in anecdotal stories, and it’s really interesting. But he’s the one that kind of put in perspective for me, like, find the thing that feels like play for you and go 100% because you’re going to be able to outwork everybody else in that space because if it feels like work for them but play for you, they’re going to give up at some point, but you’re just going to love it.
Dave: Nice. Awesome, man. I appreciate that’s the first time I’ve heard that book recommendation, but it sounds like it’s had an impact on you. I hope it has an impact on anyone else willing to give it a chance. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Garrett: Yeah, no problem.