Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today on the show, we're raising a glass to something you might very much want to split, but can't: co-parenting.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. And I'm here with my good friend, as always, Pete Wright. Today on the show, we're talking about co-parenting with Michael Daniels, founder and CEO of Fayr, Family Advocacy is Your Responsibly. It's an app dedicated to making the experience of co-parenting better through communications, argument diffusion, and emotional support. Michael, welcome to the Toaster.
Michael Daniels:
Hey, guys. Thanks very much for having me.
Pete Wright:
It's great to have you, man. It seems like this has been a long and important road for you, getting this app out the door. Can you tell us a little bit about your story? What got you into thinking, "You know what? I think I'm a guy who needs to make a co-parenting app"?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. That's crazy, right? Well, a couple things. Seth would definitely be able to speak to this, in all of his years of experience, but I didn't know anything about the legal world. Obviously, when I'm getting a divorce, that whole process, the whole arduous process of staying documented was a really, really challenging task for me. And I'm kind of a detailed guy. My background's in home designing and building, project management for them... for one of the largest companies in the world, actually. And I got to tell you-
Pete Wright:
So, wait. You weren't in tech. You weren't...
Michael Daniels:
No. Not at all. No. I worked for... So, I used to design and build high-end luxury homes. But I got my start working for Lennar Corporation. Lennar's the largest homebuilder in America by far.
Seth Nelson:
I'm just picturing it now, Michael like, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" "I want to do building design, or create a co-parenting app, Mom and Dad. It's just, I'm struggling."
Pete Wright:
[crosstalk 00:02:11]. Yeah. Me too.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. It's an easy segue, one to the other. No. It's just that, look, the homebuilding world went to hell in 2008. I found myself divorced. And, of course, I was starting a new company, so didn't have a job at the time, and trying to get things rolling.
Michael Daniels:
And I got to tell you, you think the process comes to an end at settlement, but it doesn't. It just goes on and on. And you'll find yourself back for more motions, and spending more money. And you're constantly living in this anxious state of mind, that you're documenting all the time.
Michael Daniels:
And then you just show up to your motion and they'll say, "Oh, he made all of that up." And the truth is, is you could make all that stuff up. And so, I wanted to create something that was going to work really well for me and my co-parent, and help us to communicate constructively really just to mitigate those misunderstandings and disagreements from escalating unnecessarily.
Seth Nelson:
So, when you say you show up and you write a motion and you're... I'm just going to put a little meat on that. But what I heard you say in my lawyer brain is you are trying to sign up your child for extracurricular activities and you've sent email or text message, "Hey, I think she'll like horseback riding." "I think he'll like lacrosse, or soccer," or whatever. You get no response. You sign the kid up. And then they file a motion that says, "Oh, he's unilaterally signing the children up for extracurriculars." And you show up to court and you say, "No, I reached out to her. I sent emails. I sent texts." And you're trying to go through your old text messages or find your old emails. And then the judge is like, "Well, I don't really know what happened when, and what's best." Is that what you're kind of describing?
Michael Daniels:
That. Expenses. Expenses are a really good one because, as you know, people are really good about keeping a mental inventory of their own contributions, but they suddenly want to acknowledge contributions made by the other person, and people don't keep a good account of this, keeping all the paper trail, all the receipts, unless you're keeping a good spreadsheet. And even then, you have people, you have co-parents who won't agree on certain expenses like, "I didn't say buy $200 Nikes. Go buy them $25 shoes at Costco." You have people arguing about that sort of thing. And then-
Seth Nelson:
So, this is when you're already divorced, or maybe you're going through the process, and you're responsible for either half of an expense or a percentage of the expense. If it's an uncovered medical expense, and it's a $100 copay, you're supposed to, "Hey, pay your 50%." Or you pay the $100, and you ask her for the $50, and you never get it, or you got to track it and you don't want to forget it. Is that kind of the problem you're trying to solve?
Michael Daniels:
That's exactly right. There's a lot of animosity, resentment that's being built up. And you almost can't even put a pin on it. You just know in your mind that, "Hey, I've been getting screwed here." And there's no clear audit trail because it's very difficult to keep. Look, most parents are not necessarily bad parents; they're bad documenters. And so, Fayr just makes it really easy to document in real time, as life is happening, so you could just log it, track it, and forget it.
Pete Wright:
Seth, how useful is this for you, as an attorney?
Seth Nelson:
Brilliant. Love it. Everyone should sign up for it. Not just people that don't get along. I'm not just talking about everyone who's having problems. What Michael's describing are parents who are now not living in the same house, having to manage co-parenting a child or children. I think this should be used by almost everybody. This is not just for people who don't get along. You can get along well. It's just how you decide to communicate all the important issues about your kids in one place to make it easier for you.
Pete Wright:
I got to tell you, I'm reading this. I mean, it's written on the tin that the app is designed for helping co-parenting and communicating and solving problems. And I'm married. Happily married, with two kids. I could have used this when my kids were younger. This is co-parenting. This is an amazing tool for documenting our own married lives. I find myself in a weird space of being a little bit jealous.
Michael Daniels:
No. I got to tell you, I think it's true. I think a lot of people... I mean, we live in a world now of two separate household incomes, two separate bank accounts. It really does help when you are... especially the expense feature, for example. I mean, when you have two incomes, mom and dad here, and one income's going to knocking out a payment on a Harley. And it starts to build resentment because finances are the number-one reason... actually, you could tell me that, Seth. Is finances still the number-one reason that people split up?
Seth Nelson:
It's in the top three, in my mind. It always starts with communication. And communication about finances and sex are two big ones.
Pete Wright:
How does your app help with the last one? Oh, wait. No. That's a different show.
Michael Daniels:
We're getting there, man. I don't want to give all my secrets, all right? [inaudible 00:07:10] that one out next.
Seth Nelson:
That's the post-divorce show we're going to have later.
Michael Daniels:
No. Actually, believe it or not, guys, I have plans to... We're going to be building a platform. It's going to be called Be Fayr Family. It's actually, it's already in production, but it's called Be Fayr Family. So, it's more all encompassing. And so, people are part of this community, Be Fayr Families, you can actually reconnect with people. Let's say you've got a kid with autism or ADHD or whatever, and you want to join this community of people who are members of BFF. Well, you can actually reconnect. We'll have Co-parent Connect. Because I got to tell you, how many times as a single parent, you'll be on Bumble, and then you tell somebody, "Yeah. Divorced. Two kids." And you get a response like, "Yikes." That's the kind of stuff you get. Well, but if you're in the BFF Community, you're already with like-minded people. And so, yeah. We're getting there. We're-
Pete Wright:
That's amazing.
Seth Nelson:
Pete clapped his chest, like that was so sad.
Pete Wright:
No, come on. Yikes?
Seth Nelson:
That happens all the time.
Pete Wright:
That is sad. That breaks my heart. That's...
Seth Nelson:
It's true, man. It's what happens. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Look at you. Seth Nelson, you hard and calloused man.
Seth Nelson:
I'm a hopeless romantic at the end of all this. I will tell you, it's pathetic how hopeless romantic I am.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. But back to this app. Just describe how it actually works for people. If they're at the doctor with a sick kid and they just swiped the credit card for a $100 copay... and I'm just using 100 to make it easy. Hopefully, it's $10. And they swipe it. How does that actually work? What do they do? Why does this app help them?
Michael Daniels:
Okay. So, you swipe it. And this is exactly what I do. In fact, did it last night. As a matter of fact, my daughter just fractured her foot.
Pete Wright:
Ugh.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. It sucks. I was in the ER late last night.
Pete Wright:
That's lousy.
Michael Daniels:
So, you get the paperwork. You bring out the receipt. Normally, whatever, that's going to be a full sheet. And you just pull up the app. It has a category. How much did you spend? What was the expense? And you have to categorize it. It has to meet one of these classifications. And it's either a medical, uncovered medical, dental, vision, extracurricular, school. As long as it meets one of those categories, it can be logged.
Michael Daniels:
What we don't want are the voluntary expenses. So, they don't have a classification within there. The things that the court wouldn't require you to share expenses on.
Pete Wright:
Well, like what?
Seth Nelson:
Extra money on a birthday party.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. What is that? It's like too much Burger King.
Seth Nelson:
Extra money on a birthday.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. I mean, "I got a limousine for my kids to get picked up."
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Michael Daniels:
"You owe me that." There's certain voluntary expenses versus involuntary expenses. I don't know if that's the right legal jargon, but...
Seth Nelson:
No. The concept there... and it's different in all jurisdictions. They all have different ways of dividing up these expenses. The general concept and, Pete, you already? Check your local jurisdiction.
Pete Wright:
I just marked it on my bingo card.
Seth Nelson:
Is that what you need to do is know which one are court orders, and what falls under child support, and what doesn't, and what are extracurriculars or stuff that you're going to be reimbursing back and forth to each other. Because what Michael is not laying out there is a miscellaneous category.
Michael Daniels:
Let's see. I have childcare, dental, medical, extracurricular, personal. That could be extracurricular, I guess. School, vision, and uncovered medical. Those are the six categories.
Seth Nelson:
And those are pretty much encompassing-
Michael Daniels:
Eight categories. Sorry.
Seth Nelson:
Right. That's pretty much what we encompass in Florida. There might be others here and there, depending on your marital settlement agreement and your parenting plan, but that's it.
Seth Nelson:
So, they pick a category. They put in the expense. What happens next?
Michael Daniels:
Okay. Then obviously, you're logging this expense in the phone. And now, you can choose which child it's for. My profile, I've got my two children set up here. So, you can select... Is it both children, as in all, my son, my daughter.
Michael Daniels:
And then I could upload up to three photos. So, generally, I'll upload the receipt. I'll upload, "Here's the sneakers." And, "Here are the sneakers on him."
Michael Daniels:
And then once I've done those, I could leave some notes there too, "Had to get him new sneakers. He tore the other ones up," or, "We need cleats for soccer," or whatever. I leave the notes. I hit save. And [inaudible 00:11:27]. I can throw away that receipt now. I don't have to keep the paperwork.
Michael Daniels:
And if I ever need this two years from now, I could just go to export. I want to export a full report. And I can say I want all my messages, I want my expenses, my co-parenting calendar, my private notes, my geo check-ins, which we can get into later. And then, boom. I hit that. And I have everything in a court-ready format.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. But you hit that to start because you moved on. You're ahead of where I am.
Michael Daniels:
I'm too far. All right.
Seth Nelson:
... which is all great. But you take the picture. Let's use cleats for soccer because that would be an extracurricular, as opposed to just new shoes. So, you hit cleats for soccer. $100. You take the pictures. You send them over. And mom gets a notification?
Michael Daniels:
Yes. Mom gets an instant push notification that you've logged an expense. She's invited to go check it out. So, it'll go straight to her push notifications in her phone, if she's activated that. She can turn that off, obviously.
Seth Nelson:
Now, she's like, "Yup, I'm good with the expense." She owes you $50. How does that happen?
Michael Daniels:
Okay. So, now, it's logged. And in Fayr's expense feature, you can go to your all expenses. And there's a pie chart that'll show the exact percentage, "I'm at 48.7," and whatever. You can see it in real time shifting. Every time you log an expense, the pie chart will be shifting.
Michael Daniels:
And so, I just encourage people to say, rather than getting in the tit for tat, "Send me five bucks. Send me this. Send me that." If you just kind of hover around your 50% or 25, 75, just hover there, it actually reduces conflict. Because when you get into this whole thing of, "Go Venmo me," or, "Do this." I don't have the... and I'm not doing it yet because of the licensing expenses of having to... that you got to pay in order to basically have Venmo as an API [crosstalk 00:13:10].
Seth Nelson:
And you're trying to keep this to be cost-effective to deal with parents, right?
Michael Daniels:
Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
Some parenting percentages, Pete, will be 50/50. Some might be 60/40. Mom pays 60%; Dad pays 40%. Some might be Dad pays 75%; Mom pays 25%.
Seth Nelson:
What Michael's advocating to his clients is if Dad pays... I'm going to use a 60/40. Mom pays an expense of $100. That's the first expense in. She's responsible for $60; Dad's responsible for 40. It's a $100.Right now, that's all on Mom's side. She paid the $100. But then dad turns around, and he pays another $100 bill for signing up for soccer or private soccer lessons.
Seth Nelson:
Now, if you look at it, they've each spent $100. It's 50/50. But if mom spends just a little bit more, it will end up being a 60/40 percentage. You follow me on that math-
Pete Wright:
Right. Right. Right.
Seth Nelson:
... Pete?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
So, he's saying, "Look, as long as... " whatever your percentage is supposed to be, 50/50, 75/25, 60/40. As long as... it will do the math for you and keep you hovering around that number, you're pretty good. As opposed to saying, "I just spent $100. Venmo me the $40."
Pete Wright:
Right. Right. That seems to make sense. Right. You've documented the individual expenses for whatever purpose, taxes, court down the road, whatever you need, but you don't have to watch them. Am I saying that right? So, if you just watch the graph-
Seth Nelson:
It does the math.
Pete Wright:
It does the math. You watch the graph. You resolve problems and confusion that haven't even happened yet.
Michael Daniels:
Well, you can set it up also to say, "We're going to settle up once a month, once a quarter." I mean, rather than getting in this tit for tat every single day, because it's just a point of conflict, when you're constantly like-
Pete Wright:
And so, "Here's a number month at the end of the month that you need to just- "
Michael Daniels:
"Here's the number. We're floating around here. And you owe me this." And you can log, "Hey, I just paid you that. We're square."
Seth Nelson:
So, Michael's point there on when you square up is really important because if you're not using this type of app, what is in a lot of parenting plans and settlement agreements, is language that says, "I'm the dad. I have to submit a expense to Mom. I have 30 days from the date of the expense to submit it. If not, I waive it."
Seth Nelson:
Because you don't want a parent forwarding all the expenses and then filing it in October so, all of a sudden, the other side owes them $3,000 and gets it paid in November. And now, you have no money to pay for Christmas gifts because you just had to pay your ex $3,000.
Pete Wright:
And that $3,000 represents expenses for the last eight months-
Seth Nelson:
Year.
Pete Wright:
... nine months, whatever. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. It could be. So, in arguments, it's got to be timely, or you waive it.
Seth Nelson:
Now, the flip side is then that person has to pay it timely. So, what Michael's advocating, which I'm not opposed to, I just want it to match the agreement, where he's saying, "Look, we're going to square up quarterly, but we're going to use this app," or, "We'll square up if the percentage gets greater than 10%, 50%, 30% out of whack." There's different ways to do it, but Michael's point is well-taken. If you're not doing $5 and $10 every single time, it reduces conflict. And that's what this app helps us do. Did I get that right, Michael?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. You really did. You hit it very well here. I've just found that when you can... I mean, everybody's had a roommate, right? Well, look, you're living in a really rough world when you're communicating through your passive-aggressive post-it notes on the refrigerator, and you're holding all this animosity because I just bought paper towels. And it's like all that tiny, little settling-up really becomes a point of contention and especially with a co-parent. This is somebody you've already had a lot of conflict with, so it's even more so.
Michael Daniels:
And I even have it really easy. So, within that pie chart, you can say, "I want to see any particular month since inception, year to date." It's set up to access it and view it from any sort of monthly, quarterly, whatever you want to do, so you can settle up.
Michael Daniels:
Honestly, I like just logging everything right away. It's there. I don't have to worry about, "Oh, where did I put that receipt? Was it in my wallet? Did I just stuff it in my glove box?" You don't worry about losing receipts.
Pete Wright:
That really speaks to a lot of what the app seems to do, which is reduce friction in sort of data entry in and around managing the co-parenting unit. You've also got some geotagging built in, check-ins for I assume drop-offs and things like that. Makes things easier.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. So, I want to make it clear. People have a misconception of this. It's not a geo tracker. I'm not able to track my co-parent. Some people are like... I remember one person actually canceled their account because they were like, "Because your geo check-in isn't a... " "Your geo tracker," she called it, "Isn't a tracker." She's like, "I want to know where the hell he is."
Pete Wright:
But you don't actually say it's a geo tracker.
Michael Daniels:
No, I don't. I call it... it's a geo check-in.
Pete Wright:
It's a made-up word.
Michael Daniels:
It's a made... yeah. I don't know. People see what they want. I think-
Seth Nelson:
I make up words all the time in court. I'm good with that.
Pete Wright:
I know.
Michael Daniels:
So, this is the reason I created it because I actually used the legacy brand that was out there. This is OurFamilyWizard. I had used them. And they didn't have this feature. And a lot of their features, I just kind of read hundreds of their reviews and wanted just to improve upon what they had.
Michael Daniels:
But I got tell you. So, there was this day I had a time-sharing schedule. We were in the middle of another motion, and so we had this temporary order that was in place that I was supposed to deliver the children 43 miles away from me, down in Miami, within a two-hour window. So, I drive all the way down there. I'm sitting there in front of the house, knocking on the door. Nobody's answering. Sending messages, phone calls. No response. And after 30 minutes of sitting there, I'm like, "I don't know what to think," so I just turned around and I head 43 miles back home. And upon getting home, I get contacted by my attorney who had just been contacted by her attorney, saying that-
Seth Nelson:
Here it is, "Where are you?"
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. "Where are you? You're in violation. Yeah. You're in contempt of court," blah, blah, blah. And I said, "No, I was there. I was out the door. I was waiting there." And they said, "Well," they said, "You're lying." And, of course, this could have completely altered my entire future with my children. These little things, you just don't know how they can-
Seth Nelson:
Man, I just saw the light bulb go on on Pete.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. I got it. I got it.
Michael Daniels:
And I mean, it's really stressful. And so, fortunately, I had taken a toll road, and so I was able to pull my SunPass records and prove that I had exited this toll a mile from her house within that window, so I was really kind of cleared of this particular accusation. But imagine if I had taken any other road. I mean, I would have been totally up Shit Creek. I mean, I would've been in big trouble because then it becomes a he-said-she-said issue in front of a judge. And the material fact is, is that the kids weren't dropped off. And I was likely to lose that.
Michael Daniels:
So, with the geo check-in feature, I can just show up down there. I pull up the app. It's super, super simple. I could drop a pin and, "This is where I am." It's not like Facebook's check-in feature that you could check yourself in at the Eiffel Tower right now like, "This is where you are on the planet."
Seth Nelson:
That's where I am. What's the problem with that?
Pete Wright:
Does it look like the Eiffel Tower right there? Yeah. That's great. That's great.
Seth Nelson:
A little cloudy. You might not see it behind me.
Pete Wright:
I think that's really important because it actually... like you log an expense, you're logging a location with a date and timestamp and sharing it with everybody that needs to be shared with.
Michael Daniels:
That's right. And she would've gotten an instant push notification, just saying, "Hey, Mike just checked in right here." And she could see, "Oh, there he is on the map. He's right in front of my house." There's no way she would've picked up a phone and called a lawyer. I could send it. I could have a timed, dated, and stamped photo as well. "Me, with the kids. Here, I am in front of your house." Done. And it's incontestable. And I would have been totally cleared. And so, even though I was fine that day, I didn't do anything wrong, I still paid $800 in legal fees.
Seth Nelson:
I was about to go there. Imagine the expense you just saved. Exactly the thought going through my head. And, from the lawyer's perspective, Pete, these are the calls we hate to get.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. Why do you want to be messing with this stuff?
Seth Nelson:
Well, it's not that I don't want to help my clients and be there, but here's the conversation that I'm sure Michael had with his lawyer. "Okay, Michael. I believe you, but it's trust and verify. So, let's figure out how we can prove that you were there. Did you take a picture? Did you take a toll road?" And you have to then go get your SunPass records. And you're adding all this up.
Seth Nelson:
And then when I talk to the other lawyer, I say, "I wasn't there. I wasn't driving with Michael. I can't tell you whether he's there or not. I've worked with Michael a long time. I do believe what he says, but I appreciate that you have to believe what your client says. And we're going to have to go prove it in court that he was there because he's the one playing defense on this because he was supposed to be there.
Seth Nelson:
So, one little nugget. I frequently will advise clients that whoever is going to start their timesharing does the driving. So, in Michael's example, he was ending his timesharing, Pete. So, he had to drop the kids off. But if you're starting your timesharing and you want your kids, you're going to go.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. So, in this case, as we armchair-rewrite history, she would have been the one to drive the 43 miles from Miami to come get the kid. You want them? You come get them.
Seth Nelson:
Exactly.
Pete Wright:
Does Michael Corleone write all of your legal agreements because...
Seth Nelson:
I can neither confirm nor deny.
Pete Wright:
All right. I got other things I want to talk about, but I have this one other feature that I want to make sure you talk about-
Michael Daniels:
Oh, the file vault?
Pete Wright:
And I'm glad you stopped me on the geo location. If there's anything else I missed, please let me know. But yeah. How are people using the file vault? I imagine it's a bunch of legal documents that you're storing in there, right?
Michael Daniels:
The file vault. Obviously, we take security very seriously. I want everybody to know that one thing that differentiates us between free apps... I mean, look, there's nothing free. If they're not selling you a product, you are the product. They're selling you. And we don't do that. There's none of this information that'll ever be shared, sold to any third parties. That's what your subscription pays for.
Michael Daniels:
So, the file vault, what it is, it's an encrypted vault that is shared. So, anything you put into the file vault... for example, I put vital documents in there. I can't tell how many times I'm... just last night, they were... it's crazy. They'll ask questions about what you were at birth. Who freaking cares? But they ask these questions, like what'd they weigh, what time they were born. So, I literally have all of that stuff, social security numbers, school information, when it comes to we're away on vacation somewhere and they need to log in, I have all of their school credentials to log in to take their courses. I mean, you name it. Blood type information. That's kind of important information right now with COVID running around. I have a lot of their medical information. I have our timesharing agreement, our settlement agreement, whatever, all uploaded in there in PDFs.
Michael Daniels:
So, in the file vault, you can have images. You can leave notes. You can leave obviously vital documents of any kind in PDF. And so, all of this stuff is in there. And it's shared between you and your co-parent. So, the two of you can see it.
Michael Daniels:
Now, the private notes is essentially the same thing, except it's only visible by you. So, if there's something that you're documenting in preparation, you're doing this in preparation to give it to your attorney one day, you're putting... like if there's a bruise on your child, you want to take a picture and keep it all in one place so you could export it later, whatever, that [crosstalk 00:24:58].
Seth Nelson:
But, Pete, look at that file vault. How easy is that? When you're at the doctor or you're going to the school, or you're getting any of these documents, where you just share them together, as opposed to taking a picture, sending it or sending it via an email. It's all in one spot. Everyone has access to it. This makes your life easier. This is less conflict. This is less calls to lawyers. This saves money.
Pete Wright:
Huge. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
It's all wins.
Pete Wright:
The last sort of set of features, there's this thing I'm just sort of lumping into reporting. And one of the things you've mentioned a couple of times here is this idea of admissibility. And so, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. What makes this admissible? Are there some sort of standards for court-admissible documentation? How did you go about ensuring that what comes out of the app is acceptable to courts, that they were... and I don't know. Seth, I mean, I am sure you have a jurisdictional thing to talk about so...
Seth Nelson:
Well, right. It's all in jurisdiction. But what you're talking about is rules of evidence. So, the quick nutshell on this is Michael has a lot of information about his case. The question is, is can that information be told or shown to the judge in some manner, where the judge can now consider it in making the decision?
Seth Nelson:
There's a lot of reasons. You've heard this, Pete: hearsay. Hearsay's not allowed to go into court. There's a lot of exceptions to hearsay. But the point of that is everyone instinctively knows there's some things the judge isn't allowed to hear.
Seth Nelson:
But what Michael does and what these judges will do, and check your local jurisdiction, but because these are communications back and forth between the parties and they're made in real time and there's some other factors to that, that the judge is allowed to consider it. And therefore, everything you're putting in this app and you write back and you communicate back and forth, the judge can see.
Seth Nelson:
So, when you say, "Hey, I really think horseback riding's a great idea," or, "I really think lacrosse or soccer or swimming is a great idea. Please let me know your thoughts," the judge can tell when you read it. If Michael sends that to his co-parent, can check when Mom read it. Did Mom respond? Did Mom ignore the question and just go on to something else? So, all that comes up. And you're not trying to piece together text messages or emails over long periods of time. It's all just laid out. And it makes it a lot quicker and cheaper for the lawyer to review when they have to prepare for that hearing.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Did I get that one right, Mike?
Michael Daniels:
No, man, you nailed it. I mean-
Seth Nelson:
Pete, I'm rocking it today.
Pete Wright:
I know. You really are.
Michael Daniels:
He is.
Pete Wright:
Do you have an app you want to develop because...
Michael Daniels:
It's his wheelhouse. No. I've just been through it the painful way, but he's seen countless other people do the same. No, I mean, that's why we have a professional portal. So, judges, mediators, guardians, magistrates, they can actually log in. And now, it doesn't affect the login. See, right now, when I log in, it actually documents... See? Logged in such and such date. But they log in, and they can see all this information like he just said.
Seth Nelson:
Because they have their own... It's not like you're... they have their own username, password, account-
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. They could log in and monitor-
Seth Nelson:
... to get into your stuff.
Michael Daniels:
... and yeah. Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
Wow.
Michael Daniels:
So, Talking Parents is one where a lot of attorney gets frustrated at because for them to jump in and look, they have to get the credentials of their client, but then them logging in... or let's say it's a guardian ad litem. Them logging in is giving that client credit for having logged in, you see? And it makes it look like they're the ones engaging. So, this is more like a overviewing, a person being able to come in and just see everything that's going on. So, they know this is actually happening.
Michael Daniels:
And furthermore, when I export a report, I can stick my attorney's email or the judge's email even right in there. And it'll send that PDF report straight from Fayr straight to them. So, there was no manipulating.
Michael Daniels:
And even the text messaging feature within the app, you can't go back and delete messages like you can on your iOS or Android. You can go back and delete. It can be manipulated. This, you cannot.
Pete Wright:
That's fascinating. Is it available everywhere? Is it available worldwide? Can everybody-
Michael Daniels:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Pete Wright:
... download it?
Michael Daniels:
We actually have a lot of users right now in Bavaria right now. They're doing-
Pete Wright:
Bavaria?
Michael Daniels:
There's a university student right now doing her entire thesis on co-parenting apps. Because it's not a big thing in Germany right now, but she's doing her entire thesis on it. And so, we'd given her 10 free accounts and she's doing a whole case study and going to... I'm pretty excited about that because we do have quite a few users in the UK and Australia, Germany.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, when I leave the tower here, that's where I'm actually headed next, is to Bavaria.
Pete Wright:
To Bavaria?
Seth Nelson:
My flight's in about 30 minutes. I'm just letting you know.
Pete Wright:
You, divorce, and fancy sausages. I can see it now.
Pete Wright:
I just want to talk briefly about Planet of the Apps. Is it too trite to ask you about that?
Michael Daniels:
Yes. Let's do it. That's fun.
Pete Wright:
All right. So-
Seth Nelson:
Oh, Pete's been waiting for this.
Pete Wright:
I've been eating it up. I've been holding this because it was a couple years ago, but it's still very exciting to me. So, Planet of the Apps was this show produced by Apple that was essentially Shark Tank for app development, where you get on this giant escalator and you ride this... I'm going to say, it's a ridiculous escalator, but it was cool for the show. You ride this ridiculous escalator. You have 60 seconds while you're on this escalator. And you pitch Jessica Alba, will.i.am, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Gwyneth Paltrow. And they get an opportunity to either say, "Your app sucks. I don't want to hear anymore." And they had these iPads and they swiped left or right. It's like Tinder for app investment. And if they all said, "No," you're out.
Pete Wright:
But for you, you had two nos and two yeses, which means people wanted to hear more. And so, you get to the bottom. You get to talk some more. I got to tell you, man. You nailed that pitch. That was great. And not only did he nail it, he convinced all four of them, even Jessica Alba and will.i.am. Whatever. They were the nos. He changed their minds, and got four yeses. So, now, they're pitching him. Okay? Are you with me, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
Oh, I'm with you. He makes the pitch.
Pete Wright:
Makes the pitch.
Seth Nelson:
Two nos; two yeses. He gets to the bottom. He gets to explain more. And he converts the two nos to yeses. And now, they want to go into business with him.
Pete Wright:
Now, they want to into business with him. And he gets to pick. Now, I set the story up there. Let's talk about your experience before we talk about kind of how it landed. What was your experience on Planet of the Apps? Why did you decide to even do the show?
Michael Daniels:
Man. That was crazy, man. I tell you. There's some lessons out of that that I think everybody should consider. Again, guys, I didn't know anything about technology. I didn't really know anything about law either, other than my own experience through many years of court motions.
Michael Daniels:
But I remember sitting there one day. And I've always had this idea for this and, of course, that geo check-in event really got me. But I remember reading about some 32-year-old guy who created some feature he sold to Snapchat for $54 million. And I was like, "If I don't do something with myself and get in this technology thing, it's going to pass me by. And I'm going to just keep building homes forever. And I'm passionate about this. Something needs to be fixed about this. I'm going to go create it. I'm going to go do it. What the heck? Why not?"
Michael Daniels:
But it's a bit of a gamble because, man, I mean, more than 99.9% of apps don't make any money. I mean, more than that, they totally fail. Don't make any money. And so-
Seth Nelson:
Much like podcast shows.
Michael Daniels:
Exactly. Like podcast shows.
Seth Nelson:
That's right.
Michael Daniels:
So, it's a really risky thing because you start saying, "These things cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop." And so, when I started looking into it, what I did learn from building was that cheap is expensive. Anytime I've ever hired some jackleg contractor to do something, I've always ended up having to pay more to have it done.
Michael Daniels:
So, I went out to Silicon Valley and I found the best company. They'd just finished Citibank's app. So, I hired them. And I paid a lot of money for it. And this could have totally gone up in smoke, but thank God I did because when Apple decided to cast the show, who did they go? They approached all of the top companies in the-
Seth Nelson:
Developers. Yeah.
Michael Daniels:
... and they said, "Do you have anybody that we should consider for this show?" And they said, "Yeah. You should contact this guy over in Florida. And I think he'd be a good one."
Michael Daniels:
And so, they called me up. And I mean, from the time that was... I called them on the 6th of July. By the 30th of July, Apple had already contacted me. So, I mean, we're talking within the same month, they had contacted me and said, "Will you be in beta by October 17th?" And I asked the team like, "Can you get me in beta by October 17th?" They said, "Oh, we'll make it happen." So, I mean, if I had waited at all, I would not have had the app at the point-
Seth Nelson:
This is a crazy story. So, you have the app. You're on the show. You go down the elevator. I'm on the edge of my seat because I don't know how this ends. And now, they pitch you. And what happens? How do you decide to-
Michael Daniels:
Well, yeah. I mean, they had... The thing that was so like... the former CEO of Buzzfeed was up there with me. I mean, there were some people on that show who were real heavy hitters. And I'm an absolute goon. I don't know anything. And so, I'm so intimidated. And I'm seeing people who went down and had four greens all of a sudden go four reds and they're out. They had four greens initially, and then you keep pitching for another 25 minutes, and they're out. And so, I was really nervous.
Michael Daniels:
But when I went down there and I only had two greens, I was like, "Okay, I'm screwed." But at least I had two, so I got to continue for another 25 minutes. And then they just all turned. Because I think everybody gets it. You've either been through it yourself. You grew up in a divorced home or somebody really close to you has. Everybody can relate to the subject. And so, I think that they saw that there was some serious opportunity here, and so-
Seth Nelson:
And I feel like we're about to cut to a commercial break on the cliffhanger, and then we come back, we tell you the answer.
Michael Daniels:
It was scary, guys. I mean, it was... 100 people pitched; 20 people got partnerships. So, that was pretty exciting.
Pete Wright:
It's amazing.
Seth Nelson:
And who did you pick?
Pete Wright:
Well, wait. So, they all pitch him now. Before you tell us who you actually picked, what was compelling about their individual... Was there anybody else, besides the person you picked, that you were excited about working with?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. Look, I was a big fan, especially at the time, just I was digesting all kind of Gary Vaynerchuk stuff because he'll inspire you to be an entrepreneur. I was really interested in him, but I really felt, even though he was really jonesing to partner with me. He was really pissed when-
Pete Wright:
He was pissed.
Michael Daniels:
He was. He was not happy.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. He's out.
Michael Daniels:
He was shaking his head. He's like, "Worst mistake ever." That's what he actually said to me, "Worst mistake."
Michael Daniels:
But I just felt like, for my brand, I didn't want it to be some angry dad's app getting revenge. I wanted this to have some balance to it. So, I did pick Gwyneth because she had obviously gone through one of the big divorces of, whatever year that was, 2016, '17.
Pete Wright:
Good for you.
Seth Nelson:
You went with Gwyneth.
Pete Wright:
They're like this.
Seth Nelson:
That's awesome.
Pete Wright:
Tight. So, what I loved about it was, it was Jessica and will.i.am who were originally the reds, and you changed their minds. But the thing that stuck out to me was at the end of this, will.i.am says... who's, besides Black Eyed Peas, he's a significant investor in technology and a hell of a nerd. And he turns around and says, "What you asked for was another... " 150 grand or something, I think on the show. And you knew exactly what you wanted to use it for. And he said, "That is the most sane ask and the most sort of legit app," I don't have the exact words that he said, but, "That I've heard on this show so far." And you were on like episode seven. They'd seen a lot of pitches by then. And he made these comments, that this was the most rational investment that he had seen, was the sense that I got.
Pete Wright:
And so, how did that work for you? I mean, you got Gwyneth. Is she still advising you?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. Yeah. I keep her abreast of what's going on. I mean, the way I've learned, when it comes to dealing with celebrity influences, you've basically got a couple bullets here. And you've got to tap into those at the right time. So, she gets my updates. She gets all my app updates, what's going on with us. But I'm really... I've got to get the company to the point that I've got a couple hundred thousand subscribers before it's worth kicking that gear in and going bigger because otherwise, you're spent. Celebrities like to be involved with things that really move quickly.
Pete Wright:
How has the 2020 pandemic impacted you?
Michael Daniels:
Man. It was tough, guys, for a while there. You wouldn't believe how many... It's actually sad because you become very cognizant of just how many people live right on the margin of having their credit cards maxed out. So, the amount of declined payments we were getting, you know?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Michael Daniels:
I mean, our app is only, with a discount, $7.99 a month. And people's credit cards were declining. I mean, it's sad. It's really, really sad to just see how many people... And that was just a hard time because then you have your payments are going down, but then people are contacting your support team thinking there's something wrong, which I have to then pay for the development team to handle that. So, it was really, really difficult for awhile, but we've rebounded.
Seth Nelson:
People are having trouble co-parenting, and now they don't have the funds even to use this app. And it's $7.99 a month with the discount? Is that what you just said, Michael?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. $7.99 a month. Or we have a year. $79 for a whole year, or $199 for three years.
Seth Nelson:
80 bucks. 200 bucks for three years. 200 bucks for three years.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Call a lawyer. See how quickly you burn through that $200.
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. And I used to think that lawyers would be my biggest adversaries when it comes to this stuff because it's like, "Oh, this is hurting their billable hour." But I got to tell you, a good lawyer, he's like, "Man, dude, I don't want to spend all this time with a paralegal, sifting through this crazy paperwork. And I'd rather just take on more cases and be more productive." I was actually amazed to see that lawyers are my biggest advocates.
Pete Wright:
I guess that's a surprise. But my sense is, even just from the work that I do, and I would imagine in homebuilding, what would you rather be doing? The things that really test and stretch your skillset, or the nickel-and-dime stuff that's just rote? And I get it. I get it.
Seth Nelson:
And I appreciate what Michael's saying. And I think the lawyer that says, "No, I don't want my clients using this app," is concerned about getting those billable hours for their paralegal or for them to review for a hearing, they're missing the point of practicing family law. You're supposed to be helping people. Probably not doing what they need to be doing in their offices to really help people.
Seth Nelson:
So, Pete, we got to let people know where they can find this.
Pete Wright:
We do. Well, first of all fayr.com. F-A-Y-R dot-com. And you have been so gracious to pass that little discount on to our listeners. Do you want to tell the people what they need to do?
Michael Daniels:
Yeah. If you just go to fayr.com, you can read all about it. You can sign up there. And it'll actually redirect you to our sign-up page. And yeah. It'll prompt you to put in a discount code. Just put in the discount code "co-parent." Put in "co-parent," and you will instantly get a 20% discount for life.
Michael Daniels:
And just for the listeners of this show, if you want to shoot either me or my support team, I'm just michael@fayr.com. I love hearing from people. I'm one person with one set of life experiences. And I honestly really like hearing about what other people think would make this app better. And I really do take that seriously when it comes to developing future items. But if you just send me an email or send my support team an email, support, and just write "toaster." That's all. Just write "toaster." And we'll give you 60 days free.
Seth Nelson:
That's very kind of you.
Pete Wright:
Very generous. Very generous. Michael Daniels, thank you so much, man. It's a real treat meeting you and having you on the show.
Michael Daniels:
Seth, Pete, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Seth Nelson:
All right, my friend. Thanks.
Pete Wright:
And thank you, everybody, for downloading and listening to the show. On behalf of Michael Daniels and Seth Nelson, I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next time right here on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Announcer:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with Nelson Koster Family Law and Mediation with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of Nelson Koster. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
This transcript was exported on Feb 15, 2021 - view latest version here.
toaster_207 (Completed 02/13/21)
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