Transcript 0:00 I started reading reading books. I was learning about the Black bank, M&F Bank, uh, which is the second oldest bank in the nation today, still exists in Durham. I had a chance to learn about North Carolina Mutual Life. 0:13 Not only was it a life insurance company, but it was basically probably the first venture- Black owned venture capital fund. They funded a lot of companies. 0:21 I learned about North Carolina Central that was founded in Hayti, and the hospital that they had there a- and all of these businesses that existed. And so I said to myself, "This is an incredible legacy." 0:31 Like, I wanna be, you know, part of this to- I, I wanna be part of the next generation to tell this story. 0:37 Yes, I'm building a company, but at the same time now there's a greater purpose as well, 'cause I need to let people know what happened here in Durham. 0:45 You're listening to Honey & Hustle, a video podcast that inspires the dreamers, creators, and hustlers to make a business from their passions. 0:54 I'm Angela Hollowell, and I'm a visual storyteller based in Durham, North Carolina. 0:59 I sit down with creative entrepreneurs, nonprofit founders, and small business owners as they share their stories, the lessons they've learned throughout their careers, and how they've worked to make a positive impact. 1:15 Hey, everyone. My name is Angela Hollowell. I am your host here at Honey & Hustle, and today I am joined by my good friend Carey Wheelis. 1:23 He is the CEO and founder of the Hayti App, modeled after the Hayti community in part here in Durham, North Carolina. Carey, thank you so much for joining me today. Pleasure to be here with you today as well. Yeah. 1:35 So for people who aren't from Durham and who are watching and listening to this right now, or even people who are from Durham and just are not familiar with the Hayti legacy and community here in Durham, North Carolina, can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for the name of your business and app? 1:51 Sure. So it actually started during COVID. [laughs] This is a COVID-created, uh, company. 1:57 During COVID I was working on another project and my company was affected by COVID, and as a result I was sitting home one day looking at the news and unfortunately I found out about the grandson of the Carolina Times, Mr. 2:10 Edmonds, he had passed away. 2:12 And when the Carolina Times family, the family said that, you know, with his passing that they would not continue really working on a paper, and the Carolina Times had been around from the 1920s. 2:22 It was legacy paper providing, you know, news information for the Durham community. And I said to myself, "Wow, here we go, another, you know, Black publication is going out of business." 2:31 And I said, "You know, this has to end. This gotta s- this has to stop." And then, you know, I, I started I think reading more news in 2020 than ever before, and I started to look at... I use new- news aggregators. 2:44 I use Google News, I use Apple News, I have other a- apps on my phone for news. 2:50 But in my feed I wasn't seeing a lot of content from Black publishers, so I started counting the number of publishers, Black publishers on these other platforms and I couldn't actually count past 30 [laughs] 3:03 for the news apps. And I said, "Wow, this is a big problem." Like, the only way for me to get access to news and information is from a social media feed? 'Cause the news aggregators didn't have the content. 3:14 And so that's what actually, you know, was a catalyst for me to say, "You know what? I wanna do something about this. I think this is a problem that needs to be solved. 3:21 I can build the technology with my team to be able to get this done." 3:25 And so through that process, I started it in late 2020 into 2021, and so we launched and did a soft launch in 2021, and really started to ramp up last year. But through that process I was looking for a company name. 3:41 Obviously you go across a lot with company names and try to figure out what's gonna be, you know, the best fit, and then you look at also y- social media. 3:48 'Cause not only do you have to buy a domain name, but you gotta also make sure that you can get the, the social media, your Facebook name, and the Instagram and everything else. 3:56 And so there wasn't a lot available that I was looking at. As it turns out, somebody was selling a five-character domain, and it was hayti.com. And I said to myself, "I can't believe this. 4:07 Somebody's selling a five-character domain name?" 4:10 And it, it's, you know, Hayti, you know, the, you know, the legacy that took place here of Black Wall Street, North Carolina's Black Wall Street is amazing, that the world doesn't know about and the world needs to know about. 4:20 And so I acquired the name and I said, "This is gonna be the name that I'm gonna use to be able to build out my app." And that's what basically started and that's why, you know, the name actually came together. Yeah. 4:33 I mean, those, those shorter domain names, those brandable domain names, first of all, they're expensive. Yes. So I'm not even gonna ask what you paid for it, [laughs] you know? [laughs] 'Cause I know it was expensive. 4:42 [laughs] Yeah, yeah. But they are rare, to your point, you know what I mean? 'Cause I looked at a couple short ones and I was like, "Oh man, that's gonna have to stay where it's at." I mean- Right. 4:50 [laughs] I don't know if it's worth it. [laughs] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. 4:56 And then I'll tell you, you know, I had been going to Durham, I've lived in Durham for seven years this year and, but I've been coming to North Carolina my entire life. 5:05 Both of my parents are originally from North Carolina. They left in their early, you know, their late teens, early 20s, and they migrated to, migrated north to New York, where I was born and raised. 5:14 And I can't get them out of New York now, but now I live down here, a- as well as my other brother is, they both live down here. So I started reading books. I was learning about, 5:25 you know, the Black bank, M&F Bank, which is the second oldest bank in the nation today, still exists in, in, in Durham. I had a chance to learn about North Carolina Mutual Life. 5:36 Not only was it a life insurance company, but it was basically probably the first venture- Black owned venture capital fund. They funded a lot of companies. 5:43 Uh, I learned about North Carolina Central that was founded in Hayti, and the hospital that they had there a- and all of these businesses that existed. And so I said to myself, "This is an incredible legacy." 5:54 Like, I wanna be, you know, part of this to- I, I wanna be part of the next generation to tell this story. 6:00 Yes, I'm building a company, but at the same time now there's, there's a greater purpose as well, 'cause I need to let people know what happened here in Durham. And then I also looked at the downfall, unfortunately. 6:11 Mm-hmm. And I saw what took place with Highway 147. For those people who don't know, a lot of Black communities across the US, they drove highways through them, and so there's no difference. 6:21 That happened here in Durham as well with Highway 147. But then I started looking at also, 6:26 there's something or there's a building out of all the homes and businesses that they destroyed and knocked down, there's one building that they did not destroy, which is typically, you know, the foundation in most Black communities. 6:37 It's the Black church. St. Joseph's Church, and now as you know, it, it operates as a community health... A community center, excuse me. A community center with events and everything else that take place. 6:47 And when I was reading the history of, you know, what took place and looking at that, I could not believe that they named their community, African Americans named their community Hayti after Haiti. 7:00 But in addition to that, there are other Haytis that exist in the US. 7:03 So, uh, to, um, our Haitian brothers and sisters, thank you, because you gave us the inspiration, inspired us to name our community Hayti after winning your independence. But like I- I'm coming back to St. 7:16 Joseph's because I wanna make this point, which a lot of people probably don't know, and I just, I don't know how I found out about it, but I was doing all this research. The church still exists. 7:25 Uh, at the top of the church there's a steeple. It is a Haitian voodoo symbol that has been there since the 1890s, and it... And I had to drive there myself to, to look and see it, and it is in fact still there. 7:37 And so not only do we honor them with the name Hayti, but their symbol still is, you know, right there in our community for, for us all to see that this was what we looked back to to be able to, to create something amazing here in Durham. 7:51 You just made, like, a beautiful point, and I think it's fitting that you landed on this note of the church because the church, ironically for people who don't live in Durham, is right next to The Carolina Times old building. 8:03 Yes. So [laughs] Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it's... And so that was interesting in itself. And so literally you walk around the corner and The Carolina Times is right there. 8:14 So all of this was taking place, you know, in the early 1900s as they were building and growing together. And like I said, it's an amazing story that has to be told. Because I've been to Tulsa. Mm-hmm. 8:24 Can't take anything away. Uh, they had an amazing run with their Black Wall Street. And so, 8:30 but we also here in North Carolina, since I'm here, I wanna be able to make sure that our stories are told everywhere, whether it's Tulsa, whether it's Hayti, whether it was the first Black Wall Street, 'cause let's, let's talk about it. 8:41 The first Black Wall Street that existed was Jackson Ward in Virginia. The second was Hayti in Durham, North Carolina. The third was Tulsa. And so I wanted to make sure that actually gets out there too. Yeah. 8:55 Thank you for recommending, like, you know, establishing that timeline because I kept telling people, like, you know, Durham's Black Wall Street happened before Tulsa. Yeah. 9:04 Or it came to fruition before Tulsa, and people are like, "What are you talking about?" And I'm like, [laughs] "What?" 9:10 But I didn't even know that there's a place in Virginia that had one before Durham, so now it's like- Yeah... all kinda making sense unfortunately. But, you know- Yeah. [laughs]... 9:18 uh, you know, the legacy is still there. Parrish Street is still there, and so- Exactly... we have something. So before we get into the Hayti App, which I definitely wanna dive into, right? On some level, what... 9:29 You know, there is this concept of, and movement towards buying Black and buying back the neighborhood, and that's, like, something that a lot of Black entrepreneurs strive for. Mm-hmm. 9:39 In your own way, you are buying Black, buying back, excuse me, Black digital space. You know what I mean? 9:45 If you think about space and the spaces that we occupy, you're buying that back because now people are not having to depend on traditional media aggregators, news aggregators to find Black-owned media. 9:58 So tell us me a little bit about the concept of taking up digital space. Yeah. This is really interesting because our publishers, as we talked, are basically dying off. 10:13 It is difficult to drive traffic to any publication that you have. You know, podcasters deal with this too from time to time. Obviously they're looking for listeners. But for the publishers, they're looking for readers. 10:23 And so in the digital space now, everybody has to deal with the algorithm and, and I, and I'll come back to that and I'll... Well, I'll actually discuss that now. And I'll say this. 10:33 Everybody has a feed, and so your feed is filled with, you know, content from, based on the algorithm that they think that you wanna be able to see and view. 10:42 Oftentimes publishers could push or they can adjust that algorithm by boosting content. They pay to do that. Uh, majority of publishers are paying to boost their content. That's why they show up in your feed. 10:54 Some of them, don't get me wrong, show up organically, but could you imagine if our legacy newspapers and magazines that exist have to compete with, you know, thousands of thousands of different other media brands out there, 11:07 and they have to spend the same money to compete? It's gonna be a lot harder for them. 11:12 And so from a digital side, at the end of the day they, their numbers end up getting pushed, you know, down to the bottom because they're just not gonna get the traffic that they need from these mobile users, and if they don't get the traffic, they're not gonna be able to generate the revenue. 11:25 And if they don't generate the revenue, they can't hire writers. And so it's basically a sort of a downhill slope. 11:33 And so I understand that slope and I understand, you know, what can be done about it, and that's why from a digital side, I said to myself, the only way to solve this problem is solve it in a way where they're not competing with the, you know, thousands of other publishers that exist on these platforms, and bring it, bring this into sort of an all-in-one solution that I can be able to aggregate and I can be able to control the traffic that goes their way and make sure that traffic goes their way from an audience pretty much that, that are, you know, gonna read their articles and really want access to this information digitally 12:09 Yeah. And I mean, algorithm is something that, you know, every almost media platform has tried to address in a way that seems, um, one, a good experience for their users, right? So the people- Yeah... 12:23 who are using the app feel like they're getting fed, if it's not from people they're following or brands they're following, media outlets that they're following, at least from things that they may be interested in, like topics. 12:32 So there's always gonna be some sort of thing that does, in some ways, I won't say control, but definitely does kind of like feed into what you think the user wants to see and wants to engage with. 12:42 So there's always gonna be that. 12:44 It sounds like what you're trying to do is, yes, we recognize that there's always gonna be things that people wanna see, that they're gonna organically see, and there's always gonna be that pay-for-play market, but how can we go in the middle and get people, get brands and organizations and news in front of things, people that want to see it, but in a way that they can see it organically, often and frequently- Mm-hmm... 13:04 when they use the app. Yeah. And there's another side of it, too. Oftentimes, major media doesn't report on stories that are happening in our community unless it becomes, like, really, really big news. 13:16 And so what I found that, from the app, I get access to so much information locally here, but also across the country, that's happening in our community that never makes major media. 13:28 There are stories that happen, good and bad, that's happening across the world. In the US obviously, but across the world. 13:36 And now I can be able to get access to that, a story that would probably never show up in my feed. I think that, I'll tell you, just giving a little bit more background on myself, 13:45 I was born and raised in Brooklyn, right? And so believe it or not, I used to read the Bl- Black, Black press when I was in New York. There's the New York Amsterdam News. 13:54 We, at one point in time, we had a, a, you know, New York's only Black daily. It was the Daily Challenge. I used to buy those papers s- to support them. 14:01 And then also I get access to, once again, news that I don't see in a traditional media setting. And so for me it was just this always, you know, transition or e- even transitioning down here to support. 14:14 You, you talk about this movement to be able to support Black-owned. 14:19 For me, media's always something that I did support or tried to support over the years, but now this is, I guess, the next phase in terms of making sure that I continue that support and that c- that support continues, but it continues now on a much bigger scale. 14:32 Thank you so much for watching and listening to the show. Whether you're a day one fan or day 100 fan, I'm so glad that you found Honey and Hustle and have decided to stick along for the ride. 14:42 As a thank you, I wanted to give you a little gift that this show has so graciously given me, the ability to continue to connect with thought leaders, industry leaders, business owners, and other entrepreneurs no matter where I am. 14:55 Linq offers a digital business card that is a natural extension of my website and social media platforms that allows me to easily send people to strategic landing pages so they can learn a little bit more about me, the resources I offer, and how we can continue to stay connected. 15:10 When you click the link below in the description, you'll get 15% off any of their wearables, phone tabs, and hopefully the last physical business card you'll ever need. 15:19 Thank you so much again for supporting the show and our show sponsor, Linq. So kind of staying in line of supporting media and news, there's also now this, I guess, it is present now. 15:32 It is present and I think it's gonna carry over into the future of Black creators, right? So now people aren't waiting to be associated with a media house, a talent agency, any of that. 15:43 They're just independent creators, you know, also reporting on the news sometimes, also setting trends, also- Yeah... really driving 15:51 much of pop culture, which is the most popular thing to report on, you know, now are not waiting to say, like, "Oh, Paper Magazine sponsored this video," or, "Paper Magazine paid me directly to make this video." Right. 16:03 They don't care. They're just picking up their phone, making TikToks, making Instagram reels, making YouTube shorts. Yeah. Right? 16:10 And the other half of that, like, while it's beautiful that they can just start it, anybody can start anything, sell anything online or whatever, 16:17 the other half of that is who gets credit for a lot of these, like, breaking news stories? Who gets credit for setting a lot of these trends? 16:25 And not just credit, but also the associated monetary gain from being at the forefront of stories and of, of media. 16:31 That also has been inequitable as we move forward, and really, like, you know, people who aren't even really journalists now are saying, like- Mm-hmm... "No, I, I broke this story. No, I, I started this trend." 16:43 You know, "No, I made this phrase popular and searchable and lucrative to put in a headline," right? Yeah. "But I'm not getting the credit for that." 16:52 And so how are some, how is Haytai hoping to address some of that inequity in creator pay and creator credit? Yeah. 17:02 So last year we, you know, looked at the podcast industry, and we, we saw, well, I listen to podcasts, too. Obviously media. [laughs] The next phase. 17:13 So in addition to reading all the, reading articles from Black media, I listen to podcasts from Black podcasters, other podcasters around the world, right? But y- you're absolutely right. 17:22 Podcasters now, they can break a story with a microphone in their hand, right? And it's, it's instant. Like, they can go on and immediately get that message out to their listener audience. 17:33 And I was looking and re- uh, trying to find these research studies, 'cause we know African American, Black folks in general, we over-index when it comes to media. We listen to the radio more. We watch more TV. 17:44 We use more social media. We use our cell phones more. The research reports started to come out more and more last year, and it turns out we listen to more podcasts. 17:54 And I said to myself, "Wow, now this is really interesting." Creator economy, right? These podcasters are going out here, making it happen, getting a message out. 18:03 I started, once again, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, but it's, for the podcast world, there are millions of podcasters. You will get lost. 18:13 There's just a sea of podcasters, uh, when you go on, you know, other platforms. And I said to myself, "Here I go again. I see a problem that needs to be fixed." 18:23 And I said, the creator economy specifically for podcasters, 18:28 I was beginning to look and see what other platforms existed, and I realized nobody had a really large platform or aggregated or curated content from the Black podcasters. So as it turns out, I started work on it. 18:44 And three weeks ago, Heytai is in beta right now, but Heytai has become the largest Black-owned podcast app. So not only news, but we're also the largest Black podcast app. 18:55 So we have over 2,000 Black podcasters, including Honey and Hustle, on our app that you can be able to easily access. And now, for the first time, everything is categorized. 19:07 Anybody who's interested in that content can a- can access to it. And then I started talking to a lot of the podcasters. We talk about creator economy, I'm gonna probably mention that a lot here. 19:17 But the podcasters, they have the same issues as some of the publishers: driving revenue. 19:23 You know, it's not un- you know, their story gets out there and they gotta, you know, do the dog and pony show, try to get these brands to sponsor their podcast, and they're creating some amazing content like, like you. 19:34 But a lot of them said, "We wanna... Obviously, we're using other tools and other platforms to be able to monetize our podcast." 19:42 And I said to myself, "Well, if you're other- using other tools to get mobile users to monetize your platform," and I'll just say there's a company that starts with a P, I'm not even gonna mention them, right? 19:52 [laughs] And so I said to myself, "What can I do about that?" And I'm working now to do something about that. 20:00 My goal is to launch this late June, early July, where anybody who comes to use Heytai, they get a chance to read news, they get a chance to listen to podcasts, but at the same time they can be able to support, financially support, their favorite content creators with a, you know, monthly, a one-time and/or monthly donation, and we'll handle the transaction processing for that particular person. 20:24 And so I wanna do that because, you know, people are coming to Heytai to read articles. 20:29 I'm trying to expose them to podcasters and vice versa, but now I wanna be able to help monetize the next generation of these content creators so they can be able to stay, you know, in business for a long time so they can make sure that these stories get out there. 20:43 And oftentimes, as I mentioned, the only way they're gonna get that support is from, directly from the, their audience that's listening or that's reading their articles and information. 20:52 And so that's gonna go hand in hand and that will... That's set to launch, like I said, late, late June, early July. 20:58 That's the next phase in terms of what we're doing to make sure that we support these, these amazing content creators, uh, from A to Z. Yeah. 21:06 And that's, that's so great to hear you say that because, you know, when we think about, you know, podcast listening apps as alternatives to your Spotify, your Apple, your Google podcasts, you know, really the biggest one is probably Good- Goodpods, which was fashioned after Goodreads, which is like your friends recommending podcasts that they like and listen to on the app, so you can kind of get direct recommendations to find shows more quickly so you're not depending on a Spotify Top 10, a Apple- Mm-hmm... 21:34 ranked list, right, to get seen because obviously they're not gonna cater to indie podcasters who are just starting up, right? Who may be just making just as good a show as, you know, the bigger names out there. 21:46 No shade to the bigger names, they're awesome, but they often are not necessarily reflective of the community who probably listens to podcasts the most. So- Exactly. Yeah. So there's that. 21:54 And Goodpods has incorporated kind of like a support button, 21:59 but again, in terms of really organic reach and really finding like podcasts, if you are listening solo and you maybe don't have friends that are using the app- Mm-hmm... how do you find people, right? 22:10 So being able to have an, I think, media aggre- aggregation is very interesting as a concept now. Yeah. But I think we're about to see how important that is now that we're seeing a shift in the journalism- Mm... 22:24 community and, like, news media community with so many layoffs happening, and Spotify has, has been a part of that. I think they laid off, like, 6% of their staff this year. 22:32 And so we're seeing a shift in, like, where are all these people gonna go, you know? Because they're not gonna stop creating. 22:38 They're not gonna stop looking for a way to publish their news and articles and stories that they've been researching. So where do they go? 22:44 How do they make a sustainable living, and how do they reach an audience that would, that would really be receptive to those stories? 22:50 And now we're seeing, like, here is, you know, we need help on the distribution side and on the, the payment continuation side of things. So yeah, the company that starts with a P is great, right? 23:00 [laughs] But unless you actually know the name of the creator, it's not actually helping you very much. It's not gonna serve you up people that you wanna support, you know? Absolutely. 23:08 And, and so that's why w- that we're doing the work that we're doing. I say, you know, this, my quote is, "We're building the future of Black media all in one app." And so we are a truly... 23:18 Heytai is a technology company that supports Black media overall. We're building the technology to support Black media. And we have the capabilities to send out push notifications to our users via their mobile phone. 23:31 Mm-hmm. When you come into the app, we are creating sections in the podcast section specifically for popular podcasts and also recently played. We're working with the Black Podcasters Association. 23:44 A lot of people don't know about them, but we're- Yeah... working with the Black Podcasters Association. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna share this today. 23:50 We actually have an exclusive agreement with the Black Podcasters Association, and inside Heytai 23:57 there is, when you go to the podcast page, you will be able to sign up directly for, to the Black Podcasters Association- Wow... by looking at a page. 24:06 And so we wanna be able to, we're working hand in hand now and, and that contract, we, we just got that going. It's live on Android, and by the time this actually goes live, it'll be live on iOS. [laughs] Yeah. 24:18 And so we are working hand in hand with them- To get the message out. In addition to that, um, we also have Black Pod News. They, they feature Black podcasters on a weekly basis. 24:30 Their content is now inside the Heytai app. And so we're doing all of the work that we possibly can to make it easier, uh, to get them exposure and, you know, other platforms are obviously, they're not gonna do this. 24:43 This is a paid situation with other platforms, but us it's not. 24:47 This is live or die, and we- we're trying to make sure that our publishers, our, our content creators and podcasters overall, that they stay for the long haul, and we're doing the work that, like I said, that's needed to make sure that we give them as much exposure to be able to generate the revenue for them to be able to stay in business. 25:03 Yeah. Shout out to Corey Grimes, who was the- Yes... the creative. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. I know your guy. I know your guy. Yeah. Okay. [laughs] He's cool. He's cool. 25:11 [laughs] Yeah, yeah, he's doing in- incredible things, and he actually just partnered with women of color podcasters to highlight women of color podcasters throughout the month of March, which was International Women's Month. 25:22 So yeah, a lot of great things that they're doing and so it's just g- you're gonna see a whole host of people throughout the Black Podcasters Asso- Association, so it's not gonna be just a monolith of, of creators even within that. 25:34 So- Yes... that's what's really gonna be cool as we, as we think about, like, oh, you know, when you think about an aggregator, you probably think of, you know, a monolith of content. 25:43 But this is gonna be really, really cool, inclusive, you know, representation of the podcast industry. Like I said, you know, this is an exciting time. 25:51 We just launched this podcast piece, so I'm looking forward to sort of the next phase, and I think it has huge legs. 25:57 Like I said, the, the podcast that I've listened to, I've been exposed to, it's whether it's history, whether it's health, oftentimes you're turning a TV to get access information or you look at your phone, you're scrolling through, 26:09 but like I said, it's, it's, that opportunity now exists and it's so easy now to tap into, and everything is categorized inside the app. And so we try to make it as simple as possible. 26:20 Like I said, instead of going, you going on this massive search, you don't have to do that massive search anymore. 26:26 We, we try to make it easy for, you know, our mobile users, but at the same time we try to make it easy for our content creators to tap into, like I said, this listener base and, and viewers of their, of, that, that consume their content all, all the time. 26:39 Yeah. 26:40 Yeah, so the last question I wanted to end on, and I think you'd be the perfect person to answer this, is, you know, you specifically said Heytai is a tech company that supports Black media and news versus Heytai is a Black media news aggregator that just so happens to function through an app, right? 26:58 So those are, that's a very interesting distinction because we're also seeing in terms of industry, right, a lot of Black people are wanting to get into the tech industry, whether that's via sales, whether that's via project management. 27:10 They really wanna get into the tech industry because of the perceived financial rewards of being in the tech industry. 27:17 So being able to work remotely, being able to make a good salary, you know, being able to break in without a lot of experience because the industry is so new, right? And everything is teachable to a certain extent. 27:28 There's not a whole lot of degrees that are gonna lend itself to the tech industry other than curiosity and a willingness to learn. 27:34 So we're seeing this spark of people, and I'm not saying people always haven't been interested in Black media because they have, or that's dying in any way, but we are seeing this definitely emphasis on Black people and people in general wanting to get into the tech field. 27:48 So for people who are interested and just saying like, "Well, maybe I wanna start my own app, or maybe I wanna break into the tech industry," what are some recommendations you have for people who may be just looking for a career change and thinking about how they can apply their passions and their interests to tech? 28:06 Yeah. So this is, that's an interesting question. Um, and, and so just so you know, this is my first app that I developed, and I really didn't know how much it was gonna cost. 28:16 I had an idea, I had an estimate, but it ended up costing me way more than I thought. [laughs] And so I, it was a learning curve f- for me. 28:25 So to help out the people that are listening to this call, listening to this podcast, to, that are thinking about creating their own app, 28:34 I tell you go for it because at the end of the day, there's not a lot of Black-owned apps that exist, and we need more of them in the app stores. That's the first thing. 28:41 The second thing I would say is that I had some help along the way, work here in, in, in every single major city across the US, there's probably co-working spaces. 28:51 And so I've been able to tap into the co-working space here in Durham. 28:55 That's tapped me into credits, financial credits that I receive from AWS for our server, that tapped me into credits for HubSpot, for our CMS or content management system. 29:07 And so you're gonna need, you're gonna need a, a platform to put your, a server platform to put your, your app on, a credible platform, a platform that you can be able to scale with. 29:16 And so that's also expensive, but while I was doing the development, 29:21 I was able to, in total, I think we probably received about close to $20,000 in credits, technology credits, and those, those helped that, you know, that's 20,000 that didn't have to come outta my pocket, and that helped to be able to scale the business. 29:35 And then along the way, something that recently happened is that we needed analytics. Obviously, we need to be able to understand who the users are, they're using our app, what they're doing inside the app. 29:47 We also received recently a credit from a analytics company, and so there are opportunities out there, believe it or not, that exist now that probably never existed before, but I highly encourage people to tap into the, their local co-working spaces to get access to some of these free credits, obviously dollars that they can be able to utilize as they're working on the development because the development process is, is not easy, it's expensive, and it all depends on the actual app that you're developing. 30:15 Um, you can end up spending a fortune to be able to get it up and out, and if you can, you know, get a little financial assistance along the way, it can kinda help you kinda grow and scale. 30:23 And so that's some of the advice that I would actually give to the folks listening. Yeah, I appreciate that. It was so needed. 30:29 Yeah, I mean, I'm looking to see how the app market is gonna change and grow and develop as we move forward into people just wanting to create their own space and wanting to do their own thing in a way that serves their community in a way that maybe current apps don't. 30:42 So thank you so much for sharing your experience making and growing Heytai, and giving us a little sneak peek for what we can expect from the app going forward. Thank you. 30:50 It was a pleasure being here, and I look forward to working with you as well. Yeah.
