This is side Hustlers. I am your host, Carla Murrie. Thanks for being here. If this is your very first episode. This podcast follows people who are following a passion outside of their day job. Each week I talked to someone else who was either in the middle of side hustling or someone who's side hustled so hard they made it their full time hustle. It's such a great place to hear about small businesses or now big businesses. There were one small businesses and it's fun to be a part of the side hustler community and support one another. Before I get into this week's guest, I want to tell you about this cool event I'm doing with our radio station one or six point one in Seattle and our morning show, the Carla, Marie and Anthony Show. We have teamed up with Barry's boot Camp to do a workout and every dollar from that workout will go to Seattle Children's Hospital. It's October at two pm. It starts at two thirty, but we're getting near there at two pm. You can actually sign up if you go to Kiss FM Seattle dot com, or you can go to my Instagram and click the link in my bio and there should be a sign up link right they're It's also on event bright and it's called One Big Workout and all the money's gonna go to Seattle Children's Hospital. We'd love to see you there, so come out for that. So cool thing about this week's guest, I am actually hosting a panel for his company. So Tom Siri is the CEO of Real Self, which started as a side hustle. Real Self is this amazing place, an amazing website for people to go to find out about cosmetic treatments, and we're gonna get a lot into that in this episode. But I am hosting a panel Saturday, October nine, two thousand nineteen for Real Self House of Modern Beauty here in Seattle. It's at the Riveter in Capitol Hill, and the panel is going to have a lot of women in media and we're gonna talk about women in media. Obviously. You can actually win your way into this panel by going to my Instagram at the Carla Marie. The contest will end this week. So if you're listening to this podcast too late, but thank you for listening. So check out Real Self House of Modern Beauty. It's this weekend starting at ten am on Saturday. It's open to the public. There's gonna be info on all kinds of treatments. There's gonna be a free treatments available. It's also going down on Sunday the twenty at the Riveter in Capitol Hill here in Washington in Seattle. It's a really cool event. If you've ever had any questions about things from plastic surgery to micro needling, this is the place for you to go. So let's get into Tom's story. Because Tom how he started and where he started, and just his passion for starting something new and recreating and reinvigorating businesses is incredible for a lot of people. You know, why are you when? Do you know what you want to do? And this is something you want to do and do it. I'm a hustles side side hustle do it. I'm a hustlesd sid hustle do it. I'm a hustles shod side hustlove. Come on ask about me, yo yo. It's the side Hustless podcast we call the Root. So today I am joined by Tom Siri. He is the CEO of Real Self and we're gonna get into what that means and why you're here. And what we're doing together and all the fun stuff. But you also worked at Expedia at one point, Tom, and that was your day job, and that was what year did you start Expedia? Actually, well I started in so you're you're looking at me, How old are you know? I just think it's so cool that you were. You were side hustling wait before I thought of this podcast, which is what I love. So you were at Expedia when Expedia was blowing up. It was just actually just starting out and early days and we just started blowing up. Which obviously Expedia transformed the travel industry the same way Real self has transformed and continues to transform the cosmetic surgery the cosmetic treatment industry. And obviously that was a genius on your part to kind of do that whole transfer there and see what Expedia was doing. So let's go back to when you were at Expedia and you decided, Okay, I see what this is doing to the travel industry. What made you say, well, the cosmetic industry needs this too. Yeah, because I'm not the poster child for cosmic procedures. On a more serious note, I I was really inspired by the things we're doing at Expedient in terms of empowering you as a traveler to make better purchase decisions. We had acquired trip Advisor, which, as everybody knows now, is the place you go to really get the truth about where you're going to stay. And I was thinking, boy, I've been here six years. I'm ready to sort of graduate from here. And our our executive team had left and started cool companies like Zillo and glass Door, and I was like, well, I could go work for them again or get my own thing going. So, as I was working my day job, I was hustling at night. Where else do people make really big decisions and feel poorly equipped for them? And I was thinking healthcare. So I told my wife I'm gonna I'm gonna come. I came home one day and I said, I'm gonna quit my day job and perfectly good paying day uh with a great company. And so I take a little exception to the genius comment like might night have been the smartest stuff financial move? But I said, I'm going to create trip Advisor for healthcare And my wife told me that's a really bad idea. I love when. By the way, there are a few people who have been in this podcast who have a very successful business now and they're like, yeah, my wife and my husband was like, that's not really The wife actually was like that's a terrible idea. Well, she's like, that just means everything and nothing. You can't build a business on that. So I went back to work, kept idea generating. My wife showed me a brochure that um she had received for um getting a laser treatment at a facial place she was getting her facial aestheticition, and she said, well, you know, maybe you should look at this, and you know, there's a fift treatment and and they're basically this is all they gave me, and I don't believe anything in it. And for me, the connective tissue between that and travel was, oh, yeah, that's what travel agents used to do. They yeah, for sure, right, and you're like, oh, this hot air balloon red looks great until you fall out of it. I know nothing else about it. It's right though, when you go to those rest stops and you see all those brochures. Most of the time when I'm end up going to do now is go look it up at my phone and book it on my phone. Go to your dermatologists. What do you see a wallet? Yeah, you're right, guess what it's inside there to this day. Unfortunately, it's still the perfect case before and after picture. That's amazing, and get back to work in two days. Every no one will notice. Where on our platform real self dot com. You know we have the truth, which is that two to three days could be three months for certain people in certain cases, and if they're with the wrong provide or wrong doctor, wrong clinic, right, because that doctor is not going to tell you in there for sure about the three star rating that they would have or the terrible disaster that happened unfortunately happened to someone. But that's what real self does. Real Self tells you the good and the bad of every procedure, every doctor. You have verified doctors, which I didn't know was a thing before I went on real self dot Com. So me personally and I have not hid this from any radio listener ever, I had a brass augmentation. It'll be six years by the time this podcast posts. I at the time did not know real self existed, and it did at that point. So I unfortunately went through this without knowing anything about real Self. All the questions that I had, I just asked Google. I didn't have anyone I could ask other than a few people in my life who had gone through it, but I didn't have this internet of people who was who were pouring out their stories and the honesty of going through it. Now, I'm assuming you've seen what real self has done to the community, and you've been able to see these incredible stories exactly your your your journey is shared by hundreds of thousands of women on our platform related to that procedure and others, and inside of each person's story is so much information that you just can't get from that procedure, of that brochure, or from the doctor or perhaps your girlfriend or friend. Yeah, it's walked in those shoes and are sharing details that you know your most you might be embarrassed to ask, you know, like, you know, constipation is a big conversation on people have had surgery. I'm trying to think back and not remember. Yeah, I mean you know that it just comes up so pain and um recovery and or spousal things like well my boyfriend splash or husband or partner isn't supportive of me. What should I do? I really want to go forward and have a transformation, so inherently inside of real Self is like, is a really vibrant, beautiful community, and I just feel so honored and blessed that I get to be the host of that, just like you have a host of your show. I have my It's awesome that's digital and online and and also has expanded into Instagram into events we hold in cities around the country. Well, it's something to be proud of too, Like you've created something that has actually made a difference, and that is the coolest thing, and that is something you should absolutely be proud of. But how did you go from that brochure that your wife gave you to then launching I guess what was it? At first? A website? Just it was just real self dot com. How did you come up with the name? Like all of that stuff at that moment? How did that happen? The name? Let's start with that I was trying to come up. I knew self was inside of course, you know, it's so personal when you're talking about a transformation of your body or face or even just a tweak, you know, to shift and a change. And then I thought, well, what's a good modifier of self? And I thought vivid vivid self, And that's the first name, and then I have a I have a cousin in the media business in New York and he said you can name it that and I was like, why not and he said, well, the word vivid is associated with pornography, like the largest porn company in the world at that time was in vivid. So I was like, okay, that is not a good definitely not not a good word choice. And I said, well, actually, at the end of this, what I'm so I want to be so proud of is that we're authentic and real because that's and then how do you achieve that? You know? Your real self? Came into my mind and I looked it up and an author name had named his book The Real Self or Exploring Your Real Self, and I sent him a note saying I'd like to buy your domain name and he said, oh, it's going to cost you, and I said, okay, why are we talking? He said four hundred dollars Oh my god, like can I wire the money? So I quickly grabbed that have the whole time out to interrupt you. Have you ever heard from that guy now that's been like, oh man, I should have charged you way more because this is way bigger than what I had. No, we had, we haven't. There will be a moment where they'll say, gee, you know, or maybe they'll say I'm the godfather of which is cool. So I did quit my job. I stopped the hustle because the hustle part was me, you know, just forming the concept and trying to reach a place where I'm like, Okay, what does it look like? How do I design this? I hired my one of my best friends to be our one engineer. Don't do that. He's still a friend of mine. But that was a bad idea. Was it a bad idea because you were working with a friend. Yeah, and us the relationship is strained by all the strains that go through of not like I didn't make any money. I would take money my bank account and putting in his bank account, and he was kind of annoyed that the amount I was giving him was less than he was making ever before his career. So the whole dynamic just gets challenged that way. But we just started out by saying, let's start a concept where people share whether a treatment, a procedure is worth it or not, and let them share their story and then rate it based on worth it, and then we'll add up the number of not worth and worth it's in rate something so brass augmentation. Our platform has a roughly worth it rating, Yet there's treatments in our on our site that and and the community shared that are not worth it. They're below. It's an incredible way to put it. Like I've never like I have had people say to me was it worth it? And this even right away I said yes, but like looking back now, it's like the recovery was almost nothing compared to the six years of my life that I have lived like this, So I never really thought about like if someone me was like I'm telling you it's not worth it, or people say it's not worth it, that is a very strong number to think about for anyone about to not only spend a lot of money on something but really go through an emotional and physical change. And that is such a great way I guess to put it, which is what I'm trying to say. I love that it's this term that has a lot of definitional um way to it, which is it's a combination of how much you spent, what it's done for your life, would you do it again? All these kind of questions get packed into worth it, and then inherently it leads to a conversation which is like, that's great that all these people found it worth it something? What about those two percent? And what we see often happen in our world of online reviews and stories and people sharing is we sort of tend to go from the worst case and work our way to the best. And I honor that. I think that's fair, but you kind of want to know what for people didn't work out not worth it? What can I learn from them? So I don't repeat those That goes inherently into how we think about our standards of what a doctor who's allowed on our platform, what they're allowed to say as a physician, and how we demonstrate, you know, their level of credentials and and and acceptance by somebody we feel comfortable putting in front of you as a potential doctor, surgeon, How when you first launched, like, how did you get people to trust you? Because this is something so vulnerable. How did you get doctors and even patients to trust you and know who you were or who real self was right away? I think the deficit and trust is something that every business, everyone started out shares career, right, you started your career, your podcast, everything, and it's important that you do you know. Ultimately, it was essential that we always did the right thing, which was we allowed full transparency, full conversations. We didn't edit, and we were very explicit. Um. I was always talking and engaging in the community saying we welcome your conversation as long as it stays within our standard, which are just don't be a jerk. You know, like no, but you know, don't be a troll. Don't be a jerk, just be helpful and help others, you know, get either to the finish line or to a new decision. One of the things that was probably the most instrumental though for us building trust with doctors and consumers alike, was to get sued. And I've written about this on and geek wire, but by the best thing that ever happened to me as a startup was it get sued. And this why, Yeah, it sounds like I'm not trying to by the way, all the attorneys are listening is going like, okay, I'm gonna you know, I'm not encouraging that behavior. But in my case, in our case, it real self was we had a really robust conversation about a procedure that people were saying it was terrible, not worth it, talking about horrible results, and they just that company that was behind it decided to sue me and see us UM I got certain. You know, I was sitting in a room with like four other employees and I got a knock on the door and this very large man said you've been served, and he handed me um a federal lawsuit in in Eastern Michigan court. And I took this to my lawyer and he said, well, what am I going to do? And he said, well, how much money do you have? It's a great place to start. And I said, well, how much is it going to cost to defend this, because I'm not I'll give up the company to stand for transparently what we believe in. And he told me I'll probably seven and fifty dollars, which was more than we had in the bank. And so you probably still don't know, how is that possible that that's a good thing? Well, what I did was I started looking deeper inside the community and found that any positive post I could trace back to the servers that were in the company that was suing me. So we found that they were austro turfing as it's called fake posting, so I countersuit Unreal Self. So it was like a detective thing. We just like figured it out and then we countersue them with evidence, and ultimately they they said, we're done, We're we're we'll settle, We're out of this. But it's cemented home where our standards are for the people who worked for a Real Self, the people who are associated with it. And I had dozens of dollars to say good for you for staying up to those bullies. No one else has had the guts or balls to do that. Now, obviously that company was posting on your website. What year was this, Oh, that was like in two thousand eight, so they were, you know, doing what quote unquote astrosurfingstro turfing surfing, astro turfing surface. See where my mind is, I want to go surfing. How do you prevent that from happening? Now? First of all, unlike other platforms that allow you to post reviews, we moderate every single one. We review every single one. We do a lot of background research, not creepy way, but just to make sure the person is a real person. We have a real identity they exist in the world. We actually ask that they verify their email address. And we are constantly finding moments where we are saying, this is clearly a suspicious review, and we will contact Typically it will come from a medical practice that's really trying to gin up how they look, and we will educate them on why that's not a fair and not right. And so we take down thousands of reviews. Sometimes we might get it wrong, maybe there is a real one, but there are a lot of indicators and signs in algorithmic ways to detect. Let me just say this, any platform, Amazon, anywhere, anywhere, they can get faked out, right, you know, when you're paid to leave reviews on on some companies and I don't even get me started on Yelp. We've talked about that on this podcast so many times, that yell will purposely put the bad reviews on top so that business owners will pay for whatever program Yell pass where it'll put the good ones on top. And it's like, this is so unfair, especially for small business owners. But I feel like you're you're almost countering that completely, that whole industry of Okay, well, if I'm a doctor, I can get people to comment on my Google account or whatever account it maybe and get the good posts up top. But you're you're just putting the truth out there, good or bad. With real self dot com, how has real Self changed from what it was in two thousand six or has it even changed? Or I guess the growth all of that, Like what is the company like now? Verse Then I think of real Self as um It starts out, yeah, a website right in a destination. But as time has gone on, we have seen the proliferation of social media in places where we spend all of our time. So we've built up a really robust presence on Instagram, in email with um and and that's at real self um ari a l as elf and you know, we have a very large email base, so we send a lot of newsletters, and we do events and one that you're attending, we'll get to them, sure, but really fun in market events, experiential where you get to see aesthetic procedures, treatments up close and see what is this all about. So it's not so so um inaccessible. I would think we're more of a diversified community, which is both local and social and on the platform, so it's and now we're over two people and wow, sitting here but also in Seattle, but also we have team members all over the world and and distributed, and I think we're at in nineteen states. We have employees including Hawaii. When you started real Self, though it was in you said a spare bedroom. Yep, here in Seattle and Magnolia neighborhood and spare bedroom. Yeah, and now you have two hundred employees, Like do you think that would happen when you were in that spare bedroom? Did you really think it was going to get that big? Or did you think you were just going to do this whole thing the whole time? Do you My north star and guiding point was I want to build a brand that is loved and known, and the fact you didn't know about us is shows me an opportunity that we still had and have and and probably some of your listeners like, what is this real Self thing? You know their phone or whatever. So my job is not done in that end. Part of being an entrepreneur is being pretty disconnected from and a little bit delusional about all the things that are in front of you. And there's a healthy dove so naive toy that you need to have. I had that in spades, so so I didn't really know if I'd get to two hundred, let alone how to manage two hundred and yeah, how do you do that? Because I can't manage myself little two people. Obviously, you have other people. It's not you every day going in and telling people their tasks for the day. I'm sure you have a great team around you now that also does that. But we're they're growing pains. Oh yeah, I mean there's It is an incredible journey an entrepreneur goes through. If I always say, it's like being served up giant slice of humble pie every day, and you know, at some point you just have to get affinity for and kind of like it. It's like, I love the way this tastes more humble pie. Thank you. But that's part of I think a strong leader is one who adapts and listens and learns and knows they don't need to have all the answers. And you can't go to a meeting sing I don't really know. I'm just here to listen. I think Zuckerberg is famous for that, being sitting through meetings and being quiet, listening, asking questions as oppos asserting their their their will of ways and how things are going to work. And I'm not saying I'm any close to Zuckerberg's level of success, but I am an individual who is a consummate learner and try to recognize that the team members around me are people who I need to trust and learn from together. So absolutely, I mean, yeah, they're there. You're paying them for a reason to let them have their opinions and their ideas. And it's true if you could have done it on your own, you wouldn't have had all these people around you. And I think that is very valuable for anyone listening right now who may manage a team and to hear what you just said, because it is very important. But something I do like to talk about people who do hold meetings because not a lot of people are on this podcast have a very small business where it is just them. But when you do hold meetings, I have I hate meeting So I'm gonna say that right now. I cannot stand them half the time. It's just everyone cracking jokes, at least here in radio, and I make that very clear to everyone. But what are meetings like as a whole at real self? Are their rules. I know, I think basos is I will not be in a meeting that has more people than a pizza could feed. So that's about eight people. I'd say it depends if you how you're caughting this license, So do you have different rules for meetings a real self. We don't honor power point slide presentations. We want to see the written word, you know, things written down and sent ahead of time. You know exactly what in six pages or less, what is the plan? What is the what is the decision that needs to be made? And clarity around um the questions and even commenting beforehands shop. And I just literally ran over here from a meeting where we were just doing that, which is we had a plan, we looked through it, I asked some questions. There's a follow up. But also, if you find yourself in a meeting at real self that is no longer relevant to you, you have absolute permission, if not agency, to just walk right out. And that's not insulting. And you know that you've been there right sitting in that meeting, like I gotta get out of here. I gotta get out of here, all of them. Yeah, but it's because I'm not holding the meeting. If I was holding the meeting, I'd probably think way differently than I do. But no, it's true, and that's incredible that you have given your employees that comfort for them to be able to, you know what, my time has served some better somewhere else. And that is so smart for you as a CEO, as a for a company as a whole to teach their employees. If you think you could be doing better work, then go do it. And that's great. I think all companies need to do that because meetings can be a big waste of time. Yeah, So that going back to that person who's sitting maybe with only one employer by themselves, feel very special about that. You do not have to sit through these sessions and moments. And if I do, though, however, I love coming together and hearing ideas and flushing through them and flushing through them and really trying to understand how we arrive at decisions and and make sure we just stay on that you know, that compass direction north of like, Okay, we all believe in these values and we are not going to compromise us for a quick dollar, and and just make sure we do the right thing for what I think is a social responsibility we have in real self to stand for for consumers and transparency and doing the right thing. So you were able to grow real self a lot by getting funding money from investors, and I want you to talk about those amazing people who have helped out and how is it forty two million dollars that you were able to fund to date? That is incredible and it's a big there's a big baseball bat on my head. So there's a lot of people like, oh my god, like that could be me. There's people starting their small business going one day that could be me. So I guess how did you create those relationships? And who were these incredible people who helped you out along the way. That's a question I get quite a bit from young entrepreneurs or new entrepreneurs because it is a pretty opaque process of I've got an idea, now we need some money. How do I get that money? I mean buying a house? You kind of know the pathway to getting money. I was very fortunate to work at Expedia, which was a very entrepreneurial organization. As I mentioned earlier, people who went off to start great companies and are c CEO Rich Barden had a thesis when he left UM to go start Zello, which was, UM, I want to invest in power to the people type place and so power to the people meeting like you know, basically transparency. And so I was sitting in that little spare bedroom in my house with my one employee and I got a call from him and he said, hey, I see what you're doing a real self. I'm really intrigued. Do you want to come by and tell me more? And I was sure, I'm bizarre And I went to his office and he said, you know, he went through this in my thesis, my view on what I was trying to build. And he said, well, are you looking for investors? And I said, uh, yeah, you want to write a check? And he said sure. And so that started the process. Having a person of Rich Burdon's sort of experience as well as just respect in the overall community of investors. It was like having the most perfect angel investor lead in Master and just people just followed in place. And we also got Nick Hanauer and his team over at Second Half Partners excited through Rich and you know, Nick is the person who basically commnced Jeff Bezos to come to Seattle. He was one of the he was one of two angel investors in this thing called Amazon. So it was just like this top tier, amazing people, and they really believed in just you know what amount of money every raised back then was under two million dollars, And for them it was like, just do the right thing, build this, and you know there's no stress or or you know, we're not you know, trying to get um quick bucks from this. It just seems like a really great idea. The forty million dollars comes in, that's a different story, but I'll just hit pause so I don't keep learning out about money raising. But okay, so the two million dollars early on, where did that money go? Did it go to paying yourself, paying employees, marketing early on? Where do you spend that money? Almost always you see in in early stage companies and software is really cheap. These days, we have open source, we have easy access to tools, laptouse costs of fraction what they used to all that kind of stuff. Where it really shows up is in hiring great people. And software engineers in my case, are very expensive, highly sought after, even when I started the company all the way through to today, but I didn't pay myself, so that was something I would also encourage if you do raise my as an entrepreneur, always pay yourself because it just starts creating a lot of stress in your life. And it was about two and a half years before I got a reasonable salary for myself. But I kind of always looked at it like, well, I rather pay somebody else so I can get one more person than take a salary, and I'll just eat it, you know. I cut back on a lot of personal expenses and my wife kept her day job too, and um, you know made it, made it through to a period where we became profitable and I could give myself eventually a decent salary to more reasonable and market right eventually. So this may be a dumb question, but then how does real self become profitable? How do how does the come? But you make money? Right? You know, if you think about what we're doing, we're helping consumers get information and ultimately they're also not only looking for well what are these different treatments for skin? And and you know it's like I don't like wrinkles in my forehead, which is true, you don't like the wrinkles of my forehead, But where are my various options choices, whether it's a laser treatment or botox or you know, something beyond that. So there's that side, which is there's a lot of brands who would love to let you know that they exist and they need help. So we do get some money from brands who would like to share their story of they're both on our platform and in our other mediums like ore experiential events, which we'll talk about, I'm sure. And then we work with doctors, and we give doctors an opportunity to promote themselves in a legitimate way, which is here arem my before and afters um for rhino plasty in Seattle, and you're looking at rhino PLASTI how about you take a look. There's no like, oh, you know, get you know two for one special for bress augmentation or you know, none of that. It's really native experience where the doctors paid to get their information in the right place at the right time, which is as you're doing your research. So let's talk about that event. So Real Self House of Modern Beauty. That is the event that I'm going to be a part of. I'm going to be hosting a panel of amazing women in media here in Seattle, which I'm honored to be a part of. It's super excited about. But this is yours. Is this your first Seattle event? It is, well, it's our first. We've done some micro events here. We did a self defense course. How did I miss this? That was a while ago, But it was an unfortunate story that one of our employees was attacked and Golden, I know that story. That was one of your employees. Do you know. After I saw that story, I was like, I need to go do a self defense class. And I never followed up. So we had literally like a week or two before that event where she got attacked by this man in the bathroom. We offered all of our employees a free self defense class and so she knew from that class what to do. I remember reading that she learned from Yeah, And so we did do a follow on course or class where we offered anyone to Seattle community and I think we had three hundred women show up and one dude, okay, waited to do this again. I am like all in on this. It needs to happen. I will promote the hell out of that because I think every woman needs to do that. Yeah, I mean Kelly, who is the woman behind really supporting this idea of sharing her story openly. She's committed to that. She also tells her experience and just saying, you know, she was yelling at the guy, you know, not today, motherfucker. And but but but you know, like she said, she just brought her fearce on and said, you know, I'm going to make you and she kept saying to him, you're going to die today, You're going to die. And she was and she said, there's no way she would have found that unless she had taken this. So, you know, if you don't do the course with us something, I just recommend it to any of your listeners. It's incredible, really valuable all around that you've got that you did that for employees and then for the public. So that was one of your events that Yeah, I can talk about that for for hours. Okay, So this one's way more fun. No attacks, no attacks, shouldn't leave there, no, So real self House of Modern Beauty was the first one? Was it south by Southwest or where you originally kicked it off? What happened at that event? What was that one about? That was so fun? I had never been to south By Southwest, and you know, I heard it's just a dynamic event of just interactive in the music and film. And we decided that one of the ways we would bring our brand closer to people is and and to sort of really see if the interest for aesthetics is expansive as we think it is the mainstream was to have it at this really big event and and really stand out because there's very very little in the beauty realm fashion at at South Bay. So in combination of both securing a talk for our chief medical editor, who did a really great panel session about modern beauty, which is um what we believe we're in the industry of. We had an actual physical house that we turned into just this really awesome room by room, different treatments, different products and get to and then panels and like you're going to and we had editors from everywhere from Refinery twenty nine to viewers from from big magazines as well as New York Times and and we just turned it into our own micro event and we were so excited by We're like, we gotta do this again. It was extremely challenging to pull off. Our team did a fantastic job. And so in Seattle is our next iteration of it, and we're timing with Brass Cancer Awareness Month and the American Cancer Society Walk, and so it will be on that same weekend. It's October nine, so obviously if you miss it in the beginning of the podcast where I mentioned it's October nine. And then at ten am is where you'll be able to come in. The event is so people can come in and they can try out all the different procedures, ask questions about the procedures and treatments. And then the panel is at nine that I'm hosting nine am, but that is invite only, so I am giving away chance on my Instagram to win your way in. So go check that out at the Carlinbury. You need to get that in there. People there. It is so fun and you know, you get a little bag of good ease to take home. And I got my s off by, I got a treatment for my face, I got um, I tried to facial, I just tried all these new things that you know, if you have to set up an appointment with the clinic, you're just not going to test it out or just see it just watching somebody like what is that thing that's shaking your stomach? And it's like, oh, that's called M sculpt, and like what's M sculpt? And we just are breaking that barrier down as I mentioned earlier, between what are these things? What did people say about them? But also like what does it look like live in person? Or even to try and test just to ask them. I mean you can, you can type questions into Google for days, but to ask an actual person who is doing the procedure and knows about the procedure, that's a whole another story. So I know there's gonna be micro needling there, which I am a big fan of, and I know a lot of people have a lot of questions about micro needling, So that's going to be there. It's just gonna be a really cool day. And I love that you guys are breaking down this wall of oh, we shouldn't talk about cosmetic surgery, we shouldn't do this like that that is the whole opposite of what real self is. You should be talking about it, And I love that you break down that wall. What is something that you want People who just kind of like glaze by real Self? Maybe they see the website pop up or something. What is the one thing that you would want to grab them and say, Okay, this is what real Self is and this is why you need to come to this website. I think ultimately we are a combination of transparency and consumer empowerment, people, real people, authentic storytelling, and unparalleled credentials in terms of the doctors who we allowed to be on the platform. Do you hear a lot from the doctors who are like, thank you for creating this because now you know they can speak about procedures and connect with patients or possible patients. Absolutely. I had a surgeon recently who does a lot of breast reconstruction and works with women recovering from cancer, breast cancer, and she said, you know, there is no place I can send my patient to get informed and feel like she has community and support besides real Self. And she she was just incredibly gracious and and thanking me. And I've had I had a woman at south By Southwest at our event um saying, you know, before real Self, I had a procedure with the doctor and he said he was a cosmic surgeon, which is, by the way, a marketing term, not a real medical And she said, only you Real Self and Tom, you know, your your company was telling the truth that this person was actually just a general physician who was calling themselves a cosmic surgeon. And she had trusted her her body with this person. She had been deformed and went through the most crucia and pain of her life. How does that happen? How are doctors allowed to do that? There's no there's no regulatory constraint around a doctor. Any doctor can call themselves a cosmic surgeon. Any doctor. And here in Seattle there's an oral surgeon who calls themselves a cosmic surgeon. Now, if you knew your surgeon who's about to do a breast augmentation on you says you know, oh oh my training, Yeah, my training really starts when I um intental school. Like you'd freak down, run out the door. But that's that's just the case, and why Real Self is trying to bring a level of credentials and quality to our real self verified program of like, yeah, as long as the doctor says who they are and what they really stand, you know, what they're training is based on, We're cool. Yeah, I mean, any doctor gets mad that Real Self exists has something to hide. That's a fair should be your new tagline. Any doctor that doesn't like us, don't go to them. Yeah, I mean in parency is is tilting the field and the favor of consumers. And it's painful for those who have lived in a world of obfuscation and trying to you know, basically prey upon your vulnerability of or you know, look, I don't know about you, but my information that I have about health and my my own self. It's like I carried around an egg in health class with how the rosalind and we try not to break it, and that was like a baby and but what you know, And then I learned I'm older than you, so I learned the food pyramid. I did also learn the food pod, which is right, garbage, garbage, wrong, right, wrong, wrong answer right now, it's it's a radio studio somewhere. You've got a bell over there. You get hit the bell for the good things, not stract the bell. You're right, we don't what do we know about health? You know, we don't and we're unprepared, you know. And yet at the same time, it doesn't matter where you're going for medical care. You know, let's go beyond esthetics. You just don't want to be a dumb person asking dumb questions because we all know and as you get older, you know, if your parents get older, your grandparents. You see, if you don't havevocate for yourself in this health care system, you're going to suffer. You're going to get inferior care. And well, what can we do about that? And that's where I think in our little world, we're doing that, and others are doing in other spaces of healthcare, and you know, great on them, um, And that's what's exciting about our job because we're really at the forefront of consumerism around healthcare and making sure we are smart shoppers, buyers, and we make those decisions just like that Expedia going beyond the brochure experience you have today on travel. Yeah, I mean I feel like, yeah, travels great and all, but your body is pretty important. So I thank you for making real Self, which I want people to check it out real self dot com. It's at real self on Instagram, come to the event. It's real Self House of Modern Beauty October nineteenth. You can get all the information real self dot com. Um. But Tom, I think the question everyone wants to know is what does your wife think now? My wife. She's really proud. I think it's really proud. And she's his real self and her girlfriends too, and they will be out of the house of modern beauty. And just as just like anyone who shows up wide eyed and interested and just wants to be informed, hopefully you get to meet her. Well, I'm gonna find her. I'm gonna ask her why she did not like the idea of this at first. I'm definitely gonna ask her, but why did you support him? Get your trouble? She said, not support she I'm gonna ask her, why did you say this was a dumb idea? That's what I'm gonna say. Tom, thank you so much for coming in. I know you're a CEO of a company and you took the time to come here today and do this podcast, so I appreciate your time very much. This is a lot of fun. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Thank you so much for listening to side Hustlers. Yes, so go to real self dot com for any info at all about Real Self and how you can find out where their events are popping up. Come to the event this weekend oct and depending on when you're listening to this podcast in twenty nineteen. It's at the Riveter in Capitol Hill and the panel that I'm hosting you can only win your way in with me on Instagram. It's at the Carla Murray. Please reach out to me at All Side Hustlers Podcasts at gmail dot com if you've got questions, if you've got people you want to recommend for the podcast, I am always open to whatever you want to hear. And next week's guest is Amber Larks from Amber Larks Art and Photography. You can actually follow her Amber Larks on Instagram, amber Larks dot com. But I'm telling you about her now because she's actually going to be at the full Moon Market this weekend, also in Capitol Hill where my event will be, so you can make a whole weekend out of it. It's really cool. So you can go to a House of Modern Beauty with real self and then go over to the full Moon Market in Capitol Hill right at the bottom of Stumptown Coffee and you'll get to see Amber's work and then you can hear her story when the podcast post Monday morning. Another cool event for you to check out that actually ties in two side Hustlers or two groups of Side Hustlers Kendall if you remember her from The Hollow Sloth the Shark Kuderie Company. So Kendall is actually going to be hosting a charcuterie class at Studio Life. Remember we had the amazing women behind Studio Life on Side Hustlers. You can check out that event. It's October. If you go to Studio Life Seattle dot com you can register for the class. Use code Carla Maurie to get off your entire order when you booked the class, Take your girlfriends. It's gonna be a lot of fun. It's called Looking gouda Charcuterie class and happy hour a lot of fun October twenty two. Hopefully I will see you there and don't forget. Please like this podcast, subscribe for this podcast, follow this podcast, whatever it is that you do on whatever app you listen on that really helps end rate and review this podcast because that helps more people find this podcast and then we can get gas from everywhere on this podcast. So thank you for being here. Appreciate it. I'm Carla Murie. You can find me on Instagram at the Carla Murie And until next week, keep postling the weekly podcast that started it all, They just wanted to have fun as they dreamt of one day having their own morning show, and now they do. But the tradition continues. Every Friday, My Day Friday with Carla, Marie and Anthony, available worldwide on the I Heart Radio. Kick off your weekend with Carla, Marie and Anthony