Yeah, it is. And we’re just blessed as well, because Jeff, my co founder, he actually lives them in Zagreb. But he’s always known that the portal, which is their insurance contracts, we’ve been able to source a few guys as well, I should point out as well, as a part of the status, we’ve gone to grants. And as part of getting those grants as well, we take on UK developers as well. So it’s interesting dynamically mix is going to be at an all job is going to be remotely overtake nantou. Developers from UK as well full time at the moment because of our because of
Greg Owens 25:33
aggression.
Keith Ryan 25:36
Getting English one way of getting these developers but that is a little bit more of a challenge. And everybody knows we’re in the UK, that talent pool just isn’t there. So it’s a lot more difficult process. But we have a bunch of interview processes with them. And we’re very pressed what we’ve got a reasonably decent price for advisors, there are a lot of country specific as well as for where it is.
Greg Owens 25:59
Right, right. And I’m excited. I’m excited to see when you’re so is your software and service. Is it ready now for pricing and that kind of thing? Or is it? Is it soon to be?
Keith Ryan 26:13
Yes, great question. Soon to be, we are delivering projects, choose some of these global companies and the board sites, cleaning and carpets, and they’re actually paying for the pilots. And we’re delivering the results in a semi automated process. So when we have 1000 square feet, per se, it’s normally the average of what we would do on a pilot, we deliver the results that are 10 working days. So it isn’t so bad at the moment, but when we fully automated in February, March, it will be in minutes. So that’s the exciting part when we can scale.
Greg Owens 26:46
Wow, that’s incredible. And I’m assuming that you’re trying to get it to the place where it’s plug and play where, where you you’re not gonna you’re like the client, the cleaning company can just buy or rent, the whole setup, the helmet and the goggles and the backpack. And then one of their employees is trained on how to do it in a couple of days or something by your company, I would think. And then you send them into the that person then goes into the company and walks through the building and outcomes, the scan, and then outcomes, the pricing of whatever it is that they’re needing. Yes, and says, Wow. Yeah, that’s
Keith Ryan 27:29
very cool.
Greg Owens 27:30
Yeah, I think I think Katrina here would love to be one of the first guinea pigs to do the do some of that she Katrina is in in efma. She’s She’s on the board for for if my here in the United States. And, and like she just said she was just on a board meeting yesterday where they were talking about these kinds of things of how to automate, automate or Yeah, or, or make the process so much easier, because they’re, I think they would they’re struggling with a lot of times is like, Oh, we don’t even know what the budget and we don’t even know where to start when it comes to the budget on some of these projects. Yeah,
Katrina Stephenson 28:06
it was, actually, is that we’ve been talking about it for a while, but it was actually at an event on zoom. And it was some managers from all over the Bay Area, we had about 30 people on discussing what to do with all the furniture and to get cleaners in which, you know, ice for that. So this is no thought on to what the people want.
Greg Owens 28:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I’m, I’m, uh, I’m, I’m ready to sign up, Keith, you know, your banner for painting anyway, are. And we’ve, we’ve actually, and we’ve actually talked to a few. Now we’ve talked to a few companies that do offer cleaning services, right, like so as part of on this podcast. So that would be another good. I’m sure some of them would love, love to show you. One of the things, Keith and one of the things that concerns me sometimes with these kinds of things, because I’ve seen there’s been a couple of times where painting companies have come out with ways of automating costs, right? Of automating the pricing. And, and, and there was one company here in the US, that was a paint company paint manufacturing company that came up and bought blood, a high tech company that was doing this and they gotten a lot of trouble from the contractors. Because what they were doing was they were, they were skipping out they were they were going straight to the client. And saying, we can level the playing field. here’s the here’s the price. Now you just need to get a painting contractor to come in and do it for this price. And so in basically what it was doing was and they would include the materials and that kind of thing, but in a lot of ways, all of a sudden, a lot of the contractors were then Only bidding on price, which as you know, is not always the case, right? Because there’s a lot of other factors that come into come into play there. What’s your thoughts on that as this moves forward? I mean, I think it’s the way of the future in a lot of ways, right? There’s no stopping this, because everybody wants to have a better idea of what do you think,
Keith Ryan 30:19
is a great point, Greg, that you brought up, because I can tell you probably those algorithms, the way that we’re ever set up whenever tested and validated within the pricing of the amount of space in the wall, and whether the alignment wasn’t something off somewhere, obviously, right? Seriously up as well. But if you know from our perspective, and not creating the benchmarking cleaning, we take in the my algorithms that I developed over 1520 year period into fix, which is British Institute of cleaning standards, which is accepted globally as the quality was that productivity guidelines company, you know, 60 years old now. And it has been great for the industry because a new commodities come into the 21st century now, to bring it to the next level, because those productivity guidelines are only ever assumptions of what should be included in the cleaning our in the different verticals within cleaning, like office cleaning, school, cleaning, and so forth. And they’ve always been manipulated by bdms, to try and win the contract that I’ve passed. So we validated our algorithms against fix. We also have a very senior lady in Webster, who was really respected. And globally, she sits on the trainer for the AI SSA global cleaning organisation. So she’s tested my algorithms against fix. She used to be the chairwoman optics for two years in the UK as well. So she’s a very senior person and widely respected the team. She won’t mind me saying she might listen to this particular Island is she’s in the industry tourism five years. And yeah, she’s been just awesome for us and just validated, again, six days, no, how is another benchmarking company, and of course, the 612 algorithms within cleaning for the ISS. And actually, when we’re validating my algorithms were slightly more conservative than the iassc, which was great, because you know, not to be a scheme master in having the algorithm set to find that is not achievable. And then also, Katrina and Greg, building on from that as well, you we’re also factoring in the war time between cleaning costs and a systematic approach as well and an office building healthy record and optimize war patch. So you know, whatever the square feet you walk is factored by the times that things like in Europe is 1.8 seconds per metre, and down in the impact of hope that we’re going to things about 10 seconds or one metre there aren’t productive and how they work. It’s there. So basically, and also,
Greg Owens 32:56
surely there, some, some cultures are slower than other cultures, right? Yeah. Here in America, like, you know, the New Yorkers are way faster than some people in the south, right.
Keith Ryan 33:07
So there you go. And, you know, we’re going to factor in those variations, even you know, citywide rather than countrywide, which is going to be super, super cool. And the more datasets we get, the more we’ll be able to provide those specific benchmarks and just ignore them. And again, you know, with such low margins, within the cleaning industry, you’re talking like most contracts is three to 5%, less likely in Alo. So if the million grill like is only 30, grand or 3%, I mean, it’s so low. So the scope to get it on, it’s hard. And it’s like painting and decorating as well, right? super competitive industry. And the margins are quite low. But you know, the way we tested as well, as I’ve always said me, not that I know everything, but with cleaning algorithms, I knew that they would always stack up. And I’m working with you guys, you know, if we were just a different example, to do a couple of pilots who will actually go in and get a few words together to make sure those algorithms stick up. And it’s not as simple as we know, it’s just a cobbler, you get my point, it’s just one type of wallet as well. Factoring those algorithms to make sure that they can stack over and we develop the module because we want to get one crack. We don’t get a roof
Greg Owens 34:14
over your head, right? That’s so true. It’s kind of like websites, right? It’s like two seconds and people bounce. They may they may spend a little bit longer with your product. But yeah, I mean, if it’s not right, then it’s Yeah, it’s
Keith Ryan 34:29
funny. You say that Greg is very good. Our website is pretty much just a glorified landing page at the moment. But yeah, I think we it’s engaging the top of it as well because you can see the poetry, the scan going around and what we do plan to set aside for a good one, which is exciting. We’re rebranding as well. And also we’re looking departments with patents pending at the moment for not only the cleaning module, but we’re going to devote our modules as well and we’ve already gotten our brand name trademarked in the UK In the world for Europe, the US next in the next couple of weeks, so yeah, it’s all guns blazing at the moment. So
Greg Owens 35:06
your legs are on fire man, it’s, it’s, it’s so much stuff going on, it’s so great. And, and I was thinking, yeah, you were mentioned earlier the DNA of a building too and having to factor that in because for a lot of times, when I do when I go into San Francisco, and our buildings are not that old as they can be in the UK, um, we have to figure out I have to figure out how we’re going to park like these are these are the factors in pricing, right, that are really important, how and where we’re going to park, how we’re going to how do we get into the building? And what’s the access through the the maze of underground sort of passageways, because, you know, the, some of the buildings we mark in are super nice, really nice. They don’t want us coming in the front door, they want us using the service elevator, and that’s elaborative to get to those servers, right? And so factoring those kinds of pieces in how does your How does your software take that into account? Or would it be with with the person where it from started, they get out of their car, and they’re like 3d mapping like okay, here’s Yeah,
Keith Ryan 36:17
and actually, I do believe that when it does part is that it is, well I’m not too sure that we stand 360 maybe we can factor that in. And of course, you know, there is going to have to be that exercise of vertical on the PowerPoint, because nobody would never do about that. But I believe that I actually know guys, it’s where it’s going at the moment is because roughly 1415 months ago, Cushman and Wakefield signed the Global Partnership deal with matterport to scan a lot of their buildings globally. So this believe is the start of the evolution from floor plans and CAD into scanning links to provide the building so I do believe in a lot of buildings you may not even they may have it already so you may not even have to go to site once you have it I suppose you have it and it’s it’s realistically for whatever the scan maybe two three years if no structure or internal water don’t do it because as we know some floor plans can be seven or eight years old or something being two years or whatever they yeah
Greg Owens 37:15
and I’m I already use Google satellite for exteriors of commercial buildings right to do them and then I can get pretty accurate measurements of the exterior of a building but by just going on that and seeing what the layout of like okay, you know, what’s what’s the streets look like? Cool, there’s parking on the streets. No, there’s no parking we’re gonna have to park it as parking garage, whatever it happens to be. The technologies is out there. Yeah. And it’s coming It’s coming fast for the interiors that makes so much sense but you’re in it’s so great, you’re on the cutting edge of all of this.
Keith Ryan 37:51
Well, you know, to Greg and Katrina, it’s been a difficult journey for me in London per se, because no, I’ve always been could make things happen pretty much for most of my working life before I get into lambda for whatever reason, I just even because I know the guy that talks Believe it or not talks a great job but I could actually win again walk the walk with pretty much anybody. And I just always felt that they had to be in the most basic jobs I was doing cleaning jobs 20 years ago, being on a salary of a manager 20 years ago from Ireland when I moved to London, but it is what it is. I got there and you know, absorbed was wanting to persist and getting this concept and vision and dream after life. And pretty much in only four and a half years. I got the door firmly shut in my face. So you know, apart from me, and my crazy idea, you know, we have an advisory global sea level board, you know, and one of those guys is Bo Blake, and he’s personally invested into ScanQuo. He is the ex CFO in the EMEA region for successfactors. So I don’t know if you know success clusters, but back in the day before it went IPO. He was the guy that led that IPO into SAP for 3.4 billion while we have you know the it is not a guy current fund series. He’s the ex CEO of Sodexo globally and he’s on our advisory board as well we have jack and then in one of the companies we’re working with with the Global Head of cleaning and there’s another lady very soon as more senior as well as the best of them so from both sides everyone is seeing and so it’s reassuring and hopefully and I say hopefully it just might be madness because we have a lot of hard work to deal with just telling the back end into the front end development to get it lined up
Greg Owens 39:29
right and I can only imagine the capital outlay for a startup like this is pretty heavy you know but but the big because you’re going for those great rewards of being in in this industry and being the dominant player within the industry. Yeah and you
Keith Ryan 39:47
know, with the with the money that we’re raising at the moment, Greg we’ve it will be 1.3 5 million. And in the grand scheme of things for such a technical builds of machine learning and AI through our talent talented developers like we’ve been able to get done and stuff from just two back end guys up until a few months ago, they done in six months to take guys maybe three, four years to do. So. It’s just true their talents, and we’re so grateful to them guys. We haven’t lost anyone along the way. And we don’t intend to lose as we go along. And hopefully long great, john.
Greg Owens 40:22
Yeah. Now this is this. This is this is so great. And so in your in, I’d like to change a little bit and just find out about because I love finding out a little bit about what’s going on in the world. You’re you’re in Croatia right now. And you’ve been travelling digital nomad, and you’ve been different countries and things like that. What is what is the COVID outlook going on in that part of the world.
Keith Ryan 40:47
And in Croatia, it’s very relaxed now. Most places has been around Europe and the five o’clock was completely fine. And when I was in Tenerife, it was pretty much open all year round, even through the toughest times and COVID. And now even in the UK, as well as the vaccination levels are so high. Of course, it’s peaking Now listen, which because everything is completely reopening, but I don’t believe there isn’t going to be there is there’s not going to be another lockdown in the UK, I firmly believe. I do believe we’re over the worst of the home, which I believe it’s here to stay for another few years. Because as we know, the less developed countries need to be propped up to speed with the vaccinations. But you know, my brother just sent me a message there in the city where I’m from in Ireland, and it’s a 97.7% of adults more reputation. Now, it’s only a city’s 78,000 people. But 97.7% are fully vaccinated. It’s crazy. So all in Ireland as well, you know, per se.
Greg Owens 41:47
That’s amazing. That is not the case in the US. No,
Keith Ryan 41:51
no, no, we have a lot of naysayers. naysayers, everywhere, even within the cleaning industry is so cynical and backward and behind and I think I’m qualified enough to say it’s not to be done with the negative industry. We want to encourage people that come into the 21st century get on early doors with the technology and you’re so Mussina is amazing. But we’ll come back to within 12 months but yeah, that’s fine. You might have missed the Bosch because we do believe in so in changing changing the day that I stopped there.
Greg Owens 42:22
Yeah, I live in an interesting World War I have I have a lot of liberal democratic friends that are anti vaxxers not anti vaxxers anti this vaccine right. And, and I have a lot of very conservative republican friends that are also anti this vaccine. And I’m both camps what I see a tremendous amount from when I when I actually talk to them and hear their stories, is they don’t they distrust our government and distrust big pharmaceutical companies? Right? And they they’re like that, you know, I just don’t trust it. And we then you know, I think America puts out a lot of these kinds of disagreeable people out there. Yeah,
Keith Ryan 43:05
of course, there always is people are going to be have that objectiveness and don’t want it for obvious reasons. And we read between the pair of the horror stories and people who haven’t got COVID and then your son died from, which is really tragic. And it’s interesting for me, you know, I’m definitely more of our pro and getting it. I haven’t gotten one yet. But it’s so funny when I was living in Tenerife, I think was the Pfizer north, the Johnson and Johnson on the wound job vaccine. So I said I go for that. So I went up and have an actual insurance number to give more generally because it sends data by the law. Well, where’s your national ID card? And of course, I’m not a citizen, so they won’t give it to me. So so interesting, God, we went down, we rented a board with a group of friends then the following weekend, and this one girl was on and she gave it to everybody. And even the people who had been double jab, everybody on the board got it right. And I got it as well and got to the point that actually it was okay for a week. I had such a busy weekend. I’m so proud. I said a little bit space there, but it was okay. And then after the Saturday that following week, I just had four days of being very sick. But I’m so glad that I didn’t have to go to hospital and came through and then just the following three weeks, I was fine, but I just had no energy so the Fighting Irish was able to get through without the going the hospital isn’t round, so I’m probably immune and I don’t really need it now. Right? Or as they say it only last three or six months. I didn’t know But yeah, I think once the vaccines keep getting more intelligent people will believe and it’s better to have it or not have it I think it’s working.
Greg Owens 44:41
Right right. Yeah, I know man. He dies for you. But you said that everybody on the boat Got it? Yes, everybody. Even the people that had been double bakst correct. Yeah. And then how were their symptoms? What were their did they did they get a bad dose today? Were they Oh, Okay What was the gap is
Keith Ryan 45:01
pretty much at bay doors and a couple of them happen for one or two days they were still able to work towards one or two our offer one or two days that had the vaccine that we’re able to work 10 hours a day out of one day our guide I really had a bothers me for the four days and he still went to work. So I believe you know, if anyone goes in regardless of the country, I think they should give it to them because it’s I think it helps the cause. Right? So I don’t know
Greg Owens 45:27
right
Keith Ryan 45:28
now. And it’s so funny because that particular lady she was having to Germany two days later and then she couldn’t go
Greg Owens 45:40
like your sense of humour around all of this. But something great about the Irish I mean, they really can laugh at almost anything right? Katrina looked like you had a question.
Katrina Stephenson 45:58
No, I have the Johnson perfect. Yeah.
Keith Ryan 46:06
Did you have any? Are you did you didn’t have any side effects when you’re adopted? Now
Katrina Stephenson 46:11
you know, the biggest one was my arm like I don’t know if I don’t have any like muscle mass. Or what’s happened? Barely list that was the only symptom was my arm was just like in massive pain.
Keith Ryan 46:22
Was it? Wow, yeah, I’ve heard that. Yeah, I’ve heard that by a lot of people. And actually one of our UK team. He had a bad for two days with the former Cindy’s arm. But I think it was the 41 exam.
Katrina Stephenson 46:38
It was just it hurt. But Wow.
Greg Owens 46:40
And I had the Pfizer one and not and no, no issues with it. And but I’m also surprised I’ve been I was I’ve been to a bunch of group outings and, and festivals and things including Burning Man. And I’m surprised that I have not gotten this delta virus variant yet. I haven’t friends get it. But even somebody I was around over the weekend had had turned in like, texted me and saying, hey, if you were close to me, I’d gotten I got COVID. And he was vaccinated. Right? So who knows? I mean, it’s a it’s a it’s a, you know, it’s a mystery. All of this. I think there’s 160 scientific articles a day coming out about COVID. So how can anybody keep track of that much science, right? Like, you know, peer review, you know, actual science where people actually did research? Yeah, 160 articles a day. That’s just too many for us to like, disseminate through,
Keith Ryan 47:41
maybe guys do we can develop some kind of machine learning an AI algorithm around that for donated as well? Yeah, yeah. No.
Greg Owens 47:49
And we and we actually had our last podcast when Katrina was on it. We had another company that was using a AI. Invite. Katrina, do you remember what it was about? Because my brain my brain is blanking on it at the moment. There was a podcast we did recently where the guy from Seattle and I’m blanking on his name and his convey.
Katrina Stephenson 48:13
Yeah, I was also Roby, I was also thinking a lot that that this your software and his software can integrate. Right. So
Greg Owens 48:21
Jay, Jay’s company is a cofee and he’s using AI. And what they’re doing. They’re they’re, they’re they’re like getting into buildings right now. Their way they’re getting in. And then he has grandiose ideas of where it can take it is, it’s hot and cold. Right? So there’s a lot of a lot of time spent from a facilities manager that has to deal with like, oh, a client is saying, Oh, it’s too cold in my office right now. Can we change the temperature? Right? Well, he has an API that sits on on Slack, where now the employees can just say, Hey, I’m too cold. And what his software does automatically is turns on the fan. Yeah, so the client knows something actually happened, like the employees of the building. Can Yeah, they can text slack. And then in an instant, they can hear their fan Go on, and they’re like, they feel better automatically. Nothing’s changed.
Katrina Stephenson 49:22
But it does change. It does change
Greg Owens 49:24
over time. But the users
Katrina Stephenson 49:26
out there
Greg Owens 49:29
there’s a behavior or like something you you made a request and something happened, right and that’s, and that’s, that’s a that’s, that’s a huge thing. Like, that’s super powerful. That’s all you want to do is to be heard.
Keith Ryan 49:44
Yeah, that’s right. And that leads very much into guys as well, the Internet of Things which is exploding within buildings, into the smart buildings, per se. And as you know, the Internet of Things sensors, which I believe is a fantastic evolution forward. in the technology space within contract phrases within facilities management because they know the sensors as well as tell you why hot desks are there, we can link that back into our algorithm as well. If it’s not a hot desk today, it’s not clean, because we just need to be present, right?
Greg Owens 50:15
There you go, right? Or it needs like once a week because dust settles
Keith Ryan 50:20
right after Yeah. So temperatures and closing the blinds for the sun, different parts of the buildings as well automatically. And so yeah, cool. It’s, it is getting there. But as we know, the corporate real estate space, it’s so far behind and there’s so many different amazing, fantastic technologies are coming up. So yeah, it’s it’s like a global Industrial Revolution, not only within theory space for prop tech in all different areas of every business job.
Greg Owens 50:49
Right, right. And so you know, as we get closer to ending here, like what are you excited about? I mean, you’re excited about a lot of things you have a tremendous amount of energy. You know, you’re living your best life there in Croatia, what’s what’s what’s the what’s what’s on the what’s on the roadmap that you’re really excited for coming up in the next few months,
Keith Ryan 51:10
as you can probably tell them a little bit driven and have we have global ambitions to do a lot of great things and who knows where so well actually no, but good ready, and I know where I want to get, I suppose we’ll kick the powder dry a little bit, but it’s definitely a unicorn status within the next few years, I would imagine and after that, we want to go a lot of other places as well but it’s all ready to stay in majority for the next seven years or eight years and I have a number when I get to a certain number dynamic in terms of valuation, but you know, the goal is so simple driven, but it’s you know, it’s very just it is I’m living my dream, it is the dream. I’m wanting the dream to continue but of course we need the believers and we have nothing but over customers who will be the believers in our tech so you know, just in wrapping it up as well. It’s got to meet guys on the the painting decorating module. mailbag. And industry party who knows in a few years time, right,
Greg Owens 52:12
right, right. Yeah, no, I’m excited about that. Yeah. No, I’d love to be a guinea pig in any way. And Nita, so I would, it would be super fun to check it out. And I know, I know, I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. And I would rather not walk the building and measure. Right? I mean, I do it. It’s my job. It’s great. I get to move around, but to have something, you know, do all that number crunching for me would be absolutely wonderful.
Keith Ryan 52:43
Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we look forward to doing a pilot project with you guys.
Greg Owens 52:48
Sounds Sounds great. sounds promising. I can’t wait to see your product. I can’t wait to see it out there in the world and materialize. I’m sure it’s going to you’ve got so much energy. How would our, our podcast listeners find you or what’s the best way for them to? To find out more about you?
Keith Ryan 53:10
Yeah, I think the most simplest way is to just go onto our website. ScanQuo s-c-a-n-q-u-o.com and then get my contact details on there. Or you can email me it’s k for Keith. And r for Ryan. I was going to say Romeo so kr@scanquo.com.
Greg Owens 53:30
Perfect. We’ll put we’ll put those in the show notes. And then I absolutely love this conversation is super interesting what you’re up to. It makes so much sense.
Keith Ryan 53:42
And Thanks, Greg and Katrina for the opportunity. Good preaching.
Katrina Stephenson 53:46
Pleasure.
Greg Owens 53:47
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for being on the Watching Paint Dry podcast.
Outro 54:01
Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.