The NFX podcast is about seeing what others do not. And getting at the true mechanisms behind people and companies that endure change in the world. If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a rating and review and by sharing with friends you think should You can also discover more content, like other episodes, transcripts, essays, and videos by following us on Twitter, and now on to the show. Brett, thank you so much for joining us on the NFS podcast. It has great to Pete you again.
We were just down in Mexico few weeks ago. So I'm really good to know you today to join us. Thank you. Great to be on Pete. I have learned a lot from you personally and a lot from this podcast. So great to be on. We'll talk a little bit like what we were doing down in Mexico in a little bit. Maybe just let's kind of set the background to give some So why don't we do some quick fire kind of numbers and talk about what news story is before we do that?
Maybe just like, what's the elevator picture on news story? Yeah. So our mission is to pioneer solutions to end global homelessness. And so we work with families that are living really in extreme poverty without adequate housing. And what we do is we come in and we look at a lot of the inefficiencies and the traditional kind of outdated models of why families don't have access to certain things like seeing Morgan affordable housing.
And then we try to bring in innovations and better solutions to that market. And if you think about it, the market that we work with is, unfortunately, about 1.6 1,000,000,000 humans that don't have adequate housing. And Wow. Beller, that's a billion. That number is supposed to potentially get over 3,000,000,000 in the 2030s. And so we see that as a impact oriented model, but from a founder standpoint, there's a lot of them listening.
It's a massive underserved market that we think is has so many opportunities to bring in new innovations at, you know, web 3 stuff and better ways to design architecture for the decade. And so that's what we get to work on. And I've been doing it for about 6 years now. We work mostly in Latin America, started in Haiti, and that's what we get to work on. So in terms of kind of numbers, quick file, like, how many homes has new story built so far?
Yeah. By the end of this year, we should have well over 3000, hopefully closer to 4000. And all of those homes are actually in communities. So we design communities so you could think of not only as the home as a product, but the whole community as a product. And how do you have different features in that community so that it provides a better Flint environment for families, and it enables them to increase their income, have better health health outcomes, things like this, we'll talk more about.
And so, yeah, that's what we get to work on. And the homes per home costs, ranges anywhere from about 6000 to 10000 US dollars per house for a multi generational home. Communities of product. Yeah. I love that. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I know you're very thoughtful about how do you be putting this participatory design. About how do you make sure this is not just a house. This is a community where people Beller, not having such a ownership.
Yeah. You know, just a spring Pete, startup principle there because we were one of the first nonprofits to go through white combinator back in 2015. And, of course, you know, the mantra is, you know, make something people want. And when you think about the families that we work with, unfortunately, the status quo of the types of people that usually work with them is they don't really go and learn the family or the customer in this example, what do they actually want?
They just think, okay, this family is, you know, very low income or we just need to help them. So let's just grid out a bunch of houses, not get their input, not get their feedback, not really have, you know, systems set up, to AB test and learn and create a better product. And so we just thought that was very outdated and wrong and not how a startup would go about approaching that.
And so we love bringing in, the families and the residents that we get to work with, and they can help give us feedback on the home design, on the community design, how we do payments, how we do financing, Like, we're designing and improving our products based off of their feedback, which, of course, to a lot of founders listening sounds like, of course, that's what you do. But unfortunately, in, you know, kind of the nonprofit or the social sector, that doesn't happen.
And I think that's one of the main reasons why, you get a lot of, bad outcomes because you're not using some of these, some really important startup principles. Yeah. It's startup principles, but it's also web 3 principles, right, the sort of principle of so much of web 3 is built on the back of communities.
Right. And, you know, I think there's probably we'll touch into it, but, like, how kind of online communities learning from offline communities, but, you know, you think of the organization as a tech company first that happens to be a nonprofit that happens to be kind of building homes. Yes. And, you know, you're kind of learning the best of these online principles as well as, I'm sure, importing some of these offline principles into the way you're thinking about online stuff. That's right.
So maybe we'll go that Morgan sort of like previous and later stuff now, but, like, kind of quick update on kind of an NFT Beller you did recently. So what was the numbers of that and it's stored up pretty quickly out here. Yeah. I mean, so I would say that new story thinks of innovations really in 2 main buckets. I'd say the most important one, which is actually counter to a lot of most nonprofits.
By far, the most important innovation is just like the products and innovation that we can design for the families that we serve. Right? So that's one bucket, and we'll talk about how we're using Webroot for that. But then the other one is just a better way to do, you know, funding and to generate revenue. And so the NFT 1 was just a really quick example of how we learned from some of I won't name certain collections, but we were watching very closely some of the other collections out there.
And so we spun up our own collection in a very short period of time and sold out within a day, and they were selling for about 2 EFA Pete and that alone will fund almost a whole community from that one day of just selling NFTs. And so we're now actually going into our next phase, which will be a new collection we hope to release here before the end of the year in 2021.
So, Pete, it's just like understanding what's going on and what's an interesting use case for the partners, the donors that we wanna work with, and they think there's a lot of people are listening. You know, all the great use cases for NFTs I do think that having that be donations is a very transparent way. You get obviously something great cool that you can have in your wallet.
We're also gonna associate some other kind of benefits with the NFT, with brand partnerships that we get in the future. So we're very excited about it. We kinda dip our toe in the water and there's a lot more we're working on. I so love that you're doing it because it's so many nonprofits are, like, so risk averse because they're, like, they're trying to perhaps sort of like these owners or just not screw up.
And there's a, like, their experimentation, there's a high degree of potential failure is fine, but that's the only way you learn. And it's, like, proved out. Right? You've won the last company, most innovative companies in the world, a bunch of years running. Yeah. 4 out of the last 5 years. We've been in that.
And so and, yeah, I think, you know, for founders listening, especially in the earlier stages, like, what I've learned is so key is really pick what you have conviction on and just be shameless about that and be unashamed about how other people are gonna think about it.
So Sometimes when news story, you know, we launch new things, and I know that, you know, some of the general donors that are used to certain expectations or experiences with the traditional nonprofit, they may roll their eyes at us. So they may say, hey. You guys can't do that first. You gotta let the other people do first. It's gonna be all these things. And if you try to listen to everybody, you're just gonna get diluted. Your brand's gonna get diluted. Your message is gonna get diluted.
And so what we've said is we're unashamed in how we think about using technology, calculated risk taking, innovation, how we pay Pete. And this doesn't have to be for you, but this is gonna be for the type of, you know, investor donors that say, hey. I resonate with that because I would maybe run the same way.
If I was running a nonprofit or I was an executive nonprofit, and so that's been key for us is to just have conviction and just speak to that market that believes in the same things that we do and not worry about other folks that disagree. So that's really important for us. So let's go then. Like, let's talk about the origin story. You know, tell me about the trip to the Pete and when was that, and then you connected with your co founders, Yeah.
Tell us that origin story and how you got to got things going in the first place. Yeah. So I, graduated college, 2012 and got really interested in startup kind of around my senior in college. And I just started kind of learning on my own, listening to reading books, podcasts. I mean, at that time, there wasn't as many resources out there as there are now, but I just became obsessed with learning and learning about startups. So right out of college, I started a for profit e commerce company.
There used to be a lot more of those back in 2012. And and during that experience, Pete, I got to raise venture capital, got to learn how to get customers, how to go to brand, all these things. And that ended up not working, but what it did was it led me and my cofounder, that first startup, Mike Garetta. We wanted to give back to 2 charities, and we wanted to build that into our business.
And one of those charities, which is an amazing organization in New York, called Charity Water who we're very close with, and it was another charity that was based in Haiti. And, we wanted to go see that charity based in Haiti in person. And so, we took a trip down to 80 a couple years after the 2010 earthquake, I had no real understanding of the issue of global homelessness and families not being born in adequate housing. Did not know anything about that, but I went on this trip.
And on that trip is when I got to experience I would argue maybe aside from climate change, one of the largest and most expensive problems in humanity. And that's at, you know, well over a billion people do not have adequate house and I got to see it in person. I got to see, you know, kids and babies and moms living out of blue Pete tents with dirt floors.
And I saw that, and I actually, when I saw it, I didn't think about starting a charity because I always just wanted to be, you know, kind of lead tech startups. I try to go find other charities that I could get really excited about and I could support. And, again, this was me as an early 20 something, you know, kind of somebody that likes to start and entrepreneurship.
And the more I looked, Pete, the more kind of frustrated I got just felt like there was a very old school kind of status way of a nonprofit and that didn't resonate with me. And I literally started making a list of all the things that got me frustrated. And then I thought, could be and should be better. And that list ended up being the origin of why it made sense to actually start new story and not just go join another company.
So it's named new story because we wanna create a new story and, of course, the families that we get to partner with and their new story and their life directory, but also a new story and how we think about modernizing and refreshing social impact and bringing that into a whole new area And so that was kind of the founding, you know, principle and ideas, and it took a first startup that failed that I could learn from that. And then that startup led me to see this experience in person.
And then from seeing that experience in person and trying to go find other basically brands in the sector, I saw so many inefficiencies and frustrations and that was the moment where I said, what if I could just from scratch? You know, don't have to deal with an old school board and all these, you know, older philosophies and traditions, like, we could just start something brand new from scratch. And that was how, you know, a bunch of wheels, 3 young co founders, we were 23, 24.
We had no experience in this very complex sector and industry, and now is how we launch. And, you know, we started by just, you know, wanting to do a few houses. I always say to three and big, but to start Morgan now we're literally thinking, how do we house, you know, over a million people this decade, which is something I have a lot of conviction we can do, but it didn't start that way.
It didn't start, or how do we create a plan to house a million people from day 1, it was how do we create a plan that is very different from the incumbents And how do we just go out and get traction and prove that? And we did. And we got in the white combinator and then ended up meeting you right after Pete. And so starting a nonprofit is unusual. It's not in charity. You'd like a you started a for profit and you're sort of surrounded by technology, I guess.
Was that always that sort of the kind of calling Pete, and it's just more unusual in this day and age, perhaps, to have a very technology centric organization that is purely focused on being a non profit or see that. It's just the only way to get that. I wouldn't wanna say the only way I think that it is the most interesting and gives us the best chance to really scale our impact. And, you know, part of our mission statement is to pioneer solutions and global homelessness.
And what that means is we have to learn what our the issues and the inefficiencies. And then we have to, you know, create product and solutions that is a much better experience for those problems. And then it's hard to do that without, I think, using technology and using software and, you know, really understanding where the future is heading. And then, you know, kind of our big dream, Pete, is we prove those out.
And then we let other people in the market for us because our end goal is many more people we can impact. And so the competition in our market, whether it's other nonprofits or affordable home builders, actually, you know, designing solutions that they can use as well. And we're kind of the first ones to go out there and try and learn and we'll fail some, but ultimately create better products and solutions that set up this decade for the families that we get to work with.
I mean, when we've been talking board meetings, we have to sort of there's a bit of a flip switch between, like, competition, you know, how much you wanna enable the competition versus compete with them and, like, you absolutely wanna enable them. You wanna open source everything. Like, is exactly the Flint, which is a little bit of a sort of mental shift, but it's, like, inspiring when you put that in.
I think like you say, it's it's not necessarily the only way, but it's probably the most effective way to get there. And you talk about this. I've heard you speak a few times about this phrase that I love called crazy until it's not. And just like as backing early stage founders, we love we love these, like, impossible ideas that might just work. Is there a framework that you think about this or kind of mantra? What does that mean internally at New Story Crazy until it's not?
Yeah. I think, you know, for us, you know, one thing I have learned is, you have to be I think you have to be selective with how many of the crazy until it's not ideas that you go after. Obviously, if you're going after too many, it's gonna dilute it. If it's only just one and maybe too small. So we wanna get conviction on what are the bets that we wanna make. And if they work, it has, like, truly a 100 x, you know, exponential impact.
And if it doesn't work as you're building a company, you know, we haven't done anything that would if it didn't work, you know, completely sync us, it would be a a big hit to us, but it would be one that we could you know, it may require resizing the organization, like, but we would be able to move forward. And so, you know, too crazy till it's not.
That's, the first one, which has gotten you know, a lot of attention was you'll be able to partner with a startup out of Boston, Texas called ICON and being the absolute first partners to create a 3 d printed house in the United States. And then the dream was we wanted to help prove that out and then create the 1st 3 d printed community of homes in the world. And, we were able to do that 2020. And now we have a next goal, which I won't announce Pete.
But in the beginning, when I was, you know, running around telling people that we wanted to allocate a lot of capital towards 3 d printing houses, even though they haven't been proven yet. A lot of people said that was crazy. A lot of people said, you know, let the other people do that. Sick to what works. Stick to what's normal. People are trying to give, you know, wise advice.
And, you know, we wanted to listen, but we made a decision to try it anyway because we had high conviction, and then it worked. And when it worked, then it's no longer crazy. It's, you know, everybody wants a partner with you. We had, you know, Apple TV, do a documentary. You have all this coverage. We've had, you know, 100 of millions of video views. But it was because we had the, I guess, the courage to take a calculated risk despite many people telling us, we shouldn't be the ones to do this.
You're to an experience. Who are you to to try this? You know, let the other guys try this. Like, what are you doing? And then we did it, and then it worked. And so That's one example. And then we have, you know, another one coming up here that's exciting with some web 3 stuff we could talk about that I also see could it play out that way.
Yeah. Because I remember talking about the 3 d printed home and and it is a crazy idea, but I think the way that and correct me if I'm wrong, the way that it's sort of transpired, while the technology is really early, it's improving incredibly quickly, and it is literally, you know, better, faster, cheaper. I was That's right. Amazed at kind of like the sort of better being sort of tensile strength of these things is superior to bricks.
And like an earthquake risk zones, it's sort of it's Beller. And then it's faster, what's the best case, 24 hours to build a home. That's right. Which is astounding and then, you know, cheaper or at least the same price as everything else which is astounding. And I think, you know, as a lot of founders listening, like, you know, what founders do and what, a lot of investors will do is you're forecasting out a future of what could be it should be. Right?
And so for us, as an example, a 3 d Flint homes, this is a bet on the decade. Right? And we know that in the beginning, there's gonna be problems. There's gonna be issues. There's gonna be learnings and efficiencies. But we made this investment as an organization because we really believed that in the second half of the decade, it could really scale up.
And I think that's what a lot of founders to, right, is they have this insight on what could be and should be further out into the future that is going to, you know, take some time to build and get traction and you know, change public opinion and, you know, change, you know, who are actually gonna leave great companies and come work for your startup, but you're the ones that are starting it off and are catalyzing it. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's classic startup timing. Right?
You've got these sort of you take a long term view of these technology technological shifts. And the economic shifts, and it doesn't necessarily make a big impact today, but it will, you know, you scale it up and it's like, this, you know, the benefits are growing potentially. We first met when you went through YC right back at, like, 6 years ago. Is I guess that must have been a pretty critical kind of you know, forging of their DNA in the company and culture. That's right.
Would you say that's the case? Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the best things about going through white combinator, which was extraordinary for us was they didn't treat us any differently than anybody else there. Right? They didn't set us aside and say, hey. You guys have, you know, make your ambition, you know, half of the other ones because you have a social impact or decrease your standards, you know, or, like, no. It was the exact same thing.
And that's how our co founders, Matthew Nally, that's what we believed. We think that if you're trying to work on such a massive complex problem that we are, if anything, you should have higher And I think, you know, the ability to just choose to have higher standards and to choose to, you know, put innovation in your culture, put calculated risk taking in your culture, to be obsessive about, you know, recruiting great Flint.
You know, the list goes on, and those are choices that we got to make in the beginning, and that's what Beller formed, you know, our DNA. It also helped form who are the types of, you know, donors or partners that wanted to get involved with us. Because as I was mentioning earlier, you know, when I was talking with you Pete or other people that were joining us in the very beginning, you know, was saying all these same things.
It was just so early it hadn't happened Pete, and it attracted a certain type person that wanted to be part of a company for an organization that. They give you, like, a 100 homes in a 100 days. That was the challenge. Right? Well, how did you feel when that was proposed? Well, Yeah. So this kinda Beller form one of the values that we have at new story now with the value is, you know, think big breakdown, execute you.
And the backstory is, I'm sure, some of folks listening have gone through white comedy or maybe you wanna fly. When we went through it, when you first start you know, you have about a 3 month, you know, period. They they tell you pick 1 very ambitious metric that you need to hit at the end of this. And it has to be one metric. Can't be a lot of other ones. Just focus on one metric and, you know, so go off for a day or 2.
And as founders, think about something that feels very ambitious, but, like, just maybe possible and attainable. And so we went away and we said, you know, in 3 months as a couple, you know, young twenty somethings that haven't done this before, if we could do fifty houses, in just three months. That feels really ambitious, but then maybe we could do it. And then, the first thing they sent back to us was great.
Double that, you're gonna do a 100 houses in less than a 100 days, and that needs to be your goal. And, you know, what that forced us to do was to just change how we would think about going to market, how we'd have to do things on the ground, that's a mentality that anybody can take. Right? And that's a choice to think that big and to give yourself, you know, those goals in that limited time period. And it worked. We did about a 115 houses. A 100 days.
Yeah. Amazing. I remember I was one of the Yeah. So it's terrific. But the last thing I'll say in that, Pete, is Yeah. You know, there's a very, very, very very small percentage of people out there that would encourage you to go after that big of a goal that early. Right? And so, you know, for people listening that wanna become a founder one day, like, you have to understand that there is only a very small percentage of people that are going to think that way and are gonna push you way.
Usually, what's gonna happen is the gravitational pull is to just bring you back to what's normal, what, you know, it's gonna be a little above average what would be nice to have or nice to do. And, and I think as founders, you just you you gotta think bigger than that. And you've gotta push through. And, you know, I'm an example of that.
Like, I am by no means anywhere close to like, usually the smartest person in the room or the most accomplished person before I came Flint new story, not at all. I think one thing that me and my co founders did have is we just had the audacity to set bigger goals. And what we realized was that I always say bold ideas attract bold Pete, right? They attract bold people that want to invest in you that wanna come join your company.
Now, obviously, you have to back that up as you go on, but that has been an advantage for us is to just set Beller goals. You're listening to the NFX podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, feel free to rate and review our channel and share this conversation with someone you think would benefit from these insights. Follow us on social at nfx and visit nfx.com for more content. And now back to the show. I mean, back to this sort of discussion about community.
It's like, it's a Pete works that you keep is so critical. I remember coming from the UK and, you know, being involved in internet startups there and then to Silicon Valley. And I thought, okay. That we're doing pretty good. We've been marking this, that, and the other was pretty good for a UK company. And then you'd report to Silicon Valley. I'm like, woah. You know, it's at least multiples order of magnitude sort of, like, you know, different metrics there and that.
And then you kind of, like, figure out why that's, you know, that seems really impossible. And then you learn and you kind of, like, think and then you sort of put your headspace, head in a different space and like, oh, yeah. Okay. I'm there. And I think that's just a sort of network that you find as a part of. And that, you know, there could be passive networks or it can be active networks, but it changes your kind of like Absolutely.
Your aspirations, your goals, which, you know, can turn a sort of, you know, a good business into a category defined business or nonprofit. That's right.
That's what, you know, I just saw firsthand of, you know, a couple startups at NSX has backed in Latin America, and I won't go into the specific names, but I was so clear how you know, those founders taking on that mindset, from my opinion, has really brought them tremendous success and is really setting up the decade for them to create you know, I mean, category defining companies that, of course, are the exceptional founders, but they, you know, you really have that mindset as well.
You touched on culture and values, like, perhaps could you talk a little bit about those values and culture? You know, I think a lot of companies focus on a mission driven orientation but you take it a level further. But at the same time, you might wanna sort of become, you know, unlike most nonprofits, which you know, I fortunately I've seen them which kind of perhaps a little bit slow and inefficient and risk averse. Like, what are you instill in the culture value?
So, I mean, you act like, and this is wonderful things when we first connected you at, like, a hard charging hyperambitious tech startup with metrics and goals and and KPIs for can you break down a little bit about how you went about the culture and any specific components that may be Yeah. I think the first thing was, and this may sound, you know, cliche, but was was really deciding, which is totally your choice when you're starting a company. Like, Are we gonna take this seriously?
Are we gonna take culture and value seriously? And I remember Morgan Chesky, you know, one of the founders of Airbnb, you know, came and spoke we Pete going through White Commeter, and he just he talked so passionately about the culture and values. And for me, that was something I really, I was like, I'm gonna take this guy at his word, and I'm gonna really believe this.
And so, you know, I became, and my co founders as well, pretty obsessed with how we wanted to instill our core beliefs and our core values. And for any type of founders, I think you're gonna have course have different values for your organization and I think a lot of times they do flow from who are the founders. And I don't think there's no right or wrong value or way to instill culture. I think the most important thing is that you really believe in it and you really invest into it.
And then you are unashamed in choosing the type of values that you really want to implement in the organization and Pete come to life. And so for us, there were 2 values that still we talk about the most, almost 6 years later.
1 is what we called a team of founders, which essentially just an ownership mentality, resourcefulness mentality, learning mentality that when new things come about, that we can't even, you know, forecast yet, but, you know, 6 years ago, I wasn't thinking about how are we gonna use web 3 to do payments, you know, with the families that they get to work Right? But it was a mentality of a team of founders mentality where we want to learn.
We want to go out and try, and we want to own experiment and own the failures of those. So that was one value. Team of founders, the second value was a humble pursuit of excellence. And to me, this is, I think, really what defines the organization.
And that's just, it's kind of this unique blend of, on one hand, you have the pursuit of excellence would be I mean, just tenacity, determination, really high standards, a high bar, like, really pushing people to be the best that they can be And on the other hand, you have a humble posture. You also have compassion. You have kindness. And those two things together are quite rare. It comes from, you know, Jim Collins, good to great level 5 leadership. Those two things are so rare.
And I think when you get them together, that's what creates mean, for us, that's been the magic of our culture is bringing those 2 things together. What I think usually most cultures kind of lead with one of those Right? Maybe some could be known as maybe this is some non profits as, yes, they're very compassionate people. They are kind and absolutely but do they have the other side? Right?
And then you may go to some other startups that are, you know, maybe over indexed on the tenacity in the pursuit of excellence side, which I'm the first one to say is great, but they're missing some of the other things, the soul of the organization. And we really wanted to combine those together and create a humble pursuit of excellence as the value, and that's what we try to recruit for. That's what we try to be known as an Morgan.
And we live that out every week by still 6 years Beller, every week, we are shouting each other out for exercising those 2 values, you know, in our Slack channel, and we also have every Friday. We've never missed a Friday of doing this since we started the organization. Every Friday, we have a values call.
There's no agenda other than team members going around the horn and shouting out another team member for how they exercise one of those values that So I would say, okay, Sarah, this is how you were a team of founder this week. This is how you displayed a humble pursuit of excellence. And I think for us, been amazing to have a weekly cadence of hearing stories of what happens during the week, but also how other team members are doing. So those are, you know, a few things that come to mind Pete.
And is there, obviously, most companies have a price for revenue scale or profitability, like, what's the North Star metric for you? So for us, it's ultimately number of people impacted, and that is the North Star metric. Many people that were able to to partner with and that they would have life changing home and land ownership. And so for us, this decade, our metric that we wanna get to is over a million people that would have new home and land ownership. That's about 200 and 25,000 families.
And then after we hit that goal, we would like to maybe 10 x or a 100 x that for the following decade. Yeah. That's terrific. It's still a drop in the Morgan. So it's a big problem ahead, but that's, I mean, still a million people is just astounding.
Yeah. You know, we think it could be you know, larger than that, but what we're really getting at is because we are working with literally one of the biggest problems in the world, we can't do it all ourselves And so what we really wanna do is, you know, create, improve kinda like the most efficient and effective way to partner with a million people for life changing homeownership and land ownership and then have that be a model that others can replicate And
so what we're trying to do is be best in the world at doing that for a million people and then create kind of the playbook and the software and the tool kits that others around the world, other home Beller, and actors that wanna get into the space can do. So let's talk a little bit. Just like double click on the 3 d printing stuff for second. Just can you describe just like how the technology works from it?
I've seen it in person in a couple of places, but just like think it's sort of it sounds wacky, but can you describe, like, give a bit of audio, example of, like, how it actually works? Yeah. So we're using proprietary summit mix that is gonna be oozing out of the 3 d printing machine. And so there's, you know, the homes that we print are anywhere between 500 to a 1000 square Pete. And the machine will, you know, it's like a gantry style machine.
And so the machine will set up on the ends of the house that we're about Flint on the foundation, and then we will layer the house with the cement almost looks like a soft serve ice cream that coming out of the nozzle, and that is creating layers that will ultimately layer up and go to the top of the house and you put a roof on. And so each layer is about an inch to an inch in half thick, and a machine is just printing the layers that the CAD file is telling it to Flint.
And so we can edit the CAD file. We can edit the designs. And then the machine is just doing what it's told to Flint the house. And there's hardware, you know, innovation Pete. There's software innovation, but it's also the material science innovation because it's really about how quickly can that material cure from when it comes out of a nozzle, lays down a layer, and then you have to come back around and do the other layer until you've layered the whole house to the top.
And that's what we're really excited about in the future with our incredible partner icon is to increase that speed at how quickly the homes can be built. Yeah. They're quite beautiful. In some ways because they're sort of they're much more organic because everything's Currier shaped. It's like the technology is kinda like weird cake decorating. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Freezing this stuff out is like oozing around. It's like all massive toothpaste tube.
But they're just a really organic at which makes it just a warm as opposed to blocky, which is astounding. And it's like, I think often you see innovation kind of enter markets at the sort of high end or the low end of the Morgan, and I think this is you know, there's sort of the odds of steep learning curve on this. You can see that scale here is potentially astounding. Exactly. And so, Pete, you saw the very first 3 d Flint community of homes in the world.
And, of course, that came with a pretty big set of challenges and things to learn, but, you know, from our perspective, We did it. We proved it. We got an extraordinary amount of learnings, and that's gonna set up the next couple of years for how we wanna to grow the partnership. So let's talk in web free and credit risk stuff for a minute. So it's in real estate financing. There's all these models. Like, and you've seen this entry of web free in crypto. Maybe just give us some context here.
Like, what's the sort of big picture and then what are some sort of classical stuff you're seeing right Yeah.
I think this is gonna be another one of the, crazy until it's not ideas that a couple years from now, people will say it's no longer crazy, but I have so much excitement and conviction around this use case because it cuts out the traditional banking systems that the families that we partner with already don't use and don't trust because they're not designed to serve families that are, you know, below the poverty line living without adequate housing.
And so for us, why we're so excited about it is because it creates a whole new opportunities the families that we get to partner with. And so how that shows up right now that we're doing is the families that we work with, they are unbanked Right? So we can't just send them a mortgage payment on their phone or their computer and they, you know, click their mortgage payment or put it on auto pay, right, to make their mortgage payment that doesn't exist.
So because of that, you have traditional systems that are set up where if a family could get anywhere close to a loan, that would enable them to try to build their house, which, you know, doesn't really exist. The interest rates are gonna be insanely high. And then how that money is transferred and collected over time is literally with cash and people doing it all in person and trying to track that for over 10 years. And imagine where is that stored? Where is the transparency?
Families in a have to spend so much time going and walking and making these payments. Like, it's a complete disaster. And that's why a lot of the interest rates are so high. And people can't, you know, make longer term loans, which we would need for a mortgage, right? Cause as we know, takes a long time for a lot of people in the world to pay for a house. That doesn't exist because of all of the human labor and old school subs.
And so what we're doing right now in El Zante Beller Salvador, which is kind of the home of, or the Bitcoin Beach project started is, we are using Lightning Network that, you know, pairs well with Bitcoin and families will be making digital mortgage payments from their phone for the first time.
So they will whether they're paid in Bitcoin or they get paid in cash, they'll be able to convert that cash into BTC on their phone, they could do that through Bitcoin ATMs that are gonna be in the community enclosed by, or they could just get paid in BTC and El Salvador. And then what news story we have a wallet set up with a great company called Gallo, and families will literally be able to, in 2 seconds, pay monthly mortgage invoices from their phone.
And that is all transparently as it can be on the blockchain, and we're able to do that all digitally. And that removes all of the human labor and the higher interest rates and the servicing costs of trying to collect the payments manually, and it gives families a very transparent creditworthiness that's digital, and then they can have simply by making these payments from their phone and on the blockchain. So that's one example that we are extremely excited about because everybody has a phone.
All the families that we work with have a phone. They just don't have a traditional banking system and creditworthiness them, and that's what we wanna prove out. I mean, you sort of you put it in context, and I think it's the transaction costs associated with these micro mortgage payments and and the administration costs of kind of managing them in any traditional format would just be it feels so expensive and cumbersome. So digital focus makes sense. Right.
And you use traditional fintech right now either because a fintech, you know, kind of web to fintech is gonna usually be relied on some type of traditional bank that you're also plugging into. And so with web 3, you just basically surpass that, and it just goes direct to the lighting network and some of the blockchain rails.
I mean, El Salvador is, it was like in this sort of recent Bitcoin day if I saw the tweet from the president who was like, who is kind of fuming that I think he missed the bottom by 7 minutes or something. Like and so they seem all in on this.
So that it reminds me a little bit of just the know, perhaps in Africa 10 years ago where they were, like, behind on fixed line telephony compared to kind of Western countries, but then mobile telephony just leapfrogged a lot their kind of infrastructure, I guess. And I think this the banking financial infrastructure and certainly, you know, you know, my understanding in El Salvador and other parts of the region is incredibly immature. And so, you know, this seems like another leap frog moment.
Okay. Let's figure out where this might be in Kenya's time and put ourselves there. Which, you know, it's ambitious. And I think they've maybe got nothing to lose by doing that aggressively. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, we're very excited about it. We're doing an active pilot and, you know, hope to scale it up even more in 2022. And, you know, one of the last things I'll say, Pete, is, you know, whether it's this exact web 3 use case we just talked about or other things that we're doing.
You know, I think now after doing this work for about 6 years, I think the biggest opportunity that we have in helping more families around the world move from inadequate housing to life changing housing is seeing innovation in a way that decreases cost and improves the financing system so that families can actually pay for the house and the land themselves. Because Yeah. Charity and government subsidy only goes so far.
I think philanthropy is a really great way to prove models and to take a risk. But ultimately, if we want to really scale this out, systems and innovations have to be created so that such a massive underserved market can actually pay for the house and the land. And that's what we're working on, and that's why I've never been more excited about our mission. Oh, that's terrific. I'm just touching on NFTs quickly. Is that what advice do you give other non fits to my approach you?
I don't know if they should be necessarily jumping on it. I think that you have to be able to learn, understand what's going on. Right? So I think you know, our team because it kinda goes back to our DNA of who we hire and who we recruit. We've been actively learning. You know, we've been know, reading, listening to podcasts, talking to advisors, and, like, really understanding what it's about. You know? And I don't think it's about just, hey.
Let's make one piece of art and then auction it off at the end of the year and call it NFT. Right? I think that misses a lot of the opportunities and the excitement around NFT. So my advice would be just spend more time, like, really learning Morgan understanding it. And if that's maybe not in your DNA, think about hiring somebody in 2022. They could be somebody younger. So maybe the budget is not as high.
That is just gonna really be excited to learn about the future and then how do you create those real use cases for your Morgan. Because if you don't do it in a, I think, in a genuine way where you really understand what's going on, I just, and maybe make it one, you know, nice quick hit, but it's not gonna be a long term thing.
And if you can't hire that person, you know, also what we do at news story is, you know, we surround ourselves with advisors or supporters where we could go and learn from them. And that's a choice. Like, anybody could do that. Right? Like, the fact that, you know, I can go on Twitter and start DM ing people that I think really understand what NFTs are. Like, that's a choice. Anybody could do that, and I don't think enough people in the social impact sector are thinking like that or doing that.
Yeah. No. I don't think so. I think a lot of these just jumping on the bandwagon is not gonna be successful, but it's natural that you would do something in this area. For the next drop. So if people listening, hopefully, when this comes out, we'll have it out. Go ahead, Pete. Sorry. I would definitely be interested.
So and then Bitcoin based Morgan, like, we talked about this sort of innovation, like in 3 d housing, innovation kinda happens, you know, often at the top of it or the bottom of the Morgan. Like, any thoughts on if you think this might be something that would be more applicable to countries outside of El Salvador potentially in the US if, yeah, how much? Think you've done on that.
Yeah. So I think, you know, El Salvador is gonna be just an incredible place over the next really few years for innovators to come and to try different use James. Right? And that's what we're hoping to do is to really prove Bitcoin based mortgages, really using the lighting network out next year. And then, you know, I believe this is an opinion, but it's, you know, kind of a betting on where you think the future is going.
I do believe that other countries, especially throughout Latin America, and then eventually Africa will adopt, you know, a lot of these payment rails and how we can use web 3 to do everything better and faster. And so from that perspective, because we Beller that it will expand outside of El Salvador Morgan least that's what we're betting on.
We think it makes sense to invest next year and to learn and to, of course, make mistakes with an ultimately creative product that other people around the world can use. To the US, I'm not as sure. I think it has probably the best practicality is in places where families are unbanked and they're out of the traditional financing system. That certainly does exist in the US, but that's what we're most excited about. Yeah. So interesting. Before we go, 2 quick questions.
So one is, like, you know, you're such an innovative company. What's big for this story next year? And then second question, how can I listen to support what you're doing, your incredible team and mission, and how can they learn and more about what you're up Pete?
Yeah. So the biggest thing for 2022 that I'm most excited about is a new story kind of transitioning from our 1st few years of pretty much funding or having our model be purely philanthropic and kind of all shared Pete for families that we get to partner with. We're now taking all of those learnings and our technology and our data.
And next year, we're moving into a model where families will basically be paying for their home and their land because we figured out how to make those payment terms over a longer period of time, how to use technology to do it more effectively and efficiently. And what we've learned is that families, like, they want to do that. That's a dignifying process. They want to do that. And so for kind of the per unit economics of home and the land, families will be paying for it.
New stores and organizations still definitely requires philanthropy because we're using that to fund our team, fund innovation, r and d, and then also still fund some of the subsidies that we will have with the home and land cost. So that's what I'm most excited about for next year. We'll be doing that in Latin America using Bitcoin based mortgages, but also, just kinda more traditional mortgages are not using crypto yet.
And then if you want to get involved, I mean, you can contribute to if you love web 3 stuff, you can contribute to our Bitcoin based Morgan, program, you can, if you're more excited about supporting the innovation and our team, there's a program that we have where donors just fund our team and our R and D and our innovation. A program that we have called the Beller program.
Or the third thing is that you can just go on our website and either buy an NFT that will represent a house where a family will get a house in real life, or you can just sponsor a home to end the year. The home is about 10,000 US dollars. Well, Brent, it's been, like, perfect to have you on the podcast. It's like, you know, personally, it's been so rewarding to spend time with you down in El Salvador and in Mexico and then the all the work that you've done.
And then professionally, like, it's been sort of intersection of a lot of stuff that affects, and I've been on from thinking about alternative transaction models to Yeah. Kinda think about alternative living and then this kind of tech enabled construction and management really just Currier end effects thesis are in the area, but in quite a different market. So it's been professionally just super rewarding as Beller.
Fascinating. Thank you, Pete. I feel honored to be able to learn from you and founders listening. I couldn't give a high recommendation for the partners and effects. So thank you all for putting out the content that you do and being so passionate about helping founders create, you know, world changing companies. At NSFAX, we believe creating something of true significance starts with seeing what others do not.
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