Omer (00:09.760)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode I talked to April Lemon, the co founder and CEO of Alasant, a mobile app platform for master plan communities to create a single destination for their residents and future home buyers.
In 2017, April and her co founder Mike were running a data analytics platform serving real estate developers.
They were approached by a master plan community in California that wanted them to build a mobile app.
Initially, what started as a project to build an app for one client turned into a white label product that is now sold to master plan communities around the country.
We talk about how the founders were able to make that transition.
We also talk about the importance of user experience and how their app gets a 90% adoption rate by continuously simplifying the user experience and creating a seamless onboarding process.
April also shares the lessons she's learned about working in a market that can often have very long sales cycles and how they've been able to get 100% renewal rate with multi year subscription deals so far.
And we also talk about how we can sometimes let our own internal biases get in our way and specifically some limiting beliefs that initially held April back and how she was able to overcome them.
Currently, Alasant does around 2 million in ARR with over 80 customers and 200,000 active users and the business has been bootstrapped from day one.
So I hope you enjoy it.
April, welcome to the show.
April LaMon (01:47.390)
Thank you Omar.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Omer (01:49.830)
Do you have a favorite quote, something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?
April LaMon (01:53.750)
You know, it's something that my mother said to me when I was very young and it's carried me through so many trials through my life and that is that luck is spelled W O R K. And the idea here is that it's not that we're not fortunate to be born in this country and to have the opportunities afforded to us, but you have to do something with them and be ready to work for the things you want.
And so that has really guided so much of my life, particularly as a startup founder.
There's a lot of work to get done.
Omer (02:27.230)
So tell us about Alisant.
What does the product do, who's it for, and what's the main problem you're helping to solve?
April LaMon (02:33.390)
So Alicent is a white label software product for the residential real estate Market.
We create a community branded app focused on lifestyle and amenities for that residential development.
We work with communities that maybe have 300,000, 40,000 homes.
They're typically very active communities.
They have shared amenities, clubhouse, pools, courts, trails, parks, and then they have a lot of programming associated with them too.
They might have community wide events, or they might have sports clinics, fitness.
Just ways for people to get engaged and get to know their neighbors and get involved in the community.
So what we do is create that branded app to that individual community.
And our goal is to put everything together in one place so that as a resident, as someone who's considering moving to a community, I know where to go to find out what's going on, what's available to me.
And I can really feel that the community is a reflection of myself as well as the place I live.
Omer (03:42.400)
So you founded the business in 2017.
Can you give us a sense of the size of the business?
Where are you in terms of revenue, customers, size of team?
April LaMon (03:51.120)
Yeah.
So when we launched our first community branded app in 2017, it really was a pilot.
Omer (03:58.880)
Right.
April LaMon (03:59.160)
We were working with a major developer in Southern California who recognized that everyone has this phone in their hand.
And his view was they needed their community to be in the same place that on this smartphone, that was important to all of the people that live there.
That set us on a journey of building the app for the first time.
We launched it in the fall of 2017 and it was instantly a success.
It was over 90% of the residents in that community were using that app within 90 days.
And that was when the light bulb went off.
And we thought, gosh, if this is what we're experiencing in the Southern California community, I bet other developers and major developments throughout the country could benefit too.
So we branded the underlying software as Alisone and we started taking the show on the road to other residential developers.
Today we have 82 communities throughout North America who use a branded community app.
On the Alison platform, We reach over 200,000 logged in resident users and about 50% more on top of that that are either home shoppers or people in the broader public who are interested in learning more about these communities and in
Omer (05:15.980)
terms of revenue and size of team.
April LaMon (05:18.060)
Yeah.
So we have just surpassed $2 million in annual recurring revenue.
Most of our contracts are for three to five years.
The thing about these communities is they are built to last.
Right.
And so once you get an app in people's hands and you're reaching essentially everyone, you just don't want to take that away.
It's really important to our clients that we're a very sustainable, profitable company that has staying power to grow as they grow and be available to these communities for the life of the communities themselves.
We have a team here in Bozeman, Montana of seven full time employees, largely in Bozeman.
We have the two founders and we have sales and we have our customer success team.
Our customer success team works with clients both to spin them up or onboard a new community.
But we're not the kind of software that kind of lobs over the fence once it's live.
We actually have a live monthly call cadence with these communities to make sure that the app is as current and complete and accurate as possible and also to bring new functionality into their apps that continue to cement that value ongoing.
Omer (06:37.500)
And the business is bootstrapped as well.
April LaMon (06:39.140)
Did we mention that it is bootstrapped sometimes?
Omer I think I'm a little bit old fashioned and through the last 18 months with crazy valuations and venture funding, I really felt a little arcane.
But in today's environment, I think as we lead into PropTech 2.0 or PropCo, as some people say, there's going to be consolidation and those companies that have built sustainable growth model I think are going to fare well and that's how we manage.
Alisone we do work with a phenomenal dev team.
They're all offshore and that allows us to extend to an 18 hour workday.
So we overlap in the afternoon as their day is getting started and make sure that the dev requirements are really clear about what we need to work on.
And then it's like Christmas every morning.
We have great work that's been accomplished through our night and that allows us to be incredibly nimble and get things to market very quickly.
Omer (07:47.450)
This whole story started with this community in Southern California called Rancho Mission Viejo.
That's where they reached out to you and said, can you build us this app?
What were you doing at the time and why did they reach out to you to build the app for them?
April LaMon (08:03.820)
Great question.
So about 11 years ago, we started our first company as a data analytics platform for real estate developers, looking at their consumer facing website and that allowed us to really understand the underpinnings of the consumer behavioral process and consideration, exploration and ultimately buying.
And what Rancho Mission Viejo believed is that they had a better shot in working with a team that was really grounded in their industry and very grounded in their consumer and that we'd figure out how to build an app versus hiring an app developer who did not have the context of this very specific type of consumer behavior.
Omer (08:50.340)
Great.
So they reached out to you.
How did you get started?
And was the intention at the time, just this one off project, to build something for this one client?
And at what point did this vision of a product for, you know, other managed communities around the country sort of come up?
April LaMon (09:13.460)
Sure, sure.
They're all great questions.
So when they brought us the idea, it was like a light bulb for us because we knew that this was a very robust big industry building communities, residential communities, it's a 30 to $40 trillion industry.
We felt like, wow, this would be a great place for us to expand our presence beyond just the web analytics that we had been doing.
So we had a hunch that if this worked well, that we would want to take this more broadly to the industry.
And that was one of the things that we talked about very early on with the team at Rancho Mission Viejo.
And they were super supportive.
They were like, why wouldn't we want you to do that?
They really wanted to set us up for success.
So much so that as we to your question around, how do we get started?
They gave us unprecedented access to their entire team and operations.
So, so the development team, the builders, the marketing and salespeople to the operations, folks on the community, lifestyle and property management.
So in essence, we had that 360 degree view of all of the stakeholders who touched the resident.
So it really helped us envision what the product would be so that we didn't solve a problem here, but create a different set of problems for someone over there.
We really got that holistic view of what does it really mean to create and operate a master plan community.
Omer (10:51.400)
How long did it take to build that product and get it in the hands of their customers?
April LaMon (10:58.920)
Yeah, it took about nine months from a blank screen.
And we had a lot of experience on a global outsourced development platform.
I mean, that's what we had done for the five years prior.
And so, you know, and this is really the expertise of my business partner, Mike Swanson, who, you know, is our chief solution here.
He's our chief technologist.
He found kind of the best and brightest in all of the areas where we needed to get smart quickly.
You know, Whether it was iOS, Android server based and really understand this native app ecosystem, when you get really good people on board and you give them a high mountain to climb and desire to do so, we were able to do that fairly quickly from a dead stop once we deployed to or launched to the resident population.
At that time there were about 2,000 people who lived in the community.
We knew that we would have a good sample set there because we had people that were 55 plus and older home buyers as well as all age.
So we, we really knew we were going to get a great cross section of tests against our UI and the assumptions that we had made around how to structure the product.
And as it turned out, we made two really, really fundamental decisions that have been competitive advantages for us since.
The first is that it is white labeled.
So I don't think we would have had a chance of the adoption rate if someone were downloading the Alison app.
We feel such great affinity to where we live.
It says so much about us, our aspirations for ourselves, for our families, that the fact that it's branded to the specific community was a really wise decision.
The second thing the technology folks did, Mike did and his team was set up the database structure so that the content would live in one place, but it could be curated based on different Persona type of users of the app.
So that allowed us to really make the app feel unique and personal to different segments, whether they're that 55 plus homeowner versus an all age homeowner versus a home shopper versus a team member who's there to run the community.
So it allowed one app to serve multiple audiences in a really powerful way.
Omer (13:43.740)
And once you'd built the app and deployed it, was it a success?
Did you discover a bunch of surprises and problems?
April LaMon (13:53.740)
No, it was pretty successful from the get go.
What we realized was that we need a couple things.
You know, one is, you know, we all are very focused on privacy, right?
And so we knew that we would have a known group of people to use the app.
You either live in the community or you don't.
And if you do, then you are invited to download the app and provided credentials to have, you know, your own account within that, within that app.
We really oversolved the problem by creating a complex way to log in.
And what we found very quickly was that we were really trying to solve for an edge case that wasn't necessarily a big problem.
So we did learn to simplify the onboarding process for the end users so that it was really very friendly to their experience in the community and easier for the local team as well.
So we learned a few things like that that were really helpful.
Another thing we learned is not everyone's going to use their mobile dev all of the time.
And so we later added a web version or web app based on the same admin CMS structure.
So now we're completely agnostic to the screen that you or I or the next person would choose, whether it's iOS, Android or web based.
So things like that from really getting some experience in the market helped us take some of the rough edges off and add some more breadth to the product for future success.
Omer (15:36.750)
Can you give us an example of trying to solve an edge case and how to simplify the experience?
One of the things that I came across when I was preparing for this interview was passwords and phone numbers.
I don't know if that's a good example that you want to talk about or something else, but that one sort of struck to me was like sometimes we do over engineer solutions and we create problems for the majority of our users who are probably never going to come across and experience the thing that we're solving for.
And sometimes the simpler solution is just a better way to go.
April LaMon (16:16.410)
Yeah, exactly.
And so when we launched, we had the kind of password that you often see recommended.
It's letters, numbers, uppercase, lowercase.
I mean, absolutely nothing intuitive or memorable.
Right.
Even the idea on a small screen of cutting and paste that into a login screen was daunting for some people.
I mean, you're trying to solve for screens that are any number of dimensions.
Right.
And so we really simplified it to be something that was more intuitive to, to the end user.
So it was a combination, is a combination of variables, not just one variable, but several variables that would be well known to the end user.
And that really simplified the process because it was just more intuitive and something that they could quickly like, oh yeah, I know exactly what my password is now.
So that really streamlined that onboarding process and you know, we just don't want to leave anybody behind.
Right, right.
Omer (17:21.039)
And the success of the product is really dependent on not only these people logging in, but actually using it on a regular basis.
April LaMon (17:30.319)
Absolutely.
And we do track these metrics very religiously.
I mean, right now we look across adoption, so across all of the individual instances of the platform, we also look at how often people are using the app.
They're typically using it at least once a week.
They're typically in for two and a half to three and a half minutes per session.
It's not just presenting you with information, but there's a lot of things for you to engage with.
Whether that's making reservations for events, whether that's for fitness classes.
I'm having a party for my child and I want to reserve a pavilion in the park.
I mean, so a lot of the interactions are a two way dynamic interaction.
Omer (18:18.500)
So you've built this app, you've got it out there in the hands of users, solved some of the, you know, kind of issues we'd expect.
As you deploy a new product, how did you go and get your first 10 or next 9 customers?
Did you just start doing cold outreach?
Did you, like, how did you find them and how did you get them on board?
April LaMon (18:44.430)
That's a really great question.
And there's so many ways to come at that.
Right?
And depending on what industry you're in, we're very fortunate.
In our industry, as large as it is, it's pretty concentrated in terms of the number of developers and also it's pretty well covered by industry consultants.
So there's two consulting, real estate consulting firms that track the 50 fastest growing communities in the country and they published that list twice a year in January and June.
Our feeling was everybody's watching this list in the industry and everybody's watching which communities pop up and then they want to dissect what's working for them.
We took that list and we built a database around the developers, the context of the developers.
We leveraged Rancho Mission Viejo and our relationships there.
We leveraged the largest industry association called the Urban Land Institute to make connections.
Honestly, the very first thing I sent were LinkedIn in mail requests to people in those companies and just asked for an informational interview.
I had the benefit of having Paul Johnson, the key developer at Rancho Mission Viejo, who's very well known in the industry and the project, the community itself is very well known.
So we've kind of taken the strategy of we will be known by the company we keep.
And if we started by targeting those highest profile communities, the reference value of having them on our platform would go a long way to getting the word spread throughout the industry.
Omer (20:32.720)
And what was the response rate like when you reached out?
April LaMon (20:36.750)
Unpredictable, I think is.
And you know, which gets me to one of my learnings around patients.
But you know, we, we, we were able to secure a meeting after launching with another big developer in Texas called Johnson Development Corporation and struck a chord and they immediately said, we have 10 active communities that we would like to move forward with your product.
So all of a sudden we went from 1 to 11 pretty quickly and we thought, hot dog, we're on our way.
And we were on our way.
Right.
They were paying full freight.
They were three year contracts.
It really helped get us off the ground.
And then the next one took a little while longer and so we had to persevere through like, oh, was this a fluke or Is this really a market that's receptive to this idea?
And it took about another six months to get the next client on board.
And then ever since then, we get 20 to 30 per year and our name is known now.
The product is pretty well known now.
And so obviously four years later, the traction starts to work in your favor.
But I would say that first 12 months was.
It took a lot of patience and perseverance for sure.
Omer (22:02.350)
How long is your typical sales cycle from first contact to closing a deal?
April LaMon (22:09.070)
Also not as predictable as I would like.
I'm just going to be honest.
The most important thing is finding the right moment to come on board.
That was another key piece of learning is when is the right time to get started with a new community.
What we've cultivated is an understanding that if the community is early on to, say, the first 20% of their homes are sold, the developer then has dual obligations or dual motivations.
Right.
I need to deliver on the community promises, lifestyle, the amenities that I've promised to people that are buying my homes now.
But I got a lot of homes left to sell.
And so you still have a very strong motivation around marketing as well as fulfilling on a lifestyle promise.
That's a great time to get started with an Alison app.
So that took some trial and error as well to kind of hone in on really where that sweet spot is to get started.
Omer (23:12.860)
And you mentioned that after that first big deal that you closed, it took about six months to get the next customer after that.
When you look back now, what was the reason for that delay, that, that sort of timing there?
Was it because you just weren't going out and talking to enough prospects?
Was it kind of the nature of the.
The way that these things work?
But why, why was there such a big gap, do you think?
April LaMon (23:42.040)
Yeah, looking back, I would say that I really underestimated the challenge of creating a category and the solution to the category problem simultaneously.
People didn't have a community branded app before we started.
We had to really make the case for why a community branded app and then why an Alsante solution to that need.
I think that's really what took the time.
Omer is really having a credible voice around establishing a category and that's something we work on every day still because there are plenty of communities that don't have one yet and we think they should.
We envision within five years, every community that has a name will have an app.
And so really building that case and really sharing the success stories and really making heroes out of our customers.
Frankly, around what they've been able to accomplish in working with us has been a really key driver of our business.
Omer (24:54.820)
I see this interesting dilemma with your business.
Maybe I'm completely wrong, but on the one hand, I hear that the renewal rates, you got 100% renewal rates so far, which is touchwood, which is great.
Once a community has invested in something like this, deployed it, got people using it, the switching costs are so high that they don't really want to go and find something else.
You know, that that's kind of one part of it.
And then you talked about, you know, having the patience to kind of work through the timing and kind of when these customers are ready to go and build an app like this and go and deploy it.
So all of that makes complete sense.
But on the other hand, I'm thinking about, you know, it's not a massive market in this.
You know, the opportunity might be really big, but there's only so many customers in this market.
And so once you've closed them, you've pretty much got them for a long time.
And so do you also at the same time, you know, thinking about, yeah, great, and the patience and everything, this sense of urgency to close as many of these, these customers and kind of like button down this market.
I don't know what the situation is, you know, in terms of the landscape with competitors and how much you think about that, but it kind of seems to me kind of an interesting thing where what you said, that kind of makes total sense.
But on the other hand, I'm thinking, well, the faster you can move and the more of these customers you can get kind of locked down, the better it is going to be for the business.
April LaMon (26:36.560)
All true.
We made a commitment early on to sustainable growth.
So we are growing at a pace that we can self fund and innovate our product.
At the same time, we are not frankly turning away business, obviously.
And so more business creates more revenue to invest in more growth.
And we've chosen that path very purposefully and it has served us well.
Now there's one thing that in this equation to consider, and that is residential developments can take decades to build.
And so the lifetime value for a customer that you're serving well throughout the life of the build of that community and then obviously beyond creates an almost limitless LTV for our company.
And, and we reach so many people directly as homeowners, high value target audiences using our product.
So we think there's a lot of ways to create value in the business.
You know, one of the things that we think about is, you know, what else can go in these apps?
Right.
What else can really create value for the community and for the people that live there.
And there's a lot of new technology on the forefront around autonomous shopping, where we are very involved already with several clients who are on the leading edge of that.
We're involved in access control and getting plastic credentials, key cards, fobs out of the system.
And we're constantly watching what the platform providers, the iOS and the Android operating systems are creating in terms of innovation.
Whether that's augmented reality, advanced mapping awareness.
Those are all opportunities for us to continue to bring more value.
So I think it's about having the best product with the most utility for our market and we continue to chip away at the opportunity.
Time will tell whether that we're leaving a lot of business on the sidelines.
But those are strategic choices we've made as founders and, and we believe that gives us the longevity in the market that our clients are looking for.
Omer (28:57.200)
What kind of objections do you typically get when you go out and talk to a new prospect who doesn't have an app right now?
April LaMon (29:08.240)
Yeah, I mean, it's changed and evolved over the last four years, as you might imagine.
I mean, initially I think there was just some skepticism of would people download another app?
App fatigue is real.
Right.
We download them and then we never look at them again.
Right.
So that's one of the key advantages of our app, is how we can connect to other systems in these communities so that you do have people go to a single source under your own name, you walk them through a single door to then interact with obviously the things that are native to our platform, but connect to other systems that are part of operating these communities as well.
There were some objections, particularly in 55 plus active adult communities like, oh, older people don't really use apps.
Overcoming based on metrics that we see in clients with that target audience.
They not only use the app, they use it.
They over index on every metric because they move into lifestyle communities for a reason.
They want to get involved, they want to participate, they want to know their neighbors.
And so the app is kind of the connective tissue for the community to kind of galvanize that interest.
So it's evolved over time.
What we really see as an opportunity for our company is to drift more upstream into the home shopping process.
Maybe until the last six months, it was not hard to sell a new home.
You know, today with higher interest rates and other economic forces, it's a lot more competitive to attract a home buyer and so we see greater interest in leveraging not just the home or the product that's for sale in that community, but why buy that home here in this community?
What's going on here?
What is, what is the lifestyle that you're buying into, not just the home that you'll live in.
And so we are moving further upstream and is really a key way to dimensionalize that experience in the home purchasing process.
Omer (31:19.360)
Okay, so generally we talked about kind of like the first 10 customers and I guess that second customer you got was so big they can count as the 10 customers and more.
What's helped you get from that to the 80 odd customers that you have today?
How did you find them?
What are the marketing channels that have been the most effective for you to find customers?
April LaMon (31:47.440)
You know, we're incredibly vertically focused.
Right.
So we are not a buckshot type of message or target.
I mean, we are laser focused on a particular segment of the real estate market.
It's huge, but it is very specific.
And the people play in that segment are also very specific.
And so one of the key things that we've done is gotten very, very involved with the Urban Land Institute.
It's the largest industry association.
It's global and it's all facets.
And that is where the C suite and many of our clients organization, they go to learn and interact with their peers and people like Alison.
I think that's been one of the strongest channels for us is to become immersed in the industry organization that is most important to our target audience.
We also have had a very successful land and expand strategy with these developers.
So where we go in and we can prove the value of our product in one, that gives us then the license to expand within the portfolio.
Toll Brothers, one of the nation's largest luxury home builders is a great example of that.
Where we went in with the first community and proved our value.
And now that organization is helping us to expand much, much more broadly throughout their entire system.
So that land and expand approach has worked really well for us as well.
Omer (33:31.140)
Okay.
So I think what's interesting about this is that the market you're in, on the one hand you're you.
Once you sign a customer, retention rates are great.
Then you have this opportunity as you described, with the sort of the land and expand because you're going and talking to these kind of these big fish in this market.
And if you can prove yourself in one community, that gives you the opportunity to expand into others that they own.
And then the third part of this is going deep in terms of the Innovation.
And what else can we deliver in terms of value, which can not only help us to retain these customers, but also increase the lifetime value because we can deliver more value we can get.
They'll be happily paying more for that.
So there's kind of some really interesting dynamics going on here.
What are some of the challenges?
Like, what are some of the hard parts of operating in this market?
April LaMon (34:35.979)
You know, we talked a little bit about patience, right?
And patience is really critical because it creates a space for listening and creates a space for understanding.
You know, where can you refine your market fit?
How do you refine the way you talk about the product and the value that it brings?
It gives you an opportunity to listen not just at the C suite decision level, but at an operating level.
The folks within the community who actually are in the admin every day, who are interacting with residents every day with a marketing team who's working with prospective buyers.
So I think this fast and furious grow at all costs and might serve other industries well.
It just wasn't the path that we took.
And I think that we're better, a better company, a more sustainable, profitable company because of it.
You know, one of the other things that's been a challenge that we reflect on and look for, you know, how to position into, is that typically marketing a new community and operating a new community were very divided who did it and what software, what systems were used.
And what we're finding is that middle area is really important in today's market.
Why?
Because cancellation rates are starting to climb.
You know, I put a home under contract and now I want to cancel it.
And so this land between point of the spear marketing and now I already live here is this no man's land right now.
And that's another opportunity that we see to address.
How do we use the app to become the connective tissue between all the enthusiasm I had when I went under contract for this home, to actually closing on that home and moving in.
And we've got some communities that are doing a really great job leveraging lifestyle as a way and leveraging that lifestyle before the buyer moves in to start creating that attachment, that affinity to the community and their future neighbors.
So that's another whole area that I think is really ripe for our product to come in and really add value.
Omer (36:55.220)
Right.
It's a marketing tool.
What's the value for your customers to create an app for residents?
I mean, they've kind of already sold the homes and people are already living there.
So that's kind of one part of what they're delivering on with the app.
And then the other part, as we've talked about, is home shoppers or buyers, people who want to live in that community.
And so the app is a great marketing tool in terms of, you know, selling them on the lifestyle and all the wonderful things they'll be able to do when they buy a home there.
And that part for me is clear in terms of the marketing, but in terms of, like, the value for residents, what.
What's.
What drives them there in terms of investing and doing that?
April LaMon (37:40.470)
It's a really good question, and it really goes back to understanding land development.
Developers invest tens and tens of millions of dollars to create a place, right?
They build schools, they build, obviously, roads and infrastructure.
They build amenity centers, they build pools, courts, parks, trails.
I mean, they really are making an enormous investment in creating a place, A place that is, yes, people will live, but that they will engage with, that they will become active in, that they will take advantage of.
And that's a very big part of the value proposition for why you buy a home in a master planned community.
Homes and master plan communities typically sell at a 15% price premium to a similar house outside of one.
And so creating that sense of place, wrapping it around a powerful brand, does create economic value for the developer.
And so when you ask them, like, what is.
What are the most critical drivers of growth of new residents into their community, it's the people that already live there.
And so if you and I know each other well and I'm raving about where I live, and my kids do this and I do that, and I've made these friends or I get involved in these clubs, you know, all of a sudden it's like, wow, you know, maybe that's a place that I would want to live to.
And so it's this cycle, this virtuous cycle of, yes, I sell once, but that one sale can ignite so many more.
And some of our clients, larger communities, people buy once and then buy or trade up or down multiple times within the same community.
So these folks, these developers, they have a much, much longer horizon in their planning view than almost any other category that I can think of.
They're looking at this much more holistically than just, I sold that house and I'm out.
Omer (39:56.960)
We should wrap up and get onto the lightning round.
Before we do that, I want to just talk about one thing you told me before we started recording and this mindset shift that you had to make, and you described yourself as a boomer that, you know, hey, why don't you tell us about that?
April LaMon (40:15.360)
Yeah.
You know, when we started this business, the app business in particular, I just couldn't imagine that people were going to buy software from a boomer.
I didn't mention this, but my business partner and I started our company 11 years ago when I was 50 and he was 25.
We have a multi generational founder team at our core.
DNA.
There are things that he does exceptionally well that I would never wade into those waters and vice versa.
But it's kind of like, Mike, you're going to have to be the face of this company.
What I found is that that the fact that I am a boomer, that I have a lot of big business experience and chops, that my way of talking about technology really resonated with a buyer who rarely buys technology.
These are people that build physical things that you can touch, doors you can open.
They live in the physical space.
Sense of community.
And it was just a great segue for me to have come from that world myself to pick up the technology vocabulary and really be able to convey that in a way that made sense in this physical community environment.
So one of the things you and I were talking about is sometimes the barriers that we ourselves or biases that we bring to our business, and it's really important to be willing to stare those down and shed the ones that aren't serving you, frankly.
Omer (41:56.310)
Yeah.
And now you are the face of the business.
April LaMon (41:59.110)
Yes, I am.
Omer (42:00.550)
Yeah.
That's great.
All right, so let's get on to the lightning round.
I've got seven quick fire questions for you.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.
Ready?
April LaMon (42:09.990)
Yeah.
Omer (42:10.710)
Okay.
What's the best piece of business advice you've received?
April LaMon (42:14.560)
Deliver on your promises.
Omer (42:16.400)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
April LaMon (42:19.280)
I just read Indra Newey's book, My Life in Full.
She was the recently retired CEO of PepsiCo and I'm a Pepsi alum myself.
And so her journey is incredibly inspiring.
She talks about performance with purpose.
I listened to it in her own voice.
I just found it incredibly, incredibly motivating.
Omer (42:40.010)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder, I think is curiosity.
April LaMon (42:45.850)
Right.
We are always looking for the problem that we can uniquely solve.
And very often the first solution that comes to mind, the easy one, is not the best one.
And so continuing to be curious, pull threads, I think that serves founders really well.
Omer (43:05.130)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habitat?
April LaMon (43:08.400)
I'm a very early riser, so it gives me a chance to have a good portion of my day before my workday starts.
I'm a big believer in the power of physical movement, of exercise, both for your mind, your body.
And so I think it's a great discipline to develop that sense of physical acuity.
Omer (43:31.040)
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?
April LaMon (43:34.910)
You know, I'm really interested in successful aging.
You know, I'm 61 and I'm nowhere near have any interest in retiring.
And so I think about what will my cohort's view of successful aging look like.
And so I'm very, very curious about that.
I'm very curious about the role of influencers in that.
Of course we know we make 10,000 65 year olds every day in this country, but you know, we've got the late baby boomers, we've got the Gen Xers coming in and you know, there's going to be a very different framework around aging in the next decade and beyond.
Omer (44:13.800)
60 is the new 30, right?
Something like that.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
April LaMon (44:21.320)
I don't think most people know that I'm an avid catch and release fly fisherman and that was a big motivation to move to Montana where we have more headwater rivers here and blue ribbon rivers.
But I love to fish.
Omer (44:36.120)
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Other than fishing?
April LaMon (44:40.680)
Yeah, other than fishing.
Fishing's great.
And you know, it's.
We become very involved with an organization based here in Montana called Warriors and Quiet Waters.
And it really is the intersection of fishing with post 911 vets who are coming back and reintegrating into civilian life.
And, and so I'm very passionate about the work that organization's doing and we're very proud to be part of helping them get their work done.
Omer (45:08.290)
Very cool.
Awesome.
Well, April, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story.
Congratulations on the success you've had to date.
If people want to find out more about Allosant, they can go to AlloCant.com which is a L O S a n T. We'll include a link in the show notes as well.
And if folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
April LaMon (45:32.590)
Yeah.
Email aprilaprillasant.com we also are very active on LinkedIn, so follow us there as well.
Omer (45:40.910)
Thank you so much and I wish you and the team the best of success.
April LaMon (45:44.350)
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Omer.
Omer (45:46.510)
My pleasure.
Cheers.
April LaMon (45:47.870)
Cheers.
