Reimagining How We Support Grievers with Scott Arogeti of Mi Alma

Grief is universal. Everyone loses a friend or loved one at some point in life... likely multiple times. When someone passes, friends and family rally around the grievers, eager to support them in their time of need. While the initial rush of support typically passes quickly, the grief carries on. So, how can we better support grievers and honor the memories of those lost?

In this episode, we sit down with Scott Arogeti of Mi Alma. Scott and his team are on a mission to reimagine how we remember those who have passed. Their platform offers a new type of collective support for those experiencing a loss.

Mi Alma acts as a digital place to share memories, centralize support efforts, and improve ongoing communications. A Mi Alma page gives grievers a place to revisit fond memories of those they lost and supporters a clear way to help.

Tune in to hear more about the impact Scott hopes to make with Mi Alma, his perspective on the ever-shifting startup landscape, and more.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Scott Arogeti

💡 What he does: Scott is the co-founder & CEO of Mi Alma.

💡 Company: Mi Alma

💡 Noteworthy: Along with his wife Jordan, Scott built Mi Alma, a digital platform that connects grievers and supporters during the tough times of losing a loved one. On this platform, they can not only share memories of the deceased but also build a community that enables supporters to provide adequate help to grievers during the time of loss and beyond.

💡 Where to find Scott: LinkedIn

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Book a consultation: https://tyrannosaurustech.com/contact/

Connect with our cohosts Richard Simms & Carlos Gonzalez on Linkedin

Transcript

E661389B_25 - TT - Digital Footprint - Scott Arogeti

[00:00:00] Scott Arogeti: I wouldn't say ignore your competitors, but like, maybe ignore your competitors. I'm a big believer that if you're solving your customer's problems and you're, like, hugging them in a sense, your competitors don't really matter because if you're doing a good job of that, then there's no opening for them to matter.​

[00:00:49] Richard Simms: Hello, and welcome to the Digital Footprint. I'm Richard Simms, and this podcast is brought to you by Tyrannosaurus Tech, an award-winning technology partner dedicated to designing and developing high-impact software products. Uh, I'm excited to be joined today by Scott Arogeti, Co-Founder and CEO of Mi Alma. Uh, great to have you on the show, Scott. 

[00:01:10] Scott Arogeti: Thank you, Richard, I appreciate the opportunity. 

[00:01:13] Richard Simms: Yeah, I've been looking forward to this. So, I was thinking back, you know, we first were introduced a few years ago, and I think Mi Alma was in its infancy or kind of concept phase. So, I'm really excited to unpack where you all are now and how far you've come with it. I know you've also been very active as an advisor and investor in a number of interesting startups around town,

[00:01:35] so I'm eager to hear your perspective on startups in general and, you know, everything that's kind of changing in the landscape there. So, yeah, well, let's get started. So, first, would you mind just briefly introducing yourself and just tell us a little bit about Mi Alma.

[00:01:50] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, of course. So, Scott Arogeti, my wife and I, or Jordan and I are co-founders of a company called Mi Alma, and we both are veterans of the Atlanta, uh, the Atlanta technology community, have worked in startups all around town in different industries.

[00:02:04] Um, I've worked at a handful of different unicorns, uh, Jordan's been seven years at Salesloft, and as you mentioned earlier, we done a little bit of angel and, angel investing in advising the last handful of years. We had, uh, two kids in 18 months, second of which was born, uh, almost three years ago, March 30th, 2020.

[00:02:21] So, given the, uh, the pandemic, it was a pretty wild Q2 that year. Um, so, I resigned the job that I just started, as head of sales at the company here in Atlanta, and focused more around the house to kind of help her. Uh, and then when she went back to work after her mat leave, we built Arogeti Endeavors, which is this little vehicle for us to do some angel investing and advising and still stay close to startups, still learn as much as we could and have our hand in helping founders scale.

[00:02:45] But given the bandwidth and given the challenges at home, uh, it wasn't the right time in our life to either be a, you know, early-stage employee, um, or to be a founder ourselves. But we had this idea that's become Mi Alma that we felt very, that we felt had some, had some potential. Um, so we started doing some discovery, uh, more me than her 'cause she was still full-time until about a little over a year ago.

[00:03:05] Around two years ago, started doing some discovery, and that has evolved into what is now Mi Alma. Um, so high-level Mi Alma is, um, is the place to support grievers, it is built for families that are either about to experience the loss of loved one or recently have. 

[00:03:22] Richard Simms: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, and I know, you know, you and Jordan are awesome, first of all, and have a really extensive background in tech, I love it. So, like, looking back at your background, I mean, what led you kind of into this entrepreneurship passion for startups, like, where did that all come from because you've, you've been at it for a while? 

[00:03:42] Scott Arogeti: Yeah. I think a lot of it stems from just the energy and the adrenaline, a skill in the company, there something palpable when you're, when you've kind of been involved in that, and you've kind of seen it, you've been part of a team that's experiencing growth, you know, it can be very addictive, it can be very exciting. And I think that passion, I think that chasing, that kind of, just that energy is, you know, there's a handful of other professions that just kind of seem a little bit boring to me in retrospect,

[00:04:05] in, in, in comparison, where you're doing the same thing every day, kind of just going along, going along at a steady pace just, just wasn't kind of how I'm wired. Never been scared of taking risk, never been scared of, of being ambitious, and trying to accomplish big things professionally or personally.

[00:04:20] And sometimes it hits, and sometimes it doesn't, but that's, I think, part of the, the, the draw for me in, in getting into this space and staying in a space of trying to really have a big impact. Um, and as it relates to Mi Alma, this is an area that we've been kind of studying and really been thinking about these six, seven years, perhaps, perhaps a little more.

[00:04:40] So, we've kind of known in the back of our head that at some point in life we were gonna take a, we, we were going to take a shot at building what we thought was needed and, and kind of avoid in the marketplace, and that's, that's what Mi Alma has become. 

[00:04:53] Richard Simms: Awesome. Awesome. So, yeah, let's talk, uh, more about Mi Alma, of course. So, you know, your mission is naturally, like, so different than a lot of the types of things most startup founders are pursuing, right? Um, and again, I think it's a really powerful mission, but yet, it's so different than, "Hey, we're building this cool app, you know, for X, Y, Z." So, what led you to focus on this space, you know, it's grief, death, loss, like, what's kind of the origin story? I know you said you and Jordan had been seeing the need for quite a while. 

[00:05:27] Scott Arogeti: Yeah. So, I think there's, there's really three things we talk about it that way, you know, how the idea kind of came about and kind of how it led us to this path. The first is that I never met my mom's parents.

[00:05:37] My maternal grandparents, um, lived in Virginia where my mom was from, I was born and raised in Atlanta, and they both passed before I was born. My grandma died a few months before I was born, and she's who I'm named after. And, um, I had, I was lucky to have 31 years with my dad's dad, and my dad's mom was thankfully still alive, and I see her all the time.

[00:05:54] They both lived and still live in Atlanta, my grandma is in Atlanta. So, it was always weird growing up that I knew so much more about one set of grandparents than the other, um, it didn't sit well, it kind of felt almost a little embarrassing, um, that like, I just knew so much more and it began to kind of dawn on me more and more of that, you know, there's no Wikipedia page for my mom's parents,

[00:06:13] there's no Wikipedia page for Yale and Sarita J, and I don't even have grandparent names for them. And as I started having kids and realizing that, like, okay, there's, there's, if I don't really feel, like, connected to them, like, how are my kids gonna feel? So, this notion of, like, there not being a place for me to go to at once be able to see all the pictures and read all the stories, like, eventually kind of turned into, well, why isn't there?

[00:06:37] What if there was, and what if we just went ahead and built it? So, that's the first part. The second part is really coming at it more as a supporter of, as I've gotten older and gone to my share of funerals and memorial services of people I know that have passed away or supporting friends that have gone through a loss.

[00:06:53] The status quo just felt increasingly insufficient, almost inadequate, where you would have, whether the passing was anticipated or sudden, you'd hear the news, you'd go to an event, you'd maybe, you'd, you know, be supportive for the first handful of weeks, and you'd go to an event at someone's home to kind of help, help the family maybe make a donation or send food, whatever is, flowers.

[00:07:14] And then, after a couple weeks, we kind of began to notice this kind of cruel imbalance that, that exists where, generally speaking, for the first month or so, everyone, all the supporters are surrounding the family, they're bringing meals, they're bringing flowers, they're around, they're helping out, um, and they're most engaged while the grievers, the primary grievers

[00:07:33] are kind of in this opposite head space where they're numb, they're processing, trying to figure out what's going on, it's very hard, emotionally, certain amount, the logistic, just life isn't normal for them. Then, after generally a month, of course, it depends on certain variables, it kind of flips where all of the grievers are kind of beginning to come out of their shell for the most part, and trying to understand more of what this new routine could look like,

[00:07:57] their new normal, and that's when all the supporters begin to kind of move on with their life and stop calling and stop texting and stop, stop coming over. So, we kind of identified this in our personal experiences, and there's one girl in particular who was, um, a very close friend of my sisters, um, who, whose little brother is one of my closest friends,

[00:08:14] and she, uh, very tragically, was diagnosed with cancer and, and passed away about a year later, about five years ago, and she had two kids that are at the time five and seven. And after she passed, my sister and a lot of her close friends and a lot of people, other people that we know in the community, you know, went on Facebook and, you know, wrote these posts talking about, you know, um, about this girl that passed and sharing stories and inside jokes and pictures and just beautiful concept.

[00:08:41] And they got, you know, very strong traction as you would imagine. I remember telling Jordan, like, are kids ever gonna see this, like, where does this stuff go? It just kinda gets, like, pushed down further, further on someone's Facebook wall, like, that's not right, Facebook wasn't built for this. So, that's really the second part, coming at this as a supporter and seeing this kind of gap in the standard kind of, you know, the process that happened from something we know passes.

[00:09:03] The third, the third is early COVID realities of just how incredibly sad and tragic it was, all this grief and isolation, Zoom funerals, Zoom memorials, people having to say goodbye to a loved one, a spouse, a parent through a glass window, kind of holding it, like, that out, that's terrible. People were just vanishing it felt like, and their stories weren't being told.

[00:09:24] And what, even before we thought was inadequate was dramatically more inadequate given just, given what was happening in the world for, you know, most of 2020 and even some in, in, even some into 2021. So, that was kind of, like, the final push for us where, okay, we're talking about this idea for a few years,

[00:09:40] we figured it would happened later on in life when our careers were at different, at different, different points, but the pandemic had this way of kind of, like, um, forcing people to kind of, kind of re, to, to rethink their priorities and their timelines, and in a way, it was kind of liberating. So, we took inspiration from this sense of, okay, we're kind of, like, already off-roading on everything endeavors, having an 18-month-old and, and a newborn coming home from the hospital,

[00:10:07] you know, on April 3rd, I think it was when we got her from the hospital. I was like, "What are we clinging to? We may as well just, you know, the time is right now, the time is, the time is right now to give this a shot." So, that is what led us to kind of begin discovery of, you know, doing deep discovery of talking to everyone that we knew, like, that has been in this space, whether directly as a griever or supporter, which is effectively everybody. And then spiritual leaders and nonprofit heads and corporate HR, anyone that was kind of remotely, you know, in this ecosystem, and it's evolved from there. 

[00:10:39] Richard Simms: Yeah. Thank you. It's a really good explanation of kind of the various pain points that you all are trying to address, right, and exactly as you just said, I think that, unfortunately, pretty much everyone at least, most adults, have dealt with, you know, a death of a loved one.

[00:10:55] So, it's a pretty universal experience and something that we've all observed, like, all the different angles of that. So, you know, one question I have is, like, startups are so exciting and exhilarating, and they're difficult, too, to say the least, and I'm sure Mi Alma is very exciting and exhilarating, and there's, like, a lot of positive energy, but it's like, how do you kind of balance 'cause it's a pretty heavy topic, you know, naturally, and you also are,

[00:11:24] you know, you have to be sensitive, of course, with folks you're dealing with that are grieving or just folks that are kind of in the ecosystem. So, it's like, how do you all kind of balance this two day-to-day? 

[00:11:32] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, totally, it's, it, you're right, it's very delicate, and it's, it's an interesting thing because, you know, I've worked in different companies in different industries across my career from, you know, high school sports media to waste and recycling tech to supply chain warehousing and marketing tech.

[00:11:46] Now, I'm in a completely different head space every day. So, it's definitely an adjustment, but you know what we, what, what our guiding light is that it's, it's meaningful, and it's, and it's, and it's, it's important, I mean, it's very emotional, and you have to be delicate, you think you have to have a certain kind of mentality to, to, to, to go into this space and to see this need and wanna address it and wanna tackle it.

[00:12:10] And yeah, it's certainly difficult terms emotionally, I mean, it's, we've actually recently, uh, said, we have, uh, we have brought on a, almost like an emotional support outlet for employees to be able to have someone to talk to, I wouldn't say therapy, but someone that can kind of almost be, like, therapeutic and helping us kind of serve our own emotional needs

[00:12:32] 'cause it's important for our employees to be able to say that, like, this is hard and this is emotional, and when you're, when you're, when you spend your days talking to people that are either, that are in grief, unanticipated before the passing occurs or, or once it has occurred, and talking to people that have lost a parent or a child or a sibling or a spouse or, you know, grandpa and whoever's, someone that was very, that was very close with them that they loved, it's a very, it's a very emotional thing.

[00:12:56] So, yeah, there are ways that we have to be additionally delicate, you know, one of our core values and honestly the most important of our core value is do no harm, where it's important to us to be as proactive as we possibly can be and making sure that both the experience and the messaging and everything around the experience doesn't cause additional pain or anguish

[00:13:15] for a griever. Our, our goal, our goal high-level, is to connect or almost, like, to, to bridge the disconnect that exists between supporters and grievers. So, you have this interesting balance where it's like, are you serving the griever? Are you serving the deceased? Are you serving the supporter? And we kind of struggle that line in different ways at different points because you wanna celebrate the deceased and you want to honor the deceased, but

[00:13:41] it really is, at the end of the day, we think kind of mostly about the griever because the supporters exist to support the griever. So, that's kind of where, where we kind of try to focus, but yeah, it's definitely, it can be hard, it can be emotional, and sometimes when you're talking to, you know, a widow that lost her husband and has young kids, you know, I'd be lying if I said that there weren't times, you know, both my wife and I, I wouldn't say broke down in tears, but like, got a little emotional ourselves because it's just a very sad thing.

[00:14:07] But for us, that's kind of why we're doing this because we do see an opportunity to be helpful, and we do see a need to make a difference and to make an impact, um, in people's lives, and that's, obviously there's a goal, financially, for every company that is, that someone builds, but for us it's also just, like, the ROI for us is also part of

[00:14:29] getting that support from grievers of having someone say, "Thank you, this was incredibly helpful, I can't wait to show my kids this when they get older," or having the kid say "Thank you, I now feel closer to my father, I, I, who passed when I was younger than I did, you know, a month ago because now I have a me on the page that I can learn about them."

[00:14:48] Richard Simms: Yeah, for sure, that makes a lot of sense, and I think that no question you all can, you know, as you shut off work for the night, like, feel very proud of the impact you're having and what you're building towards and, you know, death is a part of life, it's not going anywhere. So, the more you can bring, you know, bring value and peace in that experience.

[00:15:11] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, we kind of fight that, like, you mentioned earlier, grief is, is a universal part of the human experience, everyone will go through it at some point in their life, unlikely multiple times, and you'll also will be a supporter probably, admitting more times in your life when someone you know either passed or someone you know is, is, is going through loss.

[00:15:30] So, that's when we kind of looked around, and we were looking and kind of noticed the technology that was currently available and currently kind of in use in a, you know, in a macro sense in these situations, and we kind of realized that there really was room for a modern piece of technology kind of built with a sense of sympathy and empathy and almost a sense of compassion.

[00:15:51] And like, this just kind of needs to, like, we talked a lot about that, like, this, this phrase of there should be a place, there should be a place to do, you know, this laundry list of things, there should be a place to be able to, to collect pictures, stories, speeches, and videos of the deceased, there should be a place to support the family whenever they need, you know, in a modern sense, there should be a place for the family to be able to communicate effectively and efficiently with their, with their village of supporters.

[00:16:14] So, this, like, there should be a place that's coming at it from this, this perspective, like, this needs to exist, and this should exist, and in a way, what we're really doing is asking everyone we talk to, to like, help us figure it out because I don't pretend to say that right now at this iteration, "Mi Alma has everything figured out, and we have built the exact tool that will meet everyone's needs as best as it possibly could."

[00:16:39] Another case, but we're, we're, we're on this mission, we're on this journey because we see that there needs to be a place that does these things. So, that's why we're trying as proactive as we can to listen to all these different stakeholders, to grievers, to supporters, to children, to parents, to spiritual leaders, to hospice care professionals to,

[00:16:59] you know, funeral home directors of saying, okay, how can we build and really adjust and iterate this technology to meet this gap, this massive gap that everyone acknowledges exists. And that's part of the challenge and, frankly, part of the fun, you know, like, I've always loved putting together puzzles my entire life.

[00:17:18] And in a way, this is just one giant emotional, meaningful puzzle that many companies have tried to capture, and many of 'em still are, and I'm sure many of 'em will more in the future, like it's not everyone that realizes the universe out of this, so it's an attractive way in some, in some, in some senses, if you can kind of handle the emotions and the awkwardness of it to build around because everyone knows, you said it's death and taxes, it's, everyone goes through it.

[00:17:45] Richard Simms: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, I mean the, that's all great and, you know, one thing that I know just from having touchpoints with you and Jordan, again, your wife and co-founder, over the last few years is you all are very methodical about how you've approached it, like, I think you've been super thorough in your customer discovery, right, which is super important. So, I love, like, how carefully you all have kind of sourced input from all those folks, and I'm sure that's gone a long way towards this initial iteration of the product. So, you alluded to some of the functionality, and again, I know everything's evolving, and I'm sure it will in a healthy way, but give us a sense of, like, what the platform is at this stage, what's kind of the core functionality and I'd love to, to get into that a little bit. 

[00:18:35] Scott Arogeti: Yeah. There's a few things I wanna call out. The first is, um, at the, kind of towards the top of every Mi Alma page, and again, a page can be built, it's effectively like a profile page.

[00:18:45] So, page can be built for someone that either is about to, to pass, recently has passed, or even has passed years ago. And towards the top we have what we call a collaboration link, and this link is effectively a URL to that page. And the thought is that we wanna make it very easy for grievers or even supporters to share that link.

[00:19:05] So, that the ultimate goal is that, you know, when, when a, when a passing occurs, that link is included in the obituary, it's included in the Facebook post, it's included in the email that goes out maybe from a house of worship to its congregation. So, as people are hearing the news that someone's passed, this link is bringing everyone to the same spot.

[00:19:23] They're trying to avoid a situation where a griever is going through all the emotions and all the logistics, and the world's been turned upside down, a primary griever, where they are bombarded by well-intentioned, well-meaning supporters that are all hitting them up on Facebook and text and email and stories you hear in person in memorial service, maybe cards or letters, maybe there's comments and GoFundMe or on a WH, and it's everywhere, and it's overwhelming,

[00:19:48] and it be, it forces this, this, this, this challenge of, like, what do I do with all, where do I post, Dropbox folder, like, there really isn't one family-wide, community-wide repository of content that lives on in perpetuity. All right, so, that's part of what Mi Alma is built for. So, the first tab you'll see when you come to a page is a memories tab,

[00:20:09] and this is where it is a, just a, a, a beautiful display of concept of all the pictures and stories and speeches and videos even that anyone that knew that loved one is sharing, um, so that's an important thing here. And what we have in there is what we call prompts. So, if you go to the guestbook of a funeral home website and you look at, you know, a page that has, effectively like a profile page, it has the obituary, maybe information on the funeral and funeral details. On that guestbook, what generally happens is most people, most people say, you know, a variation of, like, four or five things, "So sorry for your loss, or maybe be a blessing, or lemme know how I can help you, I'm so sorry."

[00:20:49] But there's not always a lot of depth and substance and stories. So, these prompts that we offer, which are very broad questions of, for some that you met them or tell us a funny story about them, or what were some words that you think they'd like to be remembered by, or what's one thing their kids or grandkids would like to know about them to kind of really draw these stories out

[00:21:07] because the stories exist in the minds and the hearts of everyone that knew that person, their colleagues, their classmates, their neighbors, their friends, like, everyone that's kind of in their, in their ecosystem. So, when they pass, those families, like, that's what they find, like, they wanna learn about their loved one through the eyes of everyone that knew them, especially if the primary grievers didn't know that person.

[00:21:30] So, when you can have a situation where a widow tragically loses her husband, but now, and, and now that this, like, is like an equal thing because, of course, it's still incredibly sad and tragic, but when for her to be able to see pictures or hear stories of some of his old colleagues with classmates that she never met and she wouldn't otherwise meet, that can be a very cathartic thing for them to now it's like, everyone is keeping that person alive.

[00:21:57] We talked a lot of, in our discovery over the last two years, a lot of counselors and therapists and really just, like, experts that are, that have, that are working in this field for decades and have gone to school on this and practiced this, and what they told us is there's two main fears in, in this space.

[00:22:13] I'll go back to the question about the tabs in a minute, but I want to kind of go here for a second. The two main fears in the space are the fear of forgetting and the fear of being forgotten. So, the fear of a supporter or griever forgetting certain things about their loved one as time goes on, and the fear of that deceased being forgotten.

[00:22:31] So, we're trying to really address both of those. So, if you have a picture or a story or memory or even just, you know, characteristics of a person that you wanna share, you can, you can put it on the memories tabs, and now it's, it's, like, documented and locked in forever, and this site itself and this collaboration, like, insures, like, that person will never be forgotten because it is in a way, like this, like living memorial of sorts that's available in perpetuity.

[00:22:56] So, I like to say the first has memories, the second tab is what we call the support registry, similar to a baby or wedding registry. And the way it works is, you know, kind of, I'll tell this story on this. Generally speaking, you hear that a friend of yours or someone you know passed away or someone you know went through a loss,

[00:23:13] what most people think, well, the first question most people ask themselves is, "How can I help? What can I do?" And that could be a hard question to answer because you don't wanna bug the griever, you know, they're going through a lot. But it can be hard to kind of find that clear direction of, like, what do they want?

[00:23:29] What do they need 'cause you really wanna do is you wanna feel like you've done something, you wanna kind of check the box mentally, okay, I feel good that I did, I made a donation, I sent flowers, I sent food, whatever it is, I went to a funeral service or whatever it is. So, what we've built on support registry is kind of meant to model that.

[00:23:48] So, whether the family is asking for funds directly, either through a GoFundMe or another campaign, wherever they're directing supporters to make a donation in honor of the deceased, too, whether it's a house of worship or a nonprofit or whatever causes near and dear to their heart, you can link to it very easily there.

[00:24:05] If there's a meal train, if they're, if they're, if they're organizing third-party support for meals or groceries, do DoorDash or Uber Eats, or whatever it is, you can do all that through the site with point, see, click, ease of use and functionality. And then, also in there we have what we call volunteering time and energy,

[00:24:23] and this is the kind of thing that isn't applicable in every use case. When my grandfather passed away in 2015, you know, my grandma didn't really need this, but a widow that loses her husband at 40 years old and has, has two young kids would, and what this basically does is it gives a chance for the griever or someone acting on their behalf, like a lieutenant who can be an admin of the page,

[00:24:44] for them to say certain things that would be helpful, so, for example, there was someone that comes to mind that lost her husband a handful of years ago and had, and, and, and at the time of his path, of his passing, uh, had two kids that were, like, four and five years old and there was a GoFundMe that was built to support her and the kids in, in a meal train.

[00:25:01] And what she told me was that those were certainly appreciated, but what she really wanted more than anything, or relatively, was someone to cut the grass or just handle it, just like, one less thing for her to worry about, just hire a guy, pay a guy, lock it in every, you know, two weeks, a month, whatever it was, just like, one less thing on, on her plate.

[00:25:21] So, that's kind of the spirit behind the volunteering section support registry, whether it's cutting the grass or laundry or going through, or doing the dishes or going through the deceased belongings or taking the kids to soccer practice or coming over to visit or walking the dog, whatever it is, we're trying to connect supporters that wanna take action and be helpful, but don't really know what to do, where to do it, and don't really wanna a, like, it's like kind of awkward to ask these things like in a text.

[00:25:48] With the grievers that do have these needs, but also feel some confidence of being like, "Hey, so-and-so, will you come take my kid to school, or you come watch or walk my dog." So, like, we're trying to kind of simplify that and to also allow the page admin, which can be, uh, a friend, a lieutenant, it could be someone close to the family that's not a direct primary griever, although it also can be, to kind of coordinate more effectively and efficiently on behalf of those grievers.

[00:26:16] So, the memories, so memories, and then support registry. The third tab for now is what we call messages from family. And the thought here is to give this communication channel, this one-to-many channel where the grievers can share updates or announcements, or requests with their community of supporters.

[00:26:33] So, it could be, you know, details of funeral arrangements or memorial service, this time, this address, we'd love to see you there, or next Saturday's a memorial walk, here's where we're gonna meet, here's the flyer, or it could be update, here's how the kids are doing, or here's what we're doing to honor, you know, honor dad,

[00:26:50] or it could be a request, a kid, a child could say, well, trying to figure, we're trying to learn more about what dad was like in college, he didn't have any pictures or stories from that chapter of his life. So, you're trying to kind of like this kind of ecosystem that forms after a death occurs, and while these supporters helping the family, where currently and traditionally, it kind of begins to dissolve after a handful of weeks.

[00:27:13] I'm trying to kind of keep that, connect to that as time goes on, the family can still be supported by those people, and of course, people can follow a page or unfollow a page so the supporters can kind of opt-in or out as they want to, but you're trying to kind of maintain that bond, that communication channel.

[00:27:30] So, again, there's more in the site, and we're building more constantly, but memories, support registry, and messages from family are kind of the main three tabs right now. 

[00:27:40] Richard Simms: Awesome. Yeah, that's a good overview, and it's a pretty robust product in a good way, I think, at, at, you know, essentially full roll-out here. So, one question I have is, you know, what's it been like, for lack of a better word, kind of selling into this space, right? You, of course, need to be delicate in your approach, as you've already touched on a couple times, 

[00:28:01] but, you know, I know you all are continuing to explore, and I think actively, like, oh, this might be something that, you know, a religious leader recommends to a family when the time is right as a good resource or, you know, I'm sure there's these various ways that grievers at the right time in the right way are introduced to the idea, like, can you speak a little bit more to you all's experience, kind of figuring this out and what you think, um, the right approach is? 

[00:28:30] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, absolutely. It's an interesting thing because traditionally, as far as our research has shown and people we talk to, this has been like a B2C play where someone builds a company, and you put it out there, and you wait for, for grievers to come in and just, and just buy.

[00:28:43] Are you selling them directly through SEO or different marketing channels. And we still do that, too, like someone can come to me mialma.com and, and, and create and buy a page if they want to, certainly. And our outward motion, our sales motion is a little bit different. So, what we're trying to really do is also to have this B2, B2C play.

[00:29:04] So, uh, I'll back up for a second. We were not gonna have any ads in the site, no banner ads or approvals, it needs to be a very classy and respectful and a really appropriate environment. There is a cost to buy a page, now it's a hundred dollars for a one-time cost, not recurring, it's available in perpetuity.

[00:29:18] Um, but it's important to us, very important to us, that anyone that wants Mi Alma page should be able to create one regardless of if they have the capacity to pay for it or not. So, what that means is we want Mi Alma to be, at least in part, a network of gifted pages. So, when we say gifted pages, we mean we're gonna have groups of funders, groups of distributors.

[00:29:38] So, a funder is any individual or organization that purchases pages, and when you purchase a page, you can do three things with. One, the default is that it goes in the community fund, which is effectively this piggy bank, this debit account that anyone can come and claim one out of. Two, you can give the page to someone directly.

[00:29:56] I could have a friend that just lost her grandmother, spent a hundred dollars, it fires off an email with him with a unique URL, he dedicates his page, he shares his link, off and running. Three is that pages can be purchased and gifted to families through what we call distribution partners, and that's where we are partnering with hospice care facilities, houses of worship, potentially news publications or funeral homes, maybe corporate HR for bereavement care plans, maybe hos, children's hospitals or adult, maybe it's nonprofits.

[00:30:28] So, that's where we are trying to partner with organizations that both have relationships with families that are either about to or have gone through loss and have some, like, level of credibility and influence with them. We can say to a spiritual leader, you know, and again, a partner or distribution, they can purchase the pages as well if they want to, but they don't have to,

[00:30:50] they can either pull from the community fund or we can work with them to find a funder that can give them to them specifically. So, we can go to an organization, uh, house of worship, and say, "You, your role in this community is to support these families spiritually, emotionally, to coordinate the support from your entire congregation

[00:31:11] when these kind of things happen. We're not giving you this tool that can organize that, that can mobilize that, that can just make your life a little bit easier, too, of getting the word out." So, that's where a lot of our outbound partnerships, sales kind of motions is partnerships with ho, I think everything at this point, hospice care and houses of worship,

[00:31:33] really kind of, like, one A and one B, and all the others are kind of in this kind of, like, group behind them, but we're still learning and iterating and figuring out. So, that's where we view these partnerships as being so effective and so important to us because it's one thing for some, you know, founder and CEO to protect your family and say, "Hey, you know, you should, you should use this,

[00:31:55] you should, you should have this, do you want my product?" But if a spiritual, you're saying, "Hey, I think this is gonna be helpful for you, and by the way, it doesn't cost you a penny, and it may not even cost the, the house of worship a penny." Um, that's a lot 'cause, again, we don't wanna, like, we don't wanna put a paywall between the griever, like, in that moment, like, someone in this ecosystem should be able to sponsor a hundred bucks for a page, whether it's a friend,

[00:32:20] whether it's a local family or corporate foundation, whether it is a house of worship, whoever it is, like, it's priced that way, so it's not cost prohibitive because we want everyone that attitude 'cause we want volume. 

[00:32:34] Richard Simms: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense, and I think that there's obviously kind of a multi-pronged approach there, which, which makes a lot of sense. So, one question, you and I have touched on this a little bit in the past, like, what's it like from a technology and policy standpoint trying to navigate just some of the unique family dynamics, right,

[00:32:55] that can surround a loss. We all have families, we all have, like, interesting aspects to it, hopefully healthy, not always, like, I'm just thinking of situations where there might be tension in the family or just understandably strong emotions related to, like, "Who should set up this page or do we want to do this?" You know? I mean, I'm sure there's no perfect answer, but how are you all kind of starting to wrangle some of that? 

[00:33:19] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, you're right, there is no perfect answer and I think we, we accept the fact that we're not going to be able to, nor are we really trying to, like, solve every inner family conflict. There's family dynamics at play in every family, and our position is more so that for those that want this, it it, it should ex, for those that want this, it should exist as an offering.

[00:33:45] And if there's differences between a family, between siblings, or between, you know, potentially an, an ex-spouse and, and, and children, whatever it is. If there's conflict, then we try to kind of step back and say like, you know, we can alwayskind of, like, not, not turn a page off, but kind of, like, take it offline temporarily until everything's be figured out.

[00:34:07] And again, we're, we're, we're learning and iterating through all those. And now, I think the most important thing is that, like, we're not, we're not trying to, to be, you know, a, a psychologist, and like, get in between this conflicts. Um, they, they do arise, they will continue to arise, that's just kind of part of how things work.

[00:34:26] Um, our view is more of when there is agreement in the family and everyone's comfortable with this, um, we think that there should be an offering that does these kinds of things. Um, and if there is a conflict to where, you know, one party is, feels very strongly against having some of it, or there's disagreement

[00:34:42] on, you know, what pa, what picture should be in the profile picture or, so again, it's a very important, as we back up, going back to, like, the, the do no harm piece. The family admins have the ability to control certain privacy settings of who has access to view certain content, they can remove any content at any point that they want,

[00:35:02] they can block a user's affiliate post, it's important that the family's in control and really behind the wheel, and like, what they're experiencing. We have to be very careful not to be overly prescriptive on how someone needs to be using Mi Alma, it's just something, it's not our place. So, when it comes to the family, the family dynamics, we're gonna tread lightly.

[00:35:21] And again, we're also still trying to figure this out, there isn't, so there isn't a magic answer and we haven't even gotten close to finding a magic answer. So, part of this is just early stage, you know, we, we're gonna keep iterating as we go. Um, you're exactly right, like, it is, it is one of the things that I won't say keeps me up at night, but like, we're very attuned to because we know how emotional and sometimes irrational, again, grief can be,

[00:35:47] in a way, like, intoxicating, it can kind of just distract you and, and, and, and, and make people, you know, behave in certain ways that they otherwise wouldn't behave. So, you know, we have to be very mindful of that on the front end and very delicate and have kind of a very soft touch

[00:36:01] because, you know, our goal is to help people, and sometimes people may not want that happen, and maybe it upsets them that, you know, a sibling or a cousin or whoever it is creates a page for their loved one that they didn't want. So, there really isn't any great answer to that, it's more of we're not trying to solve every family conflict and we're trying to, to kind of listen and learn as best we can, right? 

[00:36:26] Richard Simms: Well, I'm sure you all will find the, the right balance, and I think your hearts are in the right place and it's oversimplification, but in a sense it's not a new problem, I mean, let's say I have someone close to me that passes and I want to, you know, buy a space in a newspaper to do a, a memorial for them, like, I don't think there's really any checks in place there to make sure that every other person, person, it's signed. 

[00:36:50] Scott Arogeti: It's also part of the, part of why we're trying to partner with houses of worship because, again, not at all, but in some, perhaps in most cases, hopefully, that spiritual leader can also play this, like, therapeutic role, right,

[00:37:03] of like, meeting and navigating to where, like, you know, Mi Alma isn't the bad guy, Mi Alma's just trying to say, "Hey, like, if you want this, we'd love to give it to you, and if you don't want this, like, all good, we're not trying to get in between parties conflict." 

[00:37:18] Richard Simms: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So, taking a step back, you know, again, I think that, at least, at least from kind of idea phase, I know you all have been thinking about this for quite a while. What are some of the biggest challenges you've come across so far? Again, we all know startups are a roller coaster, like, does anything stand out that was especially hard, or you were like, oh my gosh, I don't know?

[00:37:42] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, I mean, one of the challenges for us, I mean, my wife and I both, you know, we are, we are not engineers, they've called me different things in my life, I've never been called an engineer. So, trying to build a tech company with two co-founders that are, you know, at their hearts, salespeople, and talkers, decoders, that was a challenge that still is in some ways a challenge. Um, so, you know, we have been kind of on the hunt, as you know, of finding different partners and vendors and advisors and all getting different people that can help us bring a product to life.

[00:38:13] And, you know, it took two years, and, you know, part of that was, you know, really trying to over-index on, on discovery and research and conversations, part because I think that's the way to go in general, part because this is incredibly emotional and delicate, and unlike a, just kind of a traditional B2B SaaS company or a widget or app, we can kind of put it out there and iterate, iterate, iterate without really a lot, a whole lot of downside.

[00:38:35] There's a lot of emotional downside if we got this wrong. So, we, the bar had to be high before we were comfortable to print something out there because the last thing we wanted to do is to, you know, give a page to someone that lost parent, a child, whatever, you know, like a day or two ago, and have it not work or have a problem.

[00:38:53] So, like, we had, we kind of owed it to them to make sure that we were further along than maybe one of most companies would be comfortable putting it out there. Part of it also that we had a third kid last year, so, that kind of lost also slips in a little bit on the, on the development. But yeah, I think finding the right technical partners and, and now, now staff we hired, we hired a CTO

[00:39:15] late last year, he was wonderful, he was, I think he was brilliant. He had been advisor of ours for a handful of years, so he was very familiar with kinda what, with what we were doing while doing it and how we were doing it. So, I think, you know, tech is one of that. I think other challenges, you know, it's, sometimes people, you know, when you're doing discovery, you have to always kind of look at all the, the feedback you're getting from this perspective,

[00:39:40] will they actually do that or are they just saying because that's what they think I want to hear? So, it's been really interesting since pages went live the last, about two months ago, they kind of observed certain behaviors once we actually had something to give people versus just doing discovery on the front-end before there actually was a product.

[00:39:56] So, it's almost like it's still discovery, but it's, there's like a line in the sand between, you know, um, way more aspirational, a more kind of, like, hypothetical discovery versus, like, actual, here it is, I'm gonna see if you actually use this, I'm gonna see how you use this and where you get stuck if you get stuck,

[00:40:15] where you abandoned, why you abandoned. So, a lot of learnings, I'd say in some ways, we've learned more in the last two months than we have in the last two years because the velocity of those learnings has been accelerated. So, trying to iterate from that, trying to analyze that, trying to, to, to, you know, maintain

[00:40:37] updates with your investors of how your strategy is evolving and changing and what that means in different ways. It's all a challenge, but it's all, it's all kind of fun, and it's incredibly stimulating, and I think that what, what gets, keeps us, you know, inspired and motivated is just seeing the potential of the impact that we can have.

[00:40:55] And there was, you know, I'll tell you one more story. The, a little over a month ago, we had the first instance where a griever put a Mi Alma page on social media, and it was, uh, it was a legacy use case that our person had passed away last May. So, it wasn't 20 years ago, but it also wasn't a week ago.

[00:41:13] And it was a big moment 'cause we weren't sure, well, we were gonna engage with this, we were gonna share pictures and stories, how would they react? Would this griever feel let down, that no one was engaging? There was, there was a risk, and she posted it on Facebook and LinkedIn on a Friday in February.

[00:41:29] And, you know, it was, it was beautiful to see, I think she had over 50 posts that came in that day, that day and the next day, of all of, you know, her, her husband's colleagues and friends and buddies and some other cousins that were sharing pictures and stories and memories and it was a very hard day for her 'cause, of course, she's still in grief, and she's, you know, she's still mourning loss of her husband.

[00:41:53] But she was very grateful, and she was very, she appreciated that now she has all this content, and now moving forward, it's there for her as a crutch on important days, on the anniversary of when he was born or when he passed or, you know, their wedding anniversary or on the random days, Tuesday morning, on Monday evening when she can't sleep or she has a bad dream and now she, you know, gets taken or she, you know, hears a song or sees a picture, has some memory that triggers a thought of him,

[00:42:21] and now she's back in this, you know, wave of nostalgia, grief. Our goal is that she has this page now that she can go to and be reminded of all the wonderful things that he did and how people knew and loved him and still know and loved him even after he's passed, and hopefully, it's a little bit hope, it's a little bit cathartic to her that now this exists and will always exist,you know, again, as a crutch for her. 

[00:42:47] Richard Simms: That's great. Yeah. And I'm sure that those types of wins, you know, for you and Jordan and the rest of the team, like, mean a lot and, you know, it's been a lot of work to get there, I'm sure you're gonna see more and more and more of those, and it's gonna be very fulfilling.

[00:43:01] Awesome. So, in the, in the last few minutes here, I want to ask a couple, couple different questions, like, pivot a little bit if, uh, if, if that's cool with you. So, as a startup guy, I think, like, a lot is changing in the startup scene, to say the least, right? Interest rates, we've got this, like, SVB collapse, craziness,

[00:43:20] you know, you've invested in, worked for startups, like, big question, but just, what do you think the landscape looks like in the next year or two? Like, I'm sure you're thinking about it from a few different angles as an investor, a founder, you know, no one knows, but like, what, what do you think things are gonna look like over the next year or two for, for startup founders?

[00:43:41] Scott Arogeti: No, I, um, I try to stay, you know, I try to stay optimistic, and I do think that things will be one hopefully faster than some people think. Um, obviously, the events of the last week or two, um, Silicon Valley Bank are a challenge, and, you know, it's, remains to be seen, you know, what other dominoes could fall and what are certain repercussions or some of the actions that were taken, you know, on Sunday and since.

[00:44:02] So, I could have to keep my words on this in the future, but, you know, I do think that, I think what, what the beauty that I find in startups, in general, is that you're solving customers problems, and there are, I don't see the rate of new problems arising, slowing down. So, there always will be room for new products and features, and services to be provided to fill new needs.

[00:44:26] Same way that, like, the pandemic created, not created, but like, the pandemic created Zoom in a sense that, like, now something random happened that had all this disruption and transformation which created openings and gaps for new companies to fill with solutions to those problems. So, like, that principle, I don't see that changing.

[00:44:48] So, it's just a question of founders and early-stage teams and VCs that are willing to back these, these teams of how, how skilled are they going to be and how persistently in attacking those problems and doing sufficient discovery and talking to their customers and, and, and delivering value. At the end of the day, happy, paying customers are the backbone of their business.

[00:45:14] So, if you can find happy, paying cus, happy and paying customers regardless of what they look like, or kind of, you know, what, what, what your model is, and you can work out the economics where it's a sustainable business. Then I think some of the macro trends, they may slow you down a little bit, but they're not gonna put you out.

[00:45:33] So, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm an interested party, as you said, in, in a few different areas, I still have, you know, a handful of our active investments that I'm still in touch with our founders constantly on. It was kind of fun because, you know, in the last two-plus years, once I got like a, like a, like a graduate degree in, in, in, in founder life and CEO life because I was kind of on the sidelines and, and, and advisor and helping out, you know, about eight to ten other CEOs around town and around the country.

[00:46:03] So, I was being able to observe how they handle challenges and what they did around fundraising or hiring or dealing with certain employee situations, or dealing with a partner avengers, or sales teams, or press, whatever, whatever the issues were. Um, so now that hopefully that I'm in this seat, you know, some of that, some of that seasoning in addition to my own experience of working at startups will begin to kind of, to, to, to, to add more value.

[00:46:26] But yeah, in the macro sense, I mean, I don't know, I think a lot of it kind of depends on, on, on, on, on how the Fed continues their plans, if they continue to raise rates, if they, if they lower rates, and they'll just kinda pause things. Um, obviously, that has a dramatic effect, you know, at a, at a macro level

[00:46:43] on, on, on availability of funding. I know there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of powder kind of that is, you know, that is, that is sitting with some of these, these VCs. So, when they feel comfortable deploying that and how they deploy that and when they deploy that, you know, just like you trying to figure out, you know, how's it gonna work?

[00:47:00] But, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm optimistic because there's still innovation taking place everywhere and, and the need of that isn't slowing down, it's a question of can the, can founders have the creativity and the resourcefulness to find solutions and then to develop that traction that can give confidence to investor, whether they're angels, or VCs, or whoever it is to, to, to give the resources, to give some, you know, some fuel to, to, to those enterprises. 

[00:47:30] Richard Simms: Yeah. Yeah. That, that all makes sense, and I'm with you. I, I share in the optimism and 

[00:47:34] Scott Arogeti: What do you think? 

[00:47:36] Richard Simms: Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think, I agree with everything you said, and I think that, you know, startups inherently have to be very resilient, so, like, it's just a little more challenging now, um

[00:47:46] Scott Arogeti: Maybe it, in some ways, maybe it's a good thing because now you can't, like, not that kind of come off as harsh certain people, but like, you can't kind of just, like, get drunk on funding and not care about the bottom line, not care about profitability, like you have to, it's almost like a, it's like going back to fundamentals, and if you have strong fundamentals, you have happy customers and good margins, and like, you're gonna find success, maybe your value, maybe you won't get the same, a multiple on an exit or a round that you would've got three years ago, but you're, you're not gonna go to business if, if those, if those elements are still in place.

[00:48:20] Richard Simms: Right. Yeah. I, I totally agree. And I think that some degree of, like, swinging back to normalcy was, was necessary, this is probably a little further than anyone expected it to go, but it'll, it'll balance out, you know? Um, all right. So, one last question in the last couple minutes that I always like to ask guests.

[00:48:37] So, you know, if you were speaking to, like a first-time founder trying to launch their own new business, like what's, like, one piece of advice that you think is pretty evergreen and, and, you know, has served you well or would serve them well? 

[00:48:53] Scott Arogeti: I think, I mean, and again, it's a little bit cliche, like, I talk to customers, I think that's the most important thing, and in some ways, I wouldn't say ignore your competitors, but like, maybe ignore your competitors. I'm a big believer that if you're solving your customer's problems and you're, like, hugging them in a sense, your competitors don't really matter because if you're doing a good job of that, then there's no opening

[00:49:15] for themto matter. So, it's all just about, you know, it's customer insights, it's discovery, it's getting feedback, it's feedback loops of how you're, what you're doing with that feedback, are you listening, are you, are you building off of that? And I think that that's the foundation of it all.

[00:49:30] You know, I've, I've, I've, I've seen a lot of teams that thought they had these great ideas and just built, built, built, built, built, and then brought it to customers, and they're like, yeah, I don't, maybe I buy 'em, and they don't, but like, but if you, if you bring them in at the beginning and you're constantly, again like, pardon my language on this, but like, it all comes down to a built shit that people want,

[00:49:54] if you're building shit that people want, you got a business, and if you, you find a ways to scale that and the economics make sense and the pricing and margins and environment, and it's like, are you building something that, something that people want? Can you find authentic demand? And even if you have authentic demands, then you're on your way, right, to, to, to, to the elusive product, uh, market fit. Once you have that, you know, it's on.

[00:50:19] Richard Simms: For sure. That's great advice. And I think it, it cannot be overstated, like, spend time with your customers, I think that is kind of the crux of it.

[00:50:26] Scott Arogeti: And also, like, if you can, your cus, spend time with people that don't know you, that don't have any bias, that, that are willing to, that are willing to be very directly saying, no, I wouldn't use that, I don't like that, here's why, ask why. 

[00:50:40] Richard Simms: Okay. Awesome. This has been great. So, I think we're about at time, brilliant, enjoyed the interview. Thanks so much, Scott, um

[00:50:48] Scott Arogeti: Thank you.

[00:50:49] Richard Simms: So, before we sign off, where can listeners go to connect with you and to learn more about Mi Alma, and what can they do to, you know, engage, support your mission?

[00:50:58] Scott Arogeti: Yeah, thank you. Um, you can go to mialma.com, it's m-i-a-l-m-a.com. You can follow us on Instagram, @mialma, and you can hit me up per, uh, hit me up on LinkedIn, I'm available, you know, S-c-o-t-t A-r-o-g-e-t-i, and honestly, the, the, the thing about Mi Alma is that every person will, will, you know, will either be a griever or supporter, unlikely both many times.

[00:51:23] So, if there was one ask at half for listeners to this or watchers of this, just give us some feedback, help us understand how we can better serve the needs that you have. This is not, this like, pride of ownership thing where it's like, you know, we're building this, and you don't like, you don't like the way we're doing it,

[00:51:38] then, you know, screw you, this is, this is the right way, we, this is, this sounds like a group project of sorts. So, we, we, we really want and are asking for, and are, and are, are grateful for every feedback that we get because everyone's a user of this. So, you know, almost like help us do a better job of serving the needs that you and everyone around you has.

[00:52:00] Richard Simms: Sounds great. Well, thanks again for being on the show, Scott, and I look forward to the continued growth of Mi Alma, thanks again. 

[00:52:08] Scott Arogeti: I appreciate it.