Full Transcript – Cyrus Claffey – Wild Business Growth Podcast #271

This is the full transcript for Episode #271 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Cyrus Claffey – Intercom Iterator, Founder of ButterflyMX. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Cyrus Claffey 0:00
Uh oh! How do you deal with that?

Max Branstetter 0:19
Cy, Hello. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, qnd you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast, high quality podcast. Sometimes you gotta sound that word out. This is Episode Interstate 271, shoutout Ohio, And today’s guest is Cyrus Claffey. Cyrus is the Founder and Executive Chairman of ButterflyMX, a company full of butterflies, and I’m just kidding. It’s not a butterfly garden. It is a super cool company who is revolutionizing intercoms that could be in apartment buildings that could be at other buildings. And they’re coming out with crazy innovative products, even beyond the traditional intercom space or roll as well. In this episode, we talk a little show until a lot of curveballs, how to continue to iterate you need a sound that word out as well as a company, especially in the tech space, and some entrepreneurial skills that go all the way back to the Renaissance. It is Mr. Claffey. Enjoyyyyy the showwwwww!

Aaaaaalrightyyyyyyy we are here with Cyrus Claffey, Founder of ButterflyMX, one of the coolest, most innovative software even learned the term from this research PropTech companies. It was new to me but really, really cool. And we’ll get to how it discovered you in the first place in a bit. But Cyrus so excited to speak to you and learn about your journey and company’s journey today. Thanks for joining us how you doing today?

Cyrus Claffey 2:12
Great. Happy to be here happy to share kind of insights and tell you the backstory for ButterflyMX especially appreciate the fact that you know you’re so excited to talk to me and find out more about the company. I mean, that’s awesome.

Max Branstetter 2:26
Yeah, of course, of course. And that’s a little teaser, we’ll get to ButterflyMX in a little bit. But before that, I sometimes like throwing curveballs to the guests to start and there’s little gem that I heard about your background that I was like we need to dive into this more, because I was so fascinated by it. You used to work at a renaissance fair?

Cyrus Claffey 2:47
Yes, I did. I did. I did. So when I was in college, I went to school at Macalester College in Minnesota. I had a girlfriend who knew people at the Ren Faire. And so one summer, I worked for a guy named wil who is a goblet maker and he made these beautiful pewter goblets. Sometimes with a stone set in the handle, sometimes not. I was a hopper and what a hawker is, is, you’re the guy who stands in front of a stall a merchant stop, and you try and get people to come in and try the wares and ultimately ends up in a sale. And you know, for us the my trap, so to speak was the fact that if you bought a goblet, we would keep filling that goblet with beer for as long as you came back to ask for a refill. So it was a great way to kind of get people excited, you know, it was a great way to get them come back, you know, weekend after weekend, year after year to get that free refill, maybe buy more goblets, you know, I really kind of, in a way perfected an outgoing personality of having no shame, no fear and coming up with good rhymes, you know, step right up, step right up, you know, I can’t remember what I would say after that, but you know, you’ve done the English accent, and you’re trying to reel people in. And you know, one of the most interesting things is, is, you know, I would never eat, you know, all weekend long. And, of course, I had my own goblet that I got when I started working there. And you know what, I’d be filling my goblet up, you know, all day long all weekend. And it was kind of I don’t know, in thinking about it years later, I realized, you know, I didn’t eat because of course, you know, drinking beer is like eating a loaf of bread. So, you know, it was it was a really great fun experience. And, you know, the other thing is, I grew up reading sci fi and fantasy novels. You know, so I was basically living in like a dream and that was really a wonderful thing. So and I love history and I love military history and you know all about the knights and you know, conquering and all the things that went on in, in Europe, you know, whatever, from pre Roman through kind of current history. So anyway, it was a really wonderful experience. little

Max Branstetter 5:03
shout out one of my wife Dana’s best friends, Alyssa, because she has made it an annual tradition to go to the renaissance fair or Ren Faire, as I’ve heard some call it and I think I think what what you did in that previous life would probably be a dream job for so that’s awesome, but I could talk about beer for the entire time in itself, but I out of curiosity, what type of beer was it I went in the goblets was there it was, there’s the same type.

Cyrus Claffey 5:31
Yeah, this was pre I pa days. And you know, we had a keg Right, right behind the counter. Hopefully it was a pilsner. You know, for a long time. It was a pilsner guide. Now, I’m strict IPA. I think, you know, once you go down the IPA road, you never come back because everything else kind of doesn’t taste like anything. So

Max Branstetter 5:48
I’m the same way. I’m that. And then my pure like, absolute favorite is the Belgian golden nails, like Belgian strong nails, but those are, they’re not sustainable, more than one or two in a sitting because then it just fall asleep. Yeah, no,

Cyrus Claffey 6:01
I mean, look, and that’s kind of the interesting thing about the IPA is I mean, you keep seeing that alcohol content creep up, you know, 7.28 9.2. I mean, it’s kind of crazy. But, you know, by the same token, you know, you’ve noticed that the glasses are not always it’s not a pint glass. It’s like, you know, 12 ounces, you know, something like that. So I’m a huge fan.

Max Branstetter 6:22
And so you mentioned your role, as you said, the term was Hawker. Yeah, like Hawk like the bird, or H. O. C. K, I don’t know how to spell it. But yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 6:30
well, I mean, me. Yeah. I guess Hakka like the brick, you know, you’re out there. And you’re like, Hey, come on, come on, you know, you’re trying to just draw them in through the energy, you’re kind of exuding. So it’s like marketing 101 or sales. 101. Really, and frankly, you know, I’ve, like over time discovered, I’m a great opener, right? I can kind of paint the vision and then hand it off to kind of the professionals to really take it from there.

Max Branstetter 6:56
And you have a way with your words. I mean, you just from like the the iterations of stuff you said as a hawker, but also the you caught my caught my ear, actually, when you use the term, our fly trap, that might be the best analogy I’ve ever heard of the fly trap, like you instantly know what it is to get people to stick to you. But But that roll, it’s almost like, you know, your part. carnival barker, I don’t know what sort of sentiment that has, as well as like a busker, or like a street performer? Oh, yeah. Have the skills required to that? You know, in addition to like, that public speaking and creativity there. What else do you take with into your entrepreneurship days did you take with you from those days at the Ren Faire?

Cyrus Claffey 7:39
The folks who work at the Ren Faire are kind of like on the fringes of society, right? It’s, it’s not people who are working nine to five, right? And I think, again, you know, I grew up reading sci fi and fantasy, you know, and so I think it’s like, a world where people dream, and they dream big sometimes, right? So maybe it’s a little bit about dreaming big, right? And then bringing that into kind of the rest of the world that we live in our day to day lives, you know, you know, but I had always been that way. You know, when I, when I grew up, I did show Intel, you know, and I lived for, I think it was on Thursdays, and this was like in third grade. So we’re going way back at this point, but, you know, I loved show Intel, and I loved like, you know, the challenge of coming up with something new and creative every week. And there’s actually a friend of mine, his name is Tom Kornfield, we’re still friends to this day, you know, he and I would compete, because basically, it was this the two of us in our third grade class, and then everybody else was like, whatever, who cares? You know, I’m assuming that but, you know, it just thrived on that kind of excitement and being in front of the class. And really, you know, it’s testing your mettle, right? Here’s an idea you’re putting out in front of everybody, you know, you know, do they laugh? Or do they clap? So it’s that willingness to kind of keep putting yourself out there. And that’s kind of what makes you successful at the Ren Faire in terms of being a hawker or a busker? I think it’s kind of the same, same kind of thing. I think, to a certain extent, when you’re starting a company, you have to be willing to put yourself out there, no holds barred, right, because you know, when you only have one customer, right, adding one more, however, you do that by hook or by crook, right. You know, I mean, that’s 100% growth rate, right? So it’s kind of like you take chances, because it’s, it’s innate to you. It’s part of your who you are, it’s part of your DNA, right, and you keep doing it time after time again, and like if you don’t succeed, you just pick yourself up and keep going. Right because you have enough conviction in what you’re doing that you think like when you find the right people and when enough people get on board. Everybody else will follow.

Max Branstetter 9:49
So I have another curveball for you. Sure. Let’s get to ButterflyMX. You didn’t see that one coming, did you? Not at all. No, no, no. And this I alluded to this at To start, but I want to share a little bit of background here. So the way I discovered your company and tracked you down, I went door to door and I’m just guy, well, that actually might have, he might have seen some your products that way. But when Dana and I moved to our apartment building in Hoboken, one of the first things from like the onboarding that we learned about, and actually we learned about it from my cousins live in the building, even beforehand was this really cool feature where there’s an app for your phone called ButterflyMX, and you could be pretty much anywhere. And if you need to open, you know, the front door to the building on either side, you know, to let delivery in or let family friends in, you can do that with the swipe of your phone, in that little nugget right there just set off an explosive creativity in my mind of like, wow, that’s really like, I had no idea that there were apps or companies like that. And I know your company, like there’s there’s many more apps aspects and features to it as that but that single feature is what, you know, first struck with me of how cool this was and how fascinating of a company and technology it is. And then of course, it was able to track you down on LinkedIn and whatnot. So anyway, so that’s where like, the seed of this interview was planted even years ago, I don’t know why it took me so long to reach out. Now. ButterflyMX for you, what planted the seed of the idea for even something in this prop tech, you know, real estate property technology space in the first place?

Cyrus Claffey 11:28
You know, my journey is I went to B school went into banking got laid off after 9/11 You know, when the industry contracted? And then, you know, I was always an entrepreneur, I was always the guy in my family who, hey, can you program the DVD player? Can you do this? Can you do that? Right. So I was always the guy who that mission fell to,

Max Branstetter 11:51
by the way, your shout out, Matt, my cousin, will cousin Sam’s husband, who showed me this technology that I just mentioned. He is that guy who anything tech related. He’s our programming. He’s the guy so So I think you’re kindred spirits.

Cyrus Claffey 12:06
Yeah, exactly. And but by the way, the only downside is, you know, anytime my mom has a problem with her computer, no matter what I’m doing, she’s calling me and you know, yep, yep, I’m gonna problem solve it remotely. So I ended up creating a company that was a geek squad for the real estate industry that hit kind of a brick wall. And I got into what I call whole building infrastructure design, right. So designing all the technology, you know, in a building from, you know, the amenity spaces to whatever you might have in the apartments, right, whether it’s like smart apartments or not smart apartments, and just like your internet connection in the apartment, I knew everything there was about building technology, how that market worked, the people involved in installing it, what developers are looking for what people who built apartment buildings were looking for. And then, you know, also the managers. I remember, like, just sitting you know, and I lived in an apartment in Brooklyn, right? It was the first market rate unit in this great building that I lived in for a few years, you know, I worked in the city I lived in Brooklyn would always miss my packages because the intercom didn’t work, right? When when you buzz that apartment, basically, you’d hear you know, in the kitchen, and I walk over the kitchen, I press three different buttons kind of in a particular way. So it’s almost like you’re playing like an electronic organ, and you’d get just the right pitch II and then you knew the door had been opened, you didn’t know for who right at all right? You didn’t know who you’d let in what you’d let in. But you open the door. And presumably it was for you, you know, and I just remember going like, look, I’m in this building technology world, there’s got to be a better way, right? Like sit on your couch, watch TV, you know, your foods getting delivered, or the UPS guy shows up. And you can just sit there and you know, hit a button and open the door, right without having to get off the couch. And so really, it’s about the convenience factor, right? It’s about always being able to get your your your deliveries, right. You know, this was the time when two things were kind of going on. The first is you could stream sports onto an iPhone, right? So I knew it was possible to send a video stream right from some location to an iPhone. So that was kind of the first I think major hurdle like some kind of tech stack, some kind of infrastructure existed out there that you could do that. The other thing is, by the way, in order to traditionally do video intercom systems, you’d have to wire the entire building. And that was extremely costly. Okay, you know, when you kind of put those two things together, it’s really expensive to have a traditional video intercom system, right? They are able to stream you know, video over the air to an iPhone and and the fact that like convenience and aspirational things are really what drive a lot of innovation. Right. And so, you know, I mean, I think that that’s kind of the whole apple ethos. It was the whole nest though with the Nest thermostat, it looked really beautiful. It was easy to use. And it really changed the way heated and cooled your home. Right. You know, those were kind of the the impetus is I would say towards like, there could really be something interesting here. Our first client was a company called Avalon Bay, they were putting up a new building, here in New York, it was something like 400 units, they were going to spend $250,000, putting in a conventional video intercom system. And, you know, I was involved in that project as the technology designer, right of the of the technology infrastructure systems there. And I was like, look, hey, would you guys be interested in having this really cool kind of mobile app that would allow the residents to get a call from somebody at the front door, and oh, by the way, you would save $240,000, right. And they were like all over that they were all over that. Because like, at the end of the day, that I mean, that’s the thing that’s really ultimately going to drive your decision making in real estate. And so, you know, that was really the beginning of the whole thing, you know, and then it was like, look, let’s basically put an iPad at the front of the building, it’s velcroed, to the front of the building. Right. And, you know, ultimately, our touchscreens are not iPads that are Velcro to the front of the building. But that’s kind of the aspiration. An iPad is like, it’s sleek, it’s cool, has all these applications that do different things for you, right, and the velcroing part is, you know, the installation is a breeze, it’s as easy, it’s simple as Velcro. And, again, that’s the goal that really drove the beginning of butterfly MX AvalonBay, turned out to be our first client. And, you know, we learned so much in the iterative process of developing this technology that then went on to kind of get baked into the overall platform. Now, the other thing is like, look, when you step back and think about it, most intercoms at the front of buildings were these kind of clunky devices, right? They didn’t work often, right? People didn’t know how to use them, even if they did work. And everybody inside the building went by the intercom. So think about it, you know, you have this clunky kind of device that you can replace with a touchscreen, then it allows somebody anywhere in the world to basically open the door for their deliveries for their friends, for their family who’s coming to stay with them, you name it, right. So you’ve really kind of, it’s a game changer in terms of how disruptive it is visa vie traditional intercom systems, right. And then on top of it, you know, something that kind of became apparent as we grew was this idea of curb appeal, you know, I’m going to look at an apartment in a new apartment building or an older apartment building. And the first thing I see is I see this beautiful touchscreen, right? That allows me to, you know, type in a pin or present a virtual key to get inside without having to call anybody how cool of an experience is that you’re interacting with it day one, you know, again, this is this idea of curb appeal and helps really kind of communicate something about the building about the experience of living there. And that was the other kind of aspect. I’m very aspirational, of course,

Max Branstetter 18:13
appreciate you just ran down so many benefits and perks of, of adding in this technology. There’s the convenience factor. There’s the curb appeal, there’s the one I’m coining as Declan codifying the the lobbies, they’re also whatever you call saving $240,000 After your first client, that’s a pretty, pretty good benefit as well. When you talk about the technology, you mentioned how iterative it was. And I assume any I just from day one assume any software tech platform it is like it’s such an iterative process. It’s hard to say that word. But just how iterative was it for you? Like, can you give us a little peek behind the scenes of like, what a day in the life was when you were developing this technology in the first place? You don’t need to reveal any IP trade secrets.

Cyrus Claffey 19:07
I mean, here’s a really interesting thing. So you know, I lived here in New York. And so if you look around at all the buildings in New York, you know, land is valuable. They’re all packed very closely together. Most buildings have a main entrance, one main entrance, that is when we developed a system where you installed the intercom and it went on the front of the building. Fast forward. You know, two years later, you know, we’re launching, and what do you know, we’re in some building in South Orange. It was an older brick building. I remember it for this and another reason and so guess what, they had a main entrance, right? Street facing and then they had an entrance on the back where the parking lot was for all the residents. So in fact, you had two entrances. Whoa, how do you deal with that? Okay, so, Oh, somebody’s getting a call from the front or the back. Like it’s to the same kind of, you know, record in the database. How do you handle that switching? Suppose like, for all, you know, two people call that person at the same time, how do you deal with that? Right? That was in New York, where we started, most buildings had one entrance. Now, all of a sudden, you had two entrances, right? So you had to figure out the right kind of data architecture and call flow, as we call it, right? Because you’re routing a video call, right, from a point to a mobile app, we had to figure out the right call flow that would accommodate multiple entrances. Right. And when you get outside of New York, right, you’ll see that, you know, buildings are kind of more mid rise, you know, meaning, you know, they’re five or six storeys, and so they have many entrances, right. And that turned out to be kind of more common than anything else. Right. And so today, on average, you know, we have about two intercom touchscreens at every building that we serve. Right. So that was, that was like one example. And there are, you know, a myriad of other ones. I’ll also remember at that same building, after we had kind of figured out how to have two calls, or two screens at one building, you know, and we’re so excited, because this was like the next client after Avalon Bay, and it was a completely different kind of client. So it kind of was like, wow, you know, we can have a huge, we can have a huge impact in the retrofit market. But look, we were forging, we were forging, like a new path. Nobody had ever done this before, you know, so we were the guys who kind of figured out all these problems, you know, and then baked that into the system. And you know, there were many, many others in terms of, you know, when you got installed in the building, and the property managers were using it, they would have requests, you know, hey, suppose somebody doesn’t want to have their first and last name on the screen, you know, what can you do about that? Alright, so you come up with different naming conventions, you know, unit one, unit two, you know, and so on, and so forth. And so I think it’s really important, obviously, to listen to your customers, to work closely with them, you know, and to have real partnerships with them. Because like, Whatever you do to improve the product, benefits them and benefits the residents, you know, so it’s important to be humble. And just be very receptive to feedback.

Max Branstetter 23:47
It’s incredible lesson on learning directly from your customers, as well as you know, like the end users in the building or residence, however you want to call them. So you obviously did that tons and tons of times, again, with your different clients in a variety of spaces. How about forging the path to, you know, once you started to get real momentum and started to work with more and more, you know, developers and property managers like how did you even know where to look and like what clients to pitch to?

Cyrus Claffey 24:23
Every building has an intercom. Every apartment building does. office buildings do warehouses retail, I mean, the list goes on very much from the beginning. There’s been the coal aspirational quality about the focus on resident experience, right? We want to make life better for residents inside the building. At the same time, the real estate industry kind of woke up to this idea that they got, I think, from boutique hotels, right? Instead of having kind of cookie cutter apartment buildings, really there was this whole emphasis on design because it would attract a and keep tenants in apartment buildings. Right. And it’s one of the major challenges that they have is that they have turnover and apartment buildings. So from day one, we’ve been very much focused on resident experience. By the same token, though, you know, as I said, every single person inside of a building, you know, goes through the intercom, right? And so it was really about how do we help property managers, you know, run this building more efficiently, right, so that they have more time for the highest value add tasks at hand. Part of that is, you know, leasing part of that is written what’s called retention in the real estate industry, right. And creating that sense of community making sure the, the residents are satisfied with where they live, you know, and they’re having a great experience living there. And so it’s very much been about how can we do like different things. So, for example, one thing we did early on was because you’re getting all these deliveries, let’s create delivery pent. Right, so in other words, I have FedEx ups, you know, Amazon coming to the building multiple times a day now, frankly, as opposed to them needing to call an individual or call the leasing office to gain access, why don’t we set up what we call delivery pins, right, that the property manager could set up in their, you know, dashboard, and they can give that to the FedEx guy, give it to the UPS guy give it to the Amazon guy, this creates a really more efficient access process for all the delivery people that takes the property manager out of out of that day to day having to worry about answering those calls, again, multiple times a day now. So that was one example. The other thing is, you know, we were really one of the first companies in the Prop tech space that had this idea of like, Look, you have a resident directory on the screen, well, that directory ought to be integrated into the main property management platform that the companies use, right to manage the property. And that task alone, we take up like when when property managers had to do it manually, that would take up so much time for property managers, right? That often it would go undone, right? Because it was just so labor intensive, where you’d have to hire somebody and spend money, you know, with an installer to come out there and change those names. And again, they would do it infrequently. So let’s automate that. I mean, that is, you know, we’re, we’re in 2015 2016 at the time. So we were always thinking about ways in which we could really have this fundamental impact in terms of how property managers were managing the access platform in the building. And again, because everybody’s going through the intercom, this is one of the most important pieces of access control technology have on site. Now, the other thing is, is that because of the fact that, you know, we were so successful, right? People really, they really, really liked butterfly MX, they came to us and said, Look, you’re issuing these delivery pins, can you develop a package room for us? Right, because you already letting that delivery guy at the front of the building. We’re like, of course, that’s great. So now what we did is we extended the platform into our package room. So now you can not only get into the front entrance, but you can take those packages, put them in package room, residents would come down and pick them up when it was convenient for them when they came home from work. Right? They wouldn’t just be like lying around in the lobby. And by the same token, in the last year, right, we’ve gone even further into the building, we’ve launched our whole access control. So you know, the key fob readers that everybody sees, right, so those are now controllable via the butterfly MX mobile app. And now you have one system that can get you into the front of the building, get you into our package room to get your packages get you around the building into the amenity space. So you’re throwing a party in the grill area on the Fourth of July, guess what, send that virtual key, Get your friends in at the front, get them up an elevator because we have elevator controls, but haven’t been, which I know I haven’t, but then into the amenity space, right. And now the final thing is, you know, we’re now working on the apartment door lock, right, and we’ve integrated in a few of the major namebrand apartment door locks so that you have what we call our end to end access solution. So now every single door in the building is controlled under one umbrella, right? And it opens up a world of possibilities in terms of efficient property management that helps the residence right in the sense of it’s one mobile app gets you everywhere, don’t need to think about it. It’s very easy when you’re having friends or you know your dog walker comes over. But I would say it was more importantly for the property managers it has it’s one platform that they kind of learned about and they can start to use to manage the building more efficiently freeing up their time.

Max Branstetter 29:46
And just speaking from the residents perspective, I think just from my experience like you You’ve totally nailed the user experience with it because it’s so quick and easy and it’s so just back to that feature of opening the door from you know, like while you’re on Turn TV when you have a food delivery coming, just one swipe you it’s even fun when you hear through like the intercom you hear in the background thing. Yeah. Like, it’s like, all right, like, I know, this worked, I know that they’re coming, like the streaming works great. It’s a great analogy back to the fact that hey, if you know if we could stream, watch live sports on the iPhone, why not, you know, do intercom here as well. So really, really fantastic all around, looking well beyond those first initial clients. If you had to look back over the past, you know, almost a decade now of your business. What’s another really memorable big win or almost like inflection point in your business? where things really start to take off? Yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 30:40
I mean, look, you know, we’ve always aimed high, when we pass the 1000 building mark, that was really kind of, you know, we were pinching ourselves. Because I think at that point, you know, you kind of have a, you can breathe a sigh of relief, you know, from when I first had the first idea, which, you know, I think the litmus test for any good idea is when everybody tells you, that makes sense, somebody else isn’t doing it already. Right. Like, when you over and over, you know, it’s like, Great, I’m onto something. But then, like, Look, you worry that all the incumbents because this is such an obvious idea. All the incumbents must be doing this, you know, and in fact, they weren’t. Because, you know, that’s kind of almost a whole nother discussion about, you know, incumbent business models, hardware centric business models, right? hardware companies versus software companies, and we’re a hardware enabled software company is really what we are, right, because it’s really about that experience about the mobile app experience, and the ability to manage everything via the dashboard. So that was really a major milestone for us. And I’ll say, I mean, this is interesting, because every year, we’ve gone to this thing called the NMHC OpTech, which is operation technology show, you know, which has really become mostly about technology now in the real estate industry. Because, you know, the real estate industry has been adopting technology, because, you know, everybody’s got an iPhone, right? You know, the millennials are kind of the largest demographic of renters today, you know, you’re pretty much technology natives, right? So but, you know, we went to the show, and we were competing in what was called Ben Launchpad. And it was like the startup competition, and it was ourselves and a company that did asset tracking, basically, you know, you put like a little label on furniture and beds and other things that would get moved around the get moved around the building, you know, we won the People’s Choice Award, you know, and that was such a gratifying feeling, because it was like, you know, there were like, 1000 people in attendance watching us pitch ButterflyMX, and, you know, we won that award. So, you know, it’s just been a series of validations, which, you know, first time you look, you’re headed in the right direction, and then you start to kind of, you know, cross some milestones where you’re like, look, I think, I think we’re gonna make it and then you can start to breathe easy. We have such a head start. And, you know, incumbents haven’t haven’t kind of gotten the message yet, right? They haven’t figured it out. So that gives us more and more of a lead. And so you know, now today, I’d say we probably have 90% market share, or something like that, you know, and we just keep going, because, again, you know, there’s this natural progression, since everybody starts at the front of the building, and has to use butterfly mechs to get in, it’s like, look, what other kinds of things can we add inside of a, how do we extend the butterfly mechs experience inside the building to create even more value to complete every single user journey that starts at the front. And that ends somewhere, whether it’s the resident getting into their apartment, or you know, inviting their friends over, or the dog walker, or the guy who’s, you know, the plumber, who has to get there at 4am to fix something on the roof or wherever, you know, it’s a, it’s about kind of adding value in the building and using technology to deliver a better experience and more efficient experience. Right. And so, and that’s kind of an exciting, exciting journey to beyond. And I should, by the way, give a shout out, you know, we’ve just launched our new next gen. Intercom, you know, we’ll definitely send you some pictures. I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. But it’s you know, the reaction has been so stunning. I mean, it’s it’s a beautiful piece of industrial design that we’re now putting out into the market, which very much like the original intercom that we introduced, is now kind of setting a new bar and moving the goalposts right further down the field, you know, in terms of what to expect from built rural technology or prop tech technology. So it’s a very, very kind of exciting moment for us to kind of now launch the latest version or what we call the next gen butterfly next intercom

Max Branstetter 34:57
Are you ready for the next gen Podcasting to the Max newsletter? At the time of this recording, it looks exactly like the previous gen, which means every Thursday, if you sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, you get a short and sweet email from me which includes podcasting tips, entrepreneurship tips, and the worst puns known to humans. You can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now for my next pitch, can you guess – I’m not accusing you of stealing signs, but – can you guess what my next type of pitch is? I have another curveball for you. I’m just gonna keep using that line. I would love to dive into the mind of sire some more you on the founder side, you as an entrepreneur, you’re clearly a very creative, very clever person, very innovative person is do you have like a routine or activities you do? Or is that like, what is it that helps you to be so creative and think of ideas and solutions like this? Yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 36:04
I mean, alright, so number one, I’m a voracious reader, right. And I love news. I love all kinds of you know, I love reading history. You know, when I was a kid, I would, you know, at that time, it was before the internet. And so my dad had the Encyclopedia Britannica. And I would just randomly read different articles, right? So I’m kind of a sponge for for knowledge, and probably a sponge, especially for short form knowledge. Yeah.

Max Branstetter 36:28
Well, it’s much more feasible to be a sponge for that. Exactly.

Cyrus Claffey 36:33
You know, the other thing is I talk to our customers all the time, what are they thinking about what’s going on? What’s going on with the macro environment that’s affecting the real estate market, which in turn, drives how their technology needs will play out? Right? So it’s really having this deep understanding, I think of the kind of economics of the real estate industry, because like, what, at the end of the day, you know, we’re serving building owners who are serving residents, right. So we’re part of that ecosystem. And so it’s also about understanding, Hey, what are the new technologies coming into the space? Why are they successful? I think the other thing that is I’m just always thinking about human behavior. Right, you know, what, what’s going to add value? What is What are the latest technologies also that are getting developed? You know, AI is obviously a game changer, how does that map out to what we do, we’re gonna be coming out with some some new technologies in 2024, some a new additions to the platform, which I think will kind of play off of that, in terms of kind of almost anticipatory things that that you can often do, if you think that that makes sense for your property. And then I spend all my time thinking about this, you know, I think, you know, this is there’s a really strong positive feedback loop. You know, unfortunately, I’m out to dinner with my girlfriend, and I’m like, wait a sec, do you mind if I take a note real quick? You know, at this point, I think she’s used to it. But you know, for a long time was very annoying. But, you know, I’m just constantly thinking about how to solve the problem of how to create more value for the different stakeholders, you know, for the residence for the property managers. You know, it just excites me again, it’s a positive feedback loop. What’s

Max Branstetter 38:12
your process for taking notes like that? Even on dates? Is there like, is it just Notes app? Or do you have like a separate

Cyrus Claffey 38:18
you know, it’s, uh, you know, I wish I was more sophisticated. You know, I’m also kind of a guy who has like piles of paper on my desk, too. Yeah.

Max Branstetter 38:26
Sophisticated, sophisticated piles of paper. Yeah, exactly. Well, sophisticated content. How’s that? There you go. AKA pile of paper.

Cyrus Claffey 38:37
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I tell everybody, I could have been a programmer, because I can kind of have like, 10, like, trains of thought going on in my head at any one time. So I kind of know where things are, even though to you know, the untrained eye, it may look like a disheveled, you know, desk, you know, I kind of know where things are. But then like, look, and I try and obviously bring it all together into themes and kind of be somebody who, who’s like speaking to what’s going to happen around the corner, to

Max Branstetter 39:06
walk us through that. You’re on a date, something comes up in conversation or thought comes to your head where you’re like, oh, oh, that’s Oh, that’s worth exploring. Take a note. How do you decide which of those ideas are actually worth, like, taking to the next level? And are actually could be valid ideas for the business versus Oh, that was? That was kind of a crazy thought. Yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 39:27
I mean, well, it’s obviously usually the next day when you look at things, you know, in the clear light of day, shall we say that Max, but look, it’s not always like kind of a new feature idea, a new product idea. It’s, it’s an insight about, you know, you see people talking at the next table, you have an interaction, you read something, you’re having an interesting conversation, you know, and then it sparks an idea in your head. You know, I’m a big believer in kind of the incubator theory, you know, we absorb all this knowledge, right? And then, like our subconscious, I guess synthesizes it right And then, you know, maybe some other some other kind of interaction you have, you know, be it a conversation, something you read something you hear, then sparks that connection with something that you have internally, and then it’s like, Hey, this is interesting, you know, maybe people would value this, maybe this is the right approach, maybe we need to do more of x or do more of y, you know, or double down on on Z, something like that, in order to achieve the ends we’re trying to achieve. It’s a little bit behind the curtain. You know, but I think, you know, it’s just something I’m constantly kind of thinking about these things. And look, I mean, you go back to the 10,000 hour rule, I’ve spent the last 10 years working on this before that, it was like, you know, six or seven years working on like, doing whole building infrastructure design, right. And so it’s like, look, if I didn’t have a lot of knowledge at this point, you know, something would be wrong, right. And so it’s about kind of adding to that. And, you know, the other than do is it’s like sending into wow, you know, like the businesses headed, like the real estate industry, writ large is headed in this direction this is going to happen, or that’s going to happen, you know, what does that mean for us? Right. And so it’s really about kind of playing that synthesizer role connecting dots that people don’t always see, just because I have such a depth of knowledge and experience. You know, I’ve been through the great financial crisis. I’ve been through this. I’ve been through that. Right. You know, and like, look, I guess that’s where you start to develop some amount of wisdom.

Max Branstetter 41:31
This is funny how that works. You look into some brilliant somehow after all, yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 41:36
I mean, again, 10,000 Hour Rule, though, right? You know, if you’re reasonably intelligent, and you apply yourself to kind of the same thing, you know, you should see some positive returns. How about framing it that way? Yes.

Max Branstetter 41:50
I’m all for it. I have a knuckle curve to throw. Let’s This is a segment called the unusual so this okay? These answers really should have nothing to do with your business obviously, you can always make ties but there’s more just on the personal side as well. But love learning more about founders personalities and just like little quirks videos, idiosyncrasies people have if even if they can’t pronounce that word, weird talents, what is a talent or a party trick? Something that you did like around the house or a memory trick you just have a knack for? You’re just really good at?

Cyrus Claffey 42:24
I’m a great singer. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m a great singer. Max. Now that’s kind of more of the 1920s Broadway but you know, I can Yeah,

Max Branstetter 42:37
in another life. That was beautiful. Appreciate I was gonna ask you to sing and before I even the thought finished in my mind, you were mid 1920s. Broadway. It was

Cyrus Claffey 42:46
the it’s the busker in Maine, right. It’s no holds barred. No, no, no fear. You know,

Max Branstetter 42:51
what’s good.

Cyrus Claffey 42:52
I used to, you know, back in the day, when, you know, again, every customer counted, you know, walk by a construction trailer. You know, I have the ButterflyMX under my arm, because I was on my way to a meeting, I would always find time to go into that trail. Hey, what are you guys doing for intercoms? Can I show you this? You know, and by the way, it would often work, you know, in terms of generating new leads. So I think there’s an old adage, right, even if you don’t, if you don’t get the sale, you get the customer and that’s kind of what counts.

Max Branstetter 43:20
How about pet peeves? What’s something that like a very miniscule thing in life? miniscule, miniscule, tiny thing in life? Thank you. That just ticks you off?

Cyrus Claffey 43:31
spilling things on the kitchen floor? That’s number one. You mean

Max Branstetter 43:35
you’re You mean yourself? Or if somebody else does it?

Cyrus Claffey 43:37
Probably more or somebody else? Of course, if I do it, it’s okay. Even though it’s an interesting thing, because I have piles of paper, I actually am envious of like Uber organized people. I think I’m a little bit of a control freak. I like order around me maybe because you know, um, this you know, swirling set of, you know, ideas,

Max Branstetter 44:00
a butterfly’s path of ideas. How about that?

Cyrus Claffey 44:02
Yeah. swirling around my

Max Branstetter 44:08
right, exactly. And then quirks What’s something a little bit quirky by personally, maybe your girlfriend, family, friends team somebody calls you out for but it’s part of who you are tried and true.

Cyrus Claffey 44:19
You know, occasionally I fly off the handle. We were going to the train station and had to get there ASAP. And car needed to get pulled out of the park and I was like, Get aggressive. Let’s go let’s you know, so because, you know, I’m a pretty affable person. Right? That’s kind of my nature. But I think occasionally in like, by the way, I’m much better than I used to be. A lot of that has to do with not driving in New York City and riding my bike everywhere.

Max Branstetter 44:49
That changes Yeah, that changes things but you get then you get is there a term for bike road rage? I’m sure there’s gotta be something

Cyrus Claffey 44:55
I’m Yeah, and thank god. I mean, look, that’s why I only ride in Brooklyn. Never go to City I did it once and on third Ave. I was scared. I was like, I’m gonna die. So

Max Branstetter 45:04
well my brother, my brother, actually, he’s in East Village now but he was in like Hell’s Kitchen, Columbus Circle area. And one night not even like too late at night, anything like that. He got hit by a biker. He was okay. He was, you know, he had said he was banged up a bit, but nothing serious. But he’s like, I mean, he checks 40 times before crossing the street now every time it’s not even the cars, it’s the bikes you gotta watch out

Cyrus Claffey 45:28
for No, I mean, listen, I think with the proliferation of electric bikes, you know, I’m you know, and by the way, they go fast. And I’m very worried about that, you know, because my head’s kind of in the clouds sometimes in terms of like thinking about things. And I’m, like, definitely afraid of having an accident, you know, with one of these electric bikes going 35 miles an hour, and they weigh a lot, too, as you probably know. Well,

Max Branstetter 45:51
my brother told me that I’m just going to say, but let’s wrap up with some rapid-fire q&a. Are you ready for it? Yep. All right, let’s get wild. Let’s start swirling around like butterflies. Now, floating like butterflies and stinging like bees. But if you could play a Star Wars character in a movie in a Star Wars movie, who would it be? Oh, Luke, how come?

Cyrus Claffey 46:13
Star Wars is one of my favorite movies. And I love the hero’s journey. Luke is kind of on this great arc as a character. And so, you know, I think I’ve always identified with

Max Branstetter 46:24
Luke, what is a series in the Sci-Fi outerspace fantasy realm besides Star Wars that you absolutely can’t resist?

Cyrus Claffey 46:36
You know, I liked the new Battlestar Galactica, I thought that was pretty good. I, you know, I like a lot of the ones now that I can’t remember the name of but, you know, miners in the asteroid belt, you know, I think the thing you know, I always like Star Wars or Star Trek, because I felt Oh, of course, like Blade Runner, Star Wars, right. Where, you know, it felt like the real world in the sense of, you know, there was like grime and dirt and like, things weren’t perfect and clean the way they are in Star Trek, you know, there was a lot of gray to the world. And I think that’s kind of the way things are. And I think that’s the way the future will be.

Max Branstetter 47:11
There’s something about the humanism and the realism and unlike the keeping the aspects there that are like dirty or gloomy, that I think really appeals to people, like yourself, and now I’m in the same boat. You mentioned how much you like, show and tell which just you hearing the term? I mean, you hearing you saying the term Show and Tell brought me back, like I think so many of us have such great nostalgia show and tell like it is it isn’t really fun. Like, it’s a great thing that like kids at such a young age do that and are taught to do that. But if you would do show and tell now, today, what would you pick to be your show & tell?

Cyrus Claffey 47:44
Probably something in robotics, I think, because I’m very fascinated how I you know, I think we’re on the cusp of, of so many kind of game changing innovations that obviously I think AI will help drive that. But I’m so fascinated how creatures in the natural world can be like excellent templates for robotics. I mean, by the way, I think this is old hat now, I mean thing people are already doing with fighters looking at beetles and so forth. But I would be really, you know, because again, it’s that kind of mix of like hardware and software kind of coming together. And, you know, the challenge with robotics is how do you make something that how do you make that like great feedback loop with the interaction between the environment and the user and the device at the end of the day? So like, it’s it’s a really interesting challenge. And then now, you know, how do you how do you build on it? Where, you know, people people aren’t even aware. It’s the Watson challenge. Right. And you Is it human? Or is it you know, is it computer, right? Yeah,

Max Branstetter 48:49
that’s absolutely fascinating, fantastic answer. What’s your best tip for surviving a Minnesota winter?

Cyrus Claffey 48:56
Oh, well, that’s interesting. Other than skyways, you know, I would say enjoy it. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And

Max Branstetter 49:06
we could do a whole ‘nother episode about skyways that that’s fascinating that they’ve, they built those for it. It’s a it’s a lifesaver there.

Cyrus Claffey 49:13
Well, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. Right. Right.

Max Branstetter 49:17
Full Circle and to go full circle one last time. Where does the name ButterflyMX come from?

Cyrus Claffey 49:23
So that’s a great question. I mean, yeah, I mean, look so so I think when you name something, there’s there’s always like, you know, three different paths you can go down right? One is very practical name, right? That’s very highly descriptive. The other is like a play on words kind of name, right.

Max Branstetter 49:42
MaxPodcasting. Sorry, can resist. Like my production business, MaxPodcasting? Right,

Cyrus Claffey 49:48
exactly. Right. And then the third, the third type of name is something that’s not directly kind of related but somehow aspirational in terms of what you’re trying to achieve. You know, Apple is a great example of The ladder. And so, you know, butterflies are welcoming. They’re beautiful, right? They’re colorful, it was kind of like this could be a great name for a product that, you know, I used to sit there in these construction meetings with all these kind of guys working in the construction trades. And I always had the fantasy, we get a call from somebody saying, I need the butterfly system. And, you know, sure enough, you know, over the years, we’ve gotten calls from people who are like, I need the butterfly system. And so it was just, it was just really a name that that for me stood for so many good things in terms of what we were trying to do, again, about the convenience factor about the curb appeal, and really kind of taking it beyond that, in terms of how we could radically change the way people are operating buildings. You know, that was really the genesis of it.

Max Branstetter 50:53
I always mess this up and has really good either ethos, or pathos, maybe both, whatever makes you feel it. Yeah. And this might be me just being a total idiot. But MX is an acronym. And

Cyrus Claffey 51:06
then it actually is for Mobile Experience. Right? Ah, yeah, that’s right. So really, it was like ButterflyMX is, again, it’s this aspirational thing, you know, butterflies are, are things that are beautiful, they’re welcoming. And that’s really what we’re trying to do with the front of the building. Right is create a great experience for people welcome the residents welcome the visitors. Right? And really just create a wonderful experience for people.

Max Branstetter 51:33
Well, Cyrus, The King of the Butterflies, no just kidding. Cyrus, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast and could talk with you for hours and hours and hours. Just sorry, maybe I literally couldn’t. could talk with you for hours and hours and hours just endlessly fascinated? Where is the best place for people to learn more about ButterflyMX or Mobile Experience if they’re interested, as well as they want to connect with you somewhere online? Of course,

Cyrus Claffey 52:04
you can reach me on LinkedIn. But the best way to find out more about ButterflyMX is to contact We’ll, we’ll be able to help you out. Perfect.

Max Branstetter 52:16
Awesome. Well, thanks again for coming on. Last thing, Final Thoughts. It could be a quote words to live by a little you could sing if you want whatever you want just stages here, send us off here. Yeah,

Cyrus Claffey 52:25
I mean, listen, I would just kind of leave you with this thought of, you know, I really appreciate your having me on, we’re so excited to kind of launch our whole building infrastructure, right, our end to end access solution, because of what a game changer we think that will be, you know, we’re forging new ground where nobody has ever been before, right. And we’re in 13,000 buildings today. And so we have scale, right? We are of the digital Foundation, stone, and 1000s of buildings and like in terms of the value add we can bring to those buildings, the residents in the real estate industry. We’re just tremendously excited about what the future holds. So again, really appreciate your having me on today and giving us a chance to kind of tell you guys some history, about ButterflyMX but myself in particular as well.

Max Branstetter 53:20
Butterflies are floating on and on and on and forging new ground and we’ll see how long we can keep this metaphor going. It’s just beautiful. Thank you so much, Cyrus, for coming on the show, sharing your incredible stories and tips and skills. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow or subscribe to – whichever one you prefer – the wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite podcast app and tell a friend about the podcast and make sure you don’t leave the room until they do the same. You can also find us on Goodpods, where there are really, really good podcasts and podcasts recommendations and people. And, for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. That is at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. I got crazy innovative with that there. Until next time, MX, Let your business Run Wild.,,Bring on the Bongos!!