Full Transcript – Jordan Scott – Wild Business Growth Podcast #219

This is the full transcript for Episode #219 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Jordan Scott – Memory Curator, Founder of Cobble. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Jordan Scott 0:00
I think that if you are really in love with something and want to see something happen, it’s meeting you halfway. It’s already it’s already common

Max Branstetter 0:07
Hello, hello, 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. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is episode 219. And today’s guest is Jordan Scott. Jordan is the Founder and CEO of Cobble the crazy cool app that helps you basically figure out fun things to do. Jordan started it when she was figuring out fun things to do with her boyfriend/fiance/husband, and started looking at date options and then kind of expanded from there. And now it is for all sorts of different friend groups, combinations of people, you can swipe you can pull you can figure out all sorts of different things to cobble some fantastic nice together. In this episode, we talk the cobbles story from idea to reality, as well as Jordans favorite places to go out and top recommendations for restaurants and best food and indeed things craziest date stories of all time in the city in New York and beyond. And some tips for starting and growing a business while you have some crazy stuff going on in the personal life, including having your first child it is Jordan “Michael” Scott, enjoy the shoooooooow!

Aaaaaalrighty we are here with Jordan Scott, the brilliant, amazing. You pay me say that woman behind Cobble and one of the coolest apps and platforms out there, which I think was one of the most fun businesses I’ve ever come across. But, Jordan, so many exciting things going on in your personal life and your business life. Thank you so much for making the time to join us today. How you doing today?

Jordan Scott 2:29
Hey, Max, I’m doing okay, I as we just discussed, I’m getting over COVID. But beyond that, you know, we’re actually at a really good place business wise, family wise, so can’t complain. I just need the university to to get one shot at me before the year was over.

Max Branstetter 2:45
Exactly. You had a good run. But now I’m really really glad you’re starting to feel better and could join us today and excited to talk all things Cobble and beyond. And obviously you are someone who loves the city and me as well was fortunate to live in Murray Hill for a few years and just absolutely love the restaurants and it just overall vibe of living there. But you went to school at NYU. So you had a little bit different of a college experience. You didn’t have like a rural college campus experience you had like the total opposite experience. So how would you characterize what it was like going to school in Manhattan?

Jordan Scott 3:22
Oh, wow. I love that. You started with that, um, I only ever wanted to go to NYU. Like, as soon as I knew the concept of what college was. I was like, Is there a college in New York City? And my dad was like, yes, there’s one college. It’s called

Max Branstetter 3:40
New York University literally has New York in the name.

Jordan Scott 3:43
Yeah. And I was like, wow, I was like, that’s the best school and in like the whole world. And he was like, yes. Now my dad also went to NYU. So he definitely brainwashed me into thinking that that was the only school and the best school. But I’m like, you know, he could have mentioned Columbia like I shot you know, I was only shooting for NYU. Anyways, I applied early decision got in that was like the peak of my existence at that point. And yeah, I mean, I have a pretty late birthday. So I moved to New York City when I was 17 years old and moved into you know, a dorm that was on the 17th floor on Washington Square Park. I don’t think I’ll ever live in such a nice, you know, situation ever again. But yeah, the crazy thing about NYU is that you just there’s not a lot of transition from like cozy suburban high school, which I went to a public school in Albany, New York, to, you know, life. You know, it was very expected to have an internship every single semester. And NYU doesn’t have classes on Fridays, usually. So I would basically have classes two days a week and work three full days a week since I was you know, yeah. 17 It was definitely my speed and I would never I change it for the world. But I do sometimes feel like I didn’t have, you know, like a campus house party. Like, I never got to do that. Did you?

Max Branstetter 5:10
Yeah. So I went to IU. So very, like kind of traditional college campus, like, in the middle of nowhere, but also, you know, within like an hour of of Indy so, but I absolutely loved it. It’s funny, my parents actually met at IU. So I think there’s something to like, obviously, where your parents go, it kind of inspires you at least to consider going to that school, but but on the NYU front, I always thought it was cool. It’s obviously very different from you know, like a traditional college campus or college town experience. But like there’s, as your business proves there are endless things to do in NYC. So that’s really cool. You got to experience that at an early age, what would you say is the biggest benefit of going to school in a city environment?

Jordan Scott 5:54
I think it’s, it’s great for ambitious people. We were also saying before we started recording that, you know, if you need something done, ask a busy person to do it. And I think going to school, in a city absolutely just embodies that concept. You know, I think it’s hard. You know, it depends on the person, right. But like, for me, it was tough to be distracted. I just was full blown, you know, working and in school. And I think that if you have too much time on your hands, it’s easier to get distracted. You know, my brother went to University of Miami here in Florida. And I don’t know how he made it through with the beach and with the sun calling him at all times. But he did. And I mean, yeah, I think my favorite part was just feeling like I had access to the best of the best in every way. Whether it was working at Cosmopolitan magazine or working at NBC, it was just like, whatever company I was just enamored with, it was in New York somehow. And so it was just very cool to know that that was available to me. Now, I did not get many, many, many of the internships that I applied to. But the ones that really meant the most to me, I think ultimately I did get,

Max Branstetter 7:16
but that’s awesome. I mean, you alluded to it, but you got to intern slash work. I know there’s kind of differences here. But you got the experience at Cosmo, Refinery29. I know in some in the news and media space as well. And that goes back to I saw that you had a like you’ve tailored your own major, you create a crater custom major, what was that? shine some light on that, because that’s pretty cool and unique.

Jordan Scott 7:40
I think that this should be the way every person’s education is 100%. I think we even I created my own major, I’m still not doing what I studied. I don’t think any of us end up doing exactly what we studied. But it hopefully gives you a foundation to you know, excel in whatever you do end up doing. But that being said, Gallatin is a school within NYU, where you have access to every school, so I could take business classes at stern or screenwriting classes at Tisch, and at the end of the day, you have to present your major to a board essentially, and say, I deserve to graduate based on this amalgamation of courses that I took. And we call that the colloquium and it is every Gallatin students like scariest day of their life, it you have to have and it’s not just like, oh, I took these classes and tell me I graduate, you have to specifically tie back your major to like, ancient texts. And like all there’s all these crazy important little requirements. To graduate. It’s like a four hour presentation, you have to pick people for your board. But anyways, when you pass that it is like the most amazing feeling in the world. And I laugh because I’ve mainly studied writing different forms of writing fiction writing, screenwriting and journalism. I didn’t think I was entrepreneurial, even though I made my own major and had to pitch it. I found that out after that, I was like, oh, maybe that was a little bit of a sign that I don’t like to go the you know, well worn path.

Max Branstetter 9:17
I think so. That’s yeah, I mean, I think choosing your major is like one of the most entrepreneurial things I’ve ever heard of, like taking control of your college life. And I think you are one of two wild Business Growth podcast guests to create their own major the other one you’re in good company here, back in episode 97. Which I did look up this time because now like do still kind of struggle to remember all the specific numbers. I remember years Will Shortz, crossword, you know, creator genius. puzzlemaster dude from the New York Times. He was back in episode 97. And he went to IU as well. So obviously, there’s the tie there. But he created a major called Enigmatology, which is like the study of puzzles. And it was so cool. Which makes sense like if you look at his career like literally he, you know, he does pot, he creates puzzles for a living like

Jordan Scott 10:05
you actually did do what he studied. That was smart. But I think

Max Branstetter 10:09
there’s something to it, obviously entrepreneurial nature of it. So let’s get to that entrepreneurial ventures in nature and you know, all the buzzwords, but let’s get to Cobble. So obviously, you’re someone who really enjoys the city, you really enjoy the working part of it, and the living part of it and the social part of it and the dinner part of it. And I guess there’s endless parts of it. But where did this idea for creating some sort of an app like cobble initially come from?

Jordan Scott 10:41
Oh, I came from a lot of different places. I think, at the core of it, I, like you mentioned love experiences, and I love having experiences with people in my life that mean a lot to me. And I have this one memory specifically, actually, of my husband and I now husband, then boyfriend, walking home from Joe’s Pub, after we saw Megan Hilty is Christmas, she was like singing a Christmas album Live or whatever. And Nick and I were walking home. And I had walked into that show, stressed about like, what I was going to do the next day and anxious and I walked out of that show, feeling so capable. And I’m gonna wake up tomorrow, and I’m going to do this, and I have a plan. And that’s what having a great experience can do for you, whether that’s a dinner, or it’s a show, or it’s whatever it is. And that’s the sort of thing that I wanted to bottle. And it wasn’t just about the actual experience itself, it was the fact that I was with this person that I loved. And we experienced it together. And I wanted to sort of bottle that. And I originally started a brand called Idk. Tonight, that was all about just pairing different experiences together. And my idea was like in you know, there, there’s my background in content and journalism. And I just sort of said, Oh, go to this restaurant and get this drink. I thought having those ideas would make it easier for people to

Max Branstetter 12:17
go. Like how people love stacking classes on peloton that’s like the same thing except for different brands.

Jordan Scott 12:25
Yeah, exactly. Like combos are unique and curated and fun. And, you know, I think what starting idk tonight taught me was a few things. Number one how to grow an audience, which is just be consistent, honestly, with producing content that you think is good, you know, you know, if it’s good, and if you just keep doing it, it will grow an audience like it’s just a fact. But number two, it really taught me that there are so many content recommendation, you know, places out there, whether that’s The Infatuation or it’s a TikTok influencer, every there’s a million places to get ideas, right. And if I really wanted to be differentiated, I needed to do something beyond content. And where I really saw the problem was actually coming to a collaborative agreement on what you do with other people. There was nothing out there that use technology to actually push you to go do the thing on your list with the people you care about. And so cobble was really born out of this idea that you could combine awesome curated content with decisioning tools, and social decisioning tools. And you’ll, you’ll hear us say all the time, like our main goal with everything we build at Cobble is how to get people to a faster, easier, more fun, collaborative agreement. I think the problem really lies within, you know, having to reach out to people and then going back and forth. And when are you free? And where are you and Cabo really aims to help you figure out where that matches on what to do. And then all the way through making sure everybody’s in the loop on what the plan is and what the details are. And I’m just getting ahead of myself but it’s starting with what you do together, meaning where you go out and and things like that. But the real big picture for Cobble is again, helping you come to a decision with the people in your life. Whether that’s picking a restaurant, or furnishing your apartment or booking an Airbnb, we really the sky’s the limit for the way that the technology can be used.

Max Branstetter 14:42
And I love how you characterize the bottling of experiences because it’s a very visual thing i I’ve always said and I have plenty friends and family that are like this that like my favorite things to do are experience or in my favorite types of game. gifts and things to do on vacation, all that our experiences, like I’m way more of experiences person than like a material products person. And the fact that the fact that you’ve created something that bottles those things and makes them readily, you know, available and accessible and decision pointable for creating words here, I think I think it’s really, really fun energy and, and utility to it. And you also focus on a, I feel like previously untapped market, which is, obviously over the past several years, like dating apps have become more and more common, and so many people meet on dating apps. And now, you know, we’ve got cousins and family members that are now married and have kids, you know, that initially met on dating apps, like it’s so cool. And you have hit this spot of, okay, well, what, you know what, after you get married or like, what do you what do you do you know, after that, like, there’s still apps that can help you out and figure out, you know, what you want to do tonight? Or how to help you with this thing in your life. So that’s an awesome area.

Jordan Scott 16:01
Ya know, you you hit on something there, which is just like, I like to think of Cobble as a relationship. nurturer, too. And originally, Cobble was actually focused on couples only because I was having the, what do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do conversation the most with my husband. But I have that with all of the important people in my life. And so that’s why we expanded beyond couples. And I think that there, there is so much we can do to nurture relationships in terms of how we spend our time or energy or money with them. And again, cobble aims to get you to the best choice for everyone, no matter what the, you know, topic is.

Max Branstetter 16:42
When I look at Cobble, the first question that came to my mind is, how in the world, do you do all that curation? Because there’s so there’s so many amazing options there. But obviously, that takes tons of times, tons of time, that times old times as well, and resources to put together so what’s it look like for miracle curation approach?

Jordan Scott 17:03
Yeah, so content is obviously key. If you don’t have good content, you can’t make a good decision. And so what we started with was, you know, a focus on going out right, and we focused on New York City was our first city, we did just launch la in Atlanta, and Miami is coming in Q1.

Max Branstetter 17:20
Congrats on that very cool.

Jordan Scott 17:22
Tickets, two years, but we wanted to get it really right before we started expanding. So there’s a there’s a team of curators who decide, you know, what goes in the app. But from a scalable perspective, you know, we’re entertaining all sorts of ideas for sort of this automated curation. And what that looks like, is basically our team of curators have already decided the sort of facets and attributes of what makes something a great experience, whether it’s a restaurant, or it’s an event, or whatever. So we have all of these custom editorial type tags. So imagine, like, great to impress the inlaws, or awesome for birthday groups, or whatever it might be, we have hundreds of them, our machine learning algorithm is beginning to learn what types of places go with those types of tags, and we’re able to start automating that with, you know, just plugging into Google’s API or Yelp’s API. And so we’re always on the hunt for new sorts of ways to scale while still having that, you know, really human editorial touch, I think there’s always going to be a human involved. So while the places themselves might be auto tagged with our editorial tags, the grouping of you know, imagine like always, there’s a section in Cobble, that is collections of, you know, the best restaurants to go to for Hanukkah, or whatever, that could be handpicked. And we’re able to do that across cities. As long as we always have someone who boots on the ground, that’s really important. But you know, scalability is so so important here. And the smarter our app gets when you start, you know, indicating what you like and don’t like and Cobble the more we’re able to, you know, better serve content to you and your connections and hopefully get you a match. But, you know, we actually just brought on a pretty big hire who fully scaled Uber. And so he is going to be a big part of our continued scalability as we move beyond three cities and hopefully can scale you know, even faster. Yeah,

Max Branstetter 19:27
that’s, I mean, if you think about companies that have scaled historically, I mean, Uber has to be one of the first name that comes to the top that is out of this world. So good company there on that nature of scalability. Besides this hire not you know, not like giving them too much credit right away. But what is like a moment or decision in the history of cobble where maybe you were kind of struggling about scaling and then you made this decision this happen and then started to open the floodgates and the best way

Jordan Scott 19:59
you Yeah, I mean, we specifically made a choice. And this was a big part of our Head of Content Allie who helped with this. But instead of we actually originally had writers instead of what we call now curators, and so they would, you know, research every single place every event and write specific content geared towards that place. And when we made the decision to pull back on the writing, because what we found were people want beautiful images, they want the basic information, the hours, the, you know, ability to make reservations, the general information of like, what cuisine it is, things like that. And they weren’t really reading, you know, those editorial descriptions. And we moved over to that, like, smarter, unique editorial tagging system. Not only did we fly faster with the content that we put into the app, but we you know, we’re able to much more cost effectively get content into the app. So I’d say that that was a big win for Cobble.

Max Branstetter 21:03
It’s so funny that so this one I do remember the episode because it’s more recent, the episode number, Paul McCarthy real name, not Paul McCartney, Episode 217. He literally is like preaching exactly what you’re saying. He’s got a company called Snapfix. And it’s kind of like to streamline maintenance requests and property management and that sort of thing. But he’s all about simplicity. And he literally directs his product designer to remove 10% of the app, or 10% of the platform every single year. They’re like, how can we keep making this more and more simple. And so what you’re, so what you’re saying about, like realizing the parts that people don’t care too much about. And just focusing on like, the simple helpful parts, really, really speaks to the same exact thing and resonates with me, because you’re right, like, especially on a app like Cobble, like you’re, you know, it’s like going on social media, like, you’re consuming so much information and looking at so many different things that you just don’t have the time to, like, dive in too deep to all, you know, like, long form articles are things like that, like you want the short, sweet, good stuff. So it makes total sense,

Jordan Scott 22:12
with the main goal of Cobble being get you to a decision as quickly as possible with other people. We are not aligned with with our goal if we are sort of doing these time consuming type features. And that’s been, you know, a hard pill to swallow. Because you have to always lose, you know, kill some of your darlings, so to speak in the old screenwriting world in order to get to the right product. And like simple is the hardest thing to do on the planet. You know, if you see something and people tell me all the time, oh, I have the idea for Cobble. And I, you know, it’s like, okay, well, good luck, you can start it right now. And we’ll see, you know, who can figure it out, it takes insane energy to solve decision making. But it’s the most exciting challenge ever, and our team is so passionate about it.

Max Branstetter 23:04
And so that’s the the curation and creation kind of public facing side of things, which no question is so easy to get passionate about. I mean, you know, if you’re hiring, you know, I think my wife Dan, and I would love on the weekends to go samples from restaurants. That’s totally cool. But I think the more even more challenging part of developing an app is like getting it out there. And obviously, it’s such a crowded marketplace. And yeah, you can you know, it’s one thing and a big deal to get it listed on like the App Store and Google Play Store and whatever it’s called. And all those different places, but like, how do people find it? So like what’s how have you over the past few years and in the team gotten the word out about Kapil to the point that actually like, yeah, actually, a lot of people are using this.

Jordan Scott 23:54
Yeah, we do have a pretty large social following. And that really stemmed from starting the idk tonight brand before moving to Cobble. And you know, on Instagram, I think we’re close to 60,000 followers, you know, nothing

Max Branstetter 24:07
crazy, very cool. I mean, same that’s like in my sleep, right? But not just

Jordan Scott 24:12
they, they are in a very engaged 60,000 followers. And so it was nice that when we did originally announced Cobble, you know, we had a lot of people who were willing to try it give us feedback, it’s become a completely different app than it was when we launched in 2020. So social is big. We just started doing paid ads about six months ago and doubled our audience from that. So our paid ads are doing really, really well. And people are just yearning for this kind of product. You know, they they see something that says, Help make faster decisions on what to do together. It’s like, yes, Sign me up. So that’s been really cool. But ultimately, product growth is the best form of growth meaning if Someone loves your app or your product, and they tell somebody else about it. Obviously, that’s the cheapest growth with something like Cobble. It’s inherently for you to connect with the people in your life. You know, ultimately, we want to get to a place where, if you want to do something with me, you have to have Cobble. This is where this is where we figure it out, this is better than texting back and forth forever, or just, you know, going back and forth forever. So that’s the best kind of growth,

Max Branstetter 25:31
paid ads, I feel like are so tricky. And so like, they’re almost unnecessarily stressful in a way because obviously, you’re you’re putting a budget behind it. And I think more often than not, like there’s a lot of testing and learning there and figuring out and a lot of money does get wasted, but hopefully, ultimately, you know, if you do have some success and find the right style there, what type of paid ad, either format or platform has really worked well for you so far.

Jordan Scott 26:00
Tick tock is actually best for us right now. We also do Facebook and Instagram. We just started playing with Google. But tick tock, you know, those really straightforward talk to the camera type ads do really well. For us, we have the most adorable tick tock intern who is currently an NYU student who makes videos for us every day, I highly recommend grabbing you know, a student local to you and having them have fun. And it bolsters that resume, they love doing it anyways, recommend just a little hack there. But our social media manager, Olivia is incredible at social, like you just got to find someone who really, really gets it. And the stuff that performs well, organically, you repurpose for ads. You know, we worked with a couple of influencers and great, you know, they told their audience about Cobble, but we then whitelisted those ads, and those, you know, are the gifts that keep on giving. So I also recommend doing that it’s just much more organic. Yeah, I mean, I think for us, you know, we’re able to continue seeing our CPI, our cost per install really dropped especially now that we’ve launched LA and Atlanta and like it’s just a totally fresh market. That’s exciting to see sort of starting over and, and having the battle scars from New York to do better and new cities.

Max Branstetter 27:21
I should have known it was TikTok. I don’t even know why I say your Cobble is so perfect for tick tock and the type of content that’s consumed. So so so passionately there. But these other cities, you know, la Chicago, Miami coming soon, obviously all, you know, small cities, not many restaurants, they’re things to do that now. But big, you know, iconic cities in the US, obviously, that is a whole other challenge of you know, you’re still I’m sure you’re working on getting out the kinks and, you know, eliminating battle scars and things like that in New York. And then you got to think about these other cities. And obviously, I’m sure down the line you want expand to more and more? What has been the biggest challenge with launching a new city so far?

Jordan Scott 28:05
It’s just a matter of getting the playbook. Right. You know, and with the launch of LA and Atlanta, we are, you know, really getting that replicable playbook down. And so that just took a second to figure out but in terms of the actual, like, efforts behind launching a city, you know, product has already built that. And content just gets those boots on the ground, you know, hires people, and everyone wants to be a curator in their city. So it’s not like it’s tough to hire. But yeah, I mean, I’d say it was just an inertia, you know, we had to just do it, we had to just put the time in to make it, you know, available to switch cities in the app, which is, you know, development thing, and, and then content. And again, it’s just ramping up and deciding, okay, how much content is really required for a new city and questions like that. But once you figure it out, once you can just, you know, spit fire, get them out?

Max Branstetter 29:05
Is there as do you envision based on different types of cities? Like, is it going to change the experience of the app? Or are you looking to make it kind of transform, like, stay the same?

Jordan Scott 29:17
I think, as we, you know, just continue to develop the product, the experience should be the same across the board, you know, imagine Uber, you know, as you can call an Uber in New York, you should be able to call an Uber anywhere and this amazing guy that we just brought on, you know, he really talked about how he scaled Uber, you know, beyond its first flagship cities. And then once everyone knew about Uber, and they wanted to use Uber, the problem became how do you get drivers to sign up and so then he moved over from the user acquisition side to the driver acquisition side and single handedly built that playbook as well. Essentially, it was a it was a they would set up kiosks in malls across the United States and just stop people and say Hey, have you ever thought about driving for Uber? And people would say, No, I would not do that. And they would say why? And they’d say, you know, all their reasons for why they wouldn’t. And then they had these scripts to be like, actually, this is why those are not valid reasons to not drive for Uber and boom, it just was everywhere.

Max Branstetter 30:18
And I have to give you credit for using the word inertia, because I don’t think anyone said that on the podcast before granted, I haven’t interviewed Sir Isaac Newton yet, but like, that’s because that was a you get the gold wild business grow star for that.

Jordan Scott 30:33
It’s wondered what 26 episodes were

Max Branstetter 30:35
something like that somewhat somewhat somewhere around there. So we’ll get it we got some serious inertia. Inertia is a property of matter. If you remember that from Bill Nye the Science Guy, then you should definitely sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, because that’s the kind of corny references you’ll get, you can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter is also your place in addition to a random Bill Nye the Science Guy references about inertia being the property matter. It is also your place for podcasts, production tips, podcast hosting tips. And so behind the scenes stories from the wild Business Growth podcast you can’t get anywhere else. That is the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now, let’s get to just a few minor things going on in Jordan’s personal life and how she is able to grow and grow the business on top of everything else. exciting going on. Alright, let’s switch gears a little bit, let’s get to where you are on the personal side. So inspiration, creativity, kind of how you stay creative, stay inspired. And as we were talking offline, at the time of this recording, you have some really, really exciting and also like big monumental changes in your personal life. Like, several months ago, you had your first child, you have had changes in living situation, you’ve obviously in the past few years have been launching and building this business. So that’s like, a lot. And as you say, you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person, you might be one of the busiest person, people, persons, persons I’ve ever talked to. But, but it’s so cool. But also I know it can be so draining, how do you juggle the personal life and the business life?

Jordan Scott 32:32
Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy. But like it, sometimes it really does feel like more as more. I was definitely nervous when I was, you know, pregnant and concerned with I think there’s this narrative around like, you have no idea what’s going to happen to your brain chemistry. When you have a baby. It just it doesn’t nothing matters after you have a baby and your whole everything changes. And I was like, oh my god, like when this thing comes out of me. I’m going to just like not care about anything. And no, that was not my experience. My experience was I am now in love with this new human being. And the way I describe it is like if you’re really with the right person, which I my husband, Nick is 100% without a doubt my person.

Max Branstetter 33:25
I love Nick too. I’ve never met him, but it sounds like a great guy.

Jordan Scott 33:29
He is a really great guy. When I look at him, sometimes you have this little like, explosion me feeling I don’t know how to describe it. But it’s like occasional it’s like after an amazing dinner, it’s after walking home from that show. It’s whatever it is. When you have a baby, every time you look at them, you feel that it’s overwhelming. It’s every time it’s not occasional. And I also think, you know, because I was we’re trying to dissect like, why this is so nuts, my husband and I. And I was like, I feel like because everyone says, oh, you know, get it till you have a baby you can understand. And the the thing is, like it says if you discovered a new color, and not a shade, right, like an actual new type of color that you just couldn’t see before. I don’t know if it’s like a sparkly, wavy metal looking. I can’t describe it, but it’s not a shade. And it’s it’s just a new thing that wasn’t there and now it’s there. And what she has done for me is actually I think made me better at running cobble because whereas before I had her, that was all I cared about. I was so anxious. I needed to you know, hit these KPIs. I needed to think about my next round. I needed to do all of this stuff. And I was so anxious all the time about the business. And now it’s like okay, if cobble fails, that’s awful. Like It that’s horrible, but I don’t die with Cobble. Whereas, you know, before I felt that way, now it’s no I survived because I’m, I have my daughter. So it’s actually like sort of taking this pressure off. And I think having that pressure lifted, has actually made me more effective at building the business. So all of this is to say, I hope people are not shying away from having babies, because they think it’ll be this massive distraction. If you really love what you’re doing, it’s only going to like bolster that I think a lot of us are in positions or jobs that we’re not 100% passionate about. And so it only becomes that much easier to just be like, Screw this, I just want to be a mom or a dad or whatever it might be. And so yeah, that’s that’s sort of how I feel about it. She’s six months. I’ll talk to me in six months, and we’ll see if I feel the same way.

Max Branstetter 35:51
That is an incredible answer. I’ve know you added a an extra color in my mind in the universe for colors of analogies, because that is like I’ve totally never thought anything like that before. So that is so cool. And shout out my wife Dana because Because of her I totally get the butterflies explosive feeling that you’re talking about. So that’s that’s fine. Yeah, we should just end it here. But no, I in addition to your growing family, and you know, changes in your personal life and everything with your business, which obviously takes up a ton of time. Do you have any time for hobbies or just like little kind of like the little joys of life to mix in there in your free time?

Jordan Scott 36:37
I mean, my job is rooted in having a good time. I’m not a like work hard play hard kind of person. Like I’m not a big drinker.

Max Branstetter 36:45
Hashtag. Yeah, hustle.

Jordan Scott 36:49
Not me at all. But we do get out to eat a lot. We love going to the movies. You know, if I can make it to a show my best friend in the world who I grew up with, we have been best friends since middle school in Albany, New York. She just booked her first Broadway show, I cannot shut up about it. I’m she’s been auditioning for 10 years, I’m so proud of her, you know, I’m going to be in the audience at that show, at least like 100 times. So like, you know, getting to things is just the nature of my passion. So I think I always find time to have those breaks because it only sort of sets the clock over again for what I’m doing with Cobble it’s like when you need to be reminded of like, why you’re doing what you’re doing. Going out and having an amazing experience other people that’s why so all that I don’t really have hobbies I love reading reading is my if I could be doing anything at any time it would be reading reading fiction. By the way. I’m not over here like reading business books all day long. I’m reading the newest Stephen King right now.

Max Branstetter 37:54
Who I don’t know if your friend wants to publicly but who is your friend and what is that Broadway show because we I’m sure we have a lot of Broadway listeners.

Jordan Scott 38:04
She is the most talented person on the planet. Her name is Lexi Rabadi. She’s saying well, I walked down the aisle at my wedding, both weddings. And she’s going to be in the new production of Sweeney Todd starring Josh Groban.

Max Branstetter 38:17
Wow, congrats to her. That’s awesome. Well, I love to go check it out.

Jordan Scott 38:21
Everyone go buy tickets, it opens in March.

Max Branstetter 38:27
Speaking of unusual in thrilling shows like Sweeney Todd, let’s get to the unusual. So this again is more about you your personality. Most of the time has nothing to do with business, but you can tie back to business if you want. Pet Peeves quirks and weird talents. So what is a weird talent or party trick or just like memory tricks? Something that you have that you’re just really good at?

Jordan Scott 38:49
Oh my god, this is so hard. I don’t have anything like that. I think that my you have

Max Branstetter 38:54
you I think maybe analogies is, is one of them.

Jordan Scott 38:58
I’ll take that I’m a good thinker, and I like to explore the weird. I think if I had to have a superpower it would be really just around quickness, and like making connections quickly. And you know, that helps in life and work and all the things but I wish I had like a weird talent my mom can juggle. Like if I could just throw that one out there. That’d be great. But no, I don’t have anything like that.

Max Branstetter 39:20
Exploring the weird and making things happen quickly, I think is like a new tagline for Cobble. That’s perfect. How about quirks with somebody a little quirky about your personality that may be your husband, daughter. I’m sure she talking a lot so far. Somebody calls you out for it. That’s a little quirky, but it’s who you are.

Jordan Scott 39:41
Oh my god. I mean, I love to dance at the end of movies. Credit music is I just can’t ignore it. I have to get up and dance in front of the TV. So I’d say that’s pretty quirky. Also, I mean my team knows like We have we play games every other Friday. We do like an hour of whiplash and random other games that are super fun. So we like to laugh a lot. I probably laugh more than I should. But I went my first real job at CBS. I was working in the green room. And this woman who actually ran the green room, I was just, you know, assisting her. She one time said to me that I needed to be less excitable. And I was like, so devastated by that. And I was like, what, like, it was so painful. And I’ve grown to think like, no, like, we don’t we don’t dim ourselves because it like makes other people feel uncomfortable. Like, I’m, I’m not ever going to do that. And I don’t encourage anybody else to do that.

Max Branstetter 40:41
What fantastic advice. You should have less fun in your life. You should really hate everything. I mean, that’s great. And then on that note, pet peeves. What’s your biggest pet peeve? Just something that you see or experience that grinds your gears is Peter Griffin says,

Jordan Scott 40:56
oh my goodness, let’s say there’s several I think, you know, my husband takes his time with things. He’s much slower than I knew

Max Branstetter 41:06
him and I had a ton in common.

Jordan Scott 41:10
He is the most careful, thoughtful human being on this planet. But I am just very impatient. So anything like you know, it gets me crazy is when a dinner is done. And it’s just sitting there hot, and no one wants to be the first person to like, sit down and start eating. That makes me crazy. I’m just like, it’s here. We’re already why are we all pretending to do activities still around the table? Let’s just also believe. I don’t know.

Max Branstetter 41:42
My wife Dana is snapping her fingers in agreement right now. Because yeah, like I’m like, yeah, when the food’s ready. I love eating. I’m excited to eat but also like if there’s like one dish left in the house or like container or something in the sink. I’m like, I really want to clean this thing. Get this in the dishwasher before we

Jordan Scott 42:02
I own self conscious like why am I the first one ready to eat then it is being annoyed by other people.

Max Branstetter 42:11
All right, so let’s I’ll probably annoy you with these so sorry in advance. But let’s wrap up with some rapid fire q&a. Are you ready for it?

Jordan Scott 42:16
Ready?

Max Branstetter 42:17
All right, let’s get wild Albany so I didn’t know much about Albany until recent years when Dana and I, you know, travel at pretty much once a year or so to visit her grandma in Vermont. And we drive by Albany. And I have to say Albany has I’m sure you’ve heard it, but I think it has one of the most unique Skylines I’ve ever seen. It’s got like the one super tall building a bunch of smaller ones that look just like it then there’s the big lake globe thing or whatever city hall The Egg what’s Yeah, what’s the just as somebody who’s from there is there like does that Skyline have a reputation like I don’t know much about I just like it’s very striking when you drive by it.

Jordan Scott 42:56
Oh, that’s so nice. Nobody ever talks about Albany’s skyline.

Max Branstetter 43:00
Well, me neither until right.

Jordan Scott 43:04
In the city of Albany, right, like I lived, you know, 10 minutes outside of it and a little little town called guilderland. But you know, I think Albany Skyline Albany is the capital of New York. Okay, let’s not forget it. So I don’t know. I think that it’s lovely. And it’s growing and becoming an even nicer city as far as I understand. But it’s a nice place to visit. That’s That’s what I’ll say.

Max Branstetter 43:28
Awesome. And that was my last opening question. I had to ask that all right. You I know you could have like a million answers for these but I want to just do quick ones like first thing that pops in your head and what we’ll focus on we’ll focus it around NYC what is one of your favorite restaurants you’ve ever you know yourself?

Jordan Scott 43:45
You know what came to mind all the qualities Quality Eats, Quality Meats

Max Branstetter 43:49
god, we just ate at Quality Italian shout out Jared & Kristin Oh my The chicken parm pizza is one of my favorite things I’ve ever eaten.

Jordan Scott 43:57
They just are so consistent, and so good. You’re never gonna have a bad meal there. I also love Pomodoro on the Upper West Side. I love Kings Co Imperial for Chinese food. Oh, god. Yeah. I mean, obviously there are hundreds.

Max Branstetter 44:14
Yeah, that I said it when we were eating there. But like if you put quality in the name of your Restaurant Group, like it’s got to be good. And oh my god, they just pack the house every single night. It’s delicious. What is one of your favorite bar or cocktail experiences in New York?

Jordan Scott 44:32
Oh, okay. So The Spaniard in the West Village is really really fun and has a nice little small menu too, but mainly just a beautiful bar. There is an amazing cocktail class called Liquor Lab that’s really fun to like, go and make cocktails in Chinatown. Apotheke is so fun. And then I’m totally blanking on the name but right next to Apotheke is this like underground Mexican restaurant Right, that is like the olden days would say like, do you want to go dancing like, this is where you go dancing. It’s like the most fun underground dancing club with tacos that you can ever go to on Boyer street, you got Apotheke there’s so many good places on that street. Go explore

Max Branstetter 45:19
dancing tacos. And that’s all right by Peking Duck House, right? It’s like right there, which is delicious as well. All right, what is the the most unique date experience that you and your husband have had together?

Jordan Scott 45:34
Well, I gotta go with the first one that we ever had. So Nick, and I met in a bar to start, my good girlfriend was the bartender, Nick and I were he was a regular and I was just visiting her at the bar. We were still at NYU. Eventually, Nick and I went on a real date, and he planned the shit out of this date. We started with pizza at this place. That is since closed right off of Washington Square Park. It was like underground. And we had clam pizza, which neither of us had ever had. I don’t know why we were trying to be cool with being like, Oh, the clam pizza like yeah, I don’t know why

Max Branstetter 46:07
you haven’t lived? No, I never had it either.

Jordan Scott 46:10
It actually is our favorite now. Like, it’s delicious. We love seafood anyways. Then we walked across the park to Zinc bar, which is still open and is the most romantic epic place, essentially. I had told him in the bar that we met in that I loved the movie Whiplash. And he asked me like, Have you ever seen like live Jazz Jazz Band? And I was like, no. So he found Zinc Bar, which has live jazz almost every day of the week. And he reserved as a table right next to the stage. And it was like a 10 piece jazz band. And I was like, damn, this is extremely impressive. But you know, it was that combining like of the dinner and the music, and then the walk through Washington Square Park that probably had an impact on Ultimately, my starting I dedicate tonight and then Cobble.

Max Branstetter 47:01
Wow, that’s from from the first date. You knew you knew something was right and exciting there. Oh, yeah. And fast forward. You mentioned that you’ve had you’ve had kind of a COVID wedding, you know, you’ve had the whole experience of rescheduling a wedding and then you had the so you’ve had smaller family wedding. And then you had the kind of like bigger friend’s wedding, which I heard from a previous interview that was on September 4, 2021, which is actually the day that Dana and I got engaged. So how about that for timing? Yeah.

Jordan Scott 47:35
Yes, we got married the first time so our two year anniversary is coming up on New Year’s Eve, of 2020. And then we had our big wedding September 4, 2021. That was at Cedar Lakes Estate, which is also a great place by the way for getaway. They their cabins are so magical. Everybody stays on the property for the whole weekend. It’s like camp, basically.

Max Branstetter 47:56
That’s so cool. So you got some extra love there. What did you learn from the first wedding that you incorporate into the next one?

Jordan Scott 48:03
Oh, my God, actually, Nick and I woke up after our first wedding. And we looked at each other like, we do not need to have another wedding. Like, what we couldn’t get our money back. We paid for half of it, which is why we’re doing it. And I’m so glad that we did. But that first wedding which was just in an Airbnb in upstate New York, it was just our parents, our siblings and our maid of honor and best man. It was so intimate. We did a murder mystery party the night before we made pasta handmade pasta the night before. Just it was so magical. The fireplace was crackling as I walked down the aisle in the living room of this place. I wore my mom’s wedding gown at the first wedding. So there was like a lot in that it was so intimate. And they’re just so vastly different. Like we got to do everything differently in the second one, but I could not I could not literally pick which one was better. They were both just the best days of my life.

Max Branstetter 48:55
I love that trend. That’s becoming so popular. Dana actually wore her mom’s wedding gown and had it kind of like, I don’t know what the right word is refitted refashion for a dress to wear on Friday night before our wedding. And so it’s so yeah, that’s that’s obviously makes it extra special. But

Jordan Scott 49:12
my mom always said you can you can wear my wedding dress and you can rip it to shreds, like, do anything you want to it were one section of it. And actually, you know, because we had these two weddings, I had already bought my gown for my big wedding. And that just was in storage for two years. You know, her dress actually fit me like a glove. And I didn’t touch the thing. So it was cool. It was really fun to have the vastly different gowns as well.

Max Branstetter 49:39
Well, such an exciting time. And Jordan, thank you so much for coming on and hanging on extra I tend to take forever, as you know very well. So thanks so much. Where where’s the best place for people to try out Cobble and connect with you personally?

Jordan Scott 49:55
Yeah, hop into the app store and just search cobble our webs is TryCobble.com Instagram, Twitter everything is you know @TryCobble is the handle and reach out to me personally you can follow me on Instagram @MsJordanScott and LinkedIn and yeah I’m happy to chat we’re hiring we’re fundraising so if anybody’s interested in getting connected happy to chat

Max Branstetter 50:19
if you want to get hired to fundraised, she’s your woman. And last thing, final thoughts it could be a quote, words to live by, you could just dance verbally if that makes any sense. Send us home here.

Jordan Scott 50:30
I really love the quote what you seek seeks you by Rumi. I think that if you are really in love with something and want to see something happen, it’s meeting you halfway. It’s already it’s already common. So just stay stay the course.

Max Branstetter 50:49
Shout out the seeker Harry Potter. Thank you so much Jordan for coming on the podcast sharing the Cobble story, cobbling it up. Makes me think of cobbler as well, which sounds delicious. 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 the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite app and tell a friend about the podcast and go try out Cobble with them. His lives literally made for like friends to do stuff together. It’s awesome. You can also find us on Goodpods where there are fantastic podcast recommendations. 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’s MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter newsletter, newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!