Full Transcript – Maxime Barbier – Wild Business Growth Podcast #307

This is the full transcript for Episode #307 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Maxime Barbier – Timeleft Co-Founder, Loneliness Fighter. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Maxime Barbier 0:00
There is nothing stronger than a little hope who don’t give up.

Max Branstetter 0:18
Hi, hello, hi. 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 307, and today’s guest is Maxime Barbier. Max is an awesome Max, as always, everybody Max just awesome max. And he’s also the Co-Founder and CEO of Timeleft, which matches strangers for dinner every Wednesday together groups of six, and they are, in turn, fighting big city loneliness. It’s an incredible idea for an app. Here’s some of the latest numbers at the time of this recording, as of today, time left is in over 60 countries, nearly 280 cities, over 16,000 strangers are meeting for these dinners every Wednesday. There’s over a million users on the app, several 100,000 followers on Instagram. And one podcast between Max B and Max B. In this episode, we talk how time left went from a little idea to expanding taking over the world. How to craft an experience that is pretty simple in terms of an idea, but make sure it’s scalable all around the world. And the debut of the Sydney section, shout out, my cousin, Sydney. It is Max B and Max B and you better be enjoyyyyyyying the showwwwwww!

Oh, righty, we’re here with Max Barbier which I Yeah. How did I do there? Yeah, good one. All right, perfect. Well, if we have any trouble, I’ll just stick with Max B, because I know Max B very well as a fellow Max B. So Max, Co-Founder and CEO of Timeleft or Timeleft, if you prefer to enunciate it that way, but a company that is just blowing up literally around the world, but also probably seeing it all across social media. I got friends and family that have used it and are raving about it. So super excited to chat with you, Max, whose last name I will never pronounce again. Thank you so much for joining. How you doing

Maxime Barbier 2:52
today? I’m doing great. Thank you for having me.

Max Branstetter 2:55
Yeah, yeah, of course. So excited to talk all things time left before that actually, your previous company, which did for almost a decade, vertical station. So from what I was reading about it, 100% video, 100% vertical, seems like a good time to launch that company. What, um, what was the insight behind getting into that space? The

Maxime Barbier 3:17
first name of the company was minute buzz. So it was kind of producing, you know, video for social media. And then in 2018 when we see the rise of tick tock and the rise of Instagram stories, we say, Okay, I think the vertical video going to be a big things, you know, in the com in the following years. So we decided to rebrand the company name and say, we’re going to do only vertical videos. And in 2016 it was actually a website, and it says 16. We decided to become only videos and only social. So it was kind of a, you know, trying to be, to be ahead of the curve.

Max Branstetter 3:49
Quite the curve it is. I remember, what was it? I think Snapchat was like the first one that kind of, like, got people used to the vertical video. And then now, obviously, like, everything Instagram and TikTok was doing is totally vertical as well. Vertical priorities. So good thing to focus on there in like, the early days of vertical, how did that change how you needed to think about things in terms of creating content?

Maxime Barbier 4:12
It’s a good question. It’s just, when I look back to my old startup for 2010 2019, we grow from zero to 100 employees, and we are producing a lot of videos, and when we decided to become vertical, I remember it was a huge pushback from the video editor and from the guy who are producing video and say, it’s not great. We can’t capture the whole scene. You know, vertical is not practical. And I was say, like, yeah, you know, maybe we’re going to film with iPhone and say, No, it’s impossible to film with iPhone. We need, like, cameras and stuff. So the fact we decided to do 100% is my belief is like, if you want to do something great, you have to do one thing and do it right. And so if you have a part of your company who still believe the horizontal video is a thing, and then one part believe the vertical video is a thing, they. You have this two kind of thing moving slowly. Of course, every change came with friction, we’d say, in the in the people, but overhaul, then you become the best to vertical videos, and then the market, you know, adapt. And then, as you don’t, you’re in the good position with a good timing, with the good market. And then I think that’s why we become that big and reaching, you know, like 400 millions of video views per month, 18 million followers. That’s because we are, like, really focusing on one thing, and we did a good bet. That’s

Max Branstetter 5:28
a few views and a few followers. I think you did something right? You figured out something there. What was your like, ideal type of client to work with in that space? So 1%

Maxime Barbier 5:38
of the business was brand content. So what we did is basically 80% of the production was just to make views. And, you know, have engagement in the different channel. We have Instagram, Tiktok or Facebook, and then it was only brand content. So funny enough, it was not the biggest brand, the more fun to work with. And also it was not also the smaller one. You know, what we say I was thinking about this last time is like, it’s really hard to find a good clients in the sense. So it’s really hard to find a clients who match what you know how to do. And most of the time, you know, you try to get these clients because it’s a nice brand, but you know, it’s going to be a shitshow, or you’re like, Oh, this is good money. And so you take the clients, but, yeah, it was really hard to find someone who trusts what we do. But most of the time it was like, startup, like us, you know, with a bit of money, who, kind of, you know, understand what we do. We try to aim for these clients. But sadly, it was not the biggest part of the business.

Max Branstetter 6:30
Let’s talk more vertical video, no, I’m just kidding. Let’s switch it up. Let’s get like you’re actually not going to talk about time left at all. No, let’s, let’s get to time left, obviously. So you got, kind of got your sea legs under you from the business standpoint, and growing a business from that previous stop. And, you know, many stops along the way. But I think right now you’re on a, you know, you’ve created something that’s got tons of momentum and creating really, kind of, like making waves in the culture and becoming a thing, and kind of like, Wednesday’s becoming a thing, which is all the way, you know, by the way, very close to my heart, because we release new episodes of this podcast every Wednesday. So there’s something about that Wednesday, and we have the same name, yes, exactly, and yeah, exactly. So we can, let’s just sue each other left and right. You know, we’re the same person. I have a, I have an Ironman race later today. I’m just messing with you. But so time left, for anybody who is not familiar with it yet, what would you say is, like the one line of like, what makes time left different from any other kind of social experience type thing out there?

Maxime Barbier 7:33
I think, is, is the fact we created something who can be used in 280 cities around the world by people from 20 to 82 years old on the same product, on the same night, doing the same thing. What we do is we connect people around tables in restaurants. But my dad is using every two weeks. We have now success in Japan, in Bangkok, in Istanbul, in London, in the US. So the thing, what I think the most fascinated is, is like, when I look back as, okay, we create something simple. And I think to make things simple is like, I think the key. I think now, yeah,

Max Branstetter 8:11
simple is key. And I think having those, like, just a few restraints or constraints that are consistent no matter what city, no matter what country, is just a beautiful thing. So, you know, we talked about Wednesday. So I think it’s every Wednesday at 7pm typically groups of six. Can you explain how it works, how you kind of, like, hide the details of the actual each time,

Maxime Barbier 8:33
but go back on the previous question. The concept we’re having at the moment is about to change a bit, but this concept is the same since one years. Even more than that, since 14 months, we have the same app, the sub product. Of course, since one years, we involve a lot of things who people don’t see, you know, in the back end, the back office diagram, whatever. But actually, it was the first time in my, in my entrepreneur journey, who had, I didn’t rely on adding new features to solve, you know, to make it better. And I was just okay, we need to do one thing and keep doing this specific thing. And I think it was a great key to go back to your question. So how timeless work is pretty simple. You go on time left, or you download the app, you do a personality test, and when you’re ready to meet people, you just click on book, and then on Wednesday, you’re gonna have an address of a restaurant, nothing else. You don’t know who’s gonna be there. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You have to trust the process. Just have to show up, depending on your where you live, 7pm or 8pm and then you’re going to be a bit stressed. You’re going to be a bit like, what’s going to happen? And then some people are going to say, Oh, your time left? You’re going to say, yes. And as soon as you’re going to say hello to these people, you’re just going to realize you’re going to have a good time.

Max Branstetter 9:39
Yeah. I think that the stress, as you said, or the slight fear of the unknown, is what makes it so exciting. And if that unknown becomes a good time, then that’s like, who knows what these connections will turn into, or these experiences, just like a good night out even. How did you come up with this idea in the first place?

Maxime Barbier 9:59
Timelift? Is a French company created four years ago, and we failed miserably for the first three years. So this idea of dinner with strangers is pivot number five. So the first idea is based on my personal journey. Unless I sold my last company, didn’t know what to do with my life. So I make a list of one of the dreams I tried to take two years to achieve. Them all, Iron Man is in two weeks, by the way, cool. I’ll see you there. Yeah. And then it was just before covid. And covid happened. My friend get depressed, you know, locked in their home. So I quit. The first idea, I was like, What do you want to do with the time you get left? Time left come from there. It was a bucket list platform. You can see the dream of everyone. Nothing to go there. So one years after that. So, okay, maybe we can do something a bit better. It’s an app when you can match people with the same dream. We launched this in the US in 2021 huge fail, because dream are like kind of exciting, but you don’t have anything to say you maybe you don’t want to do it, maybe you want to do it yet. So no engagement. Then we went back to Lisbon, where my business partner used to live. Then we said, okay, maybe we can connect strangers with something to do in the city. And then we discover, if you put the man and a woman together, the men will try to date the woman. So women didn’t feel safe. So we say, okay, maybe we can create group of strangers to do activities. And then we realize the last learning was, okay, activities is not scalable, in a sense. Or you like this, I like that. It’s always it’s hard to find middle ground. And so the only thing I’m sure we, like you and me, is to eat. So one years ago, we say, Okay, last chance. No more money in the bank. Let’s be efficient, and we try, with this idea, to connect group of strangers within the restaurant. So this idea just came like that after four years, three years, and that’s something

Max Branstetter 11:31
I’ve heard come up a lot. Is, like, of course, there’s the distinction there. Like, is it a dating app? Or like, you keep dating out of it. I know you take kind of an interesting approach with that. How do you handle when people say, like, is this? Does this have romantic purposes? Yeah,

Maxime Barbier 11:45
so this idea of dinner with strangers, actually, when we created the first MVP, I say, what’s out there, and when you want to meet people, the only option we have is dating apps, kind of and I was this is bad, because I think dating apps are really a bad, bad thing as a society. They are destroying so many things. And I say, Okay, we need to be the most far away from them. And I say, Okay, well, if we don’t like about dating apps, and you judge on appearances, you swipe people you don’t know. You spend time on talking, swiping whatever. It’s really hard. And so we came with this idea, like, you know what, we’re gonna give nothing to the people you don’t know who’s gonna be there nothing. And then we did that, and Android, we realized something interesting is like, when dating apps, they make you believe you have the journey of choice, and you can choose the perfect match. Timeleft is the completely opposite, because you don’t know anything. You have to show up, and because you don’t know what’s the agenda of the people at the table. Like, is this woman is single? I don’t know. Is this person is looking for friend? I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to talk to them. I need to behave. I need to, you know, to have a conversation so you’re more open to what’s coming. And I think that’s kind of the part of the success of time life, is we ask people if they are single or in relationship, just to know, but we don’t use this information. And if you’re single, you can be at the table with someone who is married and someone who is in relationship, like it’s completely open. And I think that’s that’s one of the small things who make time left a success for now.

Max Branstetter 13:03
Yeah, so it’s this really smart approach to do it, and I think back to like, the unknown, or the unpredictability of these experiences like this. If you’re having dinner with you know, complete strangers, it could be one of the most enjoyable nights of your life, or it could be super awkward, or, just like, you start debating about something you don’t want to like, there’s a whole range of emotions. There, possibilities there. How do you and the time left team, what tools have you rolled out to ensure that, like, this isn’t awkward? Like, we have some stuff to talk about, like, how does that look?

Maxime Barbier 13:39
So the first thing is, like, we created an algorithm who can create the best group as possible. So to do that, which did a lot of try, you know, we started with dinner about four people, and then six people and then eight people, and just realized sex is a good number. Then we did some variation about, you know, a lot of women, or, like, a lot of men, or like, extrovert, introvert, like, then we say, okay, maybe it’s important to have people who want to spend the same budget at the restaurant and want to speak the same language. So we have all this criteria we use for the algorithm to try to create the best group as possible. That’s the step one. The second step is, like, we give some question to ice break the conversation during the dinner. If people like what we’re gonna say, just use the question, you know, like, what is the last thing you did for the first time? Or, like, all this kind of funny question to break their eyes. But I did 60 dinners myself and conito, most of them. And I think the beauty of it is like we don’t need that much to have a good dinner, just just showing up, sitting, just saying hi, just, you know, just letting flow. I think as a human, we kind of forget that it’s super easy to talk to people. I think now we are like, we don’t say hi, we don’t talk, we don’t interact. Like you’re in the in the elevators, yeah, everyone is on the phone. If you say hi to someone, the person like, why you say hi to me? Who are you? Like? We don’t really interact anymore as a human society. But when you put strangers together after 30 minutes, every table, they have a good time, because. It’s, it’s not, it’s not a big deal, you know,

Max Branstetter 15:02
yeah, by the way, I love that you did that incognito like you did real life undercover. Boss, yes, there’s

Maxime Barbier 15:09
also market research for you. Marcus, was just more than Did you ever get caught, by the way, yeah, at the end I say, who I am. I don’t say it at the beginning because they asked me so many questions. But at the end I say, by the way, some people don’t trust me, and so it’s funny, but yeah, and now I’m, I’m more seen. So some people just, yeah, they discover me, but that’s, that’s always cool. They’re like,

Max Branstetter 15:29
Oh my god, Max is here, you know, like, I love everybody whose name is Max B, that’s what they typically say. But so one of the when I think about your business, I think it’s like, it’s such a really cool business model, but also seems almost like a logistical nightmare as well, because you have so many things to organize literally every Wednesday in multiple places, big cities. What’s been involved in getting restaurants on board with like, saying, Hey, we’re gonna have a group of people who don’t know each other come in every Wednesday for you. Um,

Maxime Barbier 15:56
so that’s, that’s the beauty, I think, of the model is like our business first, our business model is not on the restaurant side, for not least on the user side. So people pay us a ticket or membership to participate, and then we send them to the restaurant, and then they behave like normal clients. They share the bill, they pay what they want. But I think the beauty is this, like, let’s say your owner of a restaurant, and I just gonna call you and say, Hey, can I have two table of six? That’s the only thing. And you’re gonna say, of course. And I say, okay, one table is time left. Number one, one table is time left. Number two, when there’s just show up, just, can you put one in there and one there? Yeah, cool. And then we do that. And then at the end of the experience, people can rate the score the restaurant and give a score, and if the restaurant is great, then we call the restaurant back and say, You know what people like, what you do? Can I get? Can I have two or three table of six for the next two months? Yes, my Sir, let’s go. The restaurant operation is not that much complicated. It look like, because we don’t negotiate money, we don’t have hostess or like, we don’t participate in every restaurant location, right? So it’s way more scalable than people think. But don’t try but don’t try it. We have enough competition.

Max Branstetter 17:01
Yeah, exactly. Hey, if you ever need, uh, you know, food tasters, you know, taste testers for potential restaurants, I’m just going to throw my name into the hat there, or into the ring. Throw my hat into the ring. I totally messed up that idiom. But what’s your process for identifying restaurants that are, you know, quote, unquote, time left worthy.

Maxime Barbier 17:21
We have some guidelines now, because this year only, we connect, I think, 400,000 people into restaurants. So we’re not looking for fancy restaurants. We’re looking for like, a really cool restaurant with a certain price range, location, not too noisy, with no live music, who accept credit cards. So there is a bunch of things. And then, of course, we have some minimum so we want, like, 4.3 in Google reviews. We want, like, a bit of pictures online so we can see what’s up. So So to give you an example, tomorrow, we’re going to have 16,000 strangers having dinners in the same time, 1400 restaurants in simultaneously, most of the restaurants, we’ve never been into it. So we don’t need any food testers. We just rely on the fact the people who already go there give the good reviews. So we can trust, you know, the feedback we can always see online. I think that’s also part of the success of Tamil. Is like, of course, we don’t need anyone in the restaurant, because it’s not humanly possible to have all these people everywhere. Wow.

Max Branstetter 18:21
So that’s it. You’re juggling a lot of balls, because that’s a ton of people, that’s a ton of restaurants, a lot of planning you have to do, by the way, how did you decide on Wednesday as the day?

Maxime Barbier 18:30
Why? What’s your opinion on that? Why do you think we choose Wednesday?

Max Branstetter 18:33
Well, I love Wednesday because the podcast comes out, but also I’ve always thought of Wednesday as kind of an interesting time of the week, because it’s, you know, they call it hump day. It’s the true middle of the week, like, you’re right in between the start of the week, where everybody’s like, Monday back to work, and then the end of the week everybody’s got all their weekend plans. My guess is that Wednesday was a more like, traditionally, open day for people going out to dinner. So maybe that works best for people getting together. It doesn’t mess up their weekend.

Maxime Barbier 19:02
Yeah, it’s exactly this. It’s, it’s really a good mix for the restaurant and for the users. So for the restaurant is a great day is not too busy. Of course, for restaurant, Monday will be better. But then you go on the user side and Monday is too soon, so Right? And then they discover this expression, the hump day. But yeah, there’s actually this Wednesday night you can go out Monday. You’re like, I don’t, you know, I don’t know. And so a lot of people ask me, oh, you should do like, Friday or Saturday. It’s way more cool, yes, but you have already so many things to do, so you don’t need me, actually. So that’s why we really want and we stick to the Wednesday because the vision we have is we want to recreate something. As you said, the beginning of the podcast is Wednesdays to meet people. Like, it’s every Wednesday. It’s not Thursday, or is Wednesday. We are Wednesday, time left. It’s Wednesday. That’s why we believe. And now we have some people who travel, and they try to learn on the Wednesday mornings, on the Wednesday night, they can just quickly meet people. So that was great.

Max Branstetter 19:53
I love it. And I feel like, because there’s left stuff on Wednesday night, it’s like a real branding opportunity for you, like, if it’s known as the time left night. For people actually. How would you describe your ideal client? Like, who’s gonna get the most out of this?

Maxime Barbier 20:06
So something people don’t know and always anxious people is like, so it’s mostly women. So 60 to 65% of the participant or woman, like heavy woman, and the more, the older, the more the other generation, the more women we have. The target for now, by definition, is like 30 to 4550 years old, I will say mostly women, and also the typology of user is different. Back to the previous thing we are saying is because we don’t ask what people want. That’s why we have so many different interests. We have people who are looking for love, that’s for sure. We have also people who are like new in the city, people who, you know, I’m 40, my friend get get kids, and that’s you don’t need. You don’t see them anymore. So you want to still going out. People who say, I’m busy. I don’t, you know, I just have something planned in my week. Every week, that’s, you know, I just, you know, don’t forget it. That’s my time left night. So we have a lot of different agenda around the table. But yeah, most of the people, they are really craving for human connections. Obviously, it’s what’s really made me sad, when I think about it, like the success we have in so many different cities around the world. Just show, like, the loneliness is it’s a thing. People talk about it, but we can feel it really heavily at time left, yeah,

Max Branstetter 21:15
well, it’s a beautiful thing you’re doing. And yeah, like, we’ve heard time and time again how this, this epidemic of loneliness, of how, obviously, smartphones, technology, social media, like has been great in a lot of ways, but also the amount of times that we’re just staring at our phone, even if we’re technically watching a show and sitting on the couch and looking at our phone instead, or, you know, yeah, being anti social, I think it’s a it’s a miraculous thing that you’re doing as You get people to come out of their shell, to actually have real conversation, to actually look up from their phone. And then, you know, people always say that, like, one of the best kind of natural highs, or just kind of warm fuzzy feelings you have is, like, if you’re at a dinner party and just have a great conversation, great meal with a group of people, especially like a group of six. For example, it’s wonderful what you’re doing. Looking back so far at this time, left journey. I know you mentioned the first three years you failed miserably and failed miserably and failed miserably, but obviously you’re starting to figure something out. You’re doing some things right, besides kind of striking gold with that focus on human connection, the opposite of loneliness. What else would you say has driven the growth of time left so far?

Maxime Barbier 22:25
What make the success of this year is we started with Lisbon and Paris at the end of last year, so for the first three, four months, we are only into city, and then we just felt okay, something is there. People like it. But that’s not big enough, and we’re gonna be running out of cash in six months. And so we say, okay, we quickly need to find a way to scale this and to be able to open new city without having to be in the city. And I think that’s one of the things who save us, is like we became way more bold to just just fucking do it. So let’s do Spain. Let’s do UK. Oh, you know, let’s try Brazil, even if we are from France. And so we went really crazy, in a sense, to be bold enough to just open as many city as possible, as quickly as possible, without thinking, Is it possible or no? And so we open one city every day, almost since the beginning of the year. That was, I think, one of the key success. And the second thing is, I just realized number I didn’t know at the time is the power of the concept is so strong we don’t have to change it. So the time left concept is the same in Bangkok is the same in Istanbul is the same in London, is the same in New York and is the same in Los Angeles. Completely different cultures, completely different countries, but exactly the same thing we do. Because what we do is really simple. We just send people to the restaurant. The success is, this is, like, a really simple way to scale. And of course, the fact we rely on the restaurant to provide the experience. So we don’t have to organize anything. We don’t have to, you know, manage anything,

Max Branstetter 23:50
yeah, yeah, if you think about it that way, like you’re almost like this great curator. But also the actual experience is, you know, you’re partnering with so many different restaurants. And then, to your point, from their standpoint, it is, like a normal group of six coming in. Like, nothing has to be crazy different from that standpoint. So it’s, it’s really brilliant, like, it’s inherently scalable what you’re doing. I do have to ask, though, you know, opening a new city every day, going all around the world, like that, like you personally, how the hell in the world do you like sleep or have any downtime?

Maxime Barbier 24:18
So the team grew up pretty quickly. We went from four on the first of the year, we are four people now we are 68 close to 70. So we, of course, now hire, like a bunch of people in great people around the world. We are, I think, 20 nationalities across, like 11 time zone. So it’s so we have people everywhere. That’s one. And the second thing is, we have also, like, a great tech team who create a great tech project. So everything is automatized, like the algorithm, the connection, like, what is an advice? So we have a big things who help us to to do what we do. And, okay, Wednesday, it’s a bit tense. Wednesday is always like, Okay, what’s gonna happen? You know, some restaurants, they just drop on us and stuff like that. But, yeah. Yeah, it just go highly stressed on Wednesday, and then we just flow. So, no, no, I just sleep like a baby every day, to be honest.

Max Branstetter 25:05
So if Wednesday is the most stressful day of the week, what’s the least stressful for

Maxime Barbier 25:10
you? I would say Thursday. I think what we’re doing is kind of close to doing like a festival. You know? It’s like we’re doing a huge festival every Wednesday. We are like 16,000 people coming to us every Wednesday. So yeah, Thursdays, you know, event is there? We just know, no problem on customer support, great. But then quickly we need to look to the next Wednesday. So also, I decided at the beginning to do every week, because I am a true believer of like, of repetition. And the more you do something, the better you get tired it. And so if you do like, every Wednesday, you have like, 50 shots per year. And if you do once per month, then you have only 12 shots per year. So I love this kind of rhythm. You know, every six days, boom, you go back to it. Do

Max Branstetter 25:50
you have any personal way that you celebrate once every Wednesday is good and went well? Ah, someone

Maxime Barbier 25:56
you a good feel like one month ago, seven we don’t celebrate as before, because we are so used to opening a new city every day, reaching mystone every week. So no, we just reached 1 million users in the app two days ago. It was great. I think we celebrate internally. I think my personal way of celebrating is more personal. So my biggest, biggest victory this year is my dad was suffering from loneliness after a brain damage four years ago, and he was struggling to left home. And then two months ago, he did his first time live dinner, and he find a friend, and he was so happy. The next day, he was chatting on WhatsApp all day, and I was like, seeing smiling. I was like, wow, this is really great. And now he’s going every three weeks, and he’s having some friends, and so this is more. I think the beauty of time is like you can see physically on human you’re doing some things. Great. That’s why I go to the time of dinner every Wednesday. Even if I’m busy and I’m tired, I go there because it just refreshed me off. You know, this is why we’re doing this is this is for this, right?

Max Branstetter 26:53
Oh, that’s beautiful, as if you didn’t have personal ties enough, this really glad to hear about your father, and that’s a beautiful story. Sending the best congrats on all that. We’re going to do something different here. We’ll call this a Sydney segue. So this is very unique to this episode. So sometimes, depending on the guests, I’ll ask listeners for questions to submit, and in this case, actually my cousin Sydney. So shout out, Sydney Haber. We had brunch with her about a month ago, and she was just raving about time left. She had just moved to New York City. She works for Amazon, as you’ll see from some of her questions. She’s kind of in the OP supply chain side, so she might get you in the weed with some of these questions here. But she was raving about time left. So I asked if she had any questions to ask, and she sent me some, like, really, really good one. So we’re gonna give her a whole section here. You ready for ready for the Sydney, the Sydney Rapid Fire. Now let’s go. All right? So her first question was, how do you match people?

Maxime Barbier 27:50
So we when you create an account of time left, you need to go through a personality test of 40 question, or your morning person or your night person. Do you like this kind of food? Do you want to talk about politics? Yes or no, we so we kind of define kind of a personality profile from you. And then we have the algorithm, who every Tuesday, when the people stop, you know, booking for the Wednesday, we just stop the booking. And then we take the whole people we have, and we said to the algorithm, like, Okay, now try to create the best group as possible. And then you go in a certain way of certain criteria, so people need to speak the same language. So in the US is own English, but in French, you can decide if you want to speak English or French, for example. So if you want to speak English, of course, I’m not going to match you. If you want to speak French, then we have, like, how much budget do you want to spend at the restaurant? Are you a vegan, or do you want to eat meat? Because if you are vegan, and I send you to a meat restaurant, we’re gonna have some problem. And then do you want to talk about politics? Yes or no? And if it’s yes, then you know, I can put you together. But if it’s no, of course, I’m not gonna put together. So we have all this thing we define in every criteria as a weight. So we know, for example, like, 10 years of difference between the youngest and the oldest people at the table is the maximum we can have. So it’s interesting topic, because sometimes you are, you know, like intergenerational, like mixing generation is great. Yes, it is, but not statistically, people say they kind of prefer too much with people the age for like, tourism, mostly because even if you’re not coming for love. You hope someone’s gonna be there, right? And the second thing is, I’m 40, of course, I will be okay to have someone who’s 20 years on my at my table, but it’s not the same, you know, moment of life, you’re not going to do the same thing. So all this kind of thing or like so we have this thing, and that’s how we match people. But what’s been interesting is people believe the algorithm is a magic thing. Is not a magic thing. It just reduced the risk, or it maximized the chance to have a good dinner. But then it’s just human being, human. And trust me, if you put human who are like, okay to meet strangers in a public space on the group in the rush. Old, you have a good Tina? Well,

Max Branstetter 30:02
that would actually be a really, really interesting social experiment. If you did a dinner sometime where everybody spoke a different language. Just see what happens. Like, if nobody knew English, if nobody knew any of the same languages, it would be, I’d be really curious to see what happens there. It’s a brilliant you can kind of see the creative process for the the algorithm there, all right. Her next question is, at least so far, what is the rough percentage of like, one time users versus members?

Maxime Barbier 30:34
That’s a good that’s a VC question. So the thing I can say is is 60, 60% of our business is made on subscription. So most of the people take the subscription. Most of the people come 1.5 to two times per month. We have a lot of people who take tickets when we are new in the city. So they don’t really know WhatsApp and who is time left. So they choose to take the tickets, the single ticket to try. But as soon as they switch to going to terms per month, usually they switch to membership. But now some people really, really believe time left is kind of like the gym app or the meditation app. Is an app you just keep because, you know, you help you to just, you know, nurture your social life. In a sense, I

Max Branstetter 31:10
appreciate that. Well, I think, you know when Sydney, when she gave these questions to me, she was just on role, sending me text after text, and I would just like, well, I could, I could tell your ops background. I can tell you operations background. So who knows? Maybe, in addition to that, she has a future as a VC as well. But she also wanted to know what city or country or even region has been the most successful so far in your eyes.

Maxime Barbier 31:35
So we are in 62 countries. Us is our biggest market, biggest launch, biggest growth, biggest everything. I think partly because loneliness, maybe is a big intense in the US, but also because it’s a huge country, right? What’s really, what’s really interesting for me is like, when I launched in in Paris, French people say, Oh, but Parisian people are so close, they don’t gonna use this. And it was a success. And then we went to Brazil, and people saw Brazil are like so friendly and outgoing. They will not need this, and they need it. It’s our second biggest country. The only thing we know now is probably, but it’s a cliche to say that, but I think the bigger the city, the bigger the loneliness. How like this sense of loneliness by design? You know, people like more stress and move a lot. There is a lot of movement of people coming out, coming in, all this kind of thing. But, yeah, New York is our biggest city. Every Wednesday, we have 1000 people having dinners together. We are in 50 cities in the US only, I believe, if I’m not mistaken on the last numbers, and by this end, yeah, Chicago, or like, Arr, because hub, of course, yeah,

Max Branstetter 32:43
it’s really interesting to dive into. I know here in the US, like, and especially, like, Sydney’s an example of this. Like, whether it’s the same job or different jobs, I feel like, like, it’s very common here to get a job after college, after university, and like, a totally different city, and then maybe after a few years, move to a new city after that. So like, I know here at least, there’s, like, a lot of moving to new cities, and then you might be on your own, or you might have one friend there, and so, like, there’s tons of opportunity to meet new people and have new social events. So no doubt why it’s been a success on in that vein here as well, which I’m sure that happens in other countries too. On that note, her last question, have you had to change the business model in different countries or different areas, like her example was, she was wondering about, like, you know, like our restaurants and tables different sizes in different countries, like, have you had to adjust the structure like that? No,

Maxime Barbier 33:33
that’s, I think that’s what definitely amazed me the most. The only thing we change in the product is the time of the dinner. So in Paris is 8pm in Germany, 7pm so we just, really just changed the time. So, no, I by definition the restaurant changed, because we just look for the restaurants who are like, you know, the restaurant, of course, in Japan will not be the same as the restaurant in just in Sydney, because, by design, you know, but no, I think that’s kind of the beauty. We have some price difference, you know, some membership or like, we adapt based on the, on the on the, you know, on the market. Of course, we’re not going to put the same price on New York or in Bogota, of course, by design. So we have some change of the price and some change of when the dinner start, but that’s it.

Max Branstetter 34:16
Thank you for going through the Sydney gauntlet, and thank you Sydney for submitting those questions that was awesome. You’re a future VC. Anyway, I have some some rapid-fire questions on my own to wrap up. Max you ready for it?

Maxime Barbier 34:26
Yeah,

Max Branstetter 34:27
all right. Short and sweet, just three quick ones here. And I lied, because it’s actually four quick ones here, so I can’t count, but you know, you previously lived in Lisbon. You’re in Paris now. So let’s start with Lisbon. What would what would you say is the most underrated thing to do in Lisbon.

Maxime Barbier 34:43
The only thing I can say is like, I live two years in Lisbon, and I think Lisbon is probably the best city in Europe to live as a lifestyle, as a quality of life, quality of food, quality of people, quality of so many different things, if you have an income coming from outside of. Portugal and you have a stable job, that’s that’s okay. But if you go to Lisbon and you’re an entrepreneur, or you want to scale your business or whatever, it’s a small country, and Lisbon is a small city, people tend to forget that. But this money is half a million people, so the size of the market you are play a big role on so many things. And so if you raise, you know, money in New York is not the same. Is not going to be the same money as you money as you raise money in Lisbon. Or if you want to focus on the Portuguese market, it’s 10 million people. That’s the size of New York. So that’s my only thing in Liz. And so I will probably go back one there, but it’s not much my phase of life at the moment.

Max Branstetter 35:37
Awesome. Okay, well, yeah, I appreciate the background there. My wife and I, Dana, we just went to a Spain and Portugal trip this past this summer, and Lisbon was our favorite city. It was just amazing. And like, I feel like, when you when you see cities for a few days, you kind of feel like, you know, we have a good feel for everything here and Lisbon, we’re like, we could go back and like, there’s still so much to explore. It’s just

Maxime Barbier 35:57
so beautiful. Yeah, amazing country. Amazing country, Portugal.

Max Branstetter 36:01
All right, so same question, Paris, what’s the most underrated thing to do in Paris? I know you need an hour for this.

Maxime Barbier 36:10
I’m born and raised in Paris. I live on my life in Paris. Today. I’m about 34 I was cliche of the Parisian people believe the French are the best. Paris is the best. Like, you know, you know, I’m still a bit like this, but you can admit it. It’s okay. Yeah, Paris. Paris is great France. France is a great country in terms of education, health insurance, like the economy, the startup wall, like so many good, good things. I just believe Paris is a bit of a stressful city, and people forget to smile and to laugh a bit. And now I get used to Lisbon in this amazing weather, I just think like, oh shit, Paris is kind of gray all

Max Branstetter 36:53
the time New York the same way. He’s got the reputation of everybody is hustling like running around everywhere. Everyone’s serious. Got somewhere to go. I saw a post on social media that they said, I’m butchering this. They said, New York is fun hell and LA is hella fun. It’s the opposite. It’s like, disgusting heaven, like, it’s like the opposite. So it’s like, you know, you know, you can’t think of it the same way. Also, I totally butchered that. So sorry to the original poster. But okay, you know, you’re in the home stretch for an Ironman coming up here. What’s your advice for anybody who wants to do an Ironman?

Maxime Barbier 37:31
Don’t do it.

Max Branstetter 37:34
Besides that, obviously. So every

Maxime Barbier 37:36
year, I choose a sport, and I try to fit my set myself like a pretty ambitious challenge. And my method is always the same. When you want to do something, decompose in really small changes. Who are like achievable, and you can go from one to one. So if you want to dynamic, don’t think about it. You need to know how to do a half element. And then you need to do, like a just an Olympic tradeline. And then maybe you need to learn how to run a 10k so there is a lot of steps, and if you aim for big, that’s great, but you need to decompose so you don’t get stuck. You know, at the bottom of the mountain, we’re looking to the top, and you say, how I’m going to get there, but if you do one step at a time, at one point, you’re going to reach it. But some big challenge can just be threatening, and you don’t move. I believe my methods like just decompose. If you want to do your first marathon, you need to learn 5k do 5k every day for one month. And if you sustain on that, go to seven to eight, and at one point you’re going to be able to run a marathon with no problem. I appreciate

Max Branstetter 38:33
the advice there, and I think I remembered it. By the way. It’s shitty heaven and fun hell. So that’s the end. Got it finally, all right. And last thing, what is the single best bite of food you’ve ever had anywhere

Maxime Barbier 38:45
the first thing that comes to mind is ice cream. I fucking love ice cream. What flavor one is interesting? There was in Lisbon. It was ricotta and peach. So it was a mix of cheese and the peach flavors in a really, like, creamy ice cream. I was like, Yeah, I was one of the rare thing. I was like, I need to control myself, to not buy, like, two or three or four. It was kind of like I was fighting for my life, kind of, you know, I was like, I need to stop eating this. It was like, really good Lisbon has really great ice cream, by the way.

Max Branstetter 39:16
Do you pair that with uh ginginya, the the cherry liqueur?

Maxime Barbier 39:19
No, I just No classic, nothing. Just pure bro,

Max Branstetter 39:25
your peach and mystery ice cream. Well, Max. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. Just absolutely will love what you’re doing. So does Sydney as well. She’s got more VC questions for you after no but thanks so much for coming on. I know people if they want to try out time left. Can do so at time left calm. How about you personally? Where’s the best place if they want to connect with you or follow along social?

Maxime Barbier 39:45
My name is Maxime Barbier. So people who don’t understand how you spell it easy as like a Barbie, you know the dolly, you just put the air at the end. So Barbier and has the same nickname and username on all the platforms. So I’m mostly on LinkedIn and. Instagram at the moment, perfect.

Max Branstetter 40:01
Max B, all right. And then last thing, final thoughts, it could be a quote, just like a one line word to live by whatever you want. Send us home here.

Maxime Barbier 40:10
There is nothing stronger than a little hope. Who don’t give up.

Max Branstetter 40:17
Max, I agree, although the Incredible Hulk is pretty strong, so that something that’s pretty strong as well. Max, thank you so much for coming on the Wild Business Growth podcast, for sharing all you do with time left. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode if you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, maybe even another Max B, it has happened in the past before. Make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth podcast on your favorite podcast app and hit subscribe on YouTube. YouTube is where you can catch the video versions, like this one with Max and you can subscribe @MaxBranstetter. You can also find us on Goodpods, 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 where podcasting meets entrepreneurship, meets mispronouncing entrepreneurship also meets terrible puns. And you can sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter and that’s every Thursday the most stress-free day for Max B. Until next time, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!