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DAVID: Tell us about the two of you. How does your personal relationship affect business?
EZRA & MICHEL: When we started the company, we immediately thought that this would make a good story. We started when Keith and I were 9 years old, attending Temple Beth Sholom in upstate New York, where there weren’t many Jewish people. We met in Hebrew school, studying for our bar mitzvahs. ... By the time we were 11, we started doing projects together – creating movies and videos. We got along well and had a similar sense of humor. … Neither of us had a lot of friends. We started a junior production company. We went to the same high school, but went our separate ways in college. We simply drifted apart, as kids do, but kept in touch a little bit. We lost touch completely in college. We found each other on Friendster, via a mutual friend. … We were on the same wavelength, just from different angles. … I had already started businesses and Keith was working for startups. When the time was right, we started our own business.
DAVID: Tell us about what you do from the perspective of relationships? How do you affect people’s relationship with technology? How do you challenge the way people function? What about your business from a behavioral science aspect?
EZRA & MICHEL: What we do is take the collective world knowledge for a specific type of company and make it available 24/7. We allow an individual to interact with a brand in ways they might never have thought of. We augment what an organization is already doing. For example, an app for a casino might allow a user to find the bathroom, remember where they parked their car, watch show previews, and invite friends to come hang out. We drive additional business to the property with our apps. Another example would be with a winery – a user would be able to get recipes, interact with other fans, or join a wine club.
DAVID: There is a hierarchy of information. Do you worry about the fact that you’re impacting human behavior in this way?
EZRA & MICHEL: We work closely with clients and are able to customize their app to whatever they need or what they want their users to be able to do. We did an app for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that included maps. We knew it had to be really well designed, since people would likely use the map feature if they got lost and were trying to find their way out. We want to know what impression a company is giving people and provide that same impression in an app. What emotions do we want to invoke? We want to inspire people to interact. … We want to enhance the planning of a trip, as well as enhance someone’s visit to a specific location. … Live and in-person interaction is always better.
DAVID: Is there a dialogue that takes place between clients and users?
EZRA & MICHEL: Absolutely. ... Our software evolves along with the hardware of the devices. The solutions that other organizations are developing are also evolving. How people are using apps and interacting with technology is constantly changing. It had an influence on our business model. Mobile technology is evolving rapidly. We wouldn’t have satisfied customers if we just built the app and walked away. We build partnerships with our clients, become their mobile app partner. We build and maintain the apps … updating them to fit the current operating system for a given device.
DAVID: Is this the digital revolution?
EZRA & MICHEL: People still want print material, but also want to read it digitally. The market for content is not dying … it is exploding. People are hungry for content. There are more avenues to access content. There is a constant exchange of information. It is more cost-effective to be on multiple streams.
DAVID: So when will DAVID’s app be ready?
EZRA & MICHEL: Let’s discuss that later.